"Nil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... atque Caribdi merito asi[mi]latur, uelim periculositate perfecta tristique [-teque MSS.] nautis malum ibi subministratur. Ad hoc eurippum ipsi peruenientes, repentino ceperunt in eum delabi cursu; quumque nil preter mortem [Quumque uelut propter mortem R2] sperantes, et quia iam quasi tetris essent abyssi faucibus deuorandi, tunc sanctus Columba prefati pulueris de tumba beati Kerani assumpti aliquid assumens, mare in ipsum immisit. Res ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... find it convenient, I do not suppose that those who projected and made the line allowed me to enter into their thoughts; the debt of my gratitude is divided among so many that the amount due from each one is practically nil. ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... conventions at Atlanta and Des Moines have but confirmed me in my judgment that our delegated body always should meet in Washington. For local propaganda both were undoubtedly good, but for effect in securing Congressional action, absolutely nil. I believe in resuming our old plan of holding at least two conventions every year, one for the election of officers and for its influence upon Congress in Washington every winter; the other in whatsoever ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Nil dulcius est bene quam munita tenere Edita doctrina sapientum templa serena, Despicere unde queas alios passimque videre Errare atque viam palantes ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... Hernicus olim 180 Vestinusque senex, 'panem quaeramus aratro, Qui satis est mensis: laudant hoc numina ruris, Quorum ope et auxilio gratae post munus aristae Contingunt homini veteris fastidia quercus. Nil vetitum fecisse volet, quem non pudet alto 185 Per glaciem perone tegi, qui summovet Euros Pellibus inversis; peregrina ignotaque nobis Ad scelus atque nefas, quaecumque est, ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... all these systems in their later developments, is their cosmopolitanism. Homo sum, nil humani a me alienum puto, 'I am a man; nothing appertaining to humanity do I deem alien from myself,' this was the true keynote of whatever was vital in any of them. And the reason of this is not far to seek. We have seen already (p. 82) how the chaos of sophistic doctrine was largely conditioned, ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... power, we dare not attack him; and if he be weary of the world, or of his own villainies, he has nothing to do but die, and then his reputation is safe. For these excellent casuists know just Latin enough to have heard a most foolish precept, that de mortuis nil nisi bonum; so that if Socrates, and Anytus his accuser, had happened to die together, the charity of survivors must either have obliged them to hold their peace, or to fix the same character on both. The only crime of charging the dead is, when the least doubt remains whether the accusation ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... form: As-Sudan former: Anglo-Egyptian Sudan Digraph: SU Type: military civilian government suspended and martial law imposed after 30 June 1989 coup Capital: Khartoum Administrative divisions: 9 states (wilayat, singular - wilayat or wilayah*); A'ali an Nil, Al Wusta*,, Al Istiwa'iyah*,, Al Khartum, Ash Shamaliyah*, Ash Sharqiyah*, Bahr al, Ghazal, Darfur, Kurdufan Independence: 1 January 1956 (from Egypt and UK) Constitution: 12 April 1973, suspended following coup of 6 April 1985; interim ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... No. Used in reply to a question, particularly one asked using the '-P' convention. Most hackers assume this derives simply from LISP terminology for 'false' (see also {T}), but NIL as a negative reply was well-established among radio hams decades before the advent of LISP. The historical connection between early hackerdom and the ham radio world was strong enough that this may have ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... too, good times, when the troopers would trek across the Delta to the Barrage du Nil, a pleasant spot where the Nile divides into its delta streams and canals. Here they would bivouac for the night beneath shady plantations of lebbak trees in beautiful gardens. In the daytime they swam their horses in the river. A jolly form of amusement there was the blanket-tossing ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... cruel winds, why call you hence away? Why make you breach betwixt my soul and me? Ye traitorous floods, why nil your floats delay Until my latest moans discoursed be? For though ye salt sea-gods withhold the rain Of all your floats and gentle winds be still, While I have wept such tears as might restrain The rage of tides and winds against their will. ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... at having beaten their opponents was unbounded, and when, a short time later, the latter retired with a score against them of one to nil. Jack Vance was seized by a band of applauding comrades, who, with his head about a couple of feet lower than his heels, carried him in triumph across the playground, and staggered half-way up the steep garden ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... est Grotius, majus quo doctior orbis Nil habuit; credo, nil habiturus erit: Gallia quem stupuit, stupuit quem Suecia, verus Qui Phoebus Delphis, orbe ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... IOTA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA}: whereas the Judaical rites were abolished, whereupon Zanchius noteth,(193) that the Apostle doth not so much speak of things by-past, as of the very nature of all rites, Definiens ergo ipsos ritus in sese, dixit eos nil aliud esse quam umbram. If all rites, then our holidays among the rest, serve only to adumbrate and shadow forth something, and by consequence are unprofitable and idle, when the substance itself is clearly set before us. 4. That reason, Col. ii. 20, doth no less ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... Nil mortale loquor; coelum mihi carminis alta Materies; poscunt gravius coelestia plectrum. Muscosi fontes, sylvestria tecta, valete, Aonidesque deae, et mendacis somnia Pindi: Tu, mihi, qui flamma movisti ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... the Ministry of Health Bill Mr. J.H. THOMAS made a rather ungracious allusion to the Local Government Board. De moribundis nil nisi bonum should have been his motto, especially as the old Department has done splendid work (and never better than in recent times under Sir HORACE MONRO) for the health and comfort ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... small wood through which her path lay. Dot's anger had wholly left her, but her fear remained. A terrible sense of responsibility was upon her, and she was utterly at a loss as to how to cope with it. Her influence over this man she believed to be absolutely nil. She had not the faintest notion how to deal with him. Lady Carfax would have known, she reflected, and she wished with all her heart that ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... grand air, and having sternly (not to say with indignation) looked on at the flying waiter while he set the clean glasses round, directed a valedictory glance towards Mr. Grewgious, conveying: 'Let it be clearly understood between us that the reward is mine, and that Nil is the claim of this slave,' and pushed the flying waiter before ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... sounding-board, a musical box, anything rather than a living tongue. To a later race of stylists, who have gone as far as Samoa and beyond in the quest of exotic perfumery, Borrow would have said simply, in the words of old Montaigne, "To smell, though well, is to stink,"—"Malo, quam bene olere, nil olere." Borrow, in fact, by a right instinct went back to the straightforward manner of Swift and Defoe, Smollett and Cobbett, whose vigorous prose he specially admired; and he found his choice ill appreciated by critics whose sense of style demanded ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... opus exegi: quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignes, Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas. Cum volet illa dies, quae nil nisi corporis hujus Jus habet, incerti spatium mihi finiat aevi,— Parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis Astra ferar: nomenque erit indelebile nostrum. Quaque patet domitis Romana potentia terris, Ore legar populi; perque ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... take a pill or a draught - seems likely soon to become the only form of outdoor existence possible for too many inhabitants of the British Isles. But a walk without an object, unless in the most lovely and novel of scenery, is a poor exercise; and as a recreation, utterly nil. I never knew two young lads go out for a "constitutional," who did not, if they were commonplace youths, gossip the whole way about things better left unspoken; or, if they were clever ones, fall on arguing and brainsbeating on politics or metaphysics ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... much did their gratitude need an object to expend itself upon. One thing above all the rest heightened the respect, nay almost the veneration, of Danglars for Cavalcanti. The latter, faithful to the principle of Horace, nil admirari, had contented himself with showing his knowledge by declaring in what lake the best lampreys were caught. Then he had eaten some without saying a word more; Danglars, therefore, concluded that such luxuries were common at the table of the illustrious descendant of ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... slabs supported on four sides. Grashof's formula for flat plates has no application to reinforced concrete slabs, because it is derived for a material strong in all directions and equally stressed. The strength of concrete in tension is almost nil, at least, it should be so considered. Poisson's ratio, so prominent in Grashof's formula, has no meaning whatever in steel reinforcement for a slab, because each rod must take tension only; and instead of a material equally stressed in all directions, ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... think with me, I know not; but the famous "De mortuis nil nisi bonum" always appeared to me to savour more of female weakness than of manly reason. He that has too much feeling to speak ill of the dead, who, if they cannot defend themselves, are, at least, ignorant of his abuse, will not hesitate, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... Vesper colloquiis dulcibus ad focum; Somnis nox magis, et preci: Sed nil, Terrigenum ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... surgeon may hazard entering the womb with his knife. If large portions of an organ,—the lung, a kidney, parts of the liver, or the brain itself,—may be lost by accident, and the patient still live, the physician is taught the lesson of nil desperandum, and that if possible to arrest disease of these organs before their total destruction, the prognosis and treatment thereby acquire ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... have written, not letters only, but whole tomes and voluminous treatises about nothing? Why should a fellow like me, who all his life does nothing, be ashamed to write nothing, and that, too, to one who has nothing to do but read it?" And so, with "ex nihilo nil fit," he laughingly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... the 10th of January, and thus far the opportunities for skating that had come to the young people of that section of country where Scranton was located, had been almost nil; which would account for the enthusiasm of the lads when Thad announced how rapidly the thermometer was giving promise of a severe ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... should discharge the function of Minister Plenipotentiary for Naples. His Ministers accordingly received orders to correspond with me upon all business connected with his government and his subjects. The relations between Hamburg and Naples were nearly nil, and my new office made no great addition to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... fails, life hangs by a thread; one's days are numbered, one's hour is come, one's race is run, one's doom is sealed; Death knocks at the door, Death stares one in the face; the breath is out of the body; the grave closes over one; sic itur ad astra [Lat][Vergil]; de mortuis nil nisi bonum[Lat]; dulce et decorum est pro patria mori [Lat][Horace]; honesta mors turpi vita potior [Lat][Tacitus]; "in adamantine chains shall death be bound" [Pope]; mors ultima linea rerum est [Lat][Girace]; ominia mors aequat [Lat][Claudianus]; "Spake ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... N. Souuerain en mes Royaumes, vniquement ayme de Dieu, colomne de la foy, sorty de la race de Inda, etc. Les limites de cet Empire touchent a la mer Rouge, et aux montagnes d'Azuma vers {72} l'Orient, et du coste de l'Occident, il est borne du fleuue du Nil, qui le separe de la Nubie, vers le Septentrion il a l'AEgypte, et au Midy les Royaumes de Congo, et de Mozambique, sa longueur contenant quarante degre, qui font mille vingt cinq lieues, et ce depuis Congo ou Mozambique qui sont ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... we no sooner arrived than a host of Wakungu, lately returned from the Unyoro war, came to pay their respects to the king: they had returned six days or more, but etiquette had forbidden their approaching majesty sooner. Their successes had been great, their losses, nil, for not one man had lost his life fighting. To these men the king narrated all the adventures of the day; dwelling more particularly on my defending his wife's life, whom he had destined for execution. This was highly approved of by all; and they ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... his greatest point of danger—greater, even, than the danger of coming to the planetoid, or the danger of waiting nineteen days for the coming of the supply ship. If the ones who remained within suspected anything—anything at all!—then his chances of coming out of this alive were practically nil. ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... duplicate the brief, but that was no advantage. This time he had an M.D. degree from Johns Hopkins, but his military career listed him as a dishonorable discharge from the navy where he'd served in the steward department. His criminal record was happily nil, but his religion was listed as Holy Roller. Political affiliations had him down as ...
— Status Quo • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... mortuis nil, nisi bone 'em!" suggested Miss Hurribattle, with such perfect gravity that neither Miss Prowley nor the clergyman suspected the jocular atrocity that was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... likely to be useful to him at the present moment. For the amount of money that he required was large—larger, indeed, than he cared to verify with any strictness, and the security that he could offer, almost nil. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the same time, although the first blow may daze a snake, it is some time before the final effect takes place, and the creature will wriggle about for some time after having been struck, while its energy is practically nil—that is to say, it merely lives without possessing any ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... a constant which varies from 1.3 to 2 in various qualities of iron and steel. For ductile iron or mild steel it may be taken as 1.5. For a statical load, range of stress nil, [Delta] 0, k{max.} K, the statical breaking stress. For a bar so placed that it is alternately loaded and the load removed, [Delta] k{max.} and k{max.} 0.6 K. For a bar subjected to alternate tension and compression ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... conceivably speak so of Calcutta.... The Turk is a conqueror and nothing else. The history of the Turk is a catalogue of battles. His contributions to art, literature, science and religion, are practically nil. Their desire has not been to instruct, to improve, hardly even to govern, but simply to conquer.... The Turk makes nothing at all; he takes whatever he can get, as plunder or pillage. He lives in the houses which he finds, or which he orders to be built for him. In unfavourable ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... que ronge un volcan souterrain, Grece qu'on connait trop, Sardaigne qu'on ignore, Cites de l'Aquilon, du Couchant, de l'Aurore, Pyramides du Nil, Cathedrales du ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... start on that plane. There are other sorts of wealth, still more valuable, on the spiritual and intellectual planes, which you can give; and you can start from this point and practise the spirit of opulence, even though your balance at the bank may be nil. And then the universal law of attraction will begin to assert itself. You will not only begin to experience an inflow on the spiritual and intellectual planes, but it will extend itself ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... from the artistic point of view is almost nil; it simply calls for some work by carpenters ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... rare, and openings for such work almost nil. To obtain a market would demand business training which has not been part of their tradition, which while it tempts, both intimidates and revolts them. Certain desperate ones would branch out in spite of all—but they do not know how, dare not seem ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... 'Bene quidem arbitrati, si causam celestis beatitudinis non in sonis sed in Creatore possuissent; ubi veraciter sine fine gaudium est, sine aliquo taedio manens semper aeternitas: et inspectio sola Divinitatis efficit, ut beatius esse nil possit. Haec veraciter perennitatem praestat: haec jucunditates accumulat; et sicut praeter ipsam creatura non extat, ita sine ipsa incommutabilem ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... Bristol's seeking me there; and, eager as I was to give them substance, found them but airy—ultimately was forced to admit them to be nil. ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... fathers, but was wrenched from them by force. So be it. By force we take again our own, and revenge ourselves for all the pilling of the past. We are a perilous people, who have proved victors in divers great battles, and brought many a bitter war to a good end. But what profit is ours of nil these triumphs, so long as we cry not 'check' to Rome! I desire not drink to my lips when athirst, nor meat to my mouth when an hungered, as I desire the hour when we hurtle together in the field. Then hey for the helm laced fast, the lifted shield, for the brandished sword, ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... De mortuis nil nisi bonum; but, while fully acknowledging the force of the remark, as also the great scientific attainments and love for natural history which distinguished the illustrious traveller, I cannot allow anyone who reads his entertaining works to ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... of the thymus, we are a good deal at sea. The latest opinion about the results of extirpation even in young and growing animals is that they are nil. Yet there is a certain justification for proclaiming the thymus the gland of childhood, the gland which keeps children childish and sometimes makes children out of grown-ups. There is a quantity of data for that proposition. In the first place, the curve ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... this nonsensical hot-gospelling rant, Alderman and Sheriff STUART KNILL was elected Lord Mayor, while BEAUFOY MOORE was, so to speak, no MOORE, and, in fact, very much against his will and wish, was reduced to NIL. WILLY-KNILLY he had to cave in. Mr. Punch congratulates the Lord Mayor Elect, but still more does he congratulate the City Fathers on rising above paltry sectarianism, so utterly unworthy of time, place, and persons, and for standing up, in true ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 8, 1892 • Various
... on Richard Bright's Travels through Lower Hungary or on Bright's Spanish authority, whatever that may have been. His knowledge of the strange history of the Gypsies was very elementary, of their manners almost more so, and of their folk-lore practically nil. And yet I would put George Borrow above every other writer on the Gypsies. In Lavengro and, to a less degree, in its sequel, The Romany Rye, he communicates a subtle insight into Gypsydom that is totally wanting in the works—mainly philological—of Pott, Liebich, ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... fortune, family, and education, whose youth had been passed in the most refined circles of private life, should present herself to the people as a public lecturer, would naturally excite surprise any where, and the nil admirari of the old world itself, would hardly be sustained before such a spectacle; but in America, where women are guarded by a seven- fold shield of habitual insignificance, it caused an effect that can hardly be described. "Miss ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... would proclaim her solidarity with Russia and France. France would fulfill the treaty obligations with Russia, besides supporting Russia in diplomatic negotiations. Sir George said, that personally he did not expect any declaration of this kind from Great Britain. Direct British interests were nil in Serbia, British public opinion would not permit Great Britain to enter war on her behalf. M. Sazonof replied that the general European question was involved, and Great Britain could not afford to efface herself from ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... exception of two or three colonies which were maintained by the Palestine Society in Odessa. It was evident that, in view of the slow advance of the Palestinian colonization, its political and economic importance for the Russian-Jewish millions was practically nil and that its only advantage over and against the American emigration day in its spiritual significance, in the fact that on the historic soil of Judaism there there rose into being a small Jewish center with a purer national culture than was possible in the Diaspora. This idea was championed ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... certainly, for I never transmitted a single copy till October, when I gave one to a boy, since gone, after repeated importunities. You will, I trust, pardon this egotism. As you had touched on the subject I thought some explanation necessary. Defence I shall not attempt, 'Hic murus aheneus esto, nil conscire sibi'—and 'so on' (as Lord Baltimore said on his trial for a rape)—I have been so long at Trinity as to forget the conclusion of the line; but though I cannot finish my quotation, I will my letter, and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... and nurses had dedicated to them some specimens of real sailor poetry, combining the names of the staff. With grim humour, the "operation room" bore above it "Nil desperandum"; and the decorated walls of the hospital told the onlookers that "small vessels should keep in shore," that "windmills are not turned by a pair of bellows," that "good things are not found in heaps," that "hasty people fish in empty ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... lisped, "I have just observed in yesterday's paper that money matters are in a bad way. There has been a crisis in the city, and your investments have sunk so low that your income will be practically nil." ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... "De mortuis nil nisi bonum," Geoffrey laughed. "No jests about the dead, Alison. But to tell you a secret, he never was alive. ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... miles. At the same instant let both the centrifugal and the centripetal forces or motions be applied to it, and to the sun. What is the result of such application? Will the planet move nearer the sun, which we are supposing to be perfectly at rest, or will it be urged further away? The effect is nil! for the simple reason, that when we set in motion the centripetal force of Gravitation, at exactly the same time we set in motion an exactly opposite force which is the exact complement and counterpart of the other, so that they exactly counterbalance each other, and Mercury under the influence ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... the whistle blew for No-side, the house had just finished scoring its fourteenth try. Six goals and eight tries to nil was the exact total. Dencroft's returned to headquarters, asking itself in a dazed way if these things could be. They saw that cup on their mantelpiece already. Keenness redoubled. Football became the fashion in Dencroft's. The play ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... use cunning—ay, and force, too—she would even kidnap them. Once in their grandmother's hands, the law would see to it that they did not go back to this stranger, this bibulous brute, whose rights over them were nil. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... Shall juggen, wol he nele he (will he nil he!) After the kynges counseil, And the comune like. And Spiritus prudentiae, In many a point shall faille, Of that he weneth will falle, If his wit ne weere. Wenynge is no wysdom, Ne wys ymaginacion. Homo proponit, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various
... replied, "The difference between the two sorts of madmen is, that he who is so will he nil he, will be one always, while he who is so of his own accord can leave off being one whenever ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... were all one to him; and when he embarked as senior chaplain he took a hatchet with which to break down the graven images of Louisbourg. In the end Whitefield warmed up enough to give the expedition its official motto: 'Nil desperandum Christo Duce.' The 'Never Despair' heartened the worldlings. The 'Christ our Commander' appealed to the 'Great Awakened.' And the whole saying committed him to nothing particular concerning the ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... your sex, whilst at the same time you could be put to the blush in many things by a school-girl of fifteen. For instance, though I firmly believe that you could at the present moment take a double first at the University, your knowledge of English literature is almost nil, and your history of the weakest. All a woman's ordinary accomplishments, such as drawing, playing, singing, have of necessity been to a great extent neglected, since I was not able to teach them to you myself, and you have ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... defect, I think, of some of our best modern writers. They are marvellously FIT and terribly little NASCITUR. It is why I can never concede the highest palm in her craft to G. Eliot. Her writing is glorious—Imagination limited—Dramatism—nil! ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... proportion to the shrinkage, for the percentage of caffein constantly decreases with the increase in color. If the roast be carried almost to the point of carbonization, as in the case of the "Italian roast," the caffein content will be almost nil. This is not a suitable coffee for one desiring an almost caffein-free drink, for the empyreumatic products produced by this excessive roasting will be more toxic by far than the caffein itself ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... then, to be wholehearted in defence of his master principle. Homo sum, et humani a me nil alienum puto—so said Terence. The nature-mystic adopts and expands his dictum. He substitutes mundani for humani, and includes in his mundus, as did the Latins, and as did the Greeks in their cosmos, not only the things of earth ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... young scamp Mercury says that we do nothing, and leave all the duties of Olympus to him. Will you believe it, he actually says that our influence on earth is dropping down to nil. ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... does concern you is this: your connection, and my connection, with the matter cannot possibly be established by the police. The incident is regrettable, but the emergency was dealt with—in time. It represents a serious deficit, unfortunately, and your own usefulness, for the moment, becomes nil; but we shall have to look after you, I suppose, and hope for better ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... will be observed that the "Gopis" here personify the five senses. Lassen says, "Manifestum est puellis istis nil aliud ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... Ferdinand de Lesseps, when en route to Paris, kindly took charge of some cases of specimens for analysis. But the poorest stuff had been supplied to him by M. Marie; and the results, of which I never heard, were probably nil. The samples brought to England, by order of his Highness the Khediv, were carefully assayed. The largest collection was submitted to Dr. John Percy, F.R.S. Smaller items were sent to the well-known houses, Messrs. Johnston and Matthey, of Hatton Garden, and Messrs. ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... thawing it out. We waited till we were all in our bags, and then we had one. I was greatly disappointed; it was not half so good as I had thought. But I am glad I tried it, as I shall never do so again. The effect was nil; I felt nothing, either in ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... one-third of the white colony—more exactly, 78 out of 250—had not reappeared, but the conditions for its re-appearance were highly favourable. The earth was all water, the vegetation all slime, the air half steam, and the difference between wet and dry bulbs almost nil. Thoroughly dispirited for the first time, I was meditating how to escape, when H. M. Steamship "Torch" steamed into Clarence Cove, and Commander Smith hospitably offered me a passage down south. To hear was to accept. Two days afterwards ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... this particular bakehouse is comparatively nil. The ovens have to be started on Sunday morning; but this the master does himself, and puts in the ferment, so that there is only the sponge to be made in the evening—a brief hour's job, taken on alternate ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... the dying speech,—very affecting and all, true no doubt; altho no one knew the character of this believing penitent either in point of veracity or judgment.—By the testimony of his land-lady in Court, one would not form the best opinion of him; but de mortuis nil nisi bonum. ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... and he laughed, rather bitterly, I thought—"when every trade requires capital, and the only trade I thoroughly understand, a very large one. No, no, Phineas; you'll not see me setting up a rival tan-yard next year. My capital is NIL." ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... comes with him to sup, The Host compounds a strangely mingled cup;— Red Wine of Life and Dregs of Bitterness, And, will-he, nil-he, each must drink ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... national love of a lord is less subservience than a form of self-love; putting a gold-lace hat on one's image, as it were, to bow to it. I see, too, the admirable wisdom of our system:—could there be a finer balance of power than in a community where men intellectually nil, have lawful vantage and a gold-lace hat on? How soothing it is to intellect—that noble rebel, as the Pilgrim has it—to stand, and bow, and know itself superior! This exquisite compensation maintains ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... this act be foregone how shall we proceed? Thou knowest well all evidence that can be obtained anent every one implicated with that 'bosom serpent, Mary,' should be gotten wil or nil." ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... after the repeal of the corn laws and of the prohibition of imports of live stock, the imports of live stock, meat, and dairy produce were, except from Ireland, almost nil[714]; since then they have increased enormously, and in 1907 the value of live cattle, sheep, and pigs imported was L8,273,640, not so great, however, as some years before, owing to restrictions imposed; but this decrease ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... feminine witchery. Intuition strong, logic weak, and the two qualities so balanced as to produce an indefinable charm; will-power large, but docility equal, if a man is clever enough to know how to manage her; knowledge of facts absolutely nil, but she is exquisitely intelligent in spite of it. She has a way of evading, escaping, eluding, and then gives you an intoxicating hint of sudden and complete surrender. She is divinely innocent, but roguishness saves her from insipidity. Her looks? She ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... help thinking that there was much of the bizarre about every thing I saw—but then the world is made up of all kinds of persons, with all modes of thought, and all sorts of conventional customs. I had travelled, too, so much, as to be quite an adept at the nil admirari; so I took my seat very coolly at the right hand of my host, and, having an excellent appetite, did justice to the good ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... establishment had been convicts, they were in a state of great insubordination. My native attendants pointed out an extensive weir, 200 feet long and five feet high; they said it was the property of a family, and emphatically remarked, "that white men had stolen it and their country;" the Yow-ew-nil-lurns were the original inhabitants. "Tapoe," the Mount Napier of Mitchell, is an isolated hill of volcanic formation; the crater is broken down on the west side to its base. The great swamp is skirted by low hills ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... the case of another dog, it was suggested by one who was flippant that his epitaph might run—"And may our lives have fewer faults than thine." But while it is true that this one had run up quite a heavy bill in cats and committed many other enormities, the line De mortuis nil nisi bonum was kept in view, and, if nothing could be said, it was judged better to say nothing. Moreover, as Murphy duly remarked, while we talked over the wonderful doings of many and many a dog now lying in this sacred corner, "What could you possibly have expected in such a ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... that "de mortuis nil nisi bonum" has usually been applied to cases similar to the above; "nil nisi justem" I think a sounder reading where a man is held up as a public example, and deem that the selection of a church or a college for a ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... Paris, or to cross the Channel and, after dropping bombs on seaside resorts, to wander over the city of London in the hope of spreading destruction there, did little real damage and their net effects, from a military point of view, were practically nil. ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... percentage composition, when cooked, is—water, 97.4; fat, 0.1; carbohydrate, 0.4; mineral matter, 0.1; cellulose, 1.3; nitrogenous matter (only about half being proteid), 0.6. Their food-value, apart from their anti-scorbutic properties, is therefore practically nil. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... at Ahcunazie's village, searched every tepee, and questioned the inhabitants down to the very children. The result was nil. The Indians one and all denied that Imbrie had come back up the river. Stonor was convinced that they were lying. He said nothing of what had happened down at the falls, though the young Kakisa, Ahteeah, displayed no little curiosity ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... render them susceptible to sympathy and suggestion, the social sublimations of the maternal instinct, with its offsprings of religion and art, we have seen. Napoleon lacked a chemical trace of the religious instinct, his sympathy was nil, and his conquests were made possible only because he was blind to the suffering and misery his greed for glory and dominion generated. Post-pituitary insufficients of this type, patent or concealed, gradually become corpulent ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... sickening with the fumes of chloroform. They fairly sent my head a-reeling, but their effect upon the burglar seemed to have been nil. ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... not think at nil. I suppose you would have left me in ignorance forever, if I had not heard ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... Premit insontes Debita sceleri noxia poena, 30 At peruersi resident celso Mores solio sanctaque calcant Iniusta uice colla nocentes. Latet obscuris condita uirtus Clara tenebris iustusque tulit 35 Crimen iniqui. Nil periuria, nil nocet ipsis Fraus mendaci compta colore. Sed cum libuit uiribus uti, Quos innumeri metuunt populi 40 Summos gaudent subdere reges. O iam miseras respice terras Quisquis rerum foedera nectis. Operis tanti pars non uilis Homines quatimur fortunae ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... "De mortuis nil nisi bonum." When For me this end has come and I am dead, And the little voluble, chattering daws of men Peck at me curiously, let it then be said By some one brave enough to speak the truth: Here lies a great soul killed by cruel wrong. Down ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... visible to aeroplanes during the daytime. If such a movement were performed at night, the presence of the division in a new spot would almost certainly be detected by the aeroplanes in the morning. The possession of a large and efficient aeroplane corps reduces the surprises of war very nearly to nil, and proportionately increases the importance of preparedness ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... had generously charged me "nil" for dues. I had letters for France from the highest authorities to pass the Rob Roy as an article entered for the Paris "Exhibition;" and when the douane and police functionaries came in proper state ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... Hic ego: Pluris Hoc, inquam, mihi eris. Misere discedere quaerens, Ire modo ocyus, interdum consistere: in aurem Dicere nescio quid puero: cum sudor ad imos Manaret talos. O te, Bollane, cerebri Felicem: aiebam tacitus! Cum quidlibet ille Garriret, vicos, urbem laudaret; ut illi Nil respondebam: Misere cupis, inquit abire. Jamdudum video: sed nil agis: usque tenebo: Persequar: hinc quo nunc iter est tibi? Nil opus est te Circumagi: quemdam volo visere, non tibi notum: Trans Tiberim ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... improve, And their riders develope more skill; And it's oh! for the records of yesterday! To-morrow they'll all be nil! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... singular - wilayat or wilayah*); A'ali an Nil (Upper Nile), Al Wusta*, Al Istiwa'iyah* (Equatoria), Al Khartum, Ash Shamaliyah*, Ash Sharqiyah*, Bahr al Ghazal, Darfur, Kurdufan note: on 14 February 1994, the 9 states comprising Sudan were divided into 26 new states; the following ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... had a face that never changed—for joy or sorrow, "being an adherent," he adds, "of the Stoic philosophy." The pose of superiority to emotion was not uncommonly held in those times to be the mark of a sage—Horace's "nil admirari". The writers of the Gospels do not conceal that Jesus had feelings, and expressed them. We read how he "rejoiced in spirit" (Luke 10:21)—how he "sighed" (Mark 7:34) and "sighed deeply" (Mark 8:12)—how his look showed "anger" (Mark 3:5). They tell us of his indignant ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... here is delightful—rather cold now, but will be perfect in hot weather—so airy and cheerful. I think I shall stay on here all the time the expense is nil, and it is very comfortable. I have a friend in a farm in a neighbouring village, and am much amused at seeing country life. It cannot be rougher, as regards material comforts, in New Zealand or Central Africa, but there ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... &c.) that appears in North Armenia, again appears in connection with the Nile; while again the name "Nile" has wandered back to the confines of Persia, and one of the Euphrates branches is still called "Shatt-en-nil." The ancients, indeed, had very curious ideas about the Nile. Its real sources being so long undiscovered—no Speke or Grant having appeared—imagination ran wild on the subject. Not only so, but it is remarkable that the name Cush should have acquired both ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... the New York critics did everything in their power to push along a project that would have been of great value to this metropolis. It was foredoomed to failure, because it depended upon the iniquity known as "quick returns." De mortuis nil nisi bonum. (I ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... published in Kilkenny—the native town of the young rebel, who in this instance played his first trick on the government—referred to his supposed decease in terms which showed that the rule de mortuis nil nisi bonum found acceptance with the editor. The following are the words of the obituary notice which appeared in the Kilkenny Moderator on or about the 19th ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... Hannah was out of humor because her week's work was deranged, and prophesied that "ef the washin' and ironin' warn't done reg'lar, nothin' would go well anywheres". This hitch in the mainspring of the domestic machinery had a bad effect upon the whole concern, but Amy's motto was 'Nil desperandum', and having made up her mind what to do, she proceeded to do it in spite of all obstacles. To begin with, Hannah's cooking didn't turn out well. The chicken was tough, the tongue too salty, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... bouginage the prognosis is favorable as to ultimate cure, the duration of the treatment varying with the number of strictures, the tightness, and the extent of the fibrous tissue-changes in the esophageal wall. Mortality from the endoscopic procedure is almost nil, and if gastrostomy is done early in the tightly stenosed cases, ultimate cure may be confidently expected ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... ignorance of what their enemies were at, that I could not resist the desire to make a little sortie. You must feel, dear Maud, that our motive was your safety—the safety, I mean, of my mother, and Beulah, and nil of you together—and you ought to be the ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... the commandments of God, nor those of the Church, neither laws divine or human: their member knows no doctrine, understands no heresies, and cannot be blamed; it is innocent of all, and always on the laugh; its understanding is nil; and for this reason do I hold it ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... the ocean; her fires were put out; her engines were attacked with sledges until they were little better than so much junk, and to make the slender chances of pursuit that remained to her entirely nil every ounce of coal upon her was shoveled into the Pacific. Her extra masts and spare sails followed the way of the coal and the rudder, so that when Skipper Simms and First Officer Ward left her with their own men ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... hora saepe ducentos, ut magnum, versus dictabat, stans pede in uno: cum flueret lutulentus, erat quod tollere velles; garrulus atque piger scribendi ferre laborem, scribendi recte; nam ut multum, nil moror.' ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... skilled in the arts and subtleties of the aborigines to work out the "code" of footprints and twists, tears, and breaks in the grass, twigs and foliage. So the result of the inspection of an apparently recent battle ground was nil. ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... advised the Romans, Consiliis armisque sua moderamina summa Arbitrio tractare suo: nil juris in hac re Pontifici summo, modicum concedere regi Suadebat populo. Sic laesa stultus utraque Majestate, reum geminae se fecerat aulae. Nor is the poetry of Gunther different from the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... all the others for her; but then, to make a girl your sweetheart and to make her your wife are two very different things. Vina Opimia is best; but because one drinks a cyathus[97] of that, why should he forego a good nil of Thasian or Caecuban? If I could have but one choice, give me plenty of the good, and I'll give up my ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... continued to fight him, and finally conquered him, all by sheer determination never to give in. Let others in his position take heart of grace and continue the struggle, and may they, too, rout their enemy as the S.B. did. Nil desperandum! I may add that an ice-cold bath of an hour in the North Sea in January, and eighteen months' incarceration in a Turkish prison, are not absolutely essential items ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... now. At present book-reviewers, for instance, had better be careful, lest the wraiths take their own method of answering criticism. It isn't safe to speak or write with anything but respect of ghosts now. De mortuis nil nisi bonum, indeed! One should never make light of ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... only education which serves is the one that increases human efficiency, not the one that retards it. An education for honors, ease, medals, degrees, titles, position—immunity—may tend to exalt the individual ego, but it weakens the race, and its gain on the whole is nil. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... attained "feminism" still has a proper task to achieve. But women must use their strength in the sphere for which their own nature fits them. Even though millions of women are enabled to do the work which men could do better the gain for mankind is nil. To put women to do men's work is (Ellen Key has declared) as foolish as to set a Beethoven or a Wagner to ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis |
