"Irresistible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... see, fellow-soldiers, that perseverance is more prevailing than violence, and that many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield readily when taken little by little. Assiduity and persistence are irresistible, and in time overthrow and destroy the greatest powers. Time being the favorable friend and assistant of those who use their judgment to await his occasions, and the destructive enemy of those who are ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... consented; but in his next lecture made far more frequent reference to the mill than was necessary, using the word every time—I know exactly how—with a certain absurd solemnity that must have been irresistible. The girls went into fits of laughter at the first utterance of it, and seemed, he said, during the whole lecture, intent only on the new term, at every recurrence of which their laughter burst out afresh. Doubtless their ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... cavalry broke their ranks; when thus confused, the infantry advanced upon them; and as much as the Roman line advanced, so much were the enemy dislodged from their ground; and when once the battle gave way, the Roman prowess became irresistible. When the enemy being routed made for Satricum, which was two miles distant, not for their camp, they were cut down chiefly by the cavalry; their camp was taken and plundered. The night succeeding the battle, they betake themselves to Antium ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... imprisonment of his son in different jails or fortresses, while the young man seemed to take a wanton pleasure in showing how completely all efforts for his reformation were thrown away. Though unusually ugly (he himself compared his face to that of a tiger who had had the small-pox), he was irresistible among women. While one of the youngest subalterns in the army, he made love, rarely without success, to the mistresses or wives of his superior officers, and fought duel after duel with those who took offense at his gallantries, From one castle in which ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... years entirely free from special repressive legislation. So much, therefore, is clear, that Irish discontent at not being allowed to manage their own affairs has gradually increased instead of diminishing. The conclusion then would seem irresistible, that if coercion has failed, the only practical mode of governing Ireland satisfactorily is to give the people power to manage their local affairs. Coming, then, to the principle of the Bill, ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... readers are sure to have seen an engraving of one of the former, 'The Flower-Girl,' as it is called, with a face as fresh and radiant as her flowers. In the National Gallery there is a large Holy Family of Murillo's, and in Dulwich Gallery there is a laughing boy, an irresistible specimen ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... Franklin no common man. There were moments when he actually believed the fact really was as Franklin represented—and, thus quailing under the torrent of eloquence to which the voice and manner gave something absolutely irresistible, half suffocated with rage and fear, he ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... THE FIRST has surely corrected some general misconceptions, and thrown light on some obscure points in the history of that anomalous personage. It is a satisfaction to me to observe, since the publication of this tract, that while some competent judges have considered the "evidence irresistible," a material change has occurred in the tone of most writers. The subject presented an occasion to exhibit a minute picture of that age of transition in our ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... consented, and as soon as evening drew on Szabo climbed up on to one of the trees, determined to protect the fruit even if it cost him his life. So he kept watch half the night; but a little after midnight he was overcome by an irresistible drowsiness, and fell fast asleep. He did not awake till it was bright daylight, and all the fruit on ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... An irresistible impulse drove Blanka to ascend to the painter's lofty perch in order to see how he was succeeding in the task which she herself knew not even how ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... passengers of the good brig Ocean Queen gazed upon it three centuries subsequently, the slow axe had chopped away those forests of pine, and the land was smiling with homesteads, and mapped out in fields of rich farm produce: the encroachments of the irresistible white man had metamorphosed the country, and almost blotted out its olden masters. Robert Wynn began to realize the force of Hiram Holt's patriotic declaration, 'It's the finest country in ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... proportions of the head and the body. This species of perfection augurs ill for the mind; and there are few exceptions to the rule. All superior nature is found to have certain slight imperfections of form which become irresistible attractions, luminous points from which shine vivid sentiments, and on which the eye rests gladly. Perfect harmony expresses usually the coldness ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... different reasons, what was to the rest an exhilarating movement was to these two a riding upon the whirlwind. The dance had come like an irresistible attack upon whatever sense of social order there was in their minds, to drive them back into old paths which were now doubly irregular. Through three dances in succession they spun their way; and then, fatigued with the incessant motion, Eustacia turned to quit the circle in which ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... which she bore in her hand served to show those features which could rarely have been viewed by any one without emotion, but which bore an expression irresistible to a lover. ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... it, or we refer it to our vital force, and we consider it as a power before which ours is nothing. But though in both cases we experience in connection with this object the painful feeling of our limits, yet we do not seek to avoid it; on the contrary we are attracted to it by an irresistible force. Could this be the case if the limits of our imagination were at the same time those of our comprehension? Should we be willingly called back to the feeling of the omnipotence of the forces of nature if we had not in us something that cannot ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... mental eye is not entirely blinded, that there can be no such thing as a trinity in the theology of Plato, in any respect analogous to the Christian Trinity. For the highest God, according to Plato, as we have largely shown from irresistible evidence, is so far from being a part of a consubsistent triad, that he is not to be connumerated with any thing; but is so perfectly exempt from all multitude, that he is even beyond being; and he so ineffably transcends all relation and habitude, that language is in reality subverted ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... at the city. He was a tall handsome man, of perhaps five-and-thirty; of a haughty, but somewhat trifling exterior; his countenance was gay and blooming, and his look clear and bold. Great practice in the world, and an inimitable ease and confidence, gave to his demeanour and conversation that irresistible power which these qualities exercise ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... should say, for it was a moral death—I am quite unable to comprehend the motives that led me to take such a course. My eyes were not blinded. I must have seen that each stride placed me further and further away from my darling, erecting a fresh obstacle between us; still, some irresistible impulse appeared to hurry me on—although, I could not but have known how vain it would be for me to recover my lost footsteps: how hard a matter to change my direction, and look upwards to light and happiness ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... we believe that the intentions of Cromwell were at first honest, though we believe that he was driven from the noble course which he had marked out for himself by the almost irresistible force of circumstances, though we admire, in common with all men of all parties, the ability and energy of his splendid administration, we are not pleading for arbitrary and lawless power, even in his hands. We know ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Its development is as necessary, and as irresistible as the motion of the tides, or the ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... flinging themselves at the feet of an European playing on a fiddle, entreating him to desist, unless he had a mind to tire them to death; it being impossible for them to cease dancing, while he continued playing. Such is the irresistible passion for ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... at this little scene. Opposition expected Mr. G. would have thundered forth denunciations of Prince ARTHUR's audacity. Here he was making terms with the enemy; doing it all, too, with imposingly judicial manner that was irresistible. Before House quite knew where it was, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 12, 1892 • Various
... and much of my time was given up to the drafting of circulars and advertisements for the sale of stock in such form that, whereas they contained no actual misstatement of an existing fact, they nevertheless were calculated to stimulate in the most casual reader an irresistible desire to sell all that he ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... however, she had no sooner granted, than he said very archly, "Why indeed you have not much right to be angry, since it was your own frankness that excited mine. And thus, you find, like most other culprits, I am ready to cast the blame of the offence upon the offended. I feel, however, an irresistible propensity to do service to Mr Belfield;— shall I sin quite beyond forgiveness if I venture to tell you how I found him ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... had commenced—bound succeeded bound with the rapidity of thought; every device which its animal instinct could teach, was resorted to by the maddened brute to shake off its unwelcome burthen—but in vain. Its ruthless rider proved irresistible—and, clinging like fate itself, plied the scourge and rowel like a fiend. The punishment was too severe to be long withstood, and at length, after a succession of frantic efforts, the tortured animal, with a scream of agony, leaped forth upon ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... himself, than that he had undertaken to defend the deviation, and exerted himself to unlearn principles that did him honour. You profess to believe that indulgences of this sort are unavoidable, and the temptations to them irresistible. And is man then reduced to a par with the brutes? Is there a single passion of the soul, that does not then cease to be blameless, when it is no longer directed and restrained by the dictates of reason? A thousand considerations of health, of ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... present day, an effect upon the reader, prepared though he is by his education to consider it as a literary artifice; but on the Egyptian, brought up to regard Amon with boundless reverence, its influence was irresistible. The Prince of the Khati, repulsed at the very moment when he was certain of victory, "recoiled with terror. He sends against the enemy the various chiefs, followed by their chariots and skilled warriors,—the chiefs of Arvad, Lycia, and Ilion, the leaders of the Lycians and Dardanians, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... you'd better pick up your official coffee-pot and saucepan, and state your terms. I'm not sure that I want an irresistible army of invasion going through ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... component elements; for it has come to consist of many separate rays, and the weary strain of the last year has been the spectroscope to decompose them. From the very beginning, when one felt the effulgence as the mere pale brightness before dawn, the attempt to define it was irresistible. "There is a tone—" the tingling sense of it was in the air from the first days, the first hours—"but what does it consist in? And just how is one aware of it?" In those days the answer was comparatively easy. ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... that all this would have remained in a state of vague aspiration, if at the terrible age of thirty, which seems to be the decisive critical moment for woman's virtue, as twelve o'clock is for the day's beauty, the irresistible Amaury had not chanced to cross her path. Amaury was a drawing-room poet, one of those fanatics in dress coat and grey kid gloves, who between ten o'clock and midnight, go and recite to the world their ecstasies of love, their raptures, their despair, leaning mournfully against the mantel-piece, ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... first mention of his name from the lips of his beloved, Ralph drew very close to her, with that instinctive drawing which he was now experiencing. It was that irresistible first love of a man who has never wasted himself even on the harmless flirtations which are said to be ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... pede claudo to expend millions of treasure and thousands of lives, they were never inspired by his exhortations and example to form a definite policy as to the main point in the situation, viz., the defence of the Egyptian possessions. In the flush of the moment, carried along by an irresistible inclination to do the things which he saw could be done, he overlooked all the other points of the case, and especially that he was dealing with politicians tied by their party principles, and thinking more of the passage through the House of some domestic measure of fifth-rate ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... that of enlightened men. We know, moreover, that the time-binding energies of our remote ancestors were hampered and baulked, in a measure too vast for our imaginations, by immense geologic and climatic changes, both sudden and secular, unforeseen and irresistible—by earthquake and storm, by age-long seasons of flood and frost and heat and drought, not only destroying both natural resources and the slowly accumulated products of by-gone generations but often extinguishing the people themselves with the ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... all went well with him, he alone would be the "foreigner." A longing for companionship came upon him. He wanted some one who would laugh and talk airy nonsense, some one whose mind would not be running everlastingly in the political groove, and an irresistible impulse urged him to ask for ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... constantly kept up within the kingdom. The old national antipathy to permanent military establishments, an antipathy which was once reasonable and salutary, but which lasted some time after it had become unreasonable and noxious, has gradually yielded to the irresistible force of circumstances. We have made the discovery, that an army may be so constituted as to be in the highest degree efficient against an enemy, and yet obsequious to the civil magistrate. We have long ceased to apprehend danger to law and to freedom from the license ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... creatures God ever formed she is the most wonderful!—I have repeated something like her words; but had you seen her gestures, her countenance, her eye, her glowing indignant fortitude at one moment, and her kindling comprehensive benevolence the next, like me you would have felt an irresistible impulse to catch some spark of a flame ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... that it cannot come to any thing. But these widows—Then such a love in us all, both old and young, of being courted and admired!—and so irresistible to their elderships to be flattered, that all power is not over with them; but that they may still class and prank it with their daughters.—It vexed me heartily to have her tell me of this proposal with self-complaisant simperings; and yet she ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... the nature of things, ever could be, so perfectly indifferent about the happiness or misery of their subjects, the improvement or waste of their dominions, the glory or disgrace of their administration, as, from irresistible moral causes, the greater part of the proprietors of such a mercantile company are and ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... established the Pax Romana. Battles were indeed fought, and troops were marched upon Rome, but this was merely to decide who was to be the nominal head of the vast system of the Empire, and what had once been independent cities, countries, and nations submitted unhesitatingly to whoever represented that irresistible power. It might be imagined that a political system which destroyed all national individuality, and rendered patriotism in its highest sense scarcely possible, would have reacted unfavourably on the literary character of the age. Yet nothing of the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... them to some extent from the slaughter that the arrows had effected among the soldiers, fought bravely and rallied their men to resistance; but with shouts of "Agincourt!" the men-at-arms and archers, led by Guy,—who now for the first time fought in his knightly armour,—were irresistible. They had boarded at the enemy's stern so as to get all their foes in front of them, and after clearing the stern castle they poured down into the waist and gradually won their way along it. After ten minutes' hard fighting the French admiral and knights were pent up on the ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... young man he had become!); "I'm tired of fomentations and things! Besides"—and this time the besides did not pause, but burst out of him like a stream from a high-pressure hydrant—"besides, it isn't what I want——" And to an irresistible impulse his right hand reached out for a brush and, crossing over to his left shoulder, began rubbing ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... myself, reverend elder, I have a longing, all irresistible passion to hear some new and goodly word, and in mine heart there is kindled fire, cruelly burning and urging me to learn the answer to some questions that will not rest. But until now I never happened ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... want of concert in their operations, and to the sword of a warlike enemy, destroyed the adventurers by thousands, and would have abated the ardor of men impelled to war by less powerful motives. Their zeal, however, their bravery, and their irresistible force, still carried them forward, and continually advanced them to the great end of their enterprise. After an obstinate siege they took Nice, the seat of the Turkish empire; they defeated Soliman in two great battles; they made themselves ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... character, or, as one of our old writers has it, "that inbred loyalty unto Virtue which can serve her without a livery." He who possesses these qualities, united with strength of purpose, carries with him a power which is irresistible. He is strong to do good, strong to resist evil, and strong to bear up under difficulty and misfortune. When Stephen of Colonna fell into the hands of his base assailants, and they asked him in derision, ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... papers can only have given you a very incomplete idea. Without self-conceit or any illusion, I think I may say that never has so striking an effect, so complete and so irresistible, been produced ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... and demagogues. It came when conspiracies and proscriptions and general insecurity rendered a stronger government desirable. The empire was too vast to be intrusted to the guidance of conflicting parties. There was needed a strong, central, irrepressible, irresistible power in the hands of a single man. Safety and peace seemed preferable to glory and genius. So the people acquiesced in the changes which were made; they had long anticipated them; they even hailed them with silent ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... fully aware. Every one who knows much of the history of the past, and of the influence of classes, must understand, that whenever the educated, the affluent and the practised, choose to unite their means of combination and money to control the political destiny of a country, they become irresistible; making the most subservient tools of those very masses who vainly imagine they are the true guardians of their own liberties. The well-known election of 1840 is a memorable instance of the power of such a combination; though that was a combination ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... was friendly, but there was no certainty she would always be so. Austria was an ally, but many people in Austria had not forgotten Sadowa, and in any case her military and naval forces were far from being efficient. An irresistible army, and a national spirit that would keep it so, were ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... confirmatory blasts of trumpet, drum, and cymbal, told you so: On the first day after taking the small and pleasant dose, you would feel no particular influence beyond a most harmonious sensation of indescribable and irresistible joy; on the second day you would be so astonishingly better that you would think yourself changed into somebody else; on the third day you would be entirely free from disorder, whatever its nature and however long you had had it, and would seek out the Physician's Daughter to throw yourself ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... be born with a man, it can't be taught. And Agassiz came before one with such enthusiasm glowing in his countenance,—such a persuasion radiating from his person that his projects were the sole things really fit to interest man as man,—that he was absolutely irresistible. He came, in Byron's words, with victory beaming from his breast, and every one went down before him, some yielding him money, some time, some specimens, and some labor, but all contributing their applause and their ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... bobstay. I climbed up it on to the bowsprit, and, as I looked down, I saw her going right over the vessel I had just left—her decks sinking from sight beneath the dark waters. The tall masts, and spars, and sails followed: down, down they went, drawn by an irresistible force! It seemed like some dreadful dream. Before I could secure myself on the bowsprit, they had disappeared in the unfathomable abyss. Not a cry or a groan reached my ears from my drowning shipmates—unwarned, unprepared they died. Such has been many a hapless seaman's fate. One only escaped. ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... barbarians, growing with tropical vigor, and soon to be eight millions, with tropical passions boiling in their blood, endowed with native courage, with sinews strong by toil, and stimulated by the hope of liberty and unbounded license, are not to be trifled with. Take away from them the idea of an irresistible power in the North, ready at any moment to be invoked by their masters, or let them expect in the North, not enemies, but friends and supporters, which even now they are told every day by these masters they may expect,—and how soon might ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... superficial. She had a wit playful, abundant, and well-toned; an admirable conception of the ridiculous, and great skill in exposing it; a turn for satire, which she indulged, not always in the best-natured manner, yet with irresistible effect; powers of expression varied, appropriate, flowing from the source, and curious without research; a refined taste for letters, and a judgment both of men and books in a high degree: enlightened and accurate. As her parts had been happily thrown together by nature, they were no less happy ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... readily acceded to this arrangement; quickly overwhelmed Count Louis of Cressy and his French partisans; and then joined, with an army of sixty thousand men, the English monarch, who had landed at Antwerp. These numerous auxiliaries rendered Edward's army irresistible; and soon afterward the French and English fleets, both of formidable power, but the latter of inferior force, met near Sluys, and engaged in a battle meant to be decisive of the war: victory remained doubtful during an entire day of fighting, until a Flemish squadron, ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... a state of complete exhaustion, until in four days it overflowed its banks. It was converted in a single night, from an almost dry channel, into a foaming and impetuous stream, rolling along its irresistible and turbid waters, to add to ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... if we were advocating that the Asiatic people ought to have constitutional government. But we have not been. We have been arguing that since constitutional government has irresistible attraction to those who can understand what it is, and since it has already been established in Japan, the other Asiatic nations will begin to desire it, notwithstanding their seeming ignorance and conservatism; ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... the full glow of health, and strength, and happiness; to-morrow comes death, cold, pitiless, irresistible; mocking all hope, freezing desire, crushing all effort with the eternal law of time and human destiny, it strikes him down with the icy fury of a fiend. Poetry, passion, humanity, are shivered at the touch. The glorious creature who, an instant before, quivered with life and love ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... home and love when he needed them; and who, if he had kept one vital secret from him, had done that of which he repented ere dying—a wrong indeed, but one followed by remorse, and occasioned by almost irresistible temptation. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have a special liking for eggs. In his notice of the Marsh Harrier Professor Newton says, in his edition of Yarrell,' that birds' eggs are an irresistible delicacy; and, in speaking of the food of the present species, he says it consists chiefly of grasshoppers, reptiles, small mammals, birds and their eggs; these last, if their size permit, being often swallowed ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... only acrid and sour matter which resists its influence. The effect produced by poisons on animals is still more plain to see: its malignity extends to every part that it reaches, and all that it touches is vitiated; it burns and scorches all the inner parts with a strange, irresistible fire. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... seem to have no fancy for being massacred; but we have no reason to suppose, that they, or any of the rest concerned in this extraordinary instinct, are aware of the matter beforehand; and the same is to be said of the combats between the Queen-bees; they appear to be the result of an irresistible impulse, brought about, by the sudden pressure of a necessity. Bees appear to be very happy, during far the greater portion of their existence. A modern writer, of whom it is to be lamented that a certain want of refinement stopped short his perceptions, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... you are a witch," said Egon, half aloud. "I have had proof many times that you are irresistible, but this last effort of yours throws all others in shadow. For my gracious aunt to have so prolonged an attack of amiability is unknown in the annals of ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... to make a sudden dash upon this Hessian. A surprise, an irresistible attack, the capture of a post with a thousand men, might work wonders in their moral effect. The soldiers with him were trusty men, twenty-four hundred of whom he proposed to lead himself on this enterprise. Many of the ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... I kissed his forehead this very morning, and he made me tell him a great deal about his darling. Indeed his blue eyes, his golden curls and his lovely complexion, like the bloom on a peach, were so irresistible that I felt inclined to try and work impossibilities for him. Spare your blushes, my little pomegranate-blossom, till I have told you all; and then perhaps in future you will not be so hard upon poor Boges; you will see that he has a good heart, full of kindness ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the Restoration, became so marked in English thought on intellectual, political, and religious subjects, was continued in the eighteenth century with results which affected the whole current of national life. Before the light of physical science, silent but irresistible in its advances, faded away the remains of dogmatism and superstition. Astrology was forgotten in astronomy; belief in modern miracles and witchcraft ceased to take root in minds conscious of a universe too vast for realization, and governed ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... sort had always an irresistible fascination for Ger. He skipped up the path and pushed in among the waiting people to the side of the ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... babies and delights in dancing. His babies are irresistible. He can sound the Mitleid motive without a suspicion of odious sentimentality. What charm there is in some of his tiny children as they lean their heads on their mothers! They fear the ocean, yet are fascinated by it. Near by is a mother and child in bed. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... of all liberty and independence; and, above all, it raises up in the midst of society, a privileged and isolated class, superior to the power of the law and the government; into the hands of that class it puts an absolute and irresistible authority, which is exercised by invisible means, but means far more efficacious and terrible in their effects than those of the civil power. From this universal and irresistible predominance it results that the entire existence of the ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... him under some peculiar restraints in that case above all others; for such circumstances of peculiarity, by which the murder would be stamped with unusual atrocity, were but the more likely to make its fascinations irresistible. Hence he dallied with the thoughts of murdering her whom he loved best, and indeed exclusively—his wife Caesonia; and whilst fondling her, and toying playfully with her polished throat, he was distracted (as he half insinuated ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... pulpit is in want of comedians; they work wonders there Then comes discouragement; after that, habit There is an exaggeration in your sorrow These liars in surplice, in black cassock, or in purple Time, the irresistible healer Trust not in kings Violent passion had changed to mere friendship Weeping just as if princes had not got to die like anybody else Went so far as to shed tears, his most difficult feat of all What they need is abstinence, prohibitions, thwartings ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... is what the schoolmaster, with a relentless logic which appears to me to be irresistible, deduces from the principle of ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... creditors and the taxpayers are alike interested in an honest administration of the finances, and neither class will long endure the large-handed robberies of the recent past. For this discreditable state of things there are several causes. Some of the taxes are so laid as to present an irresistible temptation to evade payment. The great sums which officers may win by connivance at fraud create a pressure which is more than the virtue of many can withstand, and there can be no doubt that the open disregard of constitutional obligations avowed by some of the highest and most influential men ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... by irresistible power the work of another man, and not by his consent. The freedom, as I understand it, promised by the proclamation, is taking us from under the yoke of bondage and placing us where we can reap the fruit of our own labor, and take care of ourselves ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... But soon the conflict became even more desperate when the Black Knight, at the head of a body of his followers, led an attack upon the outer barrier of the barbican. Down came the piles and palisades before their irresistible onslaught; but their headlong rush through the broken barriers was met by Front-de- Boeuf himself and a ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... appeared in this light to Madame Sand." This is a mild way of expressing disapproval of conduct that shows, to say the least, an inhuman callousness to the susceptibilities of a fellow-being. And to speak of the irresistible prompting of genius in connection with one who had her faculties so well under her control is downright mockery. It would, however, be foolish to expect considerateness for others in one who needlessly detailed and proclaimed to the world not only the little foibles but also the drunkenness ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... and positive of examples." Here are conundrums enough, to be sure! To Italians at home, for whom the great arenas of political and religious speculation were closed, the temptation to find a subtler meaning than the real one was irresistible. Italians in exile, on the other hand, made Dante the stalking-horse from behind which they could take a long shot at Church and State, or at ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... elected member of parliament, when he obtained a seat in the house of commons, where he soon outshone all his compatriots. He displayed a surprising extent and precision of political knowledge, an irresistible energy of argument, and such power of elocution as struck his hearers with astonishment and admiration. It flashed like the lightning of heaven against the ministers and sons of corruption, blasting ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... year, while John led Lord knows what thriftless life in Florida. From the last morning when he had wheeled, in our old big room, and dashed across it and thrown his arms around me in his own impulsive, irresistible way—since that morning I had never seen him. Letters, plenty. More money was needed always. John always thought that the world owed him ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... secured seventy-five riders from the adventurous men found on the borders. The wages paid the riders were from $125 to $150 a month, with rations, and singular as it may seem to people of to-day, these positions were much sought for. Danger among this class of men has an irresistible fascination, and writing about it recalls an incident which verifies the assertion fully. When I lived in Carson City, Nev., the office of sheriff of Ormsby county, in which Carson was situated, was the most coveted position in the gift of the people, ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... things to a panorama being unwound from one roller and on to another. The painted screen is but paint at the best, and is in perpetual motion, which is not arrested by the vain clutches of hands that would fain stop the irresistible and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... caused to be destroyed, sending the miserable captives home to their respective houses. He likewise gave positive orders to the priests to desist in future from this most abominable custom, which they promised to refrain from, but they forgot their promises as soon as the authority of our irresistible arms was removed. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... Laredo. She made a good, mild, Colorado-claro wife, and even succeeded in teaching Ben to modify his voice sufficiently while in the house to keep the dishes from being broken. When Ben got to be king she would sit on the gallery of Espinosa Ranch and weave rush mats. When wealth became so irresistible and oppressive that upholstered chairs and a centre table were brought down from San Antone in the wagons, she bowed her smooth, dark head, and shared the ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... prevalence of interested competitions, with their attendant passions of jealousy, envy, and malice; it may seem strange to allege, that love and compassion are, next to the desire of elevation, the most powerful motives in the human breast: That they urge, on many occasions, with the most irresistible vehemence; and if the desire of self preservation be more constant, and more uniform, these are a more plentiful source of enthusiasm, satisfaction, and joy. With a power not inferior to that of resentment and rage, they hurry ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... inquired what I thought of pirates and their pranks. If the approaching craft was not a pirate, he said, her movements at least bespoke her bent on no good. The little craft was now seen to sheer, which caused the major's perturbation to become irresistible; and suddenly putting his hands to his lips, he shouted at the top of his voice: "Ho, strange ship! Whence come you? and what want you, that you steer right in our way? Bear away, there, or may the devil take me but you'll get the worst ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... to be the protector of innocence, the defender of justice, or the prosecutor of wrong, he frequently disclosed such unexpected resources of reasoning, such depth of feeling, and rose to such fervor of appeal as to astonish and overwhelm his hearers, and make him fairly irresistible. Even an ordinary law argument, coming from him, seldom failed to produce the impression that he was profoundly convinced of the soundness of his position. It is not surprising that the mere appearance of so conscientious an attorney in any case should have carried, not only to juries, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... almost silent except when he shot out some irresistible pun, and disturbed the gravity of the company. Hood's labors were poetic, but his sports were passerine. It is remarkable that he, who was capable of jesting even on his own prejudices and predilections, should ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... returned to Moscow to protect Feodor and Axinia. It is all in vain; he is himself thrown into prison. Axinia flies to Marfa, and at her feet implores protection against the Poles. Here Demetrius sees her, and a violent and irresistible passion is kindled in ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... were the dependants or servants of foreigners who held their places mainly because of their conversion to the new faith. If dismissed, they relapsed. One can readily see that the lowest and most unscrupulous would be the first to fall before the almost irresistible temptation, for a means of comfortable livelihood seems the one serious concern of life in all the East to a degree difficult for us in America, at least, ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... once more and played another dance. This time there was an almost elfish magic in his melody. It took you captive; it was irresistible; it called and commanded and compelled; you longed to follow, follow, anywhere, over the hills, over the sea, to the end of ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... life are repugnant to her ardent and devoted nature. Even amongst women in whom those gifts are met with in the highest degree, clearness of perception has been almost always obscured by the ardour of pursuit or that of patronage—by the irresistible desire of pushing to the extremity of success her own ideas, and especially ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... home from Sunday-school that Aladdin had enticed Margaret to the forbidden river. She was not sure that he knew how to row, for he was prone to exaggerate his prowess at this and that, and she went because of the fine defiance of it, and because Aladdin exercised an irresistible fascination. He it was who could whistle the most engagingly through his front teeth; and he it was, when sad dogs of boys of the world were met behind the barn, who could blow the smoke of the fragrant grapevine through his nose, and swallow the same without ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... depressed that everything I said was forced and unnatural. My head felt as if it were bursting, and I was enraged with myself and the wretched result of my bright dream. Indeed I found myself inclined to a spirit of recklessness and irritation that was wellnigh irresistible. ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... is a cumulative one; and while many of its component portions are of themselves so conclusive, that only supposititious miracle, and not presentable argument, can be arrayed against them, its aggregate force seems wholly irresistible. In passing, however, from the facts and reasonings that bear against the hypothesis of a universal deluge, to indicate in a few sentences both the possible mode in which a merely partial flood might have taken place, and the probable extent of area which it covered, ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... question of Liberty and Slavery with us as with equals. On the contrary, they habitually address us as if nothing but a purblind ignorance of the very first elements of moral science could shield our minds against the force of their irresistible arguments. In the overflowing exuberance of their philanthropy, they take pity of our most lamentable moral darkness, and graciously condescend to teach us the very A B C of ethical philosophy! Hence, if we have deemed it ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... irresistible desire to laugh at something in the hospitable, almost patronising tone of ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... to think that her love for the Japanese hero and his equally great devotion to her is the important human relation on the horizon. She flouts his obscure work, pits her charms against it. In the end there is a quarrel. The irresistible meets the immovable, and in madness or half by accident, ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... Priuli, kneeling in prayer; Venice, mounted defiantly on the Lion of Saint Mark; other portraits of other doges, in attitudes of devotion; other pictures of the Christ, of the saints, always symbolic; but over all,—triumphant, beautiful,—with its irresistible sea-tones, cool and strong, Venice, Queen of the Sea, compelling the homage of her rulers, ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... had spoken such temporary farewells many times before—and she seemed to understand it as such. Knight had not the power to tell her plainly that he was going for ever; he hardly knew for certain that he was: whether he should rush back again upon the current of an irresistible emotion, or whether he could sufficiently conquer himself, and her in him, to establish that parting as a supreme farewell, and present himself to the world again as ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... would soon be joined by de Guichen, with a land-force and twenty ships of the line from the West Indies. Had their expectations been realized, it was resolved to attack New York in every direction, with irresistible fury. About this time however, intelligence arrived of de Guichen's departure for Europe, and of the consequent naval superiority of the British. Thus frustrated in their designs, Washington and Rochambeau ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... only a gentle embarrassment, and a soft beating of the heart. She began to reflect that to have thus broken loose from all restraint before her, this timid youth must have been carried away by an irresistible burst of passion, and any woman, however high-minded she may be, will forgive such violent homage rendered to the sovereign power of her beauty. Besides his feeding of her vanity, another independent and more powerful motive predisposed her to indulgence: she felt a tender ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the efficiency of the telephone that makes it irresistible to a great people whose passion is to "get results"—the instancy with which the communication is given, and the clear loudness of the telephone's voice in reply to yours: phenomena utterly unknown in Europe. Were I to inhabit the United States, I too should become a victim of the telephone ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... course of justice, there is, in that court, a departure from due process of law. * * *"[960] But "if * * * the whole proceeding is a mask—* * * [if the] counsel, jury and judge * * * [are] swept to the fatal end by an irresistible wave of public passion, and * * * [if] the State Courts failed to correct the wrong, neither perfection in the machinery for correction nor the possibility that the trial court and counsel saw no other way of ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... seeing into the man's mind; and makes him think before us in a long and impassioned soliloquy, which sets forth the hidden motive of his deed. As Mr. Browning conceives him, he did not mean to kill himself. He did so in a final, irresistible impulse to manifest his faith, and to test the foundations of it. It has had for its object, not the spiritual truths of Christianity, but its miraculous powers; and these powers have of late been symbolized to his mind by the Virgin of the Ravissante.[79] The conflict of despotisms has thus been ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... now. Each year will invest you with a new beauty, new spiritual power. Do you think I only half understand you, or only half love you? I want to sit close in your heart, warmed by its glow. It is the irresistible power of truth that has drawn me to you. My whole life will not be long enough for me to sound the unfathomable depths ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... obeyed sagacity. A colossal soul, in whom barbaric passions urged gigantic powers to the accomplishment of insatiable desires, he seems, on the first view, to be given over to the wildest ecstasies of imaginative pride; but we are soon dazzled and confounded by the irresistible energy, the cool, clear, fertile, forecasting intelligence, with which he pursues and realizes his vast designs of glory and dominion. Strong and arrogant as the fabled Achilles, with a military genius ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... flirting with her. Would any other man she knew have ridden beside her thus after the gentleness she had shown? Was that perhaps the very secret of his attraction? Or was it a physical allurement - the irresistible charm of bigness and strength, independent of anything else, drawing with ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... youth's beard, to give substance to one's belief in its future growth and development. Beneath these windows the water, hemmed in by this edge of shore, panted, like a child at play; its sighs, liquid, lisping, were irresistible; one found oneself listening for the sound of them as if they had issued from a human throat. The humming of the bees in the garden, the cry of a fisherman calling across the water, the shout of the children ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... lion," answered the fair Urad; "but fear is irresistible, and the children of men are but weakness and ingratitude. But blessed be Allah, who, though justly provoked at my discontent, yet sent to my assistance the guardian of the fair. Yet how cometh ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... an object so terrifying as to chill the blood of a distant onlooker. Very unusually good nerves and very exceptional self- confidence are required to face with composure a portent which appears so irresistible. And when the lion emits his tremendous roar and rises, bodily, into the air in his mortal spring, mouth wide open, its crimson cavern glaring, teeth gleaming, eyes blazing, mane erect, paws spread, claws wide, the stoutest heart might well quail. Yet, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... parrot; his face slightly pitted with the small-pox, with a dry perpetual bloom on it, like a frost-bitten leaf in autumn. He had an eye of great quickness and vivacity, with a drollery and lurking waggery of expression that was irresistible. He was evidently the wit of the family, dealing very much in sly jokes and innuendoes with the ladies, and making infinite merriment by harpings upon old themes; which, unfortunately, my ignorance of the family chronicles did not permit ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... Martial by the arm, and with irresistible power whirled him twice around, then threw him more than ten ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... years of his life, during the green season in which his beauty, his youth and his wit make him more dangerous to husbands than at any other epoch of his life, his finds himself without any means of satisfying legitimately that irresistible craving for love which burns in his whole nature. During this time, representing the sixth part of human life, we are obliged to admit that the sixth part or less of our total male population and the sixth part which is the most vigorous ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... she had lost, of her father, an old nobleman of Le Rouergue—it is most extraordinary how many old noblemen Le Rouergue has produced!—and of an unfaithful steward who had carried off their whole fortune. She instantly aroused the sympathies of M. Chebe, for whom decayed gentlefolk had an irresistible charm, and he went away overjoyed, promising his daughter to call for her at seven o'clock at night in accordance with ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the confusion something drives, something that is at once human achievement and the most inhuman of all existing things. Something comes out of it.... How can I express the values of a thing at once so essential and so immaterial. It is something that calls upon such men as I with an irresistible appeal. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... necessary to ensure a favourable hearing from the Elector, whose eyes were eloquent of the admiration he felt for the two fairest women who had ever visited his land. Aurora's beauty, enhanced by her attitude of appeal, the mute craving for protection, was irresistible. From the moment she entered his presence he was her slave, as anxious to do her will as ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... indeed, irresistible. Racial movements have mixed all peoples; the oceans have become the world's common highways; the air is filled with voices speaking from city to city and from continent to continent; an international postal system makes the world's ideas one; there is quick participation ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... extremely dangerous for travelers to meet a herd of this description. When they are unaccustomed to the sight of such a mass of creatures, they can not help feeling greatly alarmed at their rapid and apparently irresistible approach. The trampling of the animals sounds like distant thunder; and such is the rapidity and impetuosity of their advance, that it ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey |
