"Mollify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have found their increased sensibility flame into crimes of a deeper dye—crimes attesting the treachery and the violence of the professors of an art which, it appears, in softening the souls of others, does not necessarily mollify those of the artists themselves. The dreadful story of ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO seems not doubtful. Having been taught the discovery of painting in oil by Domenico Venetiano, yet, still envious of the merit of the generous ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... neighbour's prosperity. Cast your eyes on the frozen soul of the ungrateful wretch, whom no kindness can warm, no benevolence thaw, no beneficence convert into a genial fluid. Survey the iron feelings of that monster whom the sighs of the unfortunate cannot mollify. Behold the revengeful being nourished with venemous gall, whose very thoughts are serpents; who in his rage consumes himself. Envy, if thou canst, the waking slumbers of the homicide; the startings of the iniquitous judge; the restlessness of the oppressor of innocence; the fearful ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... but wearing still an old patched pair of pantaloons of superlative make, a once brilliant waistcoat, and moustache and whiskers as of yore, but lacking their lustrous dye—there, endeavouring to mollify the wrath of a buxom female—not the lawful Madame Mantalini, but the proprietress of the concern—and grinding meanwhile as if for very life at the mangle, whose creaking noise, mingled with her shrill tones, appeared almost to deafen him—there ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... the wife not as if master of a chattel, but as the soul does the body." Id. 37: "Wives who are sensible will be silent when their husbands are angry and vent their passion; when their husbands are silent, then let them speak to them and mollify them." However, like the Apostles, he enjoins upon husbands to honour their wives; his essay on the "Virtues of Women"—[Greek: gynaikon aretai]—is an affectionate tribute ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... by this answer that no means would serve to mollify the hearts of the pirates, nor reduce them to reason: hereupon, he determined to leave them, as also those of the city whom he came to relieve, involved in the difficulties of making the best agreement they could. Thus in ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... it wrought no further good in him, it was, that he in despite of himself withdrew himself from hearkening to that, which might mollify his hardened heart. But it is not the tragedy they do mislike: for it were too absurd to cast out so excellent a representation of whatsoever is most worthy to be learned. Is it the lyric that most displeaseth, who ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... looked thin and care-worn, but was greatly comforted by seeing her betrothed; and they agreed that it was better, whatever the consequences might be, to inform her father of their engagement, and to endeavor to mollify his heart. As Bernardo had returned from the wars with such distinction, he had some slight hope that the crime of loving Don Pedro's ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... it; but the army openly expressed their dissatisfaction, and when Pompeius requested them to advance, they abused Sulla, and they said they would not let Pompeius be exposed to danger without them, and they advised him not to trust the tyrant. At first Pompeius endeavoured to mollify and quiet them, but finding that he could not prevail, he descended from the tribunal and went to his tent weeping. But the soldiers laid hold of him and again placed him on the tribunal, and a great part of the day was spent in the soldiers urging him to stay and ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... own blood; so as he that was not ashamed to make matters for tragedies, yet could not resist the sweet violence of a tragedy. And if it wrought no farther good in him, it was that he, in despite of himself, withdrew himself from hearkening to that which might mollify his hardened heart. But it is not the tragedy they do dislike, for it were too absurd to cast out so excellent a representation of whatsoever is most worthy to ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... fossils adduced to prove the Deluge of Noah and mollify the transmutation system of Darwin, ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... when he told them that an engine had her tantrums, and informed them that sometimes she had to be coddled up like any other female. Even when a man did his best there were occasions when nothing he could do would mollify her, and then there was sure to be trouble, although, he added, in his desire to be fair, she was always sorry for it afterward. Which remark, to his confusion, had turned the smile ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... such a pitch of displeasure with him, that it was impossible for her to recover herself at the instant. Nevertheless he re-urged his question, as expecting a definitive answer, without waiting for the return of her temper, or endeavouring to mollify her; so that she was under a necessity of persisting in her denial: yet gave him reason to think she did not dislike his address, only the manner of it; his court being rather made to her mother than to herself, as if he was sure of her consent ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... who by this time so well understood Don Quixote's humour, said, to mollify his wrath, "Be not irritated at the absurdities your good squire has uttered, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance, for perhaps he did not utter them without cause, and from his good sense and Christian conscience it is not likely that he would bear false witness against anyone. We may therefore ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... necessary to my poor wretched digestion. O the pleasure of eating alone!—eating my dinner alone! let me think of it. But in they come, and make it absolutely necessary that I should open a bottle of orange—for my meat turns into stone when any one dines with me, if I have not wine—wine can mollify stones. Then that wine turns into acidity, acerbity, misanthropy, a hatred of my interrupters (God bless 'em! I love some of 'em dearly), and with the hatred a still greater aversion to their going away. Bad is the dead sea they bring upon me, choaking and death-doing, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... manner altogether and spoke with the deep earnestness of the expert airing his pet topic. He was so serious that Desmond burst out laughing. It must be said, however, that he laughed as much like a German as he knew how. This appeared to mollify Crook who, nevertheless, read him a long lecture against ever, for a moment, even when alone, quitting the role he was playing. Desmond took it in good part; for he knew the ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... again, by the extreme severity of my aunt's manner; so he made her a little bow and gave her a little smile, to mollify her. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... commission suspended, and the very scullion who cleans the brasses in the kitchen becomes of more importance than he. He has nothing for it but to abdicate for a time, and run from an evil which he can neither prevent nor mollify. ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Hague[102], whilst he had the use of pen and ink, he employed himself in writing a Latin piece on the means of accommodating the present disputes. This treatise was presented to Prince Maurice; but it did not mollify the indignation he had conceived against the Remonstrants. Grotius maintained in it, as he had done often before, that notwithstanding difference of opinion in some points relating to grace and predestination, a mutual toleration ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... conceptions which the merely animal intelligence can hardly be supposed to have yet attained to, it becomes probable that magic arose before religion in the evolution of our race, and that man essayed to bend nature to his wishes by the sheer force of spells and enchantments before he strove to coax and mollify a coy, capricious, or irascible deity by the soft insinuation of prayer ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... which Lord Kilmarnock had loved too fondly, should be revived by the pardon of his friend. "Therefore," relates Mr. Foster, "in the morning before I waited upon him, I prepared myself to quiet and mollify his mind. But one of the first things he said to me was, that he was extremely glad that the King's mercy had been shown to Lord Cromartie." "My Lord," inquired Mr. Foster, "I hope you do not think you have any injustice shown you?" Lord Kilmarnock's ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... shown the same figger for a Pirut named Gibbs in that town the previs season, which created a intense toomult, & the audience remarked "shame onto me," & other statements of the same similarness. I tried to mollify em. I told 'em that any family possessin children might have my she tiger to play with half a day, & I wouldn't charge 'em a cent, but alars! it was of no avail. I was forced to leave, & I infer from ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... have also a gang of old and wheezy gentlemen who travel up and down the line all day shutting the windows. This work is sometimes deputed to women. They are forbidden to say "May I?" or "Do you mind?" or to make use of any civil expression that might mollify the traveller sitting by the window. It is part of their instructions to reach past him with an air of independence and to have the window shut and the book that he is reading knocked out of his hand before he has time to see what has happened. Some day someone will write a book about ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... of his Administration, he did all that was possible to mollify their resentment and calm their real or pretended fears. Nor was this from any dread or doubt as to what the outcome of an armed Conflict would be; for, in his speech at Cincinnati, in the Autumn of 1859, he had said, while addressing himself to Kentuckians and other Southern men: "Why, gentlemen, ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... dismission at the end of three years. When the term was expired they thought themselves at liberty, and some of them quitted the corps. The Duke ordered them to be tried as deserters, and not having received a legal discharge, they were condemned. Nothing could mollify him; two were executed.' Memoirs of the Reign of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... the estates occupied by the seigniors. Out of one hundred one may be found tyrannizing his dependents; all the others, patiently share the misery of those subject to their jurisdiction. . . They give their debtors time, remit sums due, and afford them every facility for settlement. They mollify and temper the sometimes over-rigorous proceedings of the fermiers, stewards and other men of business."[1308] An Englishwoman, who observes them in Provence just after the Revolution, says that, detested at Aix, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Pickwick, with the Assistance of Samuel Weller, essayed to soften the Heart of Mr. Benjamin Allen, and to mollify the Wrath of Mr. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... dinner alone! let me think of it. But in they come, and make it absolutely necessary that I should open a bottle of orange—for my meat turns into stone when anyone dines with me, if I have not wine. Wine can mollify stones; then that wine turns into acidity, acerbity, misanthropy, a hatred of my interrupters—(God bless 'em! I love some of 'em dearly), and with the hatred, a still greater aversion to their going away. Bad is the dead sea they bring upon me, choking and deadening, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... except Queen Isabella. From my embracements thus he breaks away. O, that mine arms could close this isle about, That I might pull him to me where I would! Or that these tears, that drizzle from mine eyes, Had power to mollify his stony heart, That, when I had him, we might ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... hit, and chagrined, but I was not at all angry, for I knew what the Will meant. My aunt Dorothy supplied the interlining eagerly to mollify the seeming cruelty. 'You have only to ask to have it all, Harry.' The sturdy squire had done his utmost to forward his cherished wishes after death. My aunt received five-and-twenty thousand pounds, the sum she had thrown away. 'I promised that no money of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... gave up to him the remaining fortresses, Hyrcanium and Macherus, as he put Alexandrium into his hands afterwards; all which Gabinius demolished, at the persuasion of Alexander's mother, that they might not be receptacles of men in a second war. She was now there in order to mollify Gabinius, out of her concern for her relations that were captives at Rome, which were her husband and her other children. After this Gabinius brought Hyrcanus to Jerusalem, and committed the care of the ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... screamed the exasperated Basset, whom Tom's manner of treating the subject was not calculated to mollify. "Let him slip, you say. I'll see him, I'll see him"—but in vain he sought words to express the direful purpose; language ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... brigands; but he consoled himself by the thought that if he ever escaped he could hunt up the owner and make good the loss. Escape for himself was the first thing, and he tried to hope that the boat might prove a prize sufficiently valuable to mollify the mind of the brigand, and dispose him to mercy and compassion. So, as the brigand inspected the boat, David stood watching the brigand, and looking earnestly to see whether there were any signs of a relenting disposition. But the face of the brigand preserved an unchanged expression; ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... accumulation of floating debt, owing to: 1. Political instability, requiring large outlays for soldiery, for bribery of potential revolutionists, and for suppression of actual revolutions. 2. Corruption of officials. 3. "Asignaciones" or pensions to mollify enemies and to reward friends of the existing regime. (b) Usurious interest computations, on account of: 1. "Bonus" in principal, 2. Extravagant interest rates. (c) Interest default and compounding accumulations. (d) Recognition ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... but—[resolutely] I'll stake everything on my next book! I give you my word that if it isn't a success—an indisputable popular success—I will join you both, in all sincerity, in urging Ottoline to break with me. Come! Does that mollify you? ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... no. Miss Rose is endeavouring, like a handsome young Christian lady as she is, to pacify and mollify her aunt and Biddy; and right down sensible ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... thing you can do, Dora, is to mollify Mr. Ormsby. Don't anger him. Don't urge him on to blacken Dick's memory, as he is sure to do if you don't look more kindly upon his suit. He expects to marry you. He told me so when I met him at dinner ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... with the idea that I had robbed the church at Point Coupee." This is not the only mention of his sister during this time, and it is evident that two years' occupation of New Orleans by the Union forces had done much to mollify public sentiment; for immediately after the surrender he had written home, "It is a strange thought that I am here among my relatives, and yet not one has dared to say 'I am ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... had promised to give them satisfaction, on the following day; but during the night he was dissuaded from his purpose; and his answer in the morning proved little short of an absolute denial. Northumberland also made a secret offer of his influence to mollify the obstinacy of the patriots; but Charles, who called that nobleman the most ungrateful of men, received the proposal with displeasure, and to the importunity of his advisers coldly replied, that the service must come first and the reward might follow afterwards. Whether ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... that quip was more like me than thee, and I'll have none of it. 'T is for thee to carry the honey-bag to mollify the stings my naughty tongue must aye inflict. I would I were not ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... was: "If thou dost not bring near them that are far off, thou wilt remove them that are near by." To satisfy their vengeful feelings, the Gibeonites demanded the life of seven members of Saul's family. David sought to mollify them, representing to them that they would derive no benefit from the death of their victims, and offering them silver and gold instead. But though David treated with each one of them individually, the Gibeonites were relentless. When he realized their hardness of heart, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... replied, advising him to return, as the duke was 'graciously minded.' But this was not enough; Schiller knew his man too well and had probably never expected that his appeal would have any other effect than possibly to mollify the duke a little and thus avert trouble ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... move; I saw he was white with rage. The idea of going round the country talking about me was more than he could bear; so I said, trying to mollify him: ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... which he perceived scarce a glimmer of the divine purport. At the same time, he might have seen points of resemblance between his own early history and that of the callow chirper of divinity now holding forth from his pulpit, which might have tended to mollify ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... use of art, A pensive air of new-born grace, In hope to melt the Bench's heart And mollify its awful face; I should not go and run amok, Nor in a fit of senseless fury Punch the judicial nose or chuck An inkpot at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... not in quarrel," I explained,—I fear with ill grace, for her words in his defence were little inclined to mollify me. "You may indeed have so poor conception of me as to misinterpret my coming; yet in truth I seek De Croix in friendship, hoping that I may by ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... advice to mollify the coachman by another tip, he put on his cap and stood in the middle of the room. The friends kissed once, then again, and after a pause, a third time. The man in the fur-lined coat approached the table and emptied ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... said the friar, "and the king may mollify. The earl is a worthy peer, and the king is ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... order to mollify Grim, turned to the boy, and asked, with her sweetest manner, "What is ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... mission for you, lad. That blackguard Romata is in the dumps, and nothing will mollify him but a gift; so do you go up to his house and give him these whale's teeth, with my compliments. Take with you one of the men who ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... the season of the year was one—a mild afternoon in May—to mollify and sweeten the severe and sterile aspect of the scene. Sun and sky do their work of beauty upon earth, without heeding the ungracious return which she may make; and a rich warm sunset flung over the hills and woods a delicious atmosphere ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... try to smooth it down," she continued, interrupting her guest's efforts to mollify her by a few deprecating words. "You can't unsay it, now it's said; and saying it's no worse than thinking it. I don't envy you your thoughts, though. I've always stood up for Sally, and I always shall, and anybody that is stupid ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... abilities gave him an haughty confidence, which he disdained to conceal or mollify; and his impatience of opposition disposed him to treat his adversaries with such contemptuous superiority as made his readers commonly his enemies, and excited against the advocate the wishes of some who favoured the cause. He seems to have adopted the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... fists and spat vigorously. The inn-keeper tried to mollify him by saying that he should not ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... College retain the building. It was an excellent occasion to wipe us out by a stroke of the pen, but Mr. Whitney had not yet reached that point. The fuel, I think, was charged to the bureau to which the Training Station belonged, which would not tend to mollify its feelings. ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... with a sense of relief that was marred by the thought of the same thing happening two weeks later. It was the only feature of his schooling that left behind an actual sense of grievance which the passing years could not mollify. ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... depression of spirits, demolishing the augury that his manner had afforded as to the success of the guest's mission, and furthermore, to Nehemiah's trafficking soul, it suggested that a money consideration might be exacted to mollify the ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... that time Thalassius was the present prefect[3] of the palace, a man of an arrogant temper; and he, perceiving that the hasty fury of Gallus gradually increased to the danger of many of the citizens, did not mollify it by either delay or wise counsels, as men in high office have very often pacified the anger of their princes; but by untimely opposition and reproof, did often excite him the more to frenzy; often also informing Augustus ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... trial, because you don't know. Miss Chancellor came round—came round considerably, there's no doubt of that; because a year or two ago she was terribly unapproachable. If I have mollified her, madam, why shouldn't I mollify you? She realises that I can help her now, and as I ain't rancorous I am willing to help her all she'll let me. The trouble is, she won't let me enough, yet; it seems as if she couldn't believe it of me. At any rate," he pursued, addressing himself more ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... take a black dog to sacrifice to Hecate and a cake to mollify Cerberus, as was usual; but he would not listen to such tales and meant to force his way to Theseus. When he found himself face to face with Cerberus he seized him, threw him down and chained him ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... and after five weeks in Edinburgh, where Hogg had joined the Shelleys, followed by a little over a week in York, the need became so pressing that Shelley felt obliged to take a hurried journey to his uncle's at Cuckfield, in order to try and mollify his father; in this he did not succeed. Though absent little over a week, he prepared the way by his absence, and by leaving Harriet under the care of Hogg, for a series of complications and misunderstandings which never ended till death had absolved all concerned. Harriet's sister, Eliza, ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... Faubourg St. Germain served to mollify Paul somewhat; and when he walked up to the brilliantly lighted entrance, where a resplendent flunky opened the massive doors for him, he was more himself again. He was soon greeting his host and hostess, whose genuine pleasure at seeing him once more was so evident ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... fault of poverty so black? is it of so general concern that thou and all thy family must rise up as one man to reproach it? When it lost everything, did it lose the right to pity too? Or did he who maketh poor as well as maketh rich strip it of its natural powers to mollify the heart and supple the temper of your race? Trust me you have much to answer for. It is this treatment which it has ever met with from spirits like yours which has gradually taught the world to look upon it as the greatest of evils, and shun ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... especially, we shall hear again. With Voltaire, Friedrich himself had no farther Correspondence, or as good as none, for four years and more. What Voltaire writes to him (with Gifts of Books and the like, in the tenderest regretful pathetically COOING tone, enough to mollify rocks), Friedrich usually answers by De Prades, if at all,—in a quite discouraging manner. In the end of 1757, on what hint we shall see, the Correspondence recommenced, and did not cease again so long as they ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... made them nervous and flurried, and their fingers strayed wildly among hooks and eyes, and all sorts of fastenings; they were not ready till half-past nine. Conscious they deserved a scolding, they sent Josephine down first to mollify. She dawned upon the honest soldier so radiant, so dazzling in her snowy dress, with her coronet of pearls (an heirloom), and her bridal veil parted, and the flush of conscious beauty on her cheek, that instead of scolding her, he actually blurted out, "Well! by St. Denis ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... Malachi in his time had served many famous men—Charles Dickens, Ole Bull, Macready, and once the great Mr. Thackeray himself with a second glass of "that pale sherry, if you please," and at the great man's request, too. An appreciation which, in the case of Mr. Thackeray, had helped to mollify Malachi's righteous wrath over the immortal novelist's ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... stood upon it with his bare feet and then balanced himself across it on his naked stomach, while still another of the performers stood upon his back, whither he had sprung without any attempt to mollify the violence of the action. With more yells and genuflections, another now drew from the fire several iron skewers, some of which he thrust into the inner side of his cheeks and others into his throat at the larynx, where they were left for ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould |
