"Invincible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... present way of thinking with a hope for the future of his unfortunate parishioner. Any good old Roman Catholic priest, born and bred to his faith and his business, would have found a loop-hole into some kind of heaven for her, by virtue of his doctrine of "invincible ignorance," or other special proviso; but a recent convert cannot enter into the working conditions of his new creed. Beliefs must be lived in for a good while, before they accommodate themselves to the soul's wants, and wear loose enough ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... strength than to the weakness of the empire, where rival rulers were being constantly elected and wasting their strength against one another. If Courtrai had given the first hint that these iron-clad knights were not invincible in war, it was soon followed by another. The Swiss peasants formed among themselves a league to resist oppression. This took definite shape in 1308 when they rebelled openly against their Hapsburg overlords.[5] The Hapsburg duke of the moment was one of two ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... that you are in pursuit of! But that fortune, like my hand and heart, is already promised to one I love; and, to speak very plainly to you, I would die ere I would disappoint him or wed your son," said Clara, with invincible firmness. ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... nothing will endear his memory more than the knowledge that, if and in so far as they have now a charter invulnerable alike to the prejudice and the caprice of those who administer the law, it is largely due to the clear vision of Sir Charles Dilke, and to the skill and invincible courage with ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... of the truth" shall attach himself to me with a love which will brave rack and stake. All your power cannot give a grain of new life. I can and will infuse my own divine life, my own divine self, into men. And this new life is invincible, immortal, all-conquering. I have infused myself into a few fishermen, and they will infuse me into a host of other men. Thus I will transfigure into my own character every man in the world, who is of the truth, and therefore will hear my voice. All the power ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... success, that grand Invincible discoverer of our land Had made no lodge or wigwam desolate To carry trophies to the proud and great; If on our history's page there were no blot Left by the cruel rapine of Cabot, Of Verrazin, and Hudson, dare we claim The Indian of the plains, to-day had been ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... enjoying with due relish that sweetest of all pleasures, which Faraki has so wisely attached to the reproduction of our species. We reverently admire the wisdom and the goodness of Faraki, who, desiring to secure to the world a continued population, has implanted in the sexes an invincible mutual attraction, which constantly draws them towards each other. Fecundity is the end he proposes, and he rewards with intoxicating delights those who contribute to the fulfilment of his designs. What should we say to the favourite of a King from whom he had received a beautiful house, and fine ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... scheme. All safety rests on honest counsels: these Immortalize the statesman, bless the state, Make the prince triumph, and the people smile; In peace rever'd, or terrible in arms, Close-leagued with an invincible ally, Which honest counsels never fail to fix In favour of an unabandon'd land; A land—that starts at such a land as this, A parliament, so principled, will sink All ancient schools of empire in disgrace, And Britain's glory, rising from the dead, Will fill ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... unbroken slumbers in Fleda's room. Fleda herself, after a look at Hugh, crept to her aunt's bed; whither Barby very soon despatched Mrs. Rossitur, taking in her place the arm-chair and the watch with most invincible good-will and determination; and sleep at last took the joys and sorrows of that disturbed household ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... only the hunted, but also the hunter, and that he had pledged himself to strike down all the seven who first took his trail. Five of these were already gone; two remained, and of these two one was Vic Gregg, no despicable fighter himself, and the other was no less than the invincible little sheriff himself. To imagine the sheriff beaten in the speed of his draw or the accuracy of his shot was to imagine the First Cause, Infinity, or whatever else is inconceivable; nevertheless, there were such possibilities as bullets fired at night through ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... force, led by David Leslie, from Hereford, to launch against Montrose. The hero snatched a final victory. He had but a hundred horse, but he had Colkitto and the flower of the fighting clans, including the invincible Macleans. Baillie, in command of new levies of some 10,000 men, was thwarted by a committee of Argyll and other noble amateurs. He met the enemy south of Forth, at Kilsyth, between Stirling and Glasgow. The fiery Argyll made Baillie desert an admirable position—Montrose was ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... is beautiful, life is great and splendid, we had only to lift up our eyes and see. Think of the glories through which we have been driving, like a herd of swine in a garden place. The color in life—the sounds—the shapes! We have had our jealousies, our quarrels, our ticklish rights, our invincible prejudices, our vulgar enterprise and sluggish timidities, we have chattered and pecked one another and fouled the world—like daws in the temple, like unclean birds in the holy place of God. All my life has been foolishness and pettiness, gross pleasures and mean discretions—all. ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... the left and right, they fell on the naked flanks of the reeling and disordered mass, while the troops whom they had relieved, re-forming themselves rapidly, pressed forward with tremendous shouts of victory, eager to share the triumph which their invincible steadiness had ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... The most invincible King Ferdinand relates that he has eaten another fruit brought from those countries. It is like a pine-nut in form and colour, covered with scales, and firmer than a melon. Its flavour excels all other fruits.[1] This fruit, which the King prefers to all others, does not grow upon a tree ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... no doubt, ugly enemies in a bush fight, or an ambuscade. Many whole companies had no sabers but those their officers carried, and the very individuality and self-reliance of the men acted as an invincible opponent to drill and discipline. Mounted on horses of all sizes and colors; equipped with all varieties of trappings; and carrying slung at their backs every known game-killer—from rifle to duck gun—they would have been a strange picture to the European officer to which ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... said the prisoner, 'who forged this chain very carefully. I thought my invincible power would hold the world captive leaving me in a freedom undisturbed. Thus night and day I worked at the chain with huge fires and cruel hard strokes. When at last the work was done and the links were complete and unbreakable, I found that it held ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore
... sought the ship with a hard name by choice. His chief ambition was to kick in the ribs or pound senseless some invincible bucko mate. There was provocation enough on both sides. Officers had to take their ships to sea and strain every nerve to make a safe and rapid passage with crews which were drunk and useless when herded aboard, half of them greenhorns, perhaps, ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... pressure of conviction to his mind. The mind did not shrink from any thought of the dangers in which he would be placed, from any vision of the struggle he must have with intrigue, and treachery and vileness. In a dim, half-realised way he felt that honesty and truth would be invincible weapons with a people who did not know them. They would be embarrassed, if not baffled, by a formula of life and conduct ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... marked his public character, were a predilection for his native country, and a close attention to the political interests of the Germanic body; points and principles to which he adhered with the most invincible fortitude: and if ever the blood and treasure of Great Britain were sacrificed to these considerations, we ought not so much to blame the prince, who acted from the dictates of natural affection, as we should detest a succession of venal ministers, all of whom in their turns devoted ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... door opened; the queen entered; the wearied attendants sprang up ; the bread and fruit were hastily concealed. "I found," says poor Miss Burney, "that our appetites were to be supposed annihilated at the same moment that our strength was to be invincible." ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... which almost throttled her. She had been his chief companion and playfellow for the last five weeks, had read him all his favourite fairy-tales over and over again, had sat with him of an evening till he fell asleep, an invincible defence against bogies and vague fears of darkness. She had taken him for long rural rambles, over breezy downs towards the sea, had dug and delved with him on the lonely beach below the great white lighthouse, warmly coated and shawled, and working hard in the November wind; and ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... History and the Arts, endowing that mind with a keenness of intellectual grasp in strange contrast with the practical skill of its future guide. Those who see no God in nature, no God in events, may batter away at this proposition. The record of Kit Carson's future tasks will prove it to be an invincible stronghold of theory. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... fell to the squadron. Sometimes it only needed for a ship or two to appear before a town and it would surrender, but generally an assault or the appearance of a storming party on land was necessary. But the seamen and marines were always invincible in this part of the war, where they were entirely without ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... of the centre, there is given to all natural objects a strong tendency to become united with their centre. As soon as anything is turned in the direction of its centre, unless it be stopped by some invincible obstacle, it rushes towards it with extreme velocity. A stone in the air is no sooner let loose, and turned towards the earth, than it tends to it by its own weight as its centre. It is the same with fire and water, which, ...
— A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... labour they feel the necessity of expansion; they receive their wages and go to Caltanissetta; those who are married sleep with their wives, while those who are unmarried sleep quite alone as the soldiers did after the death and burial of l'Invincible Monsieur d'Malbrough. They become free human beings for two days. I have seen the piazza full of them on Sunday morning—so full that I thought it would have been easier to walk across it, treading on their heads, than to push through the ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... and he'll hang himself" he said gloatingly. "Because the land favoured them at Boston, they got the idea they were invincible, and Congress would have it that New York must be defended, though a hundred thousand troops could not have done it against the fleet, let alone Howe's army. Ho! By this time the rogues have learned what fifteen thousand butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... Spain, but the populace of it; asking more time, by a great number of years, to understand the former, though but in a competent measure, than I hope his Majesty will give me: and if his Majesty would, God will not. I have learned by the yet invincible ignorance of some Foreign Ambassadors to England (an open-breasted country!—how apt they are to mistake), who (begging the question, in the first place, of their own personal abilities) can never be convinced that Mas vee el loco en su casa, ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... congratulating him that an embassy had come from the furthest corners of the earth unexpectedly, offering him a large body of recruits; and that, by combining the strength of his own nation with these foreign forces, he would have an army absolutely invincible; observing further that, by the yearly payment for military reinforcements which came in every year from the provinces, a vast treasure of gold might be accumulated in ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... marriage prospect that her father's own lips had placed before her not a month since, had bewildered and dismayed them alike. They had summoned their courage to meet the shock of her passionate grief, or to face the harder trial of witnessing her speechless despair. But they were not prepared for her invincible resolution to read the Instructions; for the terrible questions which she had put to the lawyer; for her immovable determination to fix all the circumstances in her mind, under which Michael Vanstone's decision had ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... won from the forlorn wearers[71] of rings by the renowned and invincible troops of the promoter of conquest,—they wielded the two-edged sword—the foes of our Ruler dropt, and the Raven from his fields of slaughter, winged his flight for ...
— The Norwegian account of Haco's expedition against Scotland, A.D. MCCLXIII. • Sturla oretharson
... the count, "I fear me, indeed, that a knight like the Sieur Anthony, who fights under the eyes of such a king, will prove invincible. Did kings enter the lists with kings, where, through broad Christendom, find ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have been, for these last five days, in the most anxious expectation of being able to write to you something certain about the situation of things here. Still, however, they remain in the same unsettled state. The invincible repugnance continues to operate in the strongest manner; it is avowed, and was certainly the cause of the late offer, which has been declined; notwithstanding the promises of support from many of those who have voted with ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... antiquity Hath flowed, "with pomp of waters, unwithstood," Road by which all might come and go that would, And bear out freights of worth to foreign lands; That this most famous Stream in Bogs and Sands Should perish; and to evil and to good Be lost for ever. In our Halls is hung Armoury of the invincible Knights of old: We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold Which Milton held. In every thing we are sprung Of Earth's ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... with all races and generations of men in the house of sleep. It was easy to say, easy to do. To stop swimming: there was no mystery in that, if he could do it. Could he? And he could not. He knew it instantly. He was aware instantly of an opposition in his members, unanimous and invincible, clinging to life with a single and fixed resolve, finger by finger, sinew by sinew; something that was at once he and not he—at once within and without him;—the shutting of some miniature valve in his brain, ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... reality, men, instead of wisely concluding from its incomprehensibility that they are exempt from thinking of it, on the contrary, conclude that they can not occupy themselves enough about it, that they must meditate upon it without ceasing, reason without end, and never lose sight of it. The invincible ignorance in which they are kept in this respect, far from discouraging them, does but excite their curiosity; instead of putting them on guard against their imagination, this ignorance makes them positive, dogmatic, imperious, and causes them to ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... they can form themselves into a mass that has a true political personality! My warning may be wasted, but anybody who has a chance ought to try to appeal to the better, the riper, mind of educated India. Time has gone on with me, experience has widened. I have never lost my invincible faith that there is a better mind in all civilised communities—and that this better mind, if you can reach it, if statesmen in time to come can reach that better mind, can awaken it, can evoke it, can induce it to ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... Brownson's letter was to throw its recipient into a state of great though brief perplexity. That final struggle, strange and painful, in which the soul for the last time contends against its happiness; in which it is drawn by an invincible attraction, knowing that it will yield yet striving still to resist; is one that must remain but half-comprehended by most of those to whom Catholic truth is an inheritance. And yet there is an explanation which Father ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God, who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... there was none. Statesmanship in the higher sense of the word was absent from every decision the delegates took and from every suggestion they proffered. Nor was it only by omission that they sinned. Their invincible turn for circuitous methods, to which severer critics give a less sonorous name, was manifested ad nauseam. They worked out cunning little schemes which it was hard to distinguish from intrigues, ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... eyes of Europe as in the time whose events are recorded in this volume. A chivalrous king and an even more chivalrous prince had infected the whole people with their martial spirit, and the result was that their armies were for a time invincible, and the most astonishing successes were gained against numbers which would appear overwhelming. The victories of Cressy and Poitiers may be to some extent accounted for by superior generalship and discipline on the part of the conquerors; ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... Europe. It occurs in the chapter "De l'Homme": "We see certain wild animals, male and female, scattered over the fields, black, livid and scorched by the sun, fastened to the soil which they delve and stir with an invincible obstinacy; they have a sort of articulate speech, and when they stand up upon their feet, they show a countenance that is human: and in short they are human beings. They creep back at nightfall into ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... ignorance makes an act involuntary. Now vengeance is sometimes taken on the ignorant. Thus the children of the people of Sodom, though they were in invincible ignorance, perished with their parents (Gen. 19). Again, for the sin of Dathan and Abiron their children were swallowed up together with them (Num 16). Moreover, dumb animals, which are devoid of reason, were commanded to be slain ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... which he had sown were not to be set fighting amongst themselves, nor were they to be smashed by any rocks that he could hurl amongst them. They stood around him in an awful circle, and turn which way he would, he saw the same appalling figure, armed to the teeth, and invincible as death. ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... than that their lives should be spared. But overtures were of no use so long as Moh-Wang refused to acquiesce. A council of war was summoned, and hot words passed. One general seized the brave old warrior, whose spirit was so invincible, stabbed him, and severed his head from his body. That night, November 29, 1863, Soo-chow, which had been held by the rebels since 1860, was surrendered. In order to prevent his men from looting it, Gordon sent them ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... best interests of the human race. Come, and let us ascertain what bearing the circumscribed sphere of woman has on the great political and social evils that curse and desolate the land. Come, for this cause claims your most invincible perseverance; come in single-heartedness, and with a personal self-devotion that will yield everything to Right, Truth, and Reason, but not an iota to dogmas or theoretical opinions, no matter how time-honored, or by what ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... bravest of the brave, And cowards are the rarest of all rarities. The proudest nations kneel at her command; She terrifies all foreign-born rapscallions; And holds the peace of Europe in her hand With half a score invincible battalions! ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... deliberate toilet, dressing every feather with care, and spending a half hour over the operation. All this time the invader stood on the top perch, backed against the wires, his long tail on one side like the train of a lady's dress, invincible determination in his manner. The calm indifference of the house-owner evidently did not please him, and the long drawn-out toilet was irritating; he grew thirsty, and dropped to the floor to drink, ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... to send the Invincible Armada up the English Channel as far as the Netherlands, where Parma would be ready with a magnificent Spanish army waiting aboard troopships for safe conduct into England. The Spanish regulars could then hold London up to ransom ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... having withdrawn the use of the water-springs from the Israelites and prevented their wives from taking the prescribed ritual baths and thus from fulfilling their conjugal duty? Is he more powerful than Goliath, who reviled the warriors of Israel, and was slain by David? Or is he more invincible than the sons of Orpah, who waged wars with Israel, and were killed by David and his men? Therefore, do not refrain thy mouth from prayer, and thy lips from supplication, for on account of the merits of our fathers, Israel has ever and ever been snatched out of the jaws of death. He who ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... proud Gaul sustain'd an overthrow By the immortal MARLBOROUGH, Ever invincible! then you and I, My Thirsis, shar'd the common joy. Blenheim and Ramillies were then our song, The day tho' short, the night was long, Till both with mighty claret glow'd, And tipsy, ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... of course; for she can't endure me. Like all modest men, I require only nine hundred and ninety-nine perfections in my wife. But then I insist chiefly on two essentials: she must have money, and she must not have brothers and sisters; I have an invincible antipathy to collaterals, whether of ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... animal and plant life. When this noxious surface mold is eliminated, the planet is then ready to furnish us sustenance, for we Xoranians live directly upon the metallic elements of the planet itself. Our bodies are of a substance of which your scientists have never even dreamed—deathless, invincible, living metal!" ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... demoralization of California by the "bonanza era" of silver discovery, the rise of an invincible plutocracy, and the second reign of loose luxury are herein ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... and Crosthwaite have all written their names on the pages of Fox-terrier history. Ladies have ever been supporters of the breed, and no one more prominently so than Mrs. Bennett Edwards, who through Duke of Doncaster, a son of Durham, has founded a kennel which at times is almost invincible, and which still shelters such grand terriers as Doncaster, Dominie, Dodger, Dauphine, and many others well known to fame. Mrs. J. H. Brown, too, as the owner of Captain Double, a terrier which has won, and deservedly, more prizes than any Fox-terrier ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... promises! I think I am a fair match for most youths of my age; and I should not mind competing with industry alone, or talent alone, or with a moderate amount of both united in one boy; but, really, when it comes to competing with invincible genius combined with indomitable perseverence, I do not enter into the contest with any very sanguine hopes ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... one of General Jackson's favorite home amusements, and he had become the possessor of a breed of fowl that was invincible in Tennessee. He had some of these pugnacious birds brought to Washington, and one spring morning he rode out toward Bladensburg, with a select party of friends, to see "a main" fought between the Hermitage and the Annapolis ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... that this be accomplished with more ease, Writ in the skies from all eternity, Captains, invincible by lands and seas, Shall heavenly Providence to him supply. I mark Hernando Cortez bring, 'mid these, New cities under Caesar's dynasty, And kingdoms in the Orient so remote, That we of these in India ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... who reads this book can doubt for a moment, I think, that ENGLAND HAS DONE ALL SHE COULD, has put forth efforts worthy of her history and of her great traditions, that her national spirit is invincible, her national resources inexhaustible, and that her irresistible will to conquer and to rescue freedom and civilization for all the world from this terrible contest, is ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Monsieur de Mortsauf; how can I struggle against his aggressions when I am fighting against death? Standing here to-day, alone and much enfeebled, between these two young images of mournful fate, I am overpowered with disgust, invincible disgust for life. What blow can I feel, to what affection can I answer, when I see Jacques motionless on the terrace, scarcely a sign of life about him, except in those dear eyes, large by emaciation, hollow as ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... Molly had taken the most effectual way possible to prevent any such occurrence. Phoebe did not dare to lift her eyes; and the chaplain was, if possible, the shyer of the two, and had been dragged there against his will by invincible Molly. Neither would have known what to do, if Gatty had not kindly come ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... hooks. The boats were brought together, end on, the hooks dropped into the eye-bolts, and there we were, hard and fast. We couldn't lose that captain. But we were irrepressible. Out of our very manacles we wrought an invincible device that enabled us to put it all over every other boat ...
— The Road • Jack London
... certainly held as long as he could to the old maxim of “Nature’s abhorrence of a vacuum.” “I do not think it allowable,” he says in his letter to M. Périer, “to depart lightly from maxims handed down to us by antiquity, unless compelled by invincible proofs.” But the notions of Descartes on the subject of a vacuum were at least as confused as those originally held by Pascal. {45a} It is absurd, therefore, to suppose that the latter could have been indebted to the principles of the Cartesian ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... remark, which I would not for the universe have it thought I apply to Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within himself, like an oyster, and rarely spoke except in monosyllables; but then it was allowed he seldom said a foolish thing. So invincible was his gravity that he was never known to laugh or even to smile through the whole course of a long and prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered in his presence that set light-minded hearers in a roar, it was observed to throw him into a state of perplexity. Sometimes he would deign to inquire ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... much discussion among jurists whether a passion can ever be so violent as to overpower the will absolutely, so as to deprive it of all freedom at the moment. If it can, then the culprit should be totally acquitted for doing what he could not help doing. In several States of the Union, such an invincible impulse has been recognized by the courts of justice, and men have been acquitted for acting on what was supposed to be an invincible impulse to commit crime; the courts considered this as an extreme form ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... without appointment, or salary, with only faith in God that she should be sustained, and with a firm reliance on the invincible principles of Truth and Justice, in the hope of doing good, she left Ohio, and proceeded directly to ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... her for the sacrifice of her youth that she had made for his sake, Olivier lived in terror of his military service which he could not escape if he were rejected:—(at that time admission to the great schools was still admitted as an exemption from service).—He had an invincible disgust for the physical and moral promiscuity, the kind of intellectual degradation, which, rightly or wrongly, he saw in barrack-life. Every pure and aristocratic quality in him revolted from such compulsion, and it seemed to him that death would be preferable. In these ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... under Lewis XIV, (which England had unwisely fostered from Cromwell to James II), was secured by this victory. 'The loss of France could not be measured by men or fortresses. A hundred victories since Rocroi had taught the world to regard the armies of Lewis as all but invincible, when Blenheim and the surrender of the flower of the French soldiery broke the spell': (Green: History of the English People: B. ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... (No. 18), in an imaginary meeting of the political Robin Hood Society, where he figures as Orator Bronze, and exclaims:—"I am pleased to see this assembly—you're a twig from me; a chip of the old block at Clare Market;—I am the old block, invincible; coup de grace as yet unanswered. We are brother rationalists; logicians upon fundamentals! I love ye all—I love mankind in general—give me some ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... for his arrows to reach or destroy. Circumstances seemed later to favor his malicious designs, as shall be shown in the conclusion of this work; but, together, and in the full flush of our happiness, we were invincible. ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... given rather a priggish picture of Arthur, it is a totally erroneous one. He was far too casual and too retiring to be that; he had no appearance of self-importance, though an invincible reserve of self-respect. The prig wears chain armor outside, and runs at you with his lance when he catches a glimpse of you. Arthur wore his chain armor under his shirt, and it was not till you closed with him that you felt how sharp his ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ragged section of boiled mutton which had been carved and helped so long before he sat down to it, that the stagnant gravy was chilled and congealed into patches of greasy white. He managed to swallow it with many pauses of invincible disgust—only to find it replaced by a solid slab of pale brown suet pudding, sparsely bedewed with ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... life, make the good citizens; in public life, the patriot and the hero. I do not say that, when brought to the test, I shall be invincible. I pray God I may never be brought to the melancholy trial, but if ever I should, it will be then known how far I can reduce to practice principles which I know to be founded in truth. In the meantime I will proceed to the subject ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... they are both self-engrossed, but women can dissemble and men cannot. It is another proof of their invincible boyishness, this total inability to pretend interest. Even the averagest man is no hypocrite. He tries it sometimes, and fails pitifully. The successful male dissembler is generally a crook. But the most honest woman in the world is ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... cuirasses and helmets flash in the sunlight as the invincible army camps with band and music and song above the Niemen. Half a million of soldiers are on their way to the old capital of Russia, Moscow. The Russian roads from Vilna to Vitebsk are full of endless lines of troops, squadrons of cavalry ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... many facts thus brought to bear upon this last stronghold of the Prince of Darkness, may be named especially those indicating "expectant attention"—an expectation of phenomena dwelt upon until the longing for them becomes morbid and invincible, and the creation of them perhaps unconscious. Still other classes of phenomena leading to epidemics are found to arise from a morbid tendency to imitation. Still other groups have been brought under hypnotism. Multitudes more have ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... here the only pledge we may. Yet let these hostile thousands fear the souls That rage for battle and that welcome death, And know us for invincible, and joy That no more rafts were stayed. They'll offer terms And tempt us with a base unhonoured life. Would that, to give that death which shall be ours The greater glory, they may bid us hope For pardon and for life! lest when our swords Are reeking with our hearts'-blood, they may say This was ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... they are composed of three hundred thousand swords, and thousands of cannon and muskets. If the lion is determined to use his teeth, lie will easily succeed in destroying the were-wolf; for this rapacious and bloodthirsty were-wolf is brave and invincible only when he has to deal with lambs; only the feeble and disarmed ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... those rebellions in the realm of finance of which I have given an instance. But now the war chest of our opponents was negligible; and we were comforted by the thought that, however disagreeable the affair might be while it lasted, in the long run capital was invincible. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... women of Chapelizod as were destitute of letters—mendicants and the like—should learn to read. Twice a week her 'old women's school,' under that energetic lady's presidency, brought together its muster-roll of rheumatism, paralysis, dim eyes, bothered ears, and invincible stupidity. Over the fire-place in large black letters, was the legend, 'BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!' and out came the horn-books and spectacles, and to it they went with their A-B ab, etc., and plenty of wheezing and coughing. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... brought in, given nuts and a glass of port, regarded sardonically, sarcastically questioned. "Well, sir, and what have you donn with your book to-day?" my lord might begin, and set him posers in law Latin. To a child just stumbling into Corderius, Papinian and Paul proved quite invincible. But papa had memory of no other. He was not harsh to the little scholar, having a vast fund of patience learned upon the bench, and was at no pains whether to conceal or to express his disappointment. "Well, ye have a long jaunt before ye yet!" he might observe, yawning, and fall back on his ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they won't," said Father Columb, having altogether laid aside his bland smile now that the time had come, as he thought, to speak up for the people. "They may bear it in England, but they won't here." And the sternness of his eye was almost invincible. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... diversity in their behaviour. It flows from a principle of honour, instilled early and cultivated with such care, as to inspire him in his rudest state with a heroic magnanimity, to which philosophy hath endeavoured in vain to form him, when more highly improved and polished. This invincible constancy he has been taught to consider as the chief distinction of a man, and the highest attainment of a warrior. The ideas which influence his conduct, and the passions which take possession of his heart, are few. They operate of course with more decisive effect, than when ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... and freedom must be our guiding stars, for they show us truth, they make us brave, give us hope, and leave us wiser than we were. Our progress began not in Washington, DC, but in the hearts of our families, communities, workplaces, and voluntary groups which, together, are unleashing the invincible spirit of one great nation ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... yellow. That is merely a substitution of fact for fact. One may doubt whether one is perceiving or remembering or telling facts clearly, but the persuasion that there are facts, independent of one's interpretations and obdurate to one's will, remains invincible. ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... inspiring force. One foible I admit: the tendency to inopportune benevolence. Mr Graham Balfour says that if he fell into ill terms with a man he would try to do him good by stealth. Though he had seen much of the world and of men, this practice showed an invincible ignorance of mankind. It is improbable, on the doctrine of chances, that he was always in the wrong; and it is probable, as he was human, that he always thought himself in the right. But as the other party to the misunderstanding, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... Indra, the overcomer, the destroyer, the munificent, the invincible, the all-endowing, the creator, the all-adorable, the sustainer, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... queen of home, whose throne under the present regime rests on the sandy foundation of human generosity and human caprice. It should be remembered that the women of the South are the daughters of their fathers, and have as invincible a spirit in their convictions in the cause of liberty and justice as had ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... the Genoese repeated when the interpreter had translated Edmund's exclamation to him. "'Tis shame and disgrace that Christendom does not unite against them. They are no more invincible now than they were when Caesar overran their country and brought them into subjection. What the Romans could do then would be easy for the Christian powers to do now if they would but make common cause against these marauders—nay, Italy alone should be ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... defeat, the disasters, and final discomfiture, which it has not yet pleased Divine Providence to inflict on this slight effort of the young Hercules, as he merely moves in his cradle. Alas, the enemy that most menaces the overthrow of this new and otherwise invincible exhibition of human force, is within; seated in the citadel itself; and must be narrowly watched, or he will act his malignant purpose, and destroy the fairest hopes that ever yet dawned on the fortunes of ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... HORSE- RIDING was there; and the Gothic niche was there; but Mr. Sleary was not there. Master Kidderminster, grown too maturely turfy to be received by the wildest credulity as Cupid any more, had yielded to the invincible force of circumstances (and his beard), and, in the capacity of a man who made himself generally useful, presided on this occasion over the exchequer - having also a drum in reserve, on which to expend his leisure moments and superfluous forces. ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... Editions, a Passage has labour'd under flat Nonsense and invincible Darkness, if, by the Addition or Alteration of a Letter or two, I have restored to Him both Sense and Sentiment, such Corrections, I am persuaded, will ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... strategy that, by the slowness of its development, if by nothing worse, was destined to dim the lustre of the Union triumphs, and lose the results of a year of war, the West was in motion. Down the Mississippi swept our invincible fleet, with an army on shore to second its operations. Up the Tennessee steamed Grant's victorious army, and Buell, with forty thousand men, was marching across the State of Tennessee, to reach the same ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... and pad and make my way up to where she moved among the carved pillars when I heard a soft sigh above and caught the rustle of her dress as she sat down upon a bench at the head of the steps near which I stood. Somehow that sigh deterred me. I hesitated to break in upon a melancholy so invincible that even the sight of all this loveliness could not charm it away, and in that moment of hesitation something occurred above which fixed me to my ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... wrested from our hands; we are deaf to all signals for retreat, to all recal from the combat. We hope for the happiest success; we will prefer enduring the bitterest disaster to being slaves. Caesar has collected an invincible army. Two perfectly brave consuls are present with their forces. The various and considerable reinforcements of Lucius Plancus, consul elect, are not wanting. The contest is for the safety of Decimus Brutus. One furious gladiator, with a ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... murder and the reality of the vengeance. I asked myself what could be the outcome of a struggle with him. He was armed; he was not weakened by hunger; but he stood between us and the water. My thirst would give me strength; the desire to end Seraphina's sufferings would make me invincible. On the other hand, it was dangerous to interfere. I could not tell whether they would not try to find out what became of him. It was safest to let him go. It was extremely improbable that they would sail ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... will certainly be delighted to have me home—loving each other as we do! Especially now that we have been successful, and the enemy, that every one thought invincible, beaten, beaten at the first set-to under my auspices and leadership. Ah yes, my arrival will surely be a very welcome event ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... were a clear head, a large stock of shrewd common sense, and an invincible love of truth and straightforwardness, so that he could hold his ground against any man in the place, William Foster the styptic not excepted. Not that Bradly was at all fond of an argument; he avoided one when he could do so consistently, preferring to do good by just ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... adopted the Platform and then nominated Roosevelt by acclamation. Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House, Chicago, seconded the nomination, praising Roosevelt as "one of the few men in our public life who has been responsive to modern movement." "The program," she said, "will need a leader of invincible courage, of open mind, of democratic sympathies—one endowed with power to interpret the common man, and to identify himself with the common lot." Governor Hiram Johnson, from California, was nominated for Vice-President. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... had felt like a child shut out from the sunshiny place where his mates are playing. I had become patient, contemplative and resigned, and in study and in studious observation of Nature in her rarest beauty and most mighty and invincible development I had almost forgotten the deliciousness of a selfish and individual hope, the pleasures of happy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... be playing with beautiful toys whilst a whole world lived only to sweat and starve. The appeal of the miserable seemed to be to him personally. It is what certain sects call conversion in religion, a truth addressing itself with unwonted and invincible force to ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... what he would, And all that baseness of him—being so pure, So chaste, and faithful—like a blazing torch Took fire of scorn and anger 'gainst the man, Her true soul burning at him, till the wretch, Wicked in heart, but impotent of will, Glared on her, splendidly invincible In weakness, loftily defying wrong, A living flame of lighted chastity. She then—albeit so desolate, so lone, Abandoned by her lord, stripped of her state— Like a proud princess stormed, flinging away All terms of supplication, cursing him With wrath which scorched: "If I am clean in heart And ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... moment. Andiatarocte had appealed to him as a refuge. Just why he did not know, but he vaguely expected to find safety there. Perhaps he would meet Willet and Tayoga by its shore, and to him the three united always seemed invincible. ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... England was not, as she afterwards became, invincible by sea; and as we were engaged at the same time in war with France, Spain, Holland, and the United States, it was only occasionally that a fleet could be spared to bring succour and provisions to the beleaguered ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... whereas no one was ever a great artist without possessing it in a high degree, and mankind are rapidly becoming aware of this fact. It is true they often jump the middle terms of their syllogisms, and assume premises to which the world has not yet arrived; but time stamps their rapid deductions as invincible, for genius dwells in the REALM OF THE IDEAL: the realm, not of contingent and phenomenal actualities, but of eternal truths. 'For the ideal is destined to transform man and the world entire into its own image; and in this gradual ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... warrior approach, Sir Guyon immediately lowered his lance, but to his surprise was unhorsed by Britomart's invincible spear. She was about to dismount to despatch her fallen foe with her sword, when the palmer loudly bade his master crave mercy, seeing it was useless to contend against magic weapons. Hearing this, Sir ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... like lions: the proud memories of the Emperor's campaigns fill them with that confidence of victory which made his armies invincible. They fight for victory, for glory, for the French eagles, and for the little cold man who, they know, stands on the height behind them; whose eye follows every single man, who ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... could to fix him, but finding that the Duke was always for delays, and for perplexing all expedients with groundless fears of invincible difficulties, he fell upon an expedient very dangerous to all appearance, but, as it usually happens in extraordinary cases, much less so than at ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... finally developed—which is simply not the case—avails nothing against the overwhelming testimony that Copernicus felt himself in danger—testimony which the after-history of the Copernican theory renders invincible. The very title of Fromundus's book, already cited, published within a few miles of the archbishop's own cathedral, and sanctioned expressly by the theological faculty of that same University of Louvain in 1630, utterly refutes ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... for it of capital importance. For, here do they write out its rights and duties, the rights and duties of its subjects, a more or less perfect plan of civil order. This plan, avowed or dissimulated, towards which they incline the preferences of the faithful, issues at length, spontaneously and invincible from their doctrine, like a plant from its seed, to vegetate in temporal society, flower and fructify therein and send its roots deeper down for the purpose of shattering or of consolidating civil and political ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the banks of the Rhne or the sandy plateau of Avignon that they sought adventure thus, "discussing things and other things," but as far as the slopes of Mont Ventoux, for which Fabre had always felt an inexplicable and invincible attraction, and whose ascent he accomplished more than twenty times, so that at last he knew all its secrets, all the gamut of its vegetation, the wealth of the varied flora which climb its flanks from ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... Baleinier! Mme. de Saint-Dizier and her friends never forgive," said the young girl, with a shudder. "It needed all my invincible aversion, my innate horror for all that is base, cowardly, and perfidious, to induce me to break so openly with her. But if death itself were the penalty, I could not hesitate and yet," she added, with one of those graceful smiles which ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Willoughby University, Ohio, and taking with him to Illinois testimonials as to his professional skill. In the latter state he showed a taste for military affairs, and after being elected brigadier general of the Invincible Dragoons, he was appointed quartermaster general of the state in 1840, and held that position at the state capital when the Mormons applied to the legislature for a charter ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... melancholy solitude had caused in him an imperative need of affection and tenderness. Jeanne told him nothing about her new ideas, her intimacy with the Abbe Tolbiac, or her religious enthusiasm, but the first time he saw the priest, he felt an invincible dislike for him, and when his daughter asked him in the evening: "Well, what do you ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... tall gaunt men, who have been somewhat battered by wind and weather, are apt to get. Our second mate, Ben, or rather "Benjie" Stubbs, as he was usually called, was nearly as broad as he was long, with puffed-out brown cheeks wearing an invincible smile. He was a man of one idea: he was satisfied with being a thorough seaman, and was nothing else. As to history, or science, or the interior of countries, he was profoundly ignorant. As to the land, it was all very well in its way to grow ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... Street, Whitechapel, one of the worst parts of the east of London, where the fire of sin and crime rages most fiercely; where the soldiers of the Cross are comparatively few, and would be overwhelmed by mere numbers, were it not that they are invincible, carrying on the war as they do in the strength of Him who said, 'Lo, ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... and the most dreadful thunder, lightning, and rain, issued from it that ever I beheld. The Indians were greatly terrified, and ran to seek such shelter as they could. The Indian chiefs themselves, though their courage in war is usually invincible, could not help trembling at the horrid combustion."—Carver, 56. The southern Indians believe thunder to be the voice of the Almighty.—Adair, 86. They believe that Minggo Ishto Eloa, "the great chieftain of thunder" sometimes binds up the clouds ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... Besides his invincible will and courage, Lincoln had one important resource in his dark hours, an ever-ready relief for his overcharged emotions. Byron said that he sometimes laughed in order that he might not weep. Lincoln's life-long solace ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... was feebly defended, but carried by the majority, which was always ready and required no reason; it was an egregious piece of folly and arrogance there, here it presents a real embarrassment. I told him I knew Harrowby had an invincible repugnance to it, and that the effect would be very bad if they split upon the first point. He said he should not defend it, that all reason was against it, but that there it was, and how was it to be got rid of? I suggested that ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... him to make an experiment of the naphtha upon Stephanus, who stood by in the bathing place, a youth with a ridiculously ugly face, whose talent was singing well. 'For,' said he, 'if it take hold of him, and is not put out, it must undeniably be allowed to be of the most invincible strength.' The youth, as it happened, readily consented to undergo the trial, and as soon as he was anointed and rubbed with it, his whole body was broke out into such a flame, and was so seized ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... years. Had this Englishman proved true, it would not have mattered; had Prince Frederick arrived in time, still it would not have mattered. But above all, I was determined that Madame the duchess should not triumph. The end was written ten years ago. How invincible is fate! ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... she. "Aunt Anne with her Palace of Peace and you with your invincible France. But, Rookie, you hear to me. Whatever you do with your own money, you do it your own ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... you have done, Jack?" asked the editor, much amused to find that his hitherto invincible hero was not above the ordinary human weakness of offering advice ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... is a hard one to beat. Though he is mighty young, he has spent his time looking for trouble ever since he was big enough to shoot a gun, and he has had so much luck that I suppose now he thinks that he is invincible." ...
— Young Wild West at "Forbidden Pass" - and, How Arietta Paid the Toll • An Old Scout
... infectious, has nothing in common with the visionaries or illuminati. He is a man of about fifty, vigorous, alert and enthusiastic, but at the same time well-balanced; accesible to every idea and even to every dream, yet practical and methodical, with a ballast of the most invincible common-sense. He inspires from the outset that fine confidence, frank and unrestrained, which instantly disperses the instinctive doubt, the strange uneasiness and the veiled suspicion that generally separate two people who meet for the first time; ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... sceptre and his life. Yet even this cruel act was attributed to a supernatural impulse; and the vigor with which Attila wielded the sword of Mars convinced the world that it had been reserved alone for his invincible arm. But the extent of his empire affords the only remaining evidence of the number and importance of his victories; and the Scythian monarch, however ignorant of the value of science and philosophy, might perhaps lament that his illiterate subjects were destitute of the art which could ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... the arts, a nobility of language, and that dignity that imposes respect while it seduces." All the journals chanted his praises. Seeing that the Constitutionnel itself, freed from censorship, rendered distinguished homage to legitimacy, he came to believe that principle invincible. He was called Charles the Loyal. At the Theatre-Francais, the line ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... so blind as those who will not see, and it would be waste of time to argue with the invincible ignorance of one who thinks Lamarck and Buffon conceived that all species were produced from one another, more especially as I have already dealt at some length with the early evolutionists in my work Evolution, Old and New, first published ten years ago, and not, so ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... Madonna Duchessa sorella, who had taken pleasure in reading his effusions. And there was another Tuscan poet, Antonio Cammelli of Pistoia, who composed a whole volume of sonnets dedicated to "that most invincible Prince, the light and splendour of the world, Lodovico Moro." These sonnets are of great interest, less on account of their poetic merit than because of the fidelity with which they commemorate political events. The invasion of the French, the conquest of Naples, the battle of Fornovo, the peace ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... nation knows as perhaps the foremost living Southerner, who has acquired the art of speaking upon this whole matter in a way that seems to beget at least a respectful hearing everywhere, says: 'Few reasonable men now charge the Negroes at large with more than ignorance and an invincible faculty for ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... and was not restrained by delicacy from indulging them in many rather doubtful ways. Chief among his foibles stood curiosity. He was a born gossip; and life, and especially those parts of it in which he had no experience, interested him to the degree of passion. He was a pert, invincible questioner, pushing his inquiries with equal pertinacity and indiscretion; he had been observed, when he took a letter to the post, to weigh it in his hand, to turn it over and over, and to study the address with care; and when he found ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... academy of Europe, owe the lustre of it very much to the great encouragement the kings of France have given to it. And one of the members making a speech at his entrance tells you that it is not the least of the glories of their invincible monarch to have engrossed all the learning of the ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... succor from their countrymen of Africa: in the siege of Palermo, the Norman cavalry was assisted by the galleys of Pisa; and, in the hour of action, the envy of the two brothers was sublimed to a generous and invincible emulation. After a war of thirty years, [55] Roger, with the title of great count, obtained the sovereignty of the largest and most fruitful island of the Mediterranean; and his administration displays ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... to receive them, and with these were the people of the younger Shee, members of the Tuatha da Danaan, tall and beautiful men and women who had descended to the quiet underworld when the pressure of the sons of Milith forced them with their kind enchantments and invincible velour to the country ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... attention to what I have now to read, since this account of the battle of Laodicea, the details thereof being principally derived from his Imperial Highness, my excellent father, from the altogether valiant Protospathaire, his invincible general, together with Achilles Tatius, the faithful Follower of our victorious Emperor, may nevertheless be in some circumstances inaccurate. For it is to be thought, that the high offices of those great commanders retained them at a distance from some particularly active parts of the fray, in order ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Raleigh become indifferent to "western planting"; which the most distinguished of them all, "industrious Hakluyt," the historian of maritime enterprise, still promoted by his personal exertions, his weight of character, and his invincible zeal. Possessed of whatever information could be derived from foreign sources and a correspondence with eminent navigators of his times, and anxiously watching the progress of Englishmen in the West, his extensive knowledge made him a counselor ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... was always passing me his favourite dainties and urging upon me garlic, and some particularly awful and populous cheese. I was especially impressed in this, my first intercourse with a Spanish-speaking race, by their invincible habit of paying compliments, and yet their inability to convince even an unsophisticated person like myself that they meant ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... divine freedom. From no lightly scattered seed, but only from a deeply infolded kernel, could this heroic growth spring up. Only mighty emotions, only a deep stirring of the fancy through the impression of all-enlivening, all-commanding energies of Nature, could stamp upon Art that invincible vigor with which from the rigid, secluded earnestness of earlier productions up to the period of works overflowing with sensuous grace, it ever remained faithful to truth, and produced the highest spiritual Reality which it is given ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... the next thing he heard Napoleon say whose power of saying "no" had made his "yes" invincible; "no, it is not to be done like that. You will await your instructions, and not move until you receive them from my own hand. Make no attempt to surprise anybody or anything, until I have ten thousand men ashore. ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... Astor, whose good humor for a long time had seemed invincible, tempestuously left the stage one day in the middle of one of her scenes with her dancing partner, and could be heard sobbing loudly in the wings through all ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... "ten-strike." Her hearers did not pause an instant to determine whether the utterance was wit or humor or pure inanity. It fitted their mood; fitted it better than the actor or Hugh had believed it could. To the company's notion it was good nonsense offsetting and overpowering an otherwise invincible bad nonsense and snatching from it all right of argument, sympathy, or judicial appeal; laughing it out of court, to remain out at least until the completion of this voyage should give this jury, these hearers, an honorable discharge. ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... his actions and convict him in detail, will take, as it happens, but a short time, and is expedient, I think, for two reasons: first, that his baseness may appear in its true light; secondly, that they, whose terror imagines Philip to be invincible, may see he has run through all the artifices by which he rose to greatness, and his career is just come to an end. I myself, men of Athens, should most assuredly have regarded Philip as an object of fear and admiration, had I seen him exalted by honorable conduct; but observing ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... nostrils, and he bent a sweat-dewed face to that mighty scavenging once more: that there was nothing poetic to Caesar about the Rubicon: nothing poetic to Clive about India. The world seems to have an invincible prejudice against men who see the romance in the work they are doing. The footballing, cigarette-smoking clerk, who lives at Hornsey or Tufnell Park, works in an office in Queen Victoria Street, lunches at Lyons's, and plays football at Shepherd's ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... Alexander may be seen from an account given by another of his admiring biographers, Mr. J. G. Hesekiel. This writer enthusiastically swings the censer before Nicholas as the "Iron Knight of Legitimacy" and the "Invincible Champion of Government by the Grace of God." (I may mention in passing that Mr. Hesekiel has done the life of Prince Bismarck into similar adulatory prose). At the age of fourteen—he relates—the boy-prince, Alexander, in ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... in Fabre's eyes, was the imperious physiological reason of these rude laws. This is why the love of the males is almost equivalent to their suicide; the Gardener-beetle, attacked by the female, attempts to flee, but does not defend himself; "it is as though an invincible repugnance prevents him from repulsing or from eating the eater." In the same way the male scorpion "allows himself to be devoured by his companion without ever attempting to employ his sting," and the lover of the Mantis ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... voice had in it the firmness, almost obstinacy, that often characterizes gentle people. His opposition had seemed so disproportioned and was so gently uttered that the hearers had felt as if a breath must blow it away, and interest heightened to intense excitement when it proved invincible. ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... pass through the terrible experience, even though he should fail in it and fall. His prayer for him was not that he should not be sifted, but that his faith should not altogether fail. His aim in all his dealings with his friends was to train them into heroic courage and invincible character, and not to lead them along flowery paths through gardens ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... champion under the sun, so mighty a man as once I was, when in wide Troy I slew the best of the host, and succoured the Argives. Ah! could I but come for an hour to my father's house as then I was, so would I make my might and hands invincible, to be hateful to many an one of those who do him despite and keep ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... the ideal man to which all tends.... "No, Mrs. Besant; I never feel at all inclined to give up the search, or to suppose that the other side may be right. I claim no merit for it, but I have an invincible faith in the morality of God and the moral order of the world. I have no more doubt about the falsehood of the popular theology than I have about the unreality of six robbers who attacked me three nights ago in a horrid dream. I exult and rejoice in ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... disaster. The two hated each other with all the strength they had. He knew not only her pride, but her passion for the absent Honore. He hated her, also, for her intelligence, for the high favor in which she stood with her mistress, and for her invincible spirit, which was more offensively patent to him than to others, since he was himself the chief object ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... Ethiopian King, himself," all cried, because that was news with a vengeance. Amonasro was known to be an invincible warrior, and, if he was going to take the field in person, Egypt had indeed something to fear. At the ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... revealed the peculiar traits of his military genius, clear discernment of possibilities, comprehension of the requirements of the situation, strategical instinct, accurate estimate of the enemy's motive and plan, sagacious promptness of action in exigencies, staunch resolution, inspiring energy, invincible poise. For his achievement he was promoted to be a major-general of volunteers. He had ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... correctly, and to speak good grammar. This gave to her conversation a painfully artificial air. The little learning she had absorbed was sufficient to bestow upon her an angry consciousness of her own invincible ignorance. ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... although thus bound down by the almost invincible powers of early habits, have still exerted extraordinary abilities within their narrow and confined circle, and have, from the natural vigour of their mind, given such an interesting expression, such force and energy to their works, though they cannot be recommended to be exactly imitated, ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... desired squall. It served to blow away some of our persecutors; but our rest was of very short duration, and I was at length compelled to order the people to take to the boats, fairly driven from the shore by our diminutive but invincible assailants. The tide set past the boats at the rate of four knots per hour, and it fell 33 feet, being 6 feet more than we had as yet found it. The only rock seen here was a block, visible at low-water; it was a conglomerate, and ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... again, entering the glorious ways of truth and prosperous virtue, destined to become great and honourable in these latter ages. Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam; purging and unscaling her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... the war was forced upon Germany! A ring of enemies surrounded her. Envy and ill-will were their motives, but they lacked the right measure for Germany's greatness. Our people stand invincible, united, staking life and everything they have—till the last ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... The picture had been so; but, seeing her now, I felt that the glorious promise of her youthful prime had failed. She had missed her course; and the beauty, whose charm to the imagination had been that it seemed invincible, was now subdued and ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli |
