"Servilely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... initiative of an idea. In truth he was so afraid of assumptions and "anticipations" and prejudices—his great bugbear was so much the "intellectus sibi permissus" the mind given liberty to guess and imagine and theorise, instead of, as it ought, absolutely and servilely submitting itself to the control of facts—that he missed the true place of the rational and formative element in his account of Induction. He does tell us, indeed, that "truth emerges sooner from error than from confusion." He indulges the mind, in the course of its investigation of "Instances," ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... French by M. Petit de la Croix, (Paris, 1722, in 4 vols. 12 mo.,) and has always been my faithful guide. His geography and chronology are wonderfully accurate; and he may be trusted for public facts, though he servilely praises the virtue and fortune of the hero. Timour's attention to procure intelligence from his own and foreign countries may be seen in the Institutions, p. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... I seek thy precepts;" but she judged they would not be familiar to her companion nor meet appreciation from him, so she did not speak them. "Service," she went on, "I think is one of the noblest words in the world; but it cannot be rendered servilely. It must be ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... for politics not inferior to that of Richelieu, of a genius for war not inferior to that of Turenne. Perhaps the disgraced General, in obscurity and inaction, anticipated the day when his power to help and hurt in Europe would be equal to that of her mightiest princes, when he would be servilely flattered and courted by Caesar on one side and by Lewis the Great on the other, and when every year would add another hundred thousand pounds to the largest fortune that had ever been accumulated by any English subject. All this might be if Mrs. Morley ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... moulding a woman. Try to mould the hand of your mistress, and see what you will get,—ghastly articulations, without the slightest resemblance to her living hand; you must have recourse to the chisel of a man who, without servilely copying that hand, can give it movement and life. It is our mission to seize the mind, soul, countenance of things and beings. Effects! effects! what are they? the mere accidents of the life, and not the life itself. ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... information will allow us to trace, the spontaneous feelings and ideas which have produced the images that now frequently appear unnatural, because they are remote; and disgusting, because they have been servilely copied by poets, whose habits of thinking, and views of nature must have been different; for, though the understanding seldom disturbs the current of our present feelings, without dissipating the gay clouds which ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... committee. The opposition moved the previous question. They contended that the reasonable and constitutional practice was to grant no money till grievances had been redressed, and that there would be an end of this practice if the House thought itself bound servilely to follow the order in which matters were mentioned by the King from ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Servilely, desperately, they obeyed him, spending their utmost strength to placate him, while the naked spirit of murder moved in every heart among them. At the tail of the brace, Conroy, with his cuts stanched, pulled with them. His abject eyes, showing ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... themselves continually. One might almost say that the whole of the Comedie Humaine suggested things to its future panegyrist, who wrote his greatest novel in the years consecutive to Balzac's death. Of course, Hugo's borrowings, being those of a man of genius, were not made use of servilely. Like Shakespeare and Moliere, the author of the Miserables metamorphosed and enhanced what ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... new name, albeit the waters undergo no change, how small soever. There is, moreover, a truth of fiction more veracious than the truth of fact, as that of the Poet, which represents to us things and events as they ought to be, rather than servilely copies them as they are imperfectly imaged in the crooked and smoky glass of our mundane affairs. It is this which makes the speech of Antonius, though originally spoken in no wider a forum than the brain of Shakspeare, more historically valuable than that other which Appian ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... valiant living, but to dare oppose me single, Lost the day. What should afflict you, you are as free as I, To be my prisoner, is to be more free Than you were formerly, and never think The man I held worthy to combate me Shall be us'd servilely: Thy ransom is To take my only Sister to thy Wife. A heavy one Tigranes, for she is A Lady, that the neighbour Princes send Blanks to fetch home. I have been too unkind To her Tigranes, she but ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... and hammer the ironwork that museums now contend against each other for the possession of, and pay for as if it were gold—the wood-carver who produced by his free fancy the gems which our best artists are content to servilely copy—the sculptor who would sign works that now make the cities that possess them famous—the lapicido ("stone-cutter"), like that Agostino Fiorentino whose inimitable chisel produced the front of the oratorio of Saint Bernardino in this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... and the people too in such a state desire to be despotic. For which reason flatterers are in repute in both these: the demagogue in the democracy, for he is the proper flatterer of the people; among tyrants, he who will servilely adapt himself to their humours; for this is the business of [1314a] flatterers. And for this reason tyrants always love the worst of wretches, for they rejoice in being flattered, which no man of a liberal spirit will submit to; for they love the virtuous, ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... the utter and sad perversion of the true purposes of existence. Money is valued beyond its worth—it has gained a power vastly above its deserving. Wealth is courted so obsequiously, is flattered so servilely, is so influential in moulding opinions and judgment, has such a weight in the estimation of character, that men regard its acquisition as the most prudent aim of their endeavours, and its possession as absolute enjoyment and honour, ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... was to them the most acceptable flattery. This you well understood, and made your court to the vulgar, always envious and malignant, by trying to lower all dignity and confound all order. You made your court, I say, as servilely, and with as much offence to virtue, as the basest flatterer ever did to the most corrupted prince. But true philosophy will disdain to act either of these parts. Neither in the assemblies of the people, nor ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... perform more freely, I have disencumbered myself from rhyme. Not that I condemn my former way, but that this is more proper to my present purpose. I hope I need not to explain myself, that I have not copied my author servilely: Words and phrases must of necessity receive a change in succeeding ages; but it is almost a miracle that much of his language remains so pure; and that he who began dramatic poetry amongst us, untaught by any, and as Ben Jonson tells us, without learning, should by the force of his ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... a text-book for teachers, not to be followed servilely or thoughtlessly, but used for ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... scrupled about it, and at last (to use his own words) "tampered" with Godwin to know whether the thing was honest or not. Godwin said nay to it, & Allen rejected the living! Could the blindest Poor Papish have bowed more servilely to his Priest or Casuist? Why sleep the Watchman's answers to that Godwin? I beg you will not delay to alter, if you mean to keep, those last lines I sent you. Do that, & read these for ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... down) two aforesaid Cantos into three, because I am grown base and mercenary, and it is an ill precedent to let my Mecaenas, Murray, get too much for his money. I am busy, also, with Pulci—translating—servilely translating, stanza for stanza, and line for line—two octaves every night,—the same allowance as ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... remonstrants, without being servilely embraced, influenced and modified the religious opinions of the people of England, who were never generally favourable, either to the dogmas or the discipline of the Genevan reformer, and to this circumstance are we largely indebted for the manly and ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... and independence has done immense good. It has, as a rule, caused men to think independently, and not to servilely follow the thoughts and ideas of others, who may be quite wrong. It has encouraged invention, and new discoveries in science and art. It has enabled men to develop industries and to expand trade. New ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... was ever preferred against the lad, it got bruited about that Nello had been seen in the mill-yard after dark on some unspoken errand, and that he bore Baas Cogez a grudge for forbidding his intercourse with little Alois; and so the hamlet, which followed the sayings of its richest landowner servilely, and whose families all hoped to secure the riches of Alois in some future time for their sons, took the hint to give grave looks and cold words to old Jehan Daas's grandson. No one said anything to him openly, but all the ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... historian, and yet what a subject for both! The treatment of the character of Joan of Arc in "Henry VI." is one reason why I do not believe it to be wholly Shakespeare's. He never, it is true, writes out of the spirit of his time, neither was he ever absolutely and servilely subject to it—for example, giving in Shylock the delineation of the typical Jew as conceived in his day, think of that fine fierce vindication of their common humanity with which he challenges ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... must depend on the information of natives, and it is difficult for them to know whom to trust. They are feared, suspected, probably disliked by the population; seldom sought by them except for interested purposes; and they are prone to think that the servilely submissive are the trustworthy. Their danger is of despising the natives; that of the natives is, of disbelieving that any thing the strangers do can be intended for their good. These are but a part of the difficulties that any rulers have to struggle with, who ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... added vigour to Pitt's appeal for national union in his great speech of 10th November, in which he gave proofs of the domineering spirit of the party now triumphant at Paris. Very telling, also, was his taunt at the Whig press, "which knows no other use of English liberty but servilely to retail and transcribe French opinions." Sinclair, who had moved a hostile amendment, was so impressed as to withdraw it; and thus at last the violence of the French Jacobins conduced to harmony ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... scientific the partisans of the theory alone; more than anywhere else discussion is fruitful in the natural sciences; and if it is necessary to be constantly preoccupied with the general ideas of the day, it is not at all necessary to adhere to them servilely. The naturalists of to-day are in possession of a formula with which we must always preoccupy ourselves; in other ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... had determined on the main purpose of my story, it was ever my method to get about me any productions of former authors that seemed to bear on my subject. I never entertained the fear that in this way of proceeding I should be in danger of servilely copying my predecessors. I imagined that I had a vein of thinking that was properly my own, which would always preserve me from plagiarism. I read other authors, that I might see what they had done, or, more properly, that I might forcibly hold my mind and occupy ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... to Flecknoe—that is, from the top to the bottom of all poetry. But to return to Tasso: he borrows from the invention of Boiardo, and in his alteration of his poem, which is infinitely for the worse, imitates Homer so very servilely that (for example) he gives the King of Jerusalem fifty sons, only because Homer had bestowed the like number on King Priam; he kills the youngest in the same manner; and has provided his hero with a Patroclus, under another name, only ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... our polity, that that polity should itself be considered democratic. In point of fact, the polity was as democratic as the party,—our democrats seldom displaying much sympathy with liberal ideas, and in their latter days becoming even servilely subservient to Slavery. It is but fair to add, that down to 1854 their sins with respect to Slavery were rather those of position than of principle, and that their action was no worse than would ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... sword, that he was fond of saying his ancestors had carried in one of Cromwells victories, and crying, in an authoritative tone, to clear the way for the court. The order was obeyed promptly, though not servilely, the members of the crowd nodding familiarly to the members of the procession as it passed. A party of constables with their staves followed the sheriff, preceding Marmaduke and four plain, grave-looking yeomen, who were his associates on ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... of Opinion, that an English Composer should not follow the Italian Recitative too servilely, but make use of many gentle Deviations from it, in Compliance with his own Native Language. He may Copy out of it all the lulling Softness and Dying Falls (as Shakespear calls them), but should still remember that he ought to accommodate himself to an ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... was more than enough for the proud and choleric Russian, accustomed to have his every order servilely obeyed. Such unparalleled insolence from a "little yellow-skinned monkey"—as the Russians had already begun to dub the Japanese—and in the presence of his own crew, too! It was unendurable, and must be severely punished. He called an order, and the Russian seamen, ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... prevailed of late, which cannot but be allowed pernicious to the publick, and derogatory from the honour of this assembly; a practice of retaining in our address the words of the speech, and of following it servilely from period to period, as if it were expected that we should always adopt the sentiments of the court; as if we were not summoned to advise, but to approve, and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... science of politics"[3240] at one stroke, through an effort of the brain, in the style of Descartes, who thus discovers analytic geometry. Destutt de Tracy, in undertaking to comment on Montesquieu, finds that the great historian has too servilely confined himself to history, and attempts to do the work over again by organizing society as it should be, instead of studying society as it is.—Never were such systematic and superficial institutions built up with such a moderate extract of human nature.[3241] Condillac, employing ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... or mechanical bird, offers certain advantages, no doubt. That the work and experiments of M. Renard in 1884 have sufficiently proved. But, as has been said, it is not necessary to copy Nature servilely. Locomotives are not copied from the hare, nor are ships copied from the fish. To the first we have put wheels which are not legs; to the second we have put screws which are not fins. And they do not do so badly. Besides, what is this mechanical movement ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... with plans for the future, for reform, and the longing to profit by the lessons he had lately learned from destiny. Already, mindful of the promise he had made de Gery, he exhibited a certain contemptuous coldness for the hungry herd that fawned servilely about his heels, and seemed to have adopted deliberately a system of peremptory contradiction. He called the Marquis de Bois-l'Hery "my good fellow," sharply imposed silence on the Governor, whose enthusiasm was becoming scandalous, ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... British Constitution is adapted to your circumstances? When I praised the British Constitution, and wished it to be well studied, I did not mean that its exterior form and positive arrangement should become a model for you or for any people servilely to copy. I meant to recommend the principles from which it has grown, and the policy on which it has been progressively improved out of elements common to you and to us. I am sure it is no visionary theory of mine. It is not an advice that subjects you to the hazard ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... laws of verse; to prove that Theocritus first introduced the Pastoral, and Virgil and Pope brought it to its perfection; that Gray and Mason (who always hunt in couples in George's brain) have shown a great deal of poetical fire in their lyric poetry; that Aristotle's rules are not to be servilely followed, which George has shown to have imposed great shackles upon modern genius. His poems, I find, are to consist of two vols., reasonable octavo; and a third book will exclusively contain criticisms, in which he asserts he has ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... a pore chance," he said, looking up,—"that's God's truth, Lo! I dunnot keer fur that: it's too late goin' back. But Lo—Mas'r," he mumbled, servilely, "it's on'y a little time t' th' end: let me stay with ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... through three distinct mental stages in his development: First, man attributes all phenomena to a "Personal God," and to this God he servilely prays. Second, he believes in a "Supreme Essence," a "Universal Principle" or a "First Cause," and seeks to discover its hiding-place. Third, he ceases to hunt out the unknowable, and is content to live and work for a positive present good, fully believing that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... found that the planters were greatly assisted by the Government officials, who endeavour to work with them, and, whenever possible, to meet their wishes. The coolies certainly all appeared happy, when X. got accustomed to seeing them crouch servilely in the ditches when he or his host passed by. English officials in the native states of the Peninsula are accustomed to pass their lives amongst the Malays, to listen to and help them in their troubles, and to be constantly surrounded by them as followers or companions, and ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... an apt imitator and reproducer—what in painting would be an excellent copyist. His greatest praise, however, is that he reduced to system what had gone before him; his poems present in themselves an art of poetry, with technical canons and illustrations, which were long after servilely obeyed, and the influence of ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... remarked. "Quite frank, but not at all angry; I thought her line was rather dignified. I've met country folks who'd have been servilely apologetic, and some who would have ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... sluit. An old takhaar among the Boers had discarded almost all his clothing before entering the river, and was an amusing spectacle in shirt, bandolier, and rifle. One of the soldiers went up to the takhaar, looked at him from head to foot, and, after saluting most servilely, inquired, "To what regiment do you belong, sir?" The Boer returned the salute, and, without smiling, replied, "I am one of Rhodes' 'uncivilised Boers,' sir." In the same fight an ammunition waggon, heavily laden, and covered with a huge piece ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... the work of Ferreri," wrote Dom Gueranger, "all the images and all the allusions to pagan beliefs and usages which we find in Horace. Sometimes, it is only fair to say, his hymns are beautiful and simple ... but they follow generally and too servilely the pagan models ... but they are the work of strong and clear inspiration, which under the mask of classic diction shows itself in every part." (Inst. Liturg. t. I., p. 370.) During the reign of ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... eventual pre-eminence over other men: such are the ordinary gifts of nature, and the paultry presents of fortune, wit, knowledge, birth, strength, beauty, riches, titles, and rank. That passion which is ever aspiring, like a silly child, to look over the heads of all about them; which, while it servilely adheres to the great, flies from the poor, as if afraid of contamination; devouring greedily every murmur of applause and every look of admiration; pleased and elated with all kind of respect; and hurt and enflamed with the contempt of the lowest and most ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... of the exaltation of motherhood, there is no reason why the throne should go out of fashion; but if it is to appear, it must be used intelligently, and with some adaptation to present modes of thought, not servilely imitated from the forms of a by-gone age. This is a fact too little appreciated by the artists of to-day. Many modern pictures could be cited—by Bouguereau, Ittenbach, and others—of enthroned Madonnas in which is adopted the ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... as the cool night-air fanned his thoughtful brow, Mr. Wontner was quite abreast of himself. Though he said nothing unworthy, he triumphed and trumpeted a little loudly over the sacks. I sat between them on the back seat, and applauded him servilely till he reminded me that what I had seen and what he had said was not for publication. I hinted, while the boys plunged with joy inside their trappings, that this might be a matter for arrangement. 'Then a sovereign shan't part us,' said Mr. Wontner cheerily, and both ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... Philip the Third: For in the beginning of the second act he was not yet a favourite, and, before the end of the third, was in disgrace. I say not this with the least design of limiting the stage too servilely to twenty-four hours, however he be pleased to tax me with dogmatising on that point, In my dialogue, as I before hinted, several persons maintained their several opinions: One of them, indeed, who supported the cause of the French poesy, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... such as took place at Boston, "was a fitting culmination of years of riot and lawlessness." Lord North, we all know now, was really desirous of bringing about a reconciliation between the colonies and the parent state, but he servilely yielded his convictions to the king, who was determined to govern all parts of his empire, and was in favour of coercive measures. It is quite evident that the British ministry and their supporters entirely underrated the strength of the colonial party that was opposing ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... as a possible competitor; still less did any one see in this quiet Yankee youth the person who was to annihilate the American demand for European, silver-ware, and produce articles which famous European houses would servilely copy. From the time of Mr. John Gorham's return dates the eminence of the present company, and of the production of the costlier kinds of silver-ware, on a great scale, in the United States. From first to last, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... regiment, and not only went himself to hear him preach, but exhorted his people likewise to do so. Such conduct, on his part, will be viewed differently by different people. It will be condemned by those who are servilely attached to their own particular communion, and disposed to extend the line of separation between themselves and others, even beyond the limits prescribed by their own canonical rules; but it will be approved ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning |
