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Absolute   /ˈæbsəlˌut/   Listen
Absolute

adjective
1.
Perfect or complete or pure.  "Absolute silence" , "Absolute truth" , "Absolute alcohol"
2.
Complete and without restriction or qualification; sometimes used informally as intensifiers.  Synonyms: downright, out-and-out, rank, right-down, sheer.  "An absolute dimwit" , "A downright lie" , "Out-and-out mayhem" , "An out-and-out lie" , "A rank outsider" , "Many right-down vices" , "Got the job through sheer persistence" , "Sheer stupidity"
3.
Not limited by law.
4.
Expressing finality with no implication of possible change.
5.
Not capable of being violated or infringed.  Synonyms: infrangible, inviolable.



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"Absolute" Quotes from Famous Books



... believe you want to prove me guilty, so that you can get rid of me and then have absolute control over the child. But you won't catch me ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg

... influence of which vast masses of men, notwithstanding the universal instinct of aversion to control, combine, under certain circumstances, by millions and millions, to maintain, for many successive centuries, the representatives of some one great family in a condition of exalted, and absolute, and utterly irresponsible ascendency over themselves, while they toil for them, watch over them, submit to endless and most humiliating privations in their behalf, and commit, if commanded to do so, the most ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... A failure—absolute and complete—however brought about, is a fair mark for mockery, if not for censure. Perhaps, however, I may hope that some of my readers, in charity, if not in justice, will believe that I have honestly tried to avoid over-coloring details of personal adventure, and that no ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... woman. Would you believe it?—he succeeded. Rastignac, who might have fought at need, like Jarnac, went over to the opinion of Henri II. on the strength of his great maxim, 'There is no such thing as absolute right; there are only circumstances.' This brings us to the history ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac

... friend objects to Johnson's Hundwaniy "Indian Steel," as too absolute; some word for steel being wanted. Even if it be so, I observe that in three places where Polo uses Ondanique (here, ch. xxi., and ch. xlii.), the phrase is always "steel and ondanique." This looks as if his mental expression were Pulad-i-Hundwani, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... shaped like a pack-saddle from base to summit. I found an absolute absence of signs relating to buried treasure. There was no pile of stones, no ancient blazes on the trees, none of the evidences of the three hundred thousand dollars, as set forth in the document ...
— Options • O. Henry

... right to manage her own property, both real and personal; and I had the law of descents so changed that a widow, instead of dower, which is a mere tenancy or life interest, now has, in all cases, an absolute fee in one-third of her husband's estate; if only one child, then a half; and if no children, I think two-thirds. I also had an additional clause added to the divorce law, making two years' habitual ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... came back in his fur-coat and top hat. Going up to the cat he took him by the fore-paws and put him inside the front of his coat, while Fyodor Timofeyitch appeared completely unconcerned, and did not even trouble to open his eyes. To him it was apparently a matter of absolute indifference whether he remained lying down, or were lifted up by his paws, whether he rested on his mattress ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... was as capable and energetic, as unscrupulous and inhuman, as the situation he was called upon to fill demanded. He began by assassinating all his relations and nobles who resented his desire to re-establish the absolute monarchy, was recognized as tsar by the Holy See of Rome in 981, and then began to fight the Greeks, the only possible occupation for any self-respecting Bulgarian ruler. The emperor at that time was Basil II (976-1025), who was brave and ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... find in my writings, teachings, and example a greater degree of this spirit than in others, they can justly declare it. But to think or speak of me in any manner as a Christ, is sacrilegious. Such a statement would not only be false, but the absolute antipode of Christian Science, and would savor more of heathenism ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy

... the incurable iniquity of the Company, so persuaded that it was not only full of abuses, but, as he said, one of the most corrupt and destructive tyrannies that probably ever existed in the world, as to be content with nothing short of the absolute deprivation of its power. He avowed himself no lover of names, and that he only contended for good government, from whatever quarter it might come. But the idea of good government coming from the Company he declared to be desperate and untenable. This intense animosity, which, considering his long ...
— Burke • John Morley

... their nature are possessed, as you know, of a very subtle flavour. The larger music, the more majestic lengths of verse called epics, the exact in sculpture, the classic drama, the most absolute kinds of wine, require a perfect harmony of circumstance for their appreciation. Whatever is strong, poignant, and immediate in its effect is not so difficult to suit; farce, horror, rage, or what not, these a man can find in the arts, even when ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... most happy to second her wishes, although entirely sceptical as to the value of my assistance. I recollect very well the interview that followed between Hammerfeldt and myself; throughout the Prince treated me en roi, speaking with absolute candour, disclosing to me the whole question, and assuming in me an elevation of spirit ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... plainer, if you mean me," said my Aunt Kezia, bluntly. "What do nine-tenths of the men care about monarchy or commonwealth— absolute kings or limited ones—Stuart or Hanoverian? They just care for Prince Charles, and his fine person and ringing voice, and his handsome dress: what else? And the women are worse than the men. Some men will give their lives for a cause, but you don't often see a woman do it. Mostly, ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt

... this habit of making companionship with the objects of Nature, all pleasing sights and sounds gradually become certain anodynes for his sorrow; and those who have this mental alembic for turning grief into a poetic melancholy can seldom be reduced to a state of absolute despondency. Poetry, or rather the poetic sentiment, exalts all our pleasures and soothes all our afflictions by some illusive charm, whether it be turned into the channel of religion or romance. Without this reflection of light from the imagination, what is the passion of love? and what is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... celebrated diaries that have come down to us. The best known of such books is Pepys's Diary which was written in a kind of shorthand, and so lay undeciphered from his death in 1703 for more than a century. One of its merits is its absolute self-revelation; for Pepys exposes to us his character without a shadow of reserve in all its vanity; and the other is the faithful picture it gives us of the time of ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... concern us here to examine the defects of Comte's view of the course of European history. But it interests us to observe that his synthesis of human Progress is, like Hegel's, what I have called a closed system. Just as his own absolute philosophy marked for Hegel the highest and ultimate term of human development, so for Comte the coming society whose organisation he adumbrated was the final state of humanity beyond which there would be no ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... secret opinion of every engineer present, for, however innocent of intended wrong-doing engineers assuredly are as a group in their work of scientific investigation and development, the statement that engineers were responsible for the conflict then raging in Europe was absolute truth. ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton

... absolute aesthetic standard, it is satisfactory to note how nearly unanimous our poets are in their portrayal of Sappho. [Footnote: No doubt they are influenced by the glimpse of her given in Longinus, On the Sublime.] This is the more remarkable, ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... cautioned not to do, such as their religion and burial rites; but they could not help thinking of this elegant lady's comely form being torn to pieces by the crows and vultures in the Tower of Silence with absolute horror. ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic

... willing to learn," remarked Monpavon with bitterness. "Instead of consulting people of experience—ps, ps, ps—first sponger that comes along. Have you seen the horses that Bois l'Hery has persuaded him to buy? Absolute rubbish those animals. And he paid twenty thousand francs for them. We may wager that Bois l'Hery ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... instinct was to shun all living things. At such times his presence, for all his loving patience, would have been as a knife in her wound. Besides, he would always be there, when escape from herself for a while became an absolute necessity. More and more she had come to regard him as her comforter. Not from anything he ever said or did. Rather, it seemed to her, because that with him she felt no ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... his welding projector and a beam carried him back to the tube. There, in the practically absolute vacuum of space, the last openings in the glass were sealed, and man and great transmitting tube were wafted lightly ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... lots more of it. As it happens, they need me there. There's plenty of copper, but there's big transportation and employment problems that I seem better able to solve than the other chaps—though of course I'm an absolute muff when it comes to engineering problems. But I've had certain training and—I'm going to arrange things so that I get up there at least once a year. Next summer I'll make a much longer trip—see the mountains—oh, glorious mountains—and funny half-Russian ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... of continuous Revelation through the Spirit is a part of Christianity, and the condition of its acceptance as the final or absolute Religion, ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall

... legibility. Although several other modern faces of type have been designed on much the same lines, notably one for The Dove's Press in England, the "Montaigne" seems the best of them all, because of its freedom, and its absolute divorce from the overdone, exaggerated, heavy-faced effects of the Morris ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown

... have we, the beautiful, (25) just claim to boast. The strong man may by dint of toil obtain good things; the brave, by danger boldly faced, and the wise by eloquence of speech; but to the beautiful alone it is given to achieve all ends in absolute quiescence. To take myself as an example. I know that riches are a sweet possession, yet sweeter far to me to give all that I have to Cleinias than to receive a fortune from another. Gladly would I become a slave—ay, forfeit freedom—if Cleinias would ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon

... edition we are guided solely by the absolute respect which we have for the genius of Ardant du Picq. We have endeavored to reproduce his papers in their entirety, without removing or adding anything. Certain disconnected portions have an inspired and fiery touch which would be lessened by the superfluous ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq

... to Don Lope's neck, and pressing him with the earnestness of unbounded confidence and love—"Never," she continued, "had Theodora a single thought concealed from you; you, the absolute master of my heart, and the most ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... intelligence was the guardian of Renee during the foolish husband's flights about Paris and over Europe, and, for a proof of her consummate astuteness, Renee had no secrets and had absolute liberty. And hitherto no man could build a boast on her reputation. The liberty she would have had at any cost, as Madame d'Auffray knew; and an attempt to restrict it would ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the kind of apparition to inspire a patient with a sense of absolute completeness, but as he presently delivered the opinion, 'We are as right as we can be, Mrs Bangham, and we shall come out of this like a house afire;' and as he and Mrs Bangham took possession of the poor helpless pair, as everybody else ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... question asked. Afterwards I was very glad to think that I had done the man no injury. At the moment I knew that I could hurt him if I would, and what is more I had the desire to do so. It came to me, I suppose, with that breath of the past when I was so great and absolute. Perhaps I, or that part of me then incarnate, was a tyrant in those days, and this is why now I must be so humble. Fate is turning my pride to its hammer and beating ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard

... sea by the trade wind, and for many days did not change a sail. The poor mariners gradually became uneasy at the length of the voyage. The sight of small birds, too feeble to fly far, cheered their hearts for a time, but again their impatience rose to absolute mutiny. Then new hopes diverted them. There was an appearance of land, and the ships altered their course and stood all night to the south-west, but the morning light put an end to their hopes; the fancied land proved to be ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... The other day he looked almost degraded; as men look when they let physical things get absolute domination over them. It's an ugly subject, but—you and I know of ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... flexibility and perfect command both of language and thought, they were the expression of a piercing and large insight into character and conscience and motives, of a sympathy at once most tender and most stern with the tempted and the wavering, of an absolute and burning faith in God and His counsels, in His love, in His judgments, in the awful glory of His generosity and His magnificence. They made men think of the things which the preacher spoke of, and not ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... Nights' serves admirably as a foil to the absolute realism of the picture in general. We enjoy being carried away from trivial and commonplace characters, scenes, and incidents; from the matter-of-fact surroundings of a workaday world, a life of eating and drinking, sleeping and waking, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... winter that the utmost efforts of the summer heat cannot melt it all. He adds, that the existence of permanent snow in holes or caves must depend more upon the amount of winter snow, and the freedom from hot winds, than on the absolute elevation ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... masterly fancy, for which our time can offer no analogy. A series of Berthe Morisot's works looks like a veritable bouquet whose brilliancy is due less to the colour-schemes which are comparatively soft, grey and blue, than to the absolute correctness of the values. A hundred canvases, and perhaps three hundred water-colours attest this talent of the first rank. Normandy coast scenes with pearly skies and turquoise horizons, sparkling Nice gardens, fruit-laden orchards, girls in white ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair

... and was publicly installed pastor of Plymouth Church on the 11th of November, 1847. He at once "announced in Plymouth pulpit the same principles that he had in Indianapolis, namely, his determination to preach Christ among them not as an absolute system of doctrines, not as a bygone historical personage, but as the living Lord and God, and to bring all the ways and usages of society to the test of His standards. He announced to all whom it might concern, that he considered temperance and ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... sit down thirteen at a table, obeying chance omens, and the like. How much more likely is the multitude to be guided by such things. You can't form any adequate idea of the narrow limits of the mind in its raw state; it is a place of absolute darkness, especially when, as often happens, a bad, unjust and malicious heart is at the bottom of it. People in this condition—and they form the great bulk of humanity—must be led and controlled as well as may be, even if it be by really superstitious motives; until such time as they become ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer

... give a large name to the various interpretations of subtle beauty, could offer in some measure that hope, that serenity; could lend the dignity to life which scientific investigations tended to sweep away. Science seemed to reveal the absolute pettiness, the minute insignificance of all created things, to show how inconsiderable a space each separate individual occupied in the sum of forces; the thought weighed heavily upon Hugh that he was only as the tiniest of the drops of water in a vast cataract that ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... first day of Lent; one of the two absolute Fast Days of the Church, the other being Good Friday. In ancient times the first day of Lent was called Caput Jejunii, i.e., "Head of the Fast," because Lent began on that day. It was also called Dies Cinerum, i.e., "Day of Ashes," from the custom ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller

... spectrograph has great advantages over the telescope in discovering and observing double stars whose components are very close together, by virtue of the facts that the spectrograph measures, velocities of approach and recession in absolute units—so many kilometers per second—and that the speeds of rotation in binary systems are higher the closer together the two components are. The observations of the brighter helium stars, especially those made at the Yerkes Observatory by Frost and Adams, have shown ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... so doing this, the obligation was absolute, and the authority indisputable, that Rodney's course was professionally meritorious. In such case his action would have risen little above that obedience to orders, in which, as Nelson said, the generality find "all perfection." ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... The successes of the Equi, (young Democracy,) however, rendered the appointment of a Dictator necessary, and CINCINNATUS was chosen to that high office. He laid aside his rural habiliments, assumed the ensigns of absolute power, levied a new army, marched all night to bring the necessary succor to the Consul MINCIUS, (W. M. TWEED,) who was surrounded by the enemy and blockaded in his camp, (Albany,) and before morning ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various

... could she, when she felt that her throat was choked with sobs? Yet she felt so happy, so happy that never since the day of her first communion, when Pater Bonifacius had blessed her and assured her that her soul was as white as that of an angel—never since then had she known such perfect, such absolute happiness. She could not speak, she almost thought once that she was going to faint, so strange was the thrill of joy which went right through her when Andor's lips rested for one brief, ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... thronged and crowded thoroughfare of letters,—that they had no more strength or adaptation to win bread for her than a broken-winged butterfly to draw a plough; and it took some resolution in the background of her tenderness to make the poor applicant entirely certain of this. In cases like this, absolute certainty is the very greatest, the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... The death of such men as Charles Rolls and Edward Busk was a part of the heavy price that had to be paid for victory; before victory was in sight. There was no other way; the work that they did could not be spared, and could never have been even attempted except by the quiet of absolute courage. ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh

... How absolute is that dividing line between woman's progress and woman suffrage, we may realize when we consider what the result would be if we could know to-morrow, beyond a peradventure, that woman never would vote in the United States. Not one of her charities, great or small, would be crippled. Not a ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... delicately enveloped and carefully superscribed billet, and commands him to proceed forthwith to the workhouse. A tear courses slowly down his time-wrinkled face, he hesitates, would speak one word in his own defence. But the word of his owner is absolute, and in obedience to the wave of her hand he totters to the door, and disappears. His tears are only those of a slave. How useless fall the tears of him who has no voice, no power to assert his manhood! And yet, in that shrunken bosom-in that figure, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... perfect patience; other moments are but a preparation, or after-taste of it. Few men distinguish between them as jealously as he. Hence so many flaws even in the choicest work. But for Leonardo the distinction is absolute, and, in the moment of bien-etre, the alchemy complete: the idea is stricken into colour and imagery: a cloudy mysticism is refined to a subdued and graceful mystery, and painting pleases the eye while ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater

... charlatans in our own cause. If our position in society is such as obliges us to receive such men, we all know the moral uses of ice, and under the guise of the most frigid politeness we can make them feel their absolute exclusion from the inner circle of our friends and intimates. There need be no discussion between you and your son—just the hint: "Oh, mother, I would not ask that fellow if I were you," and you will know what ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... end of all States, or the "Esprit des Lois," as Montesquieu maintains, should be the security to each member of the community of all "those absolute rights which are vested in them by ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... it should not yet have appeared in book form. A sort of informal committee—consisting of more than half the authors here represented—have arranged the book and decided what should be printed and what omitted, but, as a general rule, the poets have been allowed absolute freedom in this direction, limitations of space only being imposed upon them. Also, to avoid any appearance of precedence, they have ...
— Some Imagist Poets - An Anthology • Richard Aldington

... with the greatest difficulty; and he was now confined to his bed again, struck down by a relapse. The doctors, this time, had no fear for his life, provided that his patience would support him through a lengthened period of the most absolute repose. ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... before, sold the diamond cross. That cross which he thought himself so lucky to have stolen, and to have disposed of undetected, was, in fact, the cause of his being in his present dreadful situation. It was at the Jew's that he connected himself with this gang of robbers, to whom he was now become an absolute slave. ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... charge in the great house on the Hill a mile and a half from New York. Imagine any modern father leaving his little girl behind in a more or less remote country place with a small army of servants under her and full and absolute authority over them and herself! But I take it that there are not many modern little girls like Theodosia Burr. Certainly there are very few who could translate the American Constitution into French, and Theo ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... the day in tears and in absolute despair, and wrote to tell him of my conviction. Allowing for difference of time between Quetta and Oxford, my mental telegram reached me in the same hour that my brother, whilst on the march, and only thirty miles beyond Quetta, was suddenly struck down in ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates

... That only men incredulous of despair, Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air Beat upward to God's throne in loud access Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness In souls as countries lieth silent-bare Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death— Most like a monumental statue set In everlasting watch and moveless woe Till itself crumble to the dust beneath. Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet: If ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... This forgery produced an immense extension of the papal power. It displaced the old system of church government, divesting it of the republican attributes it had possessed, and transforming it into an absolute monarchy. It brought the bishops into subjection to Rome, and made the pontiff the supreme judge of the clergy of the whole Christian world. It prepared the way for the great attempt, subsequently made by Hildebrand, to convert the states of Europe into a theocratic priest ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... time the first fury of the tempest had spent itself, or perhaps we did not feel it so much as we scudded before it, but at all events the seas, which at first had been kept down by the wind and lay flat and frothing, now got up into absolute mountains. A singular change, too, had come over the heavens. Around in every direction it was still as black as pitch, but nearly overhead there burst out, all at once, a circular rift of clear sky—as ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... can look upon the world and can know it, and can by thinking about it succeed in giving a reasonable account of it. That there may be a difference between the world as it really is and the world as it appears to man, and that it may be impossible for man to attain to a knowledge of the absolute truth of things, does not seem ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... long time, he opened his eyes. The trees, the sky,—all the country was asleep; the absolute tranquillity of space lay lightly in the air and bathed the earth with a drowsy light. And the boy yielded himself to the silence. His eyes mirrored the mystic, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... relieved, but when Blake left him he grew thoughtful. His nephew's demonstration with the chessmen had lifted a weight off his mind, but he was troubled by a doubt about the absolute correctness of his explanation. Moreover, when he dwelt upon it, the doubt gathered strength, but there was nothing that he could do; Dick obviously meant to stick to his story, and Bertram could not be questioned. Another matter troubled him; Dick, ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss

... V."), whereas a colony of bees is an absolute democracy; the rulers and governors and "officers of sorts" are the workers, the masses, the common people. A strict regard to fact also would spoil those fairy ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... replied Harley. He was moved by the little man's childlike and absolute faith and his reverence for Jimmy Grayson as a demigod. It was not without pathos, and Harley at once took him into the next car and introduced him to Grayson, who received him with the natural cordiality that never deserted him. Plover, the little man said was his name—William Plover, of Kalapoosa, ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... be a mere perversion of language to call this a "theological" state of mind, either in the proper sense of the word "theological," or as contrasted with "scientific" or "positive." The child does not worship either father or mother, dog or doll. On the contrary, nothing is more curious than the absolute irreverence, if I may so say, of a kindly-treated young child; its tendency to believe in itself as the centre of the universe, and its disposition to exercise despotic tyranny over those who could crush it with ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... he attended regularly, Grace was always present, and to gaze at her angelic face was, in itself, almost a religious exercise. Abbott never felt so unworthy as when in her presence; an unerring instinct seemed to have provided her with an absolute standard of right and wrong, and she was so invariably right that no human affection was worthy of her unless refined seven times. ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis

... defective, the symmetry of her chin, carrying with it the oval of her cheek and jaws, was perfect. How many a face, otherwise lovely to look upon, is made mean and comparatively base, either by the lengthening or the shortening of the chin! That absolute perfection which Miss Lawrie owned, we do not, perhaps, often meet. But when found, I confess that nothing to me gives so sure an evidence of true blood ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... could but look at him without disgust," murmured Cinthia; "if he had but the appearance of something human! Satan must certainly have appeared to his mother, and thence came her child into the world with such a frightful countenance. Ugh! it's an absolute mask, only that I never saw a ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis

... to Heaven.' 'Have ye so?' said Roberto; 'then I pray you pardon me.' 'Nay, more,' quoth the player, 'I can serve to make a pretty speech, for I was a country author, passing at a moral; for it was I that penned The Moral of Man's Wit, The Dialogue of Dives, and for seven years' space was absolute interpreter of the puppets. But now my almanac is out ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson

... 'I should like it immensely. I thought him a hateful-looking old person; but there was something so thoroughly uncanny about him that he exercised an absolute fascination upon me: he magnetised me, I think, as the green-eyed cat magnetises the bird. I have been positively longing to see him again. He is a kind of human monster, and I hope some one will ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... what commonly passes for the ungainly and the deformed; to draw happiness and hopefulness from despair itself; and, above all, so to have made known to his own countrymen the wants and sufferings of the poor, the ignorant, and the neglected, that they could be left in absolute neglect no more. "A triumph has been prepared for him," wrote Mr. Ticknor to our dear friend Kenyon, "in which the whole country will join. He will have a progress through the States unequaled since Lafayette's." Daniel Webster told the Americans that Dickens had done more already to ameliorate ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... be absolute truth, my good friend!" retorted Mirandolet, calmly. "I know the Chinese—better than you think. As soon as I heard of this affair tonight, I came to you to put you up to the Chinese trick of secreting things of value in their pigtails—it did not occur to ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher

... scarlet and saffron and wine-yellow, the girl's green gown glowed like an emerald, and her eyes, too, seemed emeralds, vivid, inscrutable, of a clear verdancy that was quite untinged with either blue or gray. Very black lashes shaded them. The long oval of her face (you might have objected), was of an absolute pallor, rarely quickening to a flush; but her petulant lips burned crimson, and her hair mimicked the dwindling radiance of the autumn sunlight and shamed it. All in all, the aspect of Adelais Vernon was, beyond any questioning, spiced with a sorcerous tang; say, the look of a young witch shrewd ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... infer. That within one little cincture we are yet absolute. No prying eye can penetrate here. Of our words, of our actions, during a few remaining hours, we ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... say all she felt, not choosing to be at absolute variance, and the threatened quarrel blew over like a shower ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... passionately devout, my mother. Being absolutely illiterate, she would murmur meaningless words, in the singsong of a prayer, pretending to herself that she was performing her devotions. This, however, she would do with absolute earnestness and fervor, often with tears of ecstasy coming to her eyes. To be sure, she knew how to bless the Sabbath candles and to recite the two or three other brief prayers that our religion exacts from married women. But she was not contented ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... went out in that sickness. But, listen now: whatever has happened—I'm not yet sure what it is—I no longer suffer. Two things only I know: that our creed still has my godless, scoffing, unbaptised father in hell, and that my love for him—my absolute ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... we went it was not so good. They had heard in the meantime all about us, and that we had girls from the higher Castes with us, and this was terrible in their eyes. For the Brahman, from his lofty position of absolute supremacy, holds in very small account the souls of those he calls low-caste; but if any from the middle distance (he would not describe them as near himself, only dangerously nearer than the others) "fall into the pit of the Christian ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... Union Pacific transcontinental railroads had necessitated the making of new treaties with these people. Scarcely was the agreement completed by which they ceded a right of way in return for assurances of permanent and absolute possession of other territory, including the Black Hills and Bighorn Mountains, when gold was discovered in these regions. This fact created great excitement and a general determination to dispossess the Sioux of the country just guaranteed to them, ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman

... in absolute incomprehension. "I thought you was cryin' for me, an' Jim, an' all our prisent troubles, but I ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... of southern Africa was guaranteed by the British in the late 19th century; independence was granted in 1968. Student and labor unrest during the 1990s pressured King Mswati III, the world's last absolute monarch, to grudgingly allow political reform and greater democracy, although he has backslid on these promises in recent years. Swaziland recently surpassed Botswana as the country with the world's highest known ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... employed with the Jersey troops. This only proves, however, that human patience has its limits, as no European army would endure the tenth part of such sufferings, that citizens alone can support nudity, hunger, cold, labour, and the absolute want of that pay which is necessary to soldiers, who are more hardy and more patient, I believe, ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... approaching footsteps and turned toward him. Absolute bewilderment was on her face for a moment, and then it glowed with light and joy. Her dark, sad eyes sparkled. She was radiant, as if some great, long-looked for happiness had come to her. She came eagerly toward him, holding out ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch

... what he is doing," returned Marion. "Perhaps, by giving them perfect health, and every thing they wanted, with absolute good temper, and making them very fond of each other besides, God might have provided himself a people he would have had no difficulty in governing, and amongst whom, in consequence, there would have been no crime and no struggle or suffering. ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald

... refutation, assert it to be simply impracticable to induce and obtain from Chinese carpenters that accurate, close, substantial, and lasting workmanship which not only can be, but is derived from the convict artificers under the absolute control of the present able ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair

... who was too weak to hold its own, and might have died that night had I not taken it upon my knee and put some food between its grey lips. No one spoke; it grew dark; there was no candle or other light. I sat awhile in the absolute silence, then fell fast asleep with the child on my knees, wrapped in my cloak. In the morning, when I awoke, Virginia ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... his football shoulders and leaned forward earnestly. "No, Doctor, that's exactly the way to put it." He said to Crowley, very seriously, "We've done this most efficiently. We've gone through absolute piles of statistics. We've...." ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)

... sure of being indulged in the common privileges of the poetic license. Through all the disguise of fiction a grave scientific doctrine may be detected lying beneath some of the delineations of character. He has used this doctrine as a part of the machinery of his story without pledging his absolute belief in it to the extent to which it is asserted or implied. It was adopted as a convenient medium of truth rather than as an accepted scientific conclusion. The reader must judge for himself what is the value of various stories cited from old authors. He must decide how much ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... the spirit of absolute fairness governed all his movements, and he took special pains to guard against it being "suspected that I was attempting to juggle Hardin out of a nomination for Congress by juggling him into one for governor." "I should be pleased," he wrote again in January, "if I ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... may seem strange, yet it is an undisputable fact that, prior to the establishment of the daily weather reports, the knowledge on this subject amounted to very little, and was not even worthy of being designated a science. Prior to the advent of the weather map the world was in absolute ignorance of the laws governing the atmosphere. Sure, we had had large volumes on the laws of storms, but the later revelations leave them shelved high and dry on the shores and as useless as a wreck in a similar condition; with the daily weather map before us ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various

... shared by all these earlier pictures is their artlessness and often their absolute ugliness. Quaint is the highest adjective that fits them. In books of the later period not a few blocks of earlier date and of really fine design reappear; but in the chap-books quite 'prentice hands ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White

... time that it sees little more chance for the South. There is, we think, a preparation for withdrawing their belligerent declaration and acknowledging again the authority of the Federal Government over all the national territory to be absolute and undisputed. One more victory will bring us up to ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... it here in time, there is no doubt, but we must labor long to secure a plus of labor that we can dry and store for future use. Meanwhile we want to build a suitable unitary building, which is almost an absolute necessity; farming implements and various appliances are wanted to suit the new conditions under which we live, and many things for comfort, too ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... between the velocity and the pressure of the wind is one that is not yet known with absolute certainty. Many text-books on engineering give the relation P.005 v^2 when P is the pressure in lb per sq. ft. and v the velocity in miles per hour. The history of this untrue relation is curious. It was given about the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various

... his eyebrows contracted into a heavy frown. For him it was a bitter moment. He was only a half-educated, illiterate man, possessed of sturdy common sense and a wonderful tenacity of purpose. He had permitted himself to indulge in a little silent but none the less absolute hero-worship, and Mannering had ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... smooth, red sand. There were a few moments when the distant peaks and domes and turrets were glorified in changing sunset hues. But the beauty was fleeting. Fay still showed lassitude. She was quiet, yet cheerful, and the sweetness of her smile, her absolute trust in him, stirred and strengthened anew his spirit. Yet he suffered torture when he thought of trusting Fay's life, her soul, and her beauty to this ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... Captain's account, than twelve men capable of doing their duty." Baudin's own journal says they were only four; but, whatever the number may have been, even these were sick, and could only perform any kind of work under the whip of absolute necessity. All the sufferers were attended with "the most touching activity" by the principal surgeon ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... looking at the new sovereign of whose intentions legends were already created. They expected great changes, though no one knew what these changes might be. This alone was undoubted, that the severity of officials had decreased, that Phoenicians collected rent in a less absolute manner, and the Egyptian people, always so submissive, had begun to raise their heads when priests ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... there may be such serious interruption to the common and necessary use of property as will be equivalent to a taking. "It would be * * * [an] unsatisfactory result, if * * *, it shall be held that if the government refrains from the absolute conversion of real property to the uses of the public, it can destroy its value entirely, can inflict irreparable and permanent injury to any extent, can in effect, subject it to total destruction without making any compensation, because, in the narrowest sense of that ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... colony. It had been a part of the first determinations on this business, that the Sirius should, as I have mentioned, proceed directly from Norfolk Island on her voyage to China; but Captain Hunter having represented the absolute necessity he should be under of touching somewhere to wood and water, owing to the number he should have on board, that idea was given up, and Captain Hunter was directed to return with the Sirius to this port for ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... say that at this early epoch despotism is the best friend of humanity and, paradoxical as it may sound, of liberty. For after all there is more liberty in the best sense—liberty to think our own thoughts and to fashion our own destinies—under the most absolute despotism, the most grinding tyranny, than under the apparent freedom of savage life, where the individual's lot is cast from the cradle to the grave in the iron ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... physical body is not effected by external means, but is organic. The members may be many and diverse, but they are all necessary and have their respective places and work. So also with the body of Christ. Union with Christ is not dependent upon absolute uniformity except in the one thing—the fundamental experience by which we are made members of Christ. In the apostolic period the children of God who loved our Lord and were known of him were not all of one age or size or nationality. They ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith

... show that a perpetual and impassable barrier was intended to be erected between the white race and the one which they had reduced to slavery and governed as subjects with absolute and despotic power, and which they then looked upon as so far below them in the scale of created beings that intermarriages between white persons and negroes or mulattoes were regarded as unnatural and immoral, and punished as crimes, not only in the parties, but in the ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... passage through the St. Marys Falls Canal now permitted to vessels of all nations, he shall deem to be reciprocally unjust and unreasonable, he shall have the power, and it shall be his duty, to suspend, by proclamation to that effect, for such time and to such extent (including absolute prohibition) as he shall deem just, the right of free passage through the St. Marys Falls Canal so far as it relates to vessels owned by the subjects of the government so discriminating against the citizens, ports, or vessels ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... that Ford was genuinely distressed, and in his anxiety to be loyal to his friend rather overdid it. His letter has an air of patronage that the writer certainly never intended. The outstanding feature is its absolute selflessness. Ford never seems to think of himself, or that Borrow might have made a concession to their friendship. Happy Ford! The unfortunate episode estranged Borrow from Ford. Letters between them became less and less frequent and finally ceased altogether, ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... been striving in every way possible to help the serfs, the Russian Government did all in its power to hinder them. This government was then an absolute autocracy, which means that it was under the complete control of one ruler and a few advisors. The Czar of Russia knew that when his people grew better educated and more enlightened his own power would grow less, ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... anthems of the free, The lovers absolute—ah, hear the call! Beyond the long island and the sheltering sea, That World I found which holds my ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Poor fellow! Young, generous, disdaining obligation, never knowing the want of money, how must he have felt on being left quite destitute, penniless, running in arrear for absolute necessaries; in debt to a good woman who lived by letting lodgings, and who dunned him, after so long a delay, in so indirect and delicate a manner!—What must he have suffered, accustomed to regard you as a father, ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... mentioned previously as indicating the presence or absence of sufficient quantities of certain plant foods serve as a general guide, but are not absolute. The best method of determining what plant foods are lacking in the soil is to carry on ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich

... dilate, and his face shone with the knowledge of mastery and power. His voice was so clear and his manner so full of authority and command, that it carried conviction to the minds of all those who were seated listening to him. He spoke of what would happen as if he was dealing with an absolute certainty, and went on with such wonderful lucidity and force of reasoning that they seemed to ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... rights of natural citizenship secured to citizens of the United States by the national constitution, then an offense is committed against the laws of the United States, and it is not only the right but the absolute duty of the national government to interfere and afford the citizens that protection which every good government ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... some strange impulse in the presence of this pure, unworldly girl, Stephen Potter suddenly spoke out, for the first time since his boyhood, with absolute sincerity. ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson

... call the Fresche River, which serves as a boundary between them and the English. The English, however, come very near to them, choosing to hold lands under the Hollanders, who ask nothing, rather than depend on the English Milords, who exact rents, and would fain be absolute. On the other side, southward, towards Virginia, its limits are the river which they call the South River, on which there is also a Dutch settlement, but the Swedes have one at its mouth extremely well supplied with cannons and men. It is believed that these Swedes are maintained by some ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor

... as a soldier confirmed in my own mind the opinion, entertained and acted upon by others from the formation of the Government, that the maintenance of large standing armies in our country would be not only dangerous, but unnecessary. They also illustrated the importance—I might well say the absolute necessity—of the military science and practical skill furnished in such an eminent degree by the institution which has made your Army what it is, under the discipline and instruction of officers not more distinguished for their solid attainments, gallantry, and devotion to the public service than ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson

... experiment was doomed to ultimate failure, for it ran counter to some of the noblest instincts of human nature. But its administration was in the hands of able men. The power of the clergy was well-nigh absolute. The political organization of the township depended upon the ecclesiastical organization as long as the right to vote was confined to church members. How sacrosanct and awful was the position of the clergyman may be perceived from Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil" ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... you—of all people—to get any mistaken impression about me," I said. "So, I'm going to tell you something. During the whole of the time you and I were on that yawl, I was in an absolute panic of fear!" ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... much more water than the first. Upon its banks at the crossing of the road stood the village of Perryville, and there, according to his best information and belief, lay the Southern army. But he meant to see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears, and thus return to McCook's force with absolute certainty. ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the master, "that he came back to the hotel last night in a state of absolute intoxication. Monsieur was accompanied by a stranger, who was gentlemanly, it it true; but since Monsieur acknowledges that that stranger was personally unknown to him, Monsieur may well perceive ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... the most stupid ploughboys of England, it would have been a great error to put him in the same intellectual rank with such ploughboys. It is indeed only by reading that men can become profoundly acquainted with any science. But the arts of poetry and rhetoric may be carried near to absolute perfection, and may exercise a mighty influence on the public mind, in an age in which books are wholly or almost wholly unknown. The first great painter of life and manners has described, with a vivacity which makes it impossible to doubt that he ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the opening of the sacred book to its very last page. The subtle distinction of religious worship into latria, dulia, and hyperdulia, the refined classification of prayer under the two heads of direct, absolute, final, sovereign, on the one hand, and of oblique, relative, transitory, subaltern, on the other, swell indeed many elaborate works of casuistry, but are not discoverable in the remains of primitive Christians, nor in the writings of God's word have they ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler

... there's something in what you say,—more than what you realize. I've argued annihilation up to this point and that, and almost proved it to my own mind; but there's always some point that I can't quite get over. If I had the certainty, the absolute certainty, that this was all there was to be of it, I wouldn't want to live an hour longer, not a minute! But it's the uncertainty that keeps me. What I'm afraid of is, that if I get out of it here, I might ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells

... did not beguile Shakespeare to "the very heart of loss," as he cried; but to the innermost shrine of the temple of Fame. It was his absolute abandonment to passion which made Shakespeare the supreme poet. If it had not been for his excessive sensuality, and his mad passion for his "gipsy," we should never have had from him "Hamlet," "Macbeth," "Othello," "Antony ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... Spectator"—in chapter third of the third book. It is of course not a "parody" in the proper sense, for it has no element of satire or burlesque, and imitates not the foibles but the merits of the original, with an absolute illusion. The 341st number of the Spectator, dated Tuesday, April 1, 1712, is so absolutely like Dick Steele at his best, that Addison himself would have been deceived by it. Steele hardly ever wrote anything so bright and amusing. It is not a "parody": it is a forgery; but a forgery which ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... informed of it," said Kidd, archly. "I am not acquainted with Bassanio, my lady, but I overheard Sir Walter enjoining upon the others the absolute necessity of keeping the whole affair from Bassanio, because he was afraid he would not consent to it. 'Bassanio has a most beautiful wife, gentlemen,' said Sir Walter, 'and he wouldn't think of parting with her under any circumstances; therefore let us keep our intentions a secret ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs

... glass tube is very useful for feeding gruels and drinks, and little white china boats with spouts are also good. A wooden tray with legs six or seven inches high, to stand on the bed, is very convenient for serving meals. Let ventilation, sunshine, and absolute cleanliness rule in the sick-room. Never raise a dust, but wipe the carpet with a damp cloth, and pick up bits as needed. Never let lamp or sun light shine directly in the eyes, and, when the patient shows desire to sleep, darken the room a little. Never whisper, nor ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell

... experiment is mentioned with a newly killed animal, whose brain was taken out and its place filled with substances producing electric action, when the process of digestion, that had been interrupted, was instantly resumed, thus "showing the absolute identity of the brain with a galvanic battery." The experiment of inducing muscular action in a corpse, by applying galvanism, is sufficiently well known. To borrow an illustration from Sidney Smith, it would seem, ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen

... Briggs, Allen, Ashmun, Choate, Winthrop, Davis, Everett, and their associates—were men whose private and public honor was without a stain. Its political managers were not its holders of office or its seekers of office. It contained a large body of able and influential men who wielded the power of absolute disinterestedness. They were satisfied if they could contribute, by counsel or labor, to the well-being of the State by the advancement of their cherished political principles. They asked no other reward. The Whigs were in favor of using wisely, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... future to him!... In fact, he goes farther and says that woman, when she indulges in those experiments, is following the dictates of a loathsome and mean self-interest. Self-interest, when this conduct entails endless dangers and bitterness! Self-interest, when it demands of us, before all, an absolute contempt of a world to which nearly all are slaves, when it exposes us to insults and suffering and increases the number of our enemies and multiplies the obstacles in our path!... No, that woman is not selfish who, in all good ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc

... most solemn oaths? And finally, should he yield to the solicitation of Europe, and enact liberal laws one day, only to let them fall into desuetude the next, diplomatists are once more disarmed. To violate its own laws is a special privilege of absolute monarchy. ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... it goes the tail dies down and finally disappears. The comet itself dwindles to a hairy star once more and goes—whither? Into space so remote that we cannot even dream of it—far away into cold more appalling than anything we could measure, the cold of absolute space. More and more slowly it travels, always away and away, until the sun, a short time back a huge furnace covering all the sky, is now but a faint star. Thus on its lonely journey unseen and unknown the ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton

... having a pretty good time in there," said Fulkerson, detaching himself from his own absolute good time ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... a Hudson Bay trading post where the head factor is the absolute lord. A young fellow risked his life and won a ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... from his learning did not countervail the mischief he brought upon himself in the exercise of his authority; so difficult it is for those to obtain the virtue that is necessary for a wise man, who have the absolute power to do what they please without control. At the first he got himself such friends as were in all respects the most worthy, and was greatly beloved by them, while he imitated their zealous application to the learning and to the glorious ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... came under my personal observation proved that a sincere love existed between masters and slaves. In many instances I saw planters impoverished by the war supporting old slaves or whole families in absolute idleness, simply because the poor creatures, after a short trial of freedom's vicissitudes, had come back to 'home an' ole mars',' and he had not the heart to turn ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... until sufficient time to obviate suspicion should have elapsed after father's death. We had no proof that would stand in any court—even if we should have been given the chance to adopt that course. And without absolute, irrefutable proof, it was all so cleverly woven, stretched over so many years, that our charge must have been held to be too visionary and fantastic to have ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... its health; its preservation; its laws, etc. What is known as "Raja Yoga" deals with the Mind; its control; its development; its unfoldment, etc. What is known as "Bhakti Yoga" deals with the Love of the Absolute—God. What is known as "Gnani Yoga" deals with the scientific and intellectual knowing of the great questions regarding Life and what lies back of ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... Shenandoah by Kershaw's division of Anderson's corps and two brigades of Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry, but that the attack had been handsomely repulsed, with a capture of two battle-flags and three hundred prisoners. This was an absolute confirmation of the despatch from Grant; and I was now more than satisfied with the ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... ahead of us all, with the sorely wounded admiral lying bleeding in his cot on her deck, our gallant chief persisting in watching the battle to its bitter end, in spite of being compelled from absolute exhaustion to give up the immediate command of the squadron to his senior officer, Captain Shadwell; though it was as much as the gunboat could do to keep her prominent position, in face of the terrible fire on ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... danger of neglect. The expression which is used very often on these occasions is, the piece wants repose—a word which perfectly expresses a relief of the mind from that state of hurry and anxiety which it suffers when looking at a work of this character. On the other hand, absolute unity, that is, a large work consisting of one group or mass of light only, would be as defective as an heroic poem without episode, or any collateral incidents to recreate the mind with that variety ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet

... can bear. The houses would then be constantly well attended, and the proprietors, actors, authors, and all those concerned in their success, secure against the consequences of failure, and the true interest of the art be likewise promoted. In a word, neither absolute independence, nor exclusive privilege should prevail; but a middle course be adopted, in order to fix the fate of those great scenic establishments, which, by forming so essential a part of public ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... unconsciousness of the affection, and even adoration, of the little group of younger men who call themselves his "fans"—I suppose that B——'s talk is as nearly Johnsonian in virtue and pungency as any spoken wisdom now hearable in this country. To know him is, in the absolute truth of that enduring phrase, a liberal education. To his simplicity, his valorous militancy for truth, he joins the mind of a great scholar, the placable spirit ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... the scudding rack and mist and the sheeted rain almost hid the landscape from the sight. There was a fearful gloom, illumined still more fearfully by the streams of lightning which glittered among the raindrops. Never had Dolph beheld such an absolute warring of the elements; it seemed as if the storm was tearing and rending its way through the mountain defile, and had brought all the ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... Smith, Francis Smith, and Charles Brown permission to ship themselves on board His Majesty's ship Investigator, and on the return of that ship to this port, according to Captain Flinders' recommendation of them, severally and individually, they will receive conditional emancipations or absolute pardons, ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... war, in some cases voluntarily, but much more often because they were impressed. They had been trained at the guns with the greatest care by Lieutenant Allen. And finally Commodore Decatur handled his ship with absolute faultlessness. To sum up: a brave and skilful crew, ably commanded, was matched against an equally brave but unskilful one, with an incompetent leader; and this accounts for the disparity of loss being so much greater ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... conclusion is for him a source of inexpressible dismay, because he had trusted so deeply in the possibility of reaching some brighter truth. No; not a new discovery;—but one who approaches it with so much sensibility feels it to be new, with all the fervor which the most absolute novelty could rouse. This is the deepest and the true originality, to possess such intensity of feeling that the oldest truth, when approached by our own methods, shall be full of a ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop



Words linked to "Absolute" :   relative, unalienable, unambiguous, univocal, unquestioning, abstract, living, inalienable, unequivocal, infinite, implicit, arbitrary, complete, direct, abstraction



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