"Circumscribe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... great departments of the Government, should shrink from the exercise of its unquestionable authority on the most important occasions and should consent without a struggle to efface all the barriers so carefully erected by the people to control and circumscribe the powers confided to their various agents. It may be desirable, as the majority of the House of Representatives has declared it is, that no such checks upon the will of the Legislature should be suffered to continue. This is a matter for the people and States to decide, but until they ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... finding equall happy man, Th' impatient pow'rs snatch it agen. Thus, chaste as th' ayre whither shee's fled, She, making her celestiall bed In her warme alablaster, lay As cold is in this house of clay: Nor were the rooms unfit to feast Or circumscribe this angel-guest; The radiant gemme was brightly set In as divine a carkanet; Of which the clearer was not knowne, Her minde or her complexion. Such an everlasting grace, Such a beatifick face, Incloysters here this narrow floore, ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... of his own existence; yet these monuments, like himself, are perishable and frail; and in the boundless annals of time his life and his labors must equally be measured as a fleeting moment. Of a simple and solid edifice it is not easy, however, to circumscribe the duration. As the wonder of ancient days, the Pyramids attracted the curiosity of the ancients: a hundred generations, the leaves of autumn, have dropt into the grave; and after the fall of the Pharaohs and Ptolemies, the Caesars and caliphs, the same Pyramids ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... any one who is subject to the profound and penetrating influence of nature knows this. Although no absolute satisfaction is given to philosophy, either to circumscribe the cause or to limit the effect, the contemplator falls into those unfathomable ecstasies caused by these decompositions of force terminating in unity. Everything ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... discriminative criticism reaches perhaps its highest level in his Life of Pope, in reply to the question which had been asked, even in his day, whether Pope was a poet? asks in return, 'If Pope be not a poet, where is poetry to be found?' and adds that 'to circumscribe poetry by a definition will only show the narrowness of the definer, though a definition which shall exclude Pope will not readily be made.' Joseph Warton, too, Johnson's contemporary and friend, while preferring the ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... low, what shall it say but this? 'Here is the change beginning, here the lines Circumscribe beauty, set to bliss The limit time assigns.'" ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... relation," to use Mr. Herbert Spencer's phraseology, he has much less difficulty with the "internal relation." The ill-tempered person, on the other hand, can make very little of his environment. However he may attempt to circumscribe it in certain directions, there will always remain a wide and ever-changing area to stimulate his irascibility. His environment, in short, is an inconstant quantity, and his most elaborate calculations and precautions must often and ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... the world and circumscribe each pole. Slow let me speak it: From her lips and brow I took the gifts she ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Archbishop as the slave of a sect. I would as readily put my neck under the yoke of a national church as under the yoke of a sect. It does not mend the matter that the multitude are willing slaves, and it certainly mars the matter that the sects themselves do what they can, in too many instances, to circumscribe each the other's liberty. Sects are religiously and socially proscribed by sects. Take any town in America that contains half a dozen churches, representing the same number of religious denominations, and it will be found that, with one, and that probably the dominant sect, it will ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... Lovers have gazed upon thee, and have thought Their mingled lives should flow as peacefully And brightly as thy waters. Here the sage, Gazing into thy self-replenished depth, Has seen eternal order circumscribe And bound the motions of eternal change, And from the gushing of thy simple fount Has ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... mighty odds was understood, standing there with no encompassing walls to mark the boundary of its field. It was like the struggle of a man who stands alone in the vastness of life with no definite aim to circumscribe his endeavor, wasting his feeble illumination upon a little ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... were very right in considering these as monarchical symptoms; but shrewd observers perceived clearly in whose favour such changes were designed to operate. It appears that some of Napoleon's colleagues made a last effort to circumscribe his power, by urging on him the necessity of his immediately placing himself at the head of the armies in the field; expecting, no doubt, great advantages, could they remove him from the seat of government, at the time when the new machinery was getting into a regular course of motion. He sternly ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... perhaps in the annals of French history: in a word, wherever the foot is placed, there arises a sort of lamentation of the eighteenth century—that celebrated century, whose limits we do not pretend to circumscribe as the astronomers would, but whose beginning may be dated from the decline of the reign of Louis XIV., its career closing with Barras, whose immodest chateau still displays at the present day its restored foundations ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... reception. composition &c. (inclusion in a compound) 54. V. be included in &c.; come under, fall under, range under; belong to, pertain to; range with; merge in. include, comprise, comprehend, contain, admit, embrace, receive; inclose &c. (circumscribe) 229; embody, encircle. reckon among, enumerate among, number among; refer to; place with, arrange with, place under; take into account. Adj. included, including &c. v.; inclusive; congener, congenerous; of the same class &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... thickness of a man's thumb constituted the whole apparatus. The knife, which was not very heavily weighted, was of small dimensions and had a curved edge, which gave it the form of a reversed Phrygian cap. No hood was placed to shelter the King's head and at the same time to hide and circumscribe its fall. All that crowd could see the head of Louis XVI. drop, and it was thanks to chance, thanks perhaps to the smallness of the knife which diminished the violence of the shock, that it did not bound beyond the basket to the pavement. Terrible incident, ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... I do here give this public notice that my resolutions are to circumscribe within this discourse the whole stock of matter I have been so many years providing. Since my vein is once opened, I am content to exhaust it all at a running, for the peculiar advantage of my dear country, and for the universal benefit of ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... cutting this Gordian knot which, perhaps, no statesman is acute enough to untie. By reserving to the Parliament of Great Britain the right of determining what our respective interests require, they might extend the freedom of trade, or circumscribe it at their pleasure, for what they might call our respective interests. But I trust it would not be for our mutual satisfaction. Your "earnest desire to stop the effusion of blood and the calamities of war" will therefore ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... same time elective, is, in my opinion, to entertain two incompatible designs. To reduce hereditary royalty to the condition of an elective authority, the only means that I am acquainted with are to circumscribe its sphere of action beforehand, gradually to diminish its prerogatives, and to accustom the people to live without its protection. Nothing, however, is further from the designs of the republicans of Europe than this course: as many of them owe their hatred of tyranny to the sufferings ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... returned from Lancashire, and ascertained that my property there may be made very valuable, but various circumstances very much circumscribe my exertions at present. I shall be in town on business in the beginning of November, and perhaps at Cambridge before the end of this month; but of my movements you shall be regularly apprised. Your objections I have in part done away by alterations, which I hope will suffice; and I have sent two ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... I have mark'd it, where all time and place Are present. Not for increase to himself Of good, which may not be increas'd, but forth To manifest his glory by its beams, Inhabiting his own eternity, Beyond time's limit or what bound soe'er To circumscribe his being, as he will'd, Into new natures, like unto himself, Eternal Love unfolded. Nor before, As if in dull inaction torpid lay. For not in process of before or aft Upon these waters mov'd the Spirit of God. Simple and mix'd, both form and substance, forth To perfect being started, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... compasse of the Law. And this is a cause of many unnecessary Processes. For when I consider how short were the Lawes of antient times; and how they grew by degrees still longer; me thinks I see a contention between the Penners, and Pleaders of the Law; the former seeking to circumscribe the later; and the later to evade their circumscriptions; and that the Pleaders have got the Victory. It belongeth therefore to the Office of a Legislator, (such as is in all Common-wealths the Supreme Representative, be it one Man, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... begun, a new era may be said to have commenced with regard to them, and it is to be hoped that increasing wisdom and liberality of ideas may clear away some of the remaining obstacles which for so long encumbered, and even yet impede and circumscribe within a very narrow circle, the natural course of their commerce. For the Spanish Government are far from following a similar policy to that of the great Henry the Fourth of France, who, as an encouragement to the manufacturing industry of ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... nature whereof we speak is made known by its independency of those limitations which circumscribe us on every hand. The soul circumscribes all things. As I have said, it contradicts all experience. In like manner it abolishes time and space. The influence of the senses has in most men overpowered the mind to that degree that the walls of time and space have come to look real and insurmountable; ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... surprised to find those islands desert which are near to the coast of Cumana, Barcelona and Caracas. They would long have ceased to be so had they been under the dominion of any other government than that to which they belong. Nothing can engage men to circumscribe their industry within the narrow limits of a small island when a neighbouring continent offers them ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... the imperative laws and lines which circumscribe the fashionable world will realize just how marked a departure it was. It was a remarkable party. The very highest and most sought after of the fashionable world were there, a few of them, and John Warden was there in his new business ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... moderate human step or pace, between the third of the length of the body of a tall and short man, etc. etc. Professor Smyth has collected several of the estimations thus adduced by Newton as "methods of approach" to circumscribe the length of the Sacred Cubit, and omitted others. Adding to eight of these alleged data, what he mistakingly avers to be Sir Isaac's deduction of the actual length of the Sacred Cubit in British inches—(namely, 24.82 instead of 24.753)—as a ninth quantity, he enters the whole ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... felt as to the stability of some portions of the south side, and it has been found necessary to underpin some of the buttresses of the Choir and the walls of the Transept with large slabs of Yorkshire stone. It has also been deemed desirable to circumscribe the two round towers of the south west Transept ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... the legitimacy of the other. But if the various sciences—I mean the positive sciences—divide different objects thus between them, philosophy cannot, in its turn, come forward as a particular science, having a distinct object, the designation of which would be sufficient to characterise and circumscribe it. Such was always the traditional conception: such will ours continue to be. For, as a matter of fact, every object has a philosophy and all matter can be regarded philosophically. In short, philosophy is chiefly a way of ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... with the precepts of an enlightened age and the sentiments of a virtuous people, seeks by appeals to reason and by its liberal examples to infuse into the law which governs the civilized world a spirit which may diminish the frequency or circumscribe the calamities of war, and meliorate the social and beneficent relations of peace; a Government, in a word, whose conduct within and without may bespeak the most noble of all ambitions—-that of promoting peace on earth and good ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... round. "You are quite right to circumscribe me. There is nothing so boring as the gratitude that will out. It is only the absence of it, too plainly expressed, that is unpleasant. But you won't find that in me either." She gave him a smile as she lowered her parasol to turn into the shop ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... restored to me, and I to them, as if at one time they had been hopelessly lost! But how small had all objects become, how diminutive, how confined, limited and contracted their dimensions, and how pretty yet how petty, compared to the vast huge and limitless lines of existence, which form and circumscribe the Great Saharan Regions! where I had travelled so many long months. When I first arrived in Africa, I looked upon the dark and purple mountains of the coast with a species of mysterious feeling, as if such mountain groups were ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... compassion rises in my bosom, when the spontaneous tear starts from my eye, what frigid moralist shall "stop the genial current of the soul?" shall say to the tide of passion, So far shall thou go, and no farther?—Shall man presume to circumscribe that which Providence ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... and elevated, but clearly it is a moral rather than an aesthetic delicacy that he exhibits, and aesthetically he exercises his sweeter and more sympathetic sensibility within the same rigid limits which circumscribe that of Lebrun. He has, indeed, less invention, less imagination, less sense of composition, less wealth of detail, less elaborateness, no greater concentration or sense of effect; and though his color is more agreeable, perhaps, ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... mean?—Where are they?' Who could forgive this? For my part, I never can, and never will! I admire Wordsworth; as who does not, whatever they may pretend? but for that short sentence I have a lingering ill-will at him which I cannot get rid of. It is surely presumption in any man to circumscribe all human excellence within the narrow sphere of his own capacity. The 'Where are they?' was too bad! I have always some hopes that De Quincey was leeing, for I did not myself hear Wordsworth utter ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... Arctic night By X times ox times moose, And build an igloo on the site Of its hypotenuse; If we circumscribe an arc about An Arctic dog and weigh A segment of it, every doubt Is made as clear as day. We also get the price of ice F. O. B. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... grown up from the seed thus planted, that has established our relations among ourselves over our wide heritage, and established our relations with the rest of the world, what is its outlook to-day? What is it in the sense of material prosperity? Who can measure it? Who can circumscribe it? Who can, except by the simple rule of three, which never errs, determine its progress? As the early settlement of Plymouth is to the United States of America, as it now is, so is the United States of America to the future possession and control of the world ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... continued to do so ever since; and I could not find in my heart to go to another. She commended the book I gave her, Dr. Preston, the Church Marriage; quoted him saying 'twas inconvenient keeping out of a Fashion commonly used. I said the Time and Tide did circumscribe my Visit. She gave me a Dram of Black-Cherry Brandy, and gave me a lump of the Sugar that was in it. She wish'd me a good Journy. I pray'd God to keep her, and came away. Had a ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... of the mind is not so much to draw up, and hale forward, as to know how to range, direct, and circumscribe itself. It holdeth for great what is sufficient, and sheweth her height in loving mean things better ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... possible change in the objects which the name is habitually employed to denote; with the least possible disarrangement, either by adding or subtraction, of the group of objects which, in however imperfect a manner, it serves to circumscribe and hold together; and with the least vitiation of the truth of any propositions which are ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... the point of view from which natural phenomena may be considered, the more necessary it is to circumscribe the science within its just limits, and to distinguish it from all other analogous or ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt |
