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Impel   /ɪmpˈɛl/   Listen
Impel

verb
(past & past part. impelled; pres. part. impelling)
1.
Urge or force (a person) to an action; constrain or motivate.  Synonym: force.
2.
Cause to move forward with force.  Synonym: propel.



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"Impel" Quotes from Famous Books



... have been turned from her bosom, this poison, the influence of three fourths of a million of negro voters, will speedily ascend and sap her vigor and intelligence. Greed of office, curse of democracies, will impel demagogues to grovel deeper and deeper in the mire in pursuit of ignorant votes. Her old breed of statesmen has largely passed away during and since the civil war, and the few survivors are naturally distrusted, as responsible for past errors. Numbers ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... where every noble sentiment would impel a nation to go to war. A solemn promise broken, a deliberate insult to the flag, an act of intolerable bullying, some wicked purpose of self-aggrandisement at the expense of weaker nations, anything, in short, that flaunted the national honour or imperilled the ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett

... not all. From the language sometimes used in speaking of sacrifices for the public good, it might almost be supposed that the making of them is simply painful, simply distressing. But is it so? Of course both instinct and duty impel us to look out for ourselves; but is it not equally true that both instinct and duty impel us to help one another, and provide for the common weal? A generous and noble deed,—simply painful, simply distressing! I will not deny that a long life of selfishness, meanness, ...
— The Spirit Proper to the Times. - A Sermon preached in King's Chapel, Boston, Sunday, May 12, 1861. • James Walker

... poetry and music less cultivated among them, than a concise dignity of expression. Their songs had a spirit, which could rouse the soul, and impel it in an enthusiastic manner to action. The language was plain and manly, the subject serious and moral. For they consisted chiefly of the praises of heroes that had died for Sparta, or else of expressions of ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... I present a paper on nut growing before a group so much more learned in the subject than I. But two things impel me to do so. First, the firm conviction that nut trees, carefully chosen, properly planted and intelligently cared for, have a place on many farms as a cash crop for the market and a food crop for the farm family and, second, the poor results from many nut tree plantings on farms. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... spoke he caught up a long pole, and pressing one end against the bed of the river exerted himself with might and main to impel the boat forward. He called to the two men to do the same, and under their united propulsion the boat advanced, but ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... the habit of confusing the use of manifold gifts with mere dexterity that men of quality and power often question the promptings which impel them to use different or diverse forms of expression; as if a man were born to use only one limb and enjoy only one resource in this ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... into a valley, across which it could be seen running from edge to edge. He had traversed the greater part of this depression, and was climbing the western acclivity when, pausing for breath, he unconsciously looked back. Why he did so he could not say, but something seemed to impel him to the act. The tape-like surface of the road diminished in his rear as far as he could see, and as he gazed a moving spot intruded on the ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... then. I believe I have told you that besides the great steam mill there is this, which is dependent on the rise and fall of the tide in the river, and where the people are therefore obliged to work by day or night at whatever time the water serves to impel the wheel. They greeted me with their usual profusion of exclamations, petitions, and benedictions, and I parted from them to come and oversee my slave Jack, for whom I had bought a spade, and to whom I had entrusted the task of turning ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... something shocking in the sacrifice of the higher life to the lower, of the sensate to what we are pleased to call the insensate, although no one who has studied the marvellously intelligent motives that impel a plant's activities can any longer consider the vegetable creation as lacking sensibility. Science is at length giving us a glimmering of the meaning of the word universe, teaching, as it does, that all creatures ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... Spirit,' directed him to the Ethiopian statesman. God rewards faithful work with more work. Samaria was a borderland between Jew and Gentile, but in preaching to the eunuch Philip was on entirely Gentile ground. So great a step in advance needed clear command from God to impel to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... thoughts go vaguely forth to unknown splendours; when the continuity of self is broken, and the lad of to-day is different from him of yesterday; when the energies, physical and intellectual, wake into new life, and impel the youth in new directions. Everyone has been young, but somehow we forget that sweet spring season. Let us try to remember, in the interests of the uncared-for youths and girls, the time of glorious dreaming, when the boy became a man, and stood upon some peak in ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... aged, would be inhuman cruelty. Slaves, who have regarded labour as an irksome task, can have little idea of liberty, except as an exemption from toil. To liberate them, without some arrangement for their subsistence, would produce starvation, or impel them to acts of lawless violence. Emancipation must, therefore, as those friends of the slaves contend, be gradual and prospective. The British Parliament have not decreed an immediate emancipation, in the West Indies; thus recognizing the principle, that the slaves must be prepared for freedom ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various

... 'The mind creates (within itself) numerous ideas (of objects or existent things). The Understanding settles which is which. The heart discriminates which is agreeable and which is disagreeable. These are the three forces that impel to acts. The objects of the senses are superior to the senses. The mind is superior to those objects. The understanding is superior to mind. The Soul is regarded as superior to Understanding. (As regards the ordinary ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... great plan of development lies at the foundation of the origin of the whole organic world, impelling the simpler forms to more and more complex developments. How this law operates, what influences determine the development of the eggs and germs, and impel them to assume constantly new forms, I naturally cannot pretend to say; but I can at least adduce the great analogy of the alternation of generations. If a 'Bipinnaria', a 'Brachialaria', a 'Pluteus', is competent to produce the Echinoderm, which is so widely ...
— Criticisms on "The Origin of Species" - From 'The Natural History Review', 1864 • Thomas H. Huxley

... them. Other private failings you ought to know, in order to avoid making a mistake some day by employing an assistant unsuitable for a particular duty: do not, however, take individuals to task. Their natures impel many persons to commit various violations of the law. If you make an unsparing campaign against them, you might leave scarcely one man unpunished. But if you humanely mingle consideration with the strict command of ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio

... thus prevent the accumulation of some capital which would have helped to find employment for some more working men. The immediate direct interests of a particular body of workmen and a particular company of employers may, and frequently will, impel them to a course directly opposed to the wider interests of their fellow- capitalists or fellow-workers. But it is evident that the smaller the industrial unit, the more frequent will these conflicts ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson

... shepherds keeping watch about their flocks with dogs and spears, still he cannot bear to be driven away, without having made trial of the fold, but, springing in, he either carries [one] off, or is himself wounded among the first by a javelin from a quick hand. Thus then did his mind impel godlike Sarpedon to attack the wall, and to burst through the barriers; and instantly he addressed Glaucus, son ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... lads, till we are close to them," cried the captain. "Now give it them." The broadsides of the brig were poured into the junks, which had ranged up on either beam, with terrible effect. One junk went down, and another was left without a scull to impel her, and with a third of her ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... nearly as well as if it were nonsense. I'll lead him on to the knowledge of principles, by means of beautiful experiments: he'll think I am amusing him, when I am gravely in earnest in the work of instruction. I will set rewards before him, to impel him onward: I will excite his curiosity, and make it a favor to gratify it; and then the boy will swallow knowledge as ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... impel the peasant on.—On the one hand he is frightened by the clash of arms, and the repeated announcements of an approaching invasion. The clubs and the newspapers since the declaration of Pilnitz, and the Orators in the Legislative Assembly ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... pretending to youth, to censorial importance, and to an exquisite sensibility. Finally, it is said, that they are notorious for envy, and ill-nature, being match-breakers, because themselves unmarried. Let these charges be destitute as they may of foundation, they doubtless impel many females to the determination that they must and will escape ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... mechanically draw away a few paces, out of the route of persons passing in or out of the shop. No particular play of the mental processes would actuate them in so doing; an instinctive impulse, operating mechanically and subconsciously, would impel them to remove themselves from the main path of foot travel. But this woman and her acquaintance take root right there. Persons dodge round them and glare at them. Other persons bump into them, and are glared at by the two traffic ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... years, Sweet dirges from the cradle's keys, The glories of your harmonies Impel my secret soul to tears! The roses of my fancies fade Into the dust of wicked strife, And all the promise boyhood made Has proved the ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller

... beat his wife—I'm not sure that she was even his wife at all, now I come to think of it, but that's a mere detail—and to kick his familiar acquaintances casually about the head. We, on the other hand, have natures which impel us, when we catch Mr. William Sikes indulging in these innate idiosyncrasies by way of recreation, to clap him promptly into prison, and even, under certain aggravating conditions, to cause him to be hanged by the neck till he be ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... aggregates, in making a sociological or political estimate of different peoples, we should never lose sight of the fact that all racial and national characteristics which operate towards the absorption of more land and impel to political expansion are of fundamental value. A ship of state manned by such a crew has its sails set to catch the winds ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... the quiet haven laid Who, timely warned, has owned how blest The refuge of the cloistered shade; To honor's race has bade farewell, Its idle joys and empty shows; Insatiate wishes learned to quell, And lulled in wisdom's calm repose:— No more shall passion's maddening brood Impel the busy scenes to try, Nor on his peaceful cell intrude The form of sad humanity! 'Mid crowds and strife each mortal ill Abides'—the grisly train of woe Shuns like the pest the breezy hill, To ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... written all this in the spite and malice of a man who feels that his louis-d'or only goes half as far now as heretofore; and attributes all his diminished enjoyments and restricted luxuries to the unceasing current of his countrymen, whom fate, and the law of imprisonment for debt, impel hither. Whether I am so far guilty or not, is not now the question; suffice it to say, that Harry Lorrequer, for reasons best known to himself, lives abroad, where he will be most happy to see any of his old and former friends who take his quarters en route; and in the words of a bellicose brother ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... mind it," was Holmes's reply. "Now, Watson, I'll need you again. I've had my eye on a certain party since my deduction-trance yesterday noon, and was waiting for her sense of shame to impel her to confess her part in the cuff-button robbery; but since she has not as yet done so, I shall be forced to resort to sterner measures. Come with me, and leave these fellows to kill time any way they like until ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry

... as court honor from oratory before the populace; be ye not known to me, who care not to injure your friends, provided you say what is gratifying to the people. But plotting what dark design have they determined upon a decree of death against my child? Did fate impel them to offer human sacrifices at the tomb, where it were rather right to sacrifice cattle? Or does Achilles, desirous of devoting in his turn to death those that wrought his death, with a color of justice meditate her destruction? But she has done him ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... and thither, vainly striving to restore equilibrium to the atmosphere, burden themselves with the moisture they absorb from the seas; and this moisture absorbs their heat, retards their motion, and slowly modifies the forces which impel them. Now when the saturated air, extending far above the surface of the earth, and carried in its movements still higher, is relieved of an incumbent weight of air, it becomes rarefied, and its temperature and capacity for moisture are simultaneously diminished; its moisture, suddenly precipitated, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... be a painter you must go to France—France is the only school of Art." I must again call attention to the phenomenon of echo-augury, that is to say, words heard in an unlooked-for quarter, that, without an appeal to our reason, impel belief. France! The word rang in my ears and gleamed in my eyes. France! All my senses sprang from sleep like a crew when the man on the look-out cries, "Land ahead!" Instantly I knew I should, that I must, go to France, that I would live there, that I would become as a Frenchman. I knew not ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... from that in which he usually spoke; "must it be so, indeed? For twenty years of youth and manhood I have clung to that man, and woven my destiny with his, because I believed him born under the star which shines on statesmen and pontiffs. Does dread Necessity now impel me to betray him?—him, the only man I ever loved. So—so—so! Count Devereux, strike me to the core: I will not betray ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... From the pupil of David, the admirer of Michel Angelo, the conservator of the sacred traditions of Art, the student might learn all the treasured wisdom of antiquity,—while the influences around him, and his own genius, would impel him towards prophesying the hope of the future. His favorite companions of the atelier at this time were Eugene Delacroix and Gericault. Delacroix ranks among the greatest living French artists; and if death early closed the brilliant career ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... am not half good enough. I have a hasty temper; you have frequently said so, mother. I often speak sharply, and am not always aware when I am doing it. I hurt people, as I hurt myself, without being able to help it—something seems to come over me and impel me to do it. Often I cannot resist making game of people. I am so silly and fond of fun, like a child, a great deal worse than 'little May' ever is, when the fit is upon me. Now, if I could think that I should lose patience with poor sick people, and wound instead ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... an independent and sovereign power. The regrets caused by the death of this great man, the memories aroused by these regrets, and a proper veneration for all that is held dear and sacred by mankind, impel us to give expression to our sentiments by taking part in an event which deprives the world of one of its brightest ornaments, and removes to the realm of history one of the noblest lives that ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... effect as terrible as the thunderbolts of heaven. His earthly passions have prompted him so to wield these instruments of destruction, as to deface God's image in his fellow-men. The power is so divine—the causes that impel him to use that power are so paltry! The intellect that creates these messengers of death is so near akin to divinity—the motives that put them in action are so poor, so degrading even ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... sight, hearing, taste. Our natural proclivity is to direct our movements with reference to the objects within the field of our vision, to govern our conduct by what we hear, to take into our mouths only substances that are pleasing to the taste. Yet fright, temerity, or courage may impel us to incur dangers which we clearly see; opiniativeness or obstinacy may make us inwardly deaf to counsels or warnings which we hear; and motives of health may induce us to swallow the most nauseous drugs. In like manner, our inevitable tendency is to govern ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... of this place, which may well be called a gulf, since nothing ever returns from it, it is not possible for ships to get off when once they approach within a certain distance. If they be driven thither by a wind from the sea, the wind and the current impel them; and if they come into it when a land-wind blows, which might seem to favour their getting out again, the height of the mountain stops the wind, and occasions a calm, so that the force of the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.

... empirical knowledge, could have at all suspected that a bit of dirty parchment, with an ecclesiastical scrawl upon it, would have power to drive the currents of history, inspire great national passions, and impel the wars and direct the ideas of an epoch. The conflicts of the iconoclasts can be understood even by a child in its first meditations over a picture-book; hieroglyphics may represent or suggest their objects by some natural association; but the literary scrawl has a meaning only ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... ones act upon substantially the same impulse. Everywhere they impel and, to a large extent, though by indirection, they compel, prolific breeding among the less intelligent persons. These latter are also the victims of the prevailing religious, political, economic and industrial systems and superstitions. The feudalistic ones proclaim fecundity ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... earth at first With feeble force and lonely murmurs burst, From myriad unseen fountains draw the rills And curl contentious round their hundred hills, Meet, froth and foam, their dashing currents swell, O'er crags and rocks their furious course impel, Impetuous plunging plough the mounds of earth, And tear the fostering flanks that gave them birth; Mad with the strength they gain, they thicken deep Their muddy waves and slow and sullen creep, O'erspread whole regions in their lawless pride, Then stagnate long, then shrink and ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... his work, has also brought about the magic of it all. While other novelists describe humanity from the outside, he has shown man to us both from within and without. The characters which crowd forth from his brain are sustained and impelled by the same social waves which sustain and impel us. The generative facts which created them are the same which are always in operation about us. If many young men have taken as a model a Rastignac, for instance, it is because the passions by which this ambitious pauper was consumed are the same which our age of unbridled greed multiplies around ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... made for him, but that humanity was apparently a curious incident in the universe, and its career a recent episode in cosmic history. He had to acquire a taste for the simplest possible and most thoroughgoing explanation of things. His whole mood had to change and impel him to reduce everything so far as possible to ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson

... Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand

... found Fanny less objectionable since removed from her St. Louis surroundings; and the evident consideration with which she had been accepted at Place-du-Bois seemed to throw about her a halo of sufficient distinction to impel the girl to view her from a ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin

... the shame of scorching another man's happiness, after finding that the cause which drove him to do so, has lost its power to impel? I am not ashamed of having loved Lucy; I am ashamed of not having loved her enough. Thank God no greater harm was done to Fulton than was done. He has his Lucy, what there is left of her, his children, and a ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris

... continued the greeting he had previously learned by heart—"are in close contact with the borders of our spacious fatherland, and therefore mutual sympathies impel me, so to speak, to express my solidarity ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... especially to the deprivation of those more needy; using dishonest ways of securing rank in studies or positions on teams, or social standing, are, one and all, not only ungentlemanly but cowardly and mean, and the axe would be laid at the root of the tree. Honor should impel students to go nowhere where they conceal their college, their fraternity, or even their name; to keep themselves immaculate from all contact with that class of women which, Ziegler states, brought twenty-five per cent of the students of the University of Berlin in a single year to physicians; to ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... is not to be doubted, may by art exempt himself in part from the influence of the heavens; it being common opinion, that the heavens give an inclination, but do not impel us; for which reason the learned say, that a wise man rules the stars. I was born with a very choleric disposition, insomuch that there was no living with me; but I took notice of it, and considered, that a person swayed by his passion, must at certain times be no better than a madman; I ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro

... A sailing vessel, which is always in a great measure dependent upon the wind, is absolutely at its mercy in a storm. When the gale increases beyond a certain limit, she can no longer make head at all against its fury, but must turn and fly—or be driven—wherever the fury of the tempest may impel her. In such cases, she goes bounding over the seas, away from her course, toward rocks, shoals, breakers, or any other dangers whatever which may lie in the way, without the least power or possibility of resistance. She goes howling on, in such a case, over the wide waste ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott

... largely by instinct and emotion. These instincts and emotions are incident to every living machine and are the motor forces that impel the organism. They do not think. They act, and act at once. All the mind can do is to place some restraint on such instincts and emotions through experience, education and settled habits. If the actions are never inhibited, the machine will tear itself to pieces. If too ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow

... the cause, Hamersley is all the more eager to learn it. Still, his curiosity does not impel him to importunate inquiry. In the companionship of such kind friends he can afford to ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... ways Have led through fields diverse of flower and fruit, Yet no cross wind has once relaxed the root We set long since beneath the sundawn's rays, The root of trust whence towered the trusty tree, Friendship—this only and duly might impel My song to salutation of your own; More even than praise of one unseen of me And loved—the starry spirit of Dobell, To mine by light and ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... once infallible and self-sufficing. Capable of reasonably setting forth and defining moral questions, (14) he was also able to test others, and where they erred, to cross-examine and convict them, and so to impel and guide them in the path of virtue and noble manhood. With these characteristics, he seemed to be the very impersonation of human ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon

... lay in his face an almost celestial clearness and joyfulness, which would impel one involuntarily to bow down before him, had he not been, as he was, the vicegerent of God upon ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... land as well as at sea, against cities and great fortified structures, and Clewe believed that the automatic shell might be brought within fifty miles of a city, set up with its trough and ram, and projected in a level line towards its object, to which it would impel itself with irresistible power and velocity, through forests, hills, buildings, and everything, gaining strength from every opposition which stood in the direct line of its progress. Attacking fortifications from the sea, the vessel carrying this ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton

... wit, that the sort of man capable of transmitting high talents to a son is ordinarily a man who does not have a son at all, at least in wedlock, until he has advanced into middle life. The reasons which impel him to yield even then are somewhat obscure, but two or three of them, perhaps, may be vaguely discerned. One lies in the fact that every man, whether of the first-class or of any other class, tends to decline in mental agility as he grows ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... him. Outwardly the Syndic was cool, inwardly he was at a white heat that at any moment might impel him to the wildest action. "Well?" he said. "What ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... mysterious power seemed to impel him, and passing through the door he found himself in a spacious hall, whose ceiling, walls, and floor were covered with polished tiles carved all over with unknown figures. He gazed about, full of wonder, and ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various

... ire—proclaims his strong necessity; And that surprise or artifice he scorns. Unskill'd, alas! in philosophic lore, Unbless'd with scientific erudition; How can I sing of elemental War, Or the contending powers of opposite Attractions, that impel, and poize, and guide, The ever-rolling Spheres: Animal War, The flux of Life, devouring and devour'd, Ceaseless in every tribe, through Earth, and Air, And Ocean, ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield

... affected herself, but as they might involve others, and above all her husband, I ascribed to the ideas and habits of thought now for so many centuries hereditary among a people in whom the fear of annihilation—and the absence of all the motives that impel men on earth to face danger and death with calmness, or even to enjoy the excitement of deadly peril—have ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... the language in which it is couched; nor will I stop to inquire how far the petitioners and I myself entertain the same opinions of the general subject-matter. And there are particular inducements, which impel me to make a stand at the present moment ...
— Speech of Mr. Cushing, of Massachusetts, on the Right of Petition, • Caleb Cushing

... politics goes every floating thing that is free to move. The summons to the polls will be imperative and incessant. Duty will thunder it from every platform, conscience whisper it into every ear, pride, interest, the lust of victory—all the motives that impel men to partisan activity will act with equal power upon women as upon men; and to all the other forces flowing irresistibly toward the polls will be added the suasion of men themselves. The price of votes will not decline because of the increased supply, although it will in most instances ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... usually united in wedlock, might otherwise shock the prejudices of the orthodox. His late niece and wife was dead, so that there was no inconvenience on that score, should the interests of his dynasty, his family, and, above all, of the Church, impel him, on mature reflection, to take for his fourth marriage one step farther within the forbidden degrees than he had done in his third. Here is the statement, which, if it have no other value, serves to show ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... suggests the deference that was essential to the maintenance by a dependent of peaceful relations with a self-willed and self-indulgent patron. Southampton's sportive and lascivious temperament might easily impel him to divert to himself the attention of an attractive woman by whom he saw that his poet was fascinated, and he was unlikely to tolerate any outspoken protest on the part of his protege. There is no clue to the lady's identity, ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... realised the enormity of his offence, something within her seemed to impel her to wind her arm about his neck and draw his lips to hers. Instead, she summoned all her resolution; striking him full in the face, she freed herself to run quickly from him. As she ran, she strove to hide from ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... to-night the inspiration of my theme Is not the baseless fabric of a weird, fantastic dream— For truth, combined with justice, doth impel, And therefore it is fact—not ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy

... which England owes so much. From the Romans the people of this country inherit the sturdy self-reliance and perseverance in action which have helped to make England what it is, and from the Romans too, in a great degree, does England also inherit her colonizing instincts, which impel her people to cover the waste places of the world with colonies. If the Roman remains which have been so abundantly discovered of late years in Lincoln and its vicinity had been collected and laid out for exhibition, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various

... the loquacious bird, whose voice still comes, eager and busy, from his hidden whereabout. Insects are fluttering around. The cheerful, sunny hum of the flies is altogether summer-like, and so gladsome that you pardon them their intrusiveness and impertinence, which continually impel them to fly against your face, to alight upon your hands, and to buzz in your very ear, as if they wished to get into your head, among your most secret thoughts. In truth, a fly is the most impertinent and indelicate thing in creation,—the very type and moral ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... she stopped, common-sense reasserting itself to assure her that there was nothing to be gained by running until exhausted; her enemy was not pursuing her. It was evident that she was to be left to her own devices as long as they did not impel her to attempt an escape—as long as she made ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... still sits over against the Treasury, watching the gifts cast into it, and impartially weighing their worth, estimating the rich man's millions and the widow's mites, not by the amount given, but by the motives which impel and the measure of self-sacrifice accepted for the ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... obedience of Eve and Adam to God's commands was impossible.' Still the same error. The love that God bears to himself is essential to him, but the love for his glory, or the will to acquire his glory, is not so by any means: the love he has for himself did not impel him by necessity to actions without; they were free; and since there were possible plans whereby the first parents should not sin, their sin was therefore not necessary. Finally, I say in effect what M. Bayle acknowledges here, 'that ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... it is so circumstanced as to discourage the most sanguine adventurers from attempts to settle in it: Were it for no other reason than the constant heavy rains, or rather torrents, which pour down here, and the vast sea and surf which the prevailing westerly winds impel upon this coast, it must be rendered inhospitable. All entrance into the woods is not only extremely difficult, but hazardous, not from any assaults you are likely to meet with from wild beasts, for even these could hardly find convenient harbour here, but from the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... in the child may come from hysteria in the mother. A drunken father may impel epilepsy, madness or idiocy in the child. Ungoverned passions, from love to hate, from hope to fear, when indulged in overmuch by the parents, may unloose the furies of unrestrained madness in the minds of ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... penetrate abundantly into the dream, that they utilize the dream content to obtrude themselves upon consciousness even during the night; indeed, they occasionally even dominate the dream content, and impel it to continue the work of the day; it is also certain that the day remnants may just as well have any other character as that of wishes; but it is highly instructive and even decisive for the theory of wish-fulfillment to see what conditions they must comply with in order to be received ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud

... does this mysterious '14' impose that will impel five such men out of twenty-one to commit suicide? The alternative is still more dreadful, Hale. In our criminal investigations, we have come across many instances of careless autopsies. We have come across many instances of loosely written reports by medical ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew

... Government and magnify that of the States, thus served to smooth the way, to lay the track, upon which the engine of rebellion was to be started. But there was still wanting the motive power which should impel the machine and give it energy and momentum. Something tangible was required—something palpable to the masses—on the basis of which violent antagonisms and hatreds could be engendered, and fearful dangers could be pictured to the ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... as distinct from man, we find her strongest instinct and deepest inner feelings impel her to care for and protect her off-spring; but that instead of an impulse to go out and fight against the enemy, she feels in her conscience that it is right and natural for her to rely upon the husband and father to do that. It is for her to stick close to the ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)

... of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... could. Allez. I go in for your generation. I abandon Guizot and Thiers. Do condescend and explain to my dull understanding, as the inferior mortal of a former age, what are the grand emotions which impel a soul of fire in your wiser generation. The thirst of excitement—what excitement? The goads of ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... thinks that with the revival of vitality in the spring and early summer "all feelings and impressions become more lively," those that impel to suicide among the rest. But if all the feelings "become more lively," why do not the stimulated sensations of joy and pleasure on a beautiful day in June overcome, or at least evenly balance, the stimulated sensations ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... by her, he had been guilty of a philandering that he had not allowed to go as far as her wishes. The thing had not been serious on his part. Nor had he permitted it to become serious on her side. Nevertheless, sufficient flirtatious passages had taken place to impel him this night to look to her, rather than to the other Wickenberg women, for the ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... an influence he thought it fit to exercise, and as he was not qualified to be a clergyman, or a physician, or a lawyer, he resolved to keep a tavern. This vocation would bring him into contact with fellow-beings; it would give him opportunities to control, impel, ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton

... slightest motion of the animal spirits: further, that this gland is suspended in the midst of the brain in as many different manners, as the animal spirits can impinge thereon; and, again, that as many different marks are impressed on the said gland, as there are different external objects which impel the animal spirits towards it; whence it follows, that if the will of the soul suspends the gland in a position, wherein it has already been suspended once before by the animal spirits driven in one way or another, the gland in its turn reacts on the said spirits, driving ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza

... from the truth than the idea that my mother was led to become a Tory by the "graciousness" of any "marquises" or great folks of any kind. I am inclined to think that there was one great personage, whose (not graciousness, but) intellectual influence did impel her mind in a Conservative direction. And this was Metternich. She had more talk with him than her book on Vienna would lead a reader to suppose; and very far more of his mind and influence reached her through ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... his army. In fact, a young man who could leave his home and his father, and abandon the cause of his countrymen forever under such circumstances, must have had something besides generosity toward a fugitive enemy to impel him. Godwin was soon found to possess a large portion of that peculiar spirit which constitutes a soldier. He was ambitious, stern, energetic, and always successful. He rose rapidly in influence and rank, and in the ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... use of sails would save a considerable quantity of coals; or what is the same thing, using them would expedite the steamer proportionally more on her voyage, and bring it so much sooner to a close. Sails may fairly be calculated to impel a vessel at the rate of 2-1/2 miles per hour on a voyage, and which will save either directly one-fourth the quantity of coals, or impel the steamer so much sooner to the end of her journey than the time calculated, where time is taken as if it were impelled by steam ...
— A General Plan for a Mail Communication by Steam, Between Great Britain and the Eastern and Western Parts of the World • James MacQueen

... ourselves, in making an appeal to the inhabitants of other countries, against the laws which have exiled us from our native land, to state the ground upon which we make our appeal, and the causes which impel us to do so. There are in the United States of America, at the present time, between three and four millions of persons, who are held in a state of slavery which has no parallel in any other part of the world; and whose numbers have, within the last fifty years, increased ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown

... the nobleness of your mind impel you to its improvement; you are too strong to be defeated, save by yourselves. Refuse to live merely to sleep and eat. Brutes can do this; but you are men. Act the part of men. Prepare yourselves to endure toil. Resolve to rise—you have but to resolve. Nothing can ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins

... from on high, The echoes make a glad reply.— But the sage Muse the revel heeds No farther than her story needs; Nor will she servilely attend 595 The loitering journey to its end. —Blithe spirits of her own impel The Muse, who scents the morning air, To take of this transported pair A brief and unreproved farewell; 600 To quit the slow-paced waggon's side, And wander down yon hawthorn dell, With murmuring Greta for her guide. —There doth she ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... necessarily be less, or that there would be none in the instance of ladies of high rank, is not conspicuously certain; but if not, what were those special motives which should warrant the fathers in incurring this peril in such cases? Mere Christian charity would undoubtedly impel a man to meet danger for the welfare of the soul of a poor sempstress as readily as for that of a duchess or the mistress of a monarch. If, therefore, the peril is to be braved in the one case which ought to be evaded in the other, there must be present some motive of which Christian charity ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... by Olbers that the explosion of shooting stars and ignited fire-balls not moving in straight lines may impel meteors upward in the manner of rockets, and influence the direction of their orbits, must be made ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... in teaching Michael so enhanced him in Captain Duncan's eyes as to impel him to offer fifty pounds, "and never mind the cat." At first, Daughtry practised the trick in private with the chief engineer and the Shortlands planter. Not until thoroughly satisfied did he make a public performance ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... seal and crush masses of obdurate metal before it; draw out, without breaking, a thread as fine as a gossamer; and lift up a ship of war like a bauble in the air; it can embroider muslin and forge anchors; cut steel into ribands, and impel loaded vessels against the fury ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... of light, rather than organs of seeing. Their almost paradoxical number at least, and the singularity of their forms, render it probable that they impel the animal by some modification of its irritability, herein likewise containing a striking analogy to the known influence of light on plants, than as excitements of sensibility. The sense that is nearest akin to irritability, and which alone resides in ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... to tell him anything save the exact truth. I was in a dilemma, equally afraid to tell the truth, for fear the improbability of it would infuriate Maternus and convince him of my treachery; or to take the obvious course, for fear some subtle shade of my tone or look might similarly impel him to stab me. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... given to be used: our inclinations were intended to impel us in certain directions, and God's will and glory were meant to be our guide and aim. So the Scripture teaches, we think, in the parable of the talents, and in the words, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might;" and, "Whether, ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne

... tolerable actor, will allow that the professors of that art must be persons of intellectual capacity and personal endowments much superior to the common herd of mankind. The vivid intelligence, the high animal spirits, the aspiring temper, and the resolute intrepidity, which impel them to the stage and support them under its difficulties, are generally associated with an eccentricity of character and a giddy disregard of prudential considerations, which generate adventure and chequer their lives with a greater variety of incidents and whimsical ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... virtue; and, whilst enjoying the use of your wealth, he will fail to treat you, yourself, as you deserve. And now my longing to have this delight, and my fear that you will have none such with another, impel me to pray that you will make me a happy man, and yourself the most contented and best treated wife ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... disgust which remained so long an enigma to the Court and all the kingdom, excepting his royal aunts, who did the best they could to confirm it into so decided an aversion as might induce him to impel his grandfather to annul the marriage and send the Dauphine ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... to find signs of a procreative economy which would impel the female to take into account the number of peas contained in the pod which she has just explored; we might expect her to set a numerical limit on her eggs in conformity with that of the peas available. But no such limit is observed. The rule of one pea to one grub is ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent

... know that the City of Light is generally divided,—not exactly, but as association would naturally impel, into four quarters, the quarter of art, the quarter of science, the quarter of invention, the quarter of thought. This is simply that the artists, the scientific minds, the designers, and the philosophers are somewhat by ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap

... defiantly. It was the kind of a ring which might impel the dead to answer it. Miss Evelina ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed

... is, Or what her likeness, know not. Man surveys 620 A narrower scene, where, by the mix'd effect Of things corporeal on his passive mind, He judgeth what is fair. Corporeal things The mind of man impel with various powers, And various features to his eye disclose. The powers which move his sense with instant joy, The features which attract his heart to love, He marks, combines, reposits. Other powers And features of the self-same thing (unless The beauteous ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... of the Northern Quakers to enlighten the colored people had important local results. A strong moral force operated in the minds of most of this sect to impel them to follow the example of certain leaders who emancipated their slaves.[1] Efforts in this direction were redoubled about the middle of the eighteenth century when Anthony Benezet,[2] addressing himself with unwonted ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson

... in the impetuous flood of tenderness which will fill your eyes with tears and will wrest a cry from your heart. You will feel it in some great and distant city, in that impulse of the soul which will impel you from the strange throng towards a workingman from whom you have heard in passing a word in your own tongue. You will feel it in that sad and proud wrath which will drive the blood to your brow when you hear insults to your country from the mouth ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis

... Romance is, to group historical characters according to their internal natures, and thus to elucidate and illustrate history. This illustration then leads to the third task, which is the discovery and exposition of the motives which impel individual historical personages to the performance of great historical acts, and from outwardly, apparently insignificant events in their lives to deduce their inmost thoughts and natures, and represent them ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... mark has fallen, and that the German financial fabric is in a parlous condition. But that fabric is kept from crumbling away by the war, just as the Egyptian papyrus is preserved so long as it does not come into contact with the air. Moreover, common prudence should impel us to find out at what a cost to ourselves we have reduced the value of the mark. If financial exhaustion be among the ways in which one group of belligerents may be made to succumb, it is wise to ask whether it is the States which have to pay gold for ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... salvation, but to adventure their lives and persons to lay the foundations of a better, of a more equitable and beneficial, social state than ever they knew. Certain it is that they were inspired by the highest motives that impel men to action; hence even those who may deem their views erroneous should not withhold from the men themselves their meed of respect, admiration, and sympathy. To those who deem their views true, we need make no appeal. Monuments are erected in stone, in marble, or in gold, to those ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens



Words linked to "Impel" :   send off, punt, do, carry, move, propel, rocket, kick, project, launch, impulsion, displace, hit, throw, force, impeller, impellent, make, catapult, flip, impulsive, cause, pole, drive, loft



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