"Liken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... centripetal as well as a centrifugal force, a regulator as well as a spring, a law of attraction as well as of repulsion. The way to the West is the way also to the East; the north pole of the magnet cannot be divided from the south pole; two minus signs make a plus in Arithmetic and Algebra. Again, we may liken the successive layers of thought to the deposits of geological strata which were once fluid and are now solid, which were at one time uppermost in the series and are now hidden in the earth; or to the successive rinds or barks of trees ...
— Sophist • Plato
... and his eyes for the first time is to see them in his own home. Anywhere else, believe me, something of his essence is forfeit. 'The rose of roses' loses more or less of its beauty in any vase, and rather more than less there in a nosegay of ordinary little blossoms (to which I rather rudely liken Mrs. T—'s other friends). The supreme flower should be first seen growing from its ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... that "the rose lost its color at sight of her cheeks and the jasmines silver bud turned pale." A beauty in the Arabian Nights, however, turns the tables on the flowers. "Who dares to liken me to ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... an' ill-faur'd is he, A dafter-like body I never did see. An' yet for this cratur' she says I am deein', When that I deny, she 's fear'd at my leein'; Obliged to put up wi' this sair defamation, I'm liken to dee wi' grief an' vexation. An' oh! she 's a ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... and damsel glitter'd at the feast Variously gay: for he that tells the tale Liken'd them, saying "as when an hour of cold Falls on the mountain in midsummer snows, And all the purple slopes of mountain flowers Pass under white, till the warm hour returns With veer of wind, and all are flowers again;" So dame and damsel cast the simple white, And glowing in all colors, ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... could hardly wish the result different, in him, any more than in the books of Burton and Fuller, or some other similar writers of that age—mental abodes, we might liken, after their own manner, to the little old private houses of some historic town grouped about its grand public structures, which, when they have survived at all, posterity is loth to part with. ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... the person of Miss Laura Stebbins, if I could call to mind any similitudes, whereunto to liken her charms, which have not been worn out in the service of other people's heroines. To use any but brand-new comparisons to illustrate graces like hers would be singularly inappropriate; for she herself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... inarticulate cry that sank into something that I can but liken to the rattle which issues from the throat of expiring men. For a second he stood where he had risen, then terror loosened his knees, and he sank back into his chair. His mouth fell open, and the trembling lips were drawn down at the corners like those of a sobbing ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... thinking only of the ballads, and how honourable it is that a gallant and dashing life should be celebrated in song. I, for certain, have never done anything to make a pothouse ring with my name, and I liken you to the knights of olden days who tilted in all simple fair bravery without being able to wager a brass farthing as to who was right and who was wrong. Admirable Jem Bottles," I cried enthusiastically, "tell me, if you will, of your glories; tell me with your own tongue, so that when I hear ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... identical. Its form is cumbrous in the extreme, and large tracts of it have little claim to the name of poetry. Wordsworth compares the Excursion to a temple of which his smaller poems form subsidiary shrines; but the reader will more often liken the small poems to gems, and the Excursion to the rock from which they were extracted. The long poem contains, indeed, magnificent passages, but as a whole it is a diffused description of scenery ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... danger of the argument from analogy is the fallacy which is known as false analogy, or reasoning to a conclusion which the similarity does not support. Arguments in which there are many figures of speech, especially when the style is at all florid, are apt to slop over into this fallacy. To liken education to the unfolding of a flower is all very well, if you do not go on to argue that because the lily of the field neither toils nor spins, therefore a child should do no work in school. It is said that M. Stolypin, ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... of Mahomet, en route to pay his respects to the Mountain, being met halfway by the object of his pilgrimage; though to liken the Contessa di Ravello to a mountain is perhaps to brutalise a poetic license. She is a fairy of a woman, a pocket Venus. Gaeta is her name, and her sponsors in baptism must have been endowed with prophetic souls, ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... next visit by declaring he must have another try at him, Triggs, radiant but magnanimous, would answer, "Iss, iss, lad, do 'ee come agen; for 'tis aisy to see with half a eye that 'tain't wan look, nor two neither, that 'ull circumnavigate the insides o' that ole chap if 'taint to his liken to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... person for the first time, one frequently endeavours to trace a resemblance with some previous acquaintance or friend. I have a similar propensity when I visit interesting cities; but I had difficulty in calling to mind any place to which I could liken Copenhagen. Between Sweden and Denmark generally, there are more points of difference than of resemblance. Sweden is the land of rocks, and Denmark of forest. Oehlenschlaegel calls the latter country, 'the fresh and grassy,' but he might also have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... &c., we drop perpendiculars from different points of those lines on to a horizontal plane, the intersections of those verticals with the plane will be on a line called the horizontal trace or projection of the original line. We may liken these projections to sun-shadows when the sun is in the meridian, for it will be remarked that the trace does not represent the length of the original line, but only so much of it as would be embraced by the verticals dropped from each end of it, and ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey
... inconsiderate use of final causes in science, and an illustration of some of the manifold errors and absurdities which their hasty assumption is apt to involve—considerations probably equivalent to those which induced Lord Bacon to liken final causes to "vestal virgins." So, if any one, it is here Bacon that "sitteth in the seat of the scornful." As to Darwin, in the section from which the extracts were made, he is considering a subsidiary question, and trying to obviate a particular difficulty, ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... an hour is more Than wrangling words should stuff with barren store. Comfort may'st thou bring to her, if I may none, When all her father quickens in her son. In Cornish warfare if thou win thee praise, Thine shall men liken to thy ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... genius which was not to know decay while life endured. Emerson had emerged from the popular darkness which had so long held him a hopeless mystic, and was shining a lambent star of poesy and prophecy at the zenith. Hawthorne, the exquisite artist, the unrivalled dreamer, whom we still always liken this one and that one to, whenever this one or that one promises greatly to please us, and still leave without a rival, without a companion, had lately returned from his long sojourn abroad, and had given us the last ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... by the frail condition of man, divers new enormities are sprung amongst the people, for the which no law is yet made to reform the same. For this cause the king at this time has summoned his high court of parliament; and I liken the king to a shepherd or herdsman, because if a prince be compared to his riches, he is but a rich man; if a prince be compared to his honour, he is but an honourable man; but compare him to the multitude of his people, and the number ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... sung because they are not directly convertible into instruments of creating wealth. When I contemplate natural knowledge squandering such gifts among men, the only appropriate comparison I can find for her is, to liken her to such a peasant woman as one sees in the Alps, striding ever upward, heavily burdened, and with mind bent only on her home; but yet, without effort and without thought, knitting for her children. Now stockings are good and comfortable things, and the children will ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... expositor of his own religion, and believe that to apply in practice its principles as promulgated by him, and as exemplified in his life, is all that is essential to constitute a Christian, according to his testimony, (Matt. 7:24,)—"Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock," &c. Hence they believe that to make it essential to Christianity to assent to all the opinions expressed by certain men, good men though they were, who ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... here by a bell, which I never can liken to any other than a dustman's, and can hardly find a spot whereto parasols and ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... of a board of returning officers has nothing to liken it to a judicial record of contentions between parties. The proceeding is ex parte; or, if there be parties, the other States of the Union are not represented, however much their rights may be affected; the evidence is in part at least by ...
— The Electoral Votes of 1876 - Who Should Count Them, What Should Be Counted, and the Remedy for a Wrong Count • David Dudley Field
... prisoners in a pen, and that of soldiers in bivouac. The latter build shelters of rails or of brushwood, if they have no shelter-tents, and they are very rarely stinted in firewood. Their active life helps to preserve their vigor. To liken these to men without shelter of any kind and without fire enough to cook by, herded inside a ring-fence in winter weather, is an abuse of words. Enough ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... for the dog! I liken his Grace to an acorned hog. 20 What, a boy at his side, with the bloom of a lass, To help and handle my lord's hour-glass! Didst ever behold so lithe a chine? His cheek hath laps like a ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... among us dwell, While pleading loving friendship, shrewdly plan Like to the feathered tribes, to gather down (Walks out): From careless wings to feather their own nests. (Francos turning to Seldonskip): I must in candor voice my perturbed thoughts Anent the strained relation which doth seem To liken to a ship with cable taut Which surging waves are threat'ning quick to snap. Twixt thee and Quezox. Thou, mine eye doth speak, Art like dry powder, ready to ignite When Quezox looseth tongue which like a flint Doth spark the fuse to quick explosion ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... your sensibilities by a complete and detailed recital of the nerve-racking adventures that immediately succeeded. I may only liken my state of mind to that so graphically described in the well-known and popular story of the uxoricide, Bluebeard, wherein it is told how the vigilant Anne stood on the outer ramparts straining her eyes in the ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... let us proceed to the next stage: In the likeness of what animal did the Creator make the world? It would be an unworthy thing to liken it to any nature which exists as a part only; for nothing can be beautiful which is like any imperfect thing; but let us suppose the world to be the very image of that whole of which all other animals both individually and in their tribes are portions. For the original ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... hears these words of mine and performs them, I will liken to a wise man who built his house on the rock; [7:25]and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on the rock. [7:26]And every one who hears these words of mine and performs them not, shall ...
— The New Testament • Various
... artist's more highly elaborated and ambitious productions. Not that one would speak of it, however, as of a drawing upon toned paper in neutral tint, or as of a picture pencilled in sepia or with crayons; one would rather liken it to a radiant water-colour, chequered with mingled storm and sunshine, sparkling with lifelike effects, and glowing with brilliancy. And yet the little work is one, when you come to look into it, that is but the product of a seemingly artless ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... (in lectica.) This careless and disorderly way as to time and place, and other circumstances of haste, sufficiently indicate the quality of the meal you are to expect. Already you are "sagacious of your quarry from so far." Not that we would presume, excellent reader, to liken you to Death, or to insinuate that you are "a grim feature." But would it not make a saint "grim," to hear of such preparations for the morning meal? And then to hear of such consummations as panis siccus, dry bread; or, (if the learned reader thinks it ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then they shall fast in those days."[3] His gentle gaiety found expression in lively ideas and amiable pleasantries. "But whereunto," said he, "shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.[4] ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... thus engaged in the twilight, we heard faintly, from far down the stream, what sounded like two strokes of a woodchopper's axe, echoing dully through the grim solitude. We are wont to liken many sounds, heard at a distance in the forest, to the stroke of an axe because they resemble each other under those circumstances, and that is the one we commonly hear there. When we told Joe of this, he exclaimed, "By George, I'll bet that was moose! They make a noise like that." These ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... Arthurs' nine show up well, particularly Raymond and Weir, who have springs in their feet and arms like whips. Altogether Arthurs' varsity is a strangely assorted, a wonderfully chosen group of players. We might liken them to the mechanism of a fine watch, with Ward as the mainspring, and the others with big or little parts to perform, but each dependent upon the other. Wayne's ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... olive, which covers many of the neighbouring hillsides with its little smoky puffs of foliage. A stroke of composition I never weary of is that long blue stretch of the Campagna which makes a high horizon and rests on this vaporous base of olive-tops. A reporter intent upon a simile might liken it to the ocean seen above the smoke of watch-fires kindled ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... pretty closely on chairs on the small space of stage before it, were some thirty gentlemen, and two or three ladies. In the centre of these, in a desk or pulpit covered with red baize, was the presiding minister. The kind of rostrum he occupied will be very well understood, if I liken it to a boarded-up fireplace turned towards the audience, with a gentleman in a black surtout standing in the stove and leaning forward over ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... two days, and nights. It was at Newport and we wouldn't trust hired nurses. One afternoon he had a fit, and jumped up and run out on the portico of the hotel with nothing in the world on and the wind a blowing liken ice and we after him scared to death; and when the ladies and gentlemen saw that he had a fit, every lady scattered for her room and not a gentleman lifted his hand to help, the wretches! Well after that his life ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... Declaration, so there are twenty-seven rooms in Monticello. Last of all there are two little phrases in the Declaration (the phrases stating that we shall hold our British brethren in future as we hold the rest of mankind—"enemies in war; in peace, friends"), which I would liken to the small twin buildings, one of them Jefferson's office, the other that of the overseer, which stand on either side of the lawn at Monticello, at some distance from the house. These office buildings face, and balance upon each other, and upon the mansion, but they are so much smaller that ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... persons (kings and priests) were inducted into office by the pouring of oil on their heads, but, as a mouthpiece and representative of the deity, he is inferior to the prophet; at best, flattery, such as that of the woman of Tekoa, might liken him to an angel.[633] The epithet el gibbor (English Bible, "mighty God"), applied to a Jewish prince, must probably be rendered 'mighty hero.'[634] The title 'gods' has been supposed to be given to men (judges) a couple of times in the Psalter,[635] ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... whare do ye wend, my sweet winsome doo? An' whare may your dwelling be? But her heart, I trow, was liken to break, An' the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... 'pretty,' though 'familiar illustration,' I have considered a page distinguished by 'different characters,' as a 'verdant field' overspread with 'butter-flowers' and 'daisies,' and other summer-flowers. These the poets liken to 'enamelling'—have you not read in the poets of ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... hazel or cob nuts, and Brazil nuts. The proteid value of these three does not differ much. After these come the chestnut and cocoanut, and lastly we have the pine kernel. Speaking very roughly, we may liken walnuts, hazel nuts, and Brazil nuts to beef for flesh and muscle-forming value, while pine kernels correspond more nearly to fish. Almonds are nearly ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel
... his epoch-making generalization, yet Owen deliberately refused to accept the new doctrines. Like Tycho, he kept on rigidly accumulating his facts under the influence of a set of ideas as to the origin of living forms which are now universally admitted to be erroneous. If, therefore, we liken Darwin to Copernicus, and Owen to Tycho, we may liken the biologists of the present day to Kepler, who interpreted the results of accurate ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... mother's wishes; Straightway hastens to the court-yard, There to weep in bitter sorrow, All alone to weep in anguish. Waiting long the wailing Aino Thus at last soliloquizes: "Unto what can I now liken Happy homes and joys of fortune? Like the waters in the river, Like the waves in yonder lakelet, Like the crystal waters flowing. Unto what, the biting sorrow Of the child of cold misfortune? Like the spirit of the sea-duck, Like the icicle in winter, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... laugh, "Would you liken yourself to others visiting the Grove for the first time, you will straightway to ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... he wished the son to say—to Confess—but surely he did not expect him to liken himself to one who was suspected of having caused the death of ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... creatures sit up erect, glaring with beady eyes, grinning and chattering at the passer-by, they look like little friars in black robes and grey cowls; but the expression on their round faces is malignant and bloodthirsty beyond anything in nature, and it would perhaps be more decent to liken them to devils rather than ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... eyes was very peculiar. I can liken it to nothing but the sheen of intense moonlight on burnished metal. But that cannot express it. It glared white and suddenly—almost fatuous. I thought of Moore's lines whenever I looked ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... whom shall I compare them, and to what likeness shall I liken their silliness? Well, I will set before thee an example which I heard from the lips of ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... such he shall slay no man lightly. Also I may say you the Castle of Maidens betokeneth the good souls that were in prison afore the Incarnation of Jesu Christ. And the seven knights betoken the seven deadly sins that reigned that time in the world; and I may liken the good Galahad unto the son of the High Father, that light within a maid, and bought all the souls out of thrall: so did Sir Galahad deliver all the maidens out of the woful castle. Now, Sir Gawaine, said the good man, thou must do penance for thy sin. Sir, what penance shall I do? Such as I ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... of Fame? 'tis but to fill A certain portion of uncertain paper: Some liken it to climbing up a hill, Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapor: For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill, And bards burn what they call their "midnight taper," To have, when the original is dust, A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... falls that hunter in his path Whose barbed arrow, deeply set, Is rankling in his bosom yet, It told of hate, full, deep, and strong, Of vengeance kindling out of wrong; It was as if the crimes of years— The unrequited toil, the tears, The shame and hate, which liken well Earth's garden to the nether hell— Had found in nature's self a tongue, On which the gathered horror hung; As if from cliff, and stream, and glen Burst on the' startled ears of men That voice which rises unto God, Solemn and stern,—the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... taking abundance of exercise; always out of doors; though, it is true, seldom in the open air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale's flukes above water dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a warm parlor. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to for fragrance, considering his magnitude? Must it not be to that famous elephant, with jewelled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, which was led out of an Indian town to do honor to Alexander the ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... his jaw, Hank got up from where he had sprawled on his back. He was not a fighting man, preferring to satisfy his grudges by slurring people behind their backs. But Jack smacked him again and thought of a few other things to which he might liken Hank, and after that Hank fought like a trapped bobcat, with snarls and kicks and gouging claws. He scratched Jack's neck with his grimy fingernails, and he tried to set his unwashed teeth into Jack's left ear while the two of them rolled over ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... he had died in his sins and was now nearing the place of eternal torment. He could liken the scene before him to nothing on earth. It must be Hell, and he felt that the lid had been lifted ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... For has not the law thundered from Sinai, 'Thou shalt not steal'? True, plagiarism is nowhere distinctly forbidden by Moses; but have not critics judicially pronounced it author-theft? Has not metaphor been sounded through every note of its key-board, to strike out all that is base whereunto to liken it? Have not old Dr. Johnson's seven-footed words—the tramp of whose heavy brogans has echoed down the staircase of years even unto our day—declared plagiarists from the works of buried writers 'jackals, battening on dead ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... it provoke all men, till it kindle another kind of fire, the Teutonic kind, namely; and be swallowed up, so to speak, in a day! For there is a fire comparable to the burning of dry jungle and grass; most sudden, high-blazing: and another fire which we liken to the burning of coal, or even of anthracite coal, but which no known ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... 'traitress,' and so does Ranke. Knobel characterizes her as 'die Zarte,' which means tender, delicate, but also subtle. Lange is sure that she was a weaver woman, if not an out-and-out 'zonah.' There are other Germans who think the word is akin to the verb 'einlullen,' to lull asleep. Some liken it to the Arabic dalilah, a woman who misguides, a bawd. See in 'The Thousand Nights and a Night' the speech of the damsel to Aziz: 'If thou marry me thou wilt at least be safe from the daughter of Dalilah, ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... correspond. Notwithstanding all these drawbacks, early impressions and rooted habits could easily transfer terms to such an abode; and there was always a saddened enjoyment among these exiles, when they could liken their forest names and usages to those they had left in the distant scenes ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... which I appeared to float, I was convinced that their number was infinitely greater than that visible to the naked eye on the brightest night. I remembered how greatly the inexperienced eye exaggerates the number of stars visible from the Earth, since poets, and even olden observers, liken their number to that of the sands on the seashore; whereas the patient work of map and catalogue makers has shown that there are but a few thousands visible in the whole heavens to the keenest unaided sight. I suppose that I saw a hundred times that number. In one word, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... And wherever, in the Bible, His claim to reverence and worship, above the gods of the heathen, is presented, there is cited the evidence of His creative power. "All the gods of the nations are idols: but the Lord made the heavens."(726) "To whom then will ye liken Me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things." "Thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God Himself that formed the earth and made it:... I am Jehovah; and there is none ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... national migration than the march of an army. And ever on the horizon hang new clouds of dust, and on distant slopes the scattered advance guards of new columns dribble into view. I fancy the Huns or the Goths, in one of their vast tribal invasions, may have moved like this. Or you might liken us to the dusty pilgrims on some great caravan route with Pretoria ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... scowl of a stranger whose shoulder he had familiarly slapped, mistaking him for a friend: 'I beg your pardon, I thought I knew you—but I'm glad I don't.' It was humor in the Southern orator, John Wise, to liken the pleasure of spending an evening with a Puritan girl to that of sitting on a block of ice in winter, cracking hailstones ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... universal honor and esteem as one who remained firm to the truth amid every trial, and finally died on the cross, a martyr to his love of mankind. As a social reformer, as one devoted to the progress and well-being of man in this world, I thought I might liken myself to him and call myself by his name. I called myself a Christian, not because I took him for my master, not because I believed all he believed or taught, but because, like him, I was laboring to introduce a new order of things, ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... have seen good likenesses of Wordsworth will readily remark this resemblance. A greater length of ear would liken the Lake poet to an animal ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... conveniently what man may practically expect from his environment. This tendency is known as pragmatism. It ranges from systematic doctrines, reminiscent of Fichte, which seek to define practical needs and deduce knowledge from them, to the more irresponsible utterances of those who liken science to "shorthand,"[407:8] and mathematics to a game of chess. In any case pragmatism attributes to nature a certain dependence on will, and therefore implies, even when it does not avow, that will with its peculiar principles or values cannot be reduced ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... without reason, And like the waxing or the waning moon Ever pale and lovely: you are like these Because you are free and live by your own law; While I, desiring life and half alive, Dream, hope, regret and fear and blunder on. Your beauty is your life and my content, And I will liken you to an apple-tree, Mary and Margaret playing under the branches, And everywhere soft shadows like your eyes, And scattered blossom like ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... vine for our Northern Star. I am sure no one will grudge the Princess these simple enjoyments, and of the produce of the last-named pleasing plant, I wonder how many bumpers were drunk to her health on the happy day of her bridal? As for the Laureate's verses, I would respectfully liken his Highness to a giant showing a beacon torch on "a windy headland." His flaring torch is a pine-tree, to be sure, which nobody can wield but himself. He waves it: and four times in the midnight he shouts mightily, "Alexandra!" and the Pontic pine is whirled into the ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... throng of curious natives, who treated us, I must say, much more respectfully than we should have been treated in similar circumstances at home. Many of the things we saw, I cannot describe, because there is nothing to liken them to, but all were as beautiful as they were strange. At last we found a shop whose contents struck Jack's fancy. The place differed from any that we had yet seen; it was much larger, and more richly fitted up than the ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... "you are no mortal woman, but some goddess who favours the Trojans, and if indeed you are a goddess then I liken you to Aphrodite, for beauty, and stature, and shapeliness." Then Helen wept; for many a year had passed since she had heard any word of her father, and daughter, and her brothers, who were dead, though she knew it not. So she stretched out her white hand, ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... exercise; always out of doors; though, it is true, seldom in the open air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale's flukes above water dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a warm parlor. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to for fragrance, considering his magnitude? Must it not be to that famous elephant, with jewelled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, which was led out of an Indian town to do honour to ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the waterfall over the dam abruptly change the sound of its flow, swelling and accelerating as when a gust of wind hurries a greater volume of water over the brink. But there was no wind. Immediately followed that sound from the lake which I can liken to nothing better than the smack of huge lips unclosing, or the suck of a thick body drawing itself from a bed of mud. The cat thrust himself violently between my feet and pressed against the house-door uttering a ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... me for the grievous wrong that my thoughts did thee! Why should I have shuddered to feel thee glancing upon my thoughts like the beam on the solitary tree, to which thou didst once liken me so well? It was—it was, that, like the tree, I struggled for the light, and the light came. They tell me of love, and my very life of the stage breathes the language of love into my lips. No; again and again, I know THAT is not the love that I feel for thee!—it is not a passion, it is a thought! ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... that is, the science which explains to us the RIND of the earth; of what it is made; how it has been made. It tells us nothing of the mass of the earth. That is, properly speaking, an astronomical question. If I may be allowed to liken this earth to a fruit, then astronomy will tell us—when it knows—how the fruit grew, and what is inside the fruit. Geology can only tell us at most how its rind, its outer covering, grew, and of what it is composed; ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... the puppy, to liken small things to great, was the coming of Blucher in Kate's life, for the battle turned, and all in five minutes she had gone from defeat to victory. She sat by the fire with Joan sleeping in her arms, and the puppy in turn in ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... Zoe. "I think it was very rude and unkind to liken me to a school-girl. I believe it was just because she envies me my youth ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... Breakspeare, here's something for thee! Thou art the Sophist of our time, and list how the old wise man spoke of thy kind. 'They do but teach the collective opinion of the many; 'tis their wisdom, forsooth. I might liken them to a man who should study the temper or the desires of a great strong beast, which he has to keep and feed; he learns how to approach and handle the creature, also at what times and from what cause it is dangerous, ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... gently outcurving columns, ample in strength and of an elegance belonging to itself alone. If I may dare to compare man-made architectural forms with the trees that graced the garden of Eden, I would liken the American elm (it is also the water elm and the white elm, and botanically Ulmus Americana) to the Grecian types, combining stability with elegance, rather than to the more rugged works of the Goths. Yet ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... producing enormous crops of weeds or grain, according as it is cultivated or left in a state of nature. Towards the south the view over the region has been thus described: "From Ramleh there is a wide view on every side, presenting a prospect rarely surpassed in richness and beauty. I could liken it to nothing but the great plain of the Rhine by Heidelberg or, better still, to the vast plains of Lombardy, as seen from the cathedral of Milan and elsewhere. In the east the frowning mountains ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... back afterwards, more than once, to the former conversation; and I wondered what it was about me that made Dr. Sandford liken ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... interior of our globe. The vibrations which carry the tidings of the earthquake spread through the rocks on the surface, from the centre of the disturbance, in gradually enlarging circles. We may liken the spread of these vibrations to the ripples in a pool of water which diverge from the spot where a raindrop has fallen. The vibrations transmitted by the rocks on the surface, or on the floor of the ocean, ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... much amused by overhearing a young lad giving a gentleman a description of the appearance made by a cluster of the shooting-stars as they followed each other in quick succession athwart the sky. "Sir," said the boy, "I never saw such a sight before, and I can only liken the chain of stars to a logging-chain." Certainly a most natural and unique simile, quite in character with the occupation of the lad, whose business was often with the oxen and logging-chain, and after all not more rustic than the familiar names given to many ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... To liken Beardsley to Botticelli, however, seems indeed a sin. The master was an artist, but Beardsley only gave chalk talks. His work is often crude, rude and raw. He is only a promise, turned to dust. Yet let the simple fact stand for what it ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree, And kept low shrubs from winter's pow'rful wind. These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black veil, Have been as piercing as the midday sun, To search the secret treasons of the world; The wrinkles in my brows, now fill'd with blood, Were liken'd oft to kingly sepulchres, For who liv'd king but I could dig his grave? And who durst smile when Warwick bent his brow? Lo, now my glory smear'd in dust and blood! My parks, my walks, my manors that I had, Even now forsake me, and of all my lands Is nothing left me but my body's length. ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... pillow with a perfect sense of ownership. He was there to keep care of me, not I of him. The sleep suggestion very soon took hold of me, too, for there was nothing whatever to do but sit and watch the shadows move, trying to liken them to something real as they changed shape in answer to the flickering of the tiny, naked flame. Thereafter, the vigil resolved itself into a battle with sleep, and an effort to keep my wits sufficiently ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... I want thee to have, O king of the gods, a novel vehicle, such as never belonged to Vishnu, or Rudra, or the Asuras, or the Rakshasas, O lord. Let a number of highly dignified Rishis, united together, bear thee in a palanquin. This is what commends itself to me. Thou shouldst not liken thyself to the Asuras or the gods. Thou absorbest the strength of all by thy own strength as soon as they look at thee. There is none so strong as to be able to stand ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... What would you liken me to?" said he with a sparkle of the eyes, which quite indisposed Diana from giving any more fuel to the ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... had but a moment to stay, and in one minute getting more soaked than many birds ever do. After this short dip he dashed out, flew to a perch, and in the maddest way jerked and shook himself dry; pulling his feathers through his beak with a snap, and making a peculiar sound which I can liken only to the rubbing of machinery that ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... upon our men to follow. It is impossible to conceive the consternation and confusion this our sudden sally occasioned among the pirates. The confused noise and scrambling from their boats I can only liken to that of a suddenly-roused flock of wild ducks. Our attack from the point whence it came was evidently unexpected; and it is my opinion that they calculated on our attacking the hill, if we did ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... to his right hand. He never had a chance to strike again with it; for in that same instant Rayburn swung his revolver at arm's-length through the air and brought it down on his head with a sound so muffled and so hollow that I can liken it only to the staving-in of the head of a full cask. For a moment, while Rayburn drew back to strike again, the Indian's body swayed heavily; and then all his muscles relaxed, and he fell heavily and ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... consider our highest welfare. Let us never neglect the example of the best life, the combination of action and thought, but keeping a clear vision of it before our minds, so far as our human nature will permit, let us liken ourselves to immortal God by word and deed."[158] High-flown this language may be, but what Philo wishes to mark is the spiritual value of the Sabbath. It is not merely a day of rest from workaday toil, but it is a day upon which we devote all our thoughts to God, ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... replied the little man, bitterly. "You would cast the Scriptures in my teeth, and liken this man to one who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves. But I've suffered enough at ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... she was: she was five-and-thirty if she was a day; and yet—there was the wonder of it—she did not look much over twenty! I've heard our gentlemen, when out shooting, liken her to some fine Frenchwoman as never grew old, and was fell in love with unbeknown by her grandson. Now, what was her name? I got it written down somewhere in my old pocket-book; ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... a thousand virtues and not one acknowledged sin, But she is the sort of person you could liken to a pin, And she pricks you, and she sticks you, in a way that can't be said— When you seek for what has hurt you, why, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... girl—the on'y chick er child we ever had. She's a pretty girl, is Lucy; a good deal liken her mother; wi' the same high spirits my Nell had afore she broke down. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... rejoined Metcalfe. "Do you dare to liken me to a common robber and murderer? Take care you do not experience the same fate as that with which you threaten me, with this difference only, that the hangman—the common hangman of Lancaster—shall serve your turn. I am come hither to arrest ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... importance of a Bechamel, a Felix, the maitre-d'hotel of Cardinal Fesch with his two turbots, or luckless Vatel who fell upon his sword and died because he had no turbot at all; or even, rising in the grandeur of the comparison, we may liken her to Domitian, who, weary of persecuting Christians, one day called the Roman Senate together to decide with him upon the sauce with which another historic turbot ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... admit that, at the commencement of his reign, Pius IX. experienced a generous impulse. But this is a country in which good is only done by immense efforts, while evil occurs naturally. I would liken it to a waggon being drawn up a steep mountain ascent. The joint efforts of four stout bullocks are required to drag it forward: ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... hurled around. For each particular grindstone there is a certain special velocity depending upon its actual materials and character, at which it would inevitably fly in pieces. I have once before likened our earth to a wheel; now let me liken it to a grindstone. There is therefore a certain critical velocity of rotation for the earth at which it would be on the brink of rupture. We cannot exactly say, in our ignorance of the internal constitution of the earth, what length of day would be the shortest possible ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball |
