"Acquiring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... do, but we must deliberately seek to increase our stock of experience; for, after all, experience lies at the bottom of imagination as of every other mental process. And not only must we thus put ourselves in the way of acquiring new experience, but we must by recall and reconstruction, as we saw in an earlier discussion, keep our imagery fresh and usable. For whatever serves to improve our images, at the same time is bettering the very ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... sentence has been best stated by Herbert Spencer. He starts with the axiom that the whole amount of attention a reader can give at any moment is limited and fixed. A reader must give a part of it to merely acquiring the meaning; the remainder of his attention he can give to the thought itself. In reading Cicero the pupil has to put a large part of his attention upon the vocabulary, upon the order and construction of the words; the barest fragment of attention he can bestow ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... Leon's wife. She went away from Dudleigh Manor to Scotland in search of the clergyman who had married her. She succeeded in finding him, and in obtaining from him a formal certificate of her marriage. This, however, was not for the purpose of acquiring any hold whatever upon Leon, but rather for the sake of her own honor, and also out of regard for Edith, whom she wished to free from the last shadow of that evil which her own deceit had thrown upon the innocent girl. After this she was satisfied. She did not seek Leon again, ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... healing, everything returning to its place, followed by consecutive nervous symptoms, so that the sufferer was now simply beset by her original fright, her attention fixed on the injured part, arrested there amidst increasing pain, incapable of acquiring fresh notions unless it were under the lash of some violent emotion. Moreover, he also admitted the probability of accidents due to nutrition, as yet unexplained, and on the course and importance of which he himself would not venture to give an opinion. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... feelings is of small importance. The more I considered marrying Breck the more convinced I became that it was the best thing I could do. With my position placed upon my brow, like a crown on a king, freed at last from all the mean and besmirching tricks of acquiring social distinction, I could grow and expand. When I looked ahead and saw myself one day mistress of Grassmere, the London house, the grand mansion in New York; wise and careful monitor of the Sewall millions; gracious hostess; kind ruler; I felt as nearly religious as ever before ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... you yourself feel, as you feel it. You may no more endeavour to feel through other men's souls, than to see with other men's eyes. Whereas generally now in Europe and America, every man's energy is bent upon acquiring some false emotion, not his own, but belonging to the past, or to other persons, because he has been taught that such and such a result of it will be fine. Every attempted sentiment in relation to art is hypocritical; our notions of sublimity, of grace, or pious serenity, are ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... of men who had clubbed together and purchased a waggon, and started, leaving their wives and families behind them. In others they were composed of whole families, who had sold off farms or businesses in the east in the assurance of acquiring a fortune at the gold-diggings. Around the little settlement the plain was dotted with the white tilts of the waggons, mingled with the tents which had been extemporised of ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... "Duke of Labrador," who sauntered by, monocle in eye, hands in pockets and an elaborate affection of the "Oxford stoop" which he must have spent time and effort in acquiring. ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... offensive object to use, when regarded as the characteristic of only one single generation of men and women and children. It could not pass from that one generation into another without losing much of what grace it had, and acquiring most odious and mischievous elements. Entailed Puritanism being an actual impossibility, all attempts to realize it, all assumptions of success in it, have the worst features of sham and hypocrisy. The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... long, winter or summer, rain or shine, men were learning to kill their fellows, mechanically, as if it were a matter of factory routine. At other ranges were moving targets, where sharp-shooters were acquiring skill; you noticed that their targets were never birds and deer, as at the shooting- galleries which Jimmie had seen at the beaches and at Socialist picnics. No, they were the heads or bodies of men, and each body painted a greenish ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... justification, that they are amongst the most thrifty and prudent people in the world. They invest their savings principally in land and in the public funds. The French and Belgians have a positive hunger for land. They save everything that they can for the purpose of acquiring more. And with respect to their investments in the public funds, it may be mentioned, as a well-known fact, that it was the French peasantry who, by investing their savings in the National Defence Loan, liberated French soil from the ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... January with your general letter, and the appointment of a committee with express powers to that purpose, for the successful exertion of which the happiest occasion now offered. However, a contrary resolution prevailed in the Council. The opportunity of acquiring immense fortunes was too inviting to be neglected, and the temptation too powerful to be resisted. A treaty was hastily drawn up by the board, or rather transcribed, with few unimportant additions, from that concluded with Mir Jaffier,—and a deputation, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... in a whirl of excitement preparing my watery path as a motor-boat adventuress, and buying a dress or two to suit the part. It doesn't even depress me that Phil has selected hers with the air of acquiring ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... Stanley and his son strolled downtown together. Exercise and diet had been recommended, Francisco was acquiring embonpoint. Frank was enthusiastic over the new motor ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... are so strenuously advised to avoid them, is, because they will do more to nullify your reading, than anything which could be imagined. Your object is to obtain an insight into Holy Scripture, by acquiring the habit of reading it with intelligence and care: not to be saved trouble, and to be shown what other persons have ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... progress to his ministers, and asks advice. He returns to the wilderness, and offers Jesus wealth, as the means of acquiring power; but the suggestion ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... passed through the impure hands of Rome, as, by the way, had Baptism. Knox also preached at the opening of Parliament, on December 15. We know little of him at this time. He had sent his sons to Cambridge, into danger of acquiring Anglican opinions, which they did; but now he seems to have taken a less truculent view of Anglicanism than in 1559-60. He had been drawing a prophetic historical parallel between Chatelherault (more or less of the Queen's party) and Judas Iscariot, and was not loved by the Hamiltons. The Duke ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... battle, and they all informed me they made a sad bungling use of the musket; their aim would be surer if they had large and ferocious animals to hunt or contend with. There is another circumstance that operates against their acquiring skill in the use of the gun: they are so fond of cleaning, scrubbing, and taking them to pieces, that in a short time the locks become loose, the screws are injured, and they are soon rendered entirely useless, to the great surprise and dismay of their owners, who are constantly pestering the ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... 'Dedication to James Boswell, Esq.,' he says:—'I have no intention to pay you compliments—To entertain agreeable notions of one's own character is a great incentive to act with propriety and spirit. But I should be sorry to contribute in any degree to your acquiring an excess of self-sufficiency ... I own indeed that when ... to display my extensive erudition, I have quoted Greek, Latin and French sentences one after another with astonishing celerity; or have got into my Old-hock humour and fallen a-raving about princes and lords, knights and geniuses, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... certain that the first steps in the domestication of the dog must be attributed not to any distinct purpose of acquiring a useful companion, but to that vague instinct which leads children to make captives of any wild animals with which they come in contact. The fancy for pets is not only common to all mankind, civilized and savage alike, but is clearly exhibited in many of the mammals below ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... throughout all Western Europe. [Footnote: Differences are clearly presented in Charles Reade's novel, 'The Cloister and the Hearth,' though this deals with the period following that with which we are here concerned.] It was only during this period that the modern nations, acquiring national consciousness, began definitely to shape themselves out of the chaos which had followed the fall of the Roman Empire. The Roman Church, firmly established in every corner of every land, was the actual inheritor of much of the ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... as plaster, clay, and wood. Later they worked ivory, and began to understand the value of metals in statuary; and about five centuries before the Christian era, marble was used by sculptors for detached figures. In the infancy of Greek art, when sculptors were gradually acquiring the skill to fashion their creations out of the most durable material, many combinations of wood, stone, and metal were used, which would sadly shock the modern sculptor's eye;—wooden figures burnished with gold, and with painted ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... arduous labour commenced. Mainzer arrived without patronage, without the prestige that his name had earned abroad, and, what was a greater drawback, without any knowledge of English! But, nothing daunted, with his usual energy he set about the task of acquiring the language, which he did in an incredibly short time—commencing, like a child, by naming all familiar objects, and going on, until, without perplexing himself with rules or their exceptions, he had acquired facility enough to lecture in public. His work on Music and Education ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... and miscellaneous author, and traveller, b. at East Dereham, Norfolk, s. of a recruiting officer, had a somewhat wandering childhood. He received most of his education in Edin., and showed a peculiar talent for acquiring languages. After being for a short time in the office of a solicitor in Norwich, he travelled widely on the Continent and in the East, acquainting himself with the people and languages of the various ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... mother's trunk until she died. She wouldn't put it in a bank. My uncle Frank never knew that she had it; he doesn't know that I have it now. But it is mine. My father gave it to me when I was six years old. See what it says on the envelope. It's his own writing. 'For my son David. To be used in the acquiring of an education if I should fall in this dear, beloved cause, which now seems lost. God defend us all!' See! 'Arthur Brodalbin Jenison.' My father's signature. Here is the seal of his ring. It is ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... spell of the Romany, and this spell is unfelt by Mr. Cimabue Brown. The child and the gypsy have no words in which to express their sense of nature and its charm, but they have this sense, and there are very, very few who, acquiring culture, retain it. And it is gradually disappearing from the world, just as the old delicately sensuous, naive, picturesque type of woman's beauty—the perfection of natural beauty—is rapidly vanishing in every country, and being replaced by the mingled real and unreal attractiveness ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... for an observant mind is thus afforded in a tropical country! The variety and the multitude of living things are so great that a person of only ordinary observation cannot help acquiring a tolerable knowledge of the habits of some of the most interesting classes. In the common routine of daily life they are continually in his view, and even should he have no taste for the study of Nature and her productions, still one prevailing characteristic of the insect tribe must ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... successfully eliminate and teach by itself that which is purely practical. The easiest and surest why of acquiring facts is to learn them in groups, in systems, and systematized knowledge is science. You can very often carry two facts fastened together more easily than one by itself, as a housemaid can carry two pails of water with ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... talent, have applied the Impressionist technique to the expression of grand allegories, rather in the manner of Puvis de Chavannes. The effort at getting away from mere cleverness and escaping a too exclusive preoccupation with technique, and at the same time acquiring serious knowledge, betrays itself in the whole position of the young French School; and this will furnish us with a perfectly natural conclusion, of which the following are the ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... point to do something every day that you don't want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain. —Pudd'nhead Wilson's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... from Mary, now commonly written Moll. Hence, by successive changes, malkin or maukin might mean a dirty wench, a figure of old rags dressed up as a scarecrow, and a mop of rags used for cleaning ovens. The Scotch maukin, for a hare, seems to be an instance of an animal acquiring a proper name, like renard in French, and jack for pike ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... sweet air, so far removed from the external influences which make for fret and stress, my bodily health, at all events, has small excuse for failure one would suppose. And, indeed, at first it did seem to me that I was acquiring a more normal kind of hardihood and working efficiency in this respect. But I regret to say the supposition was not long-lived. Four or five months after my arrival here I took to my bed for a fortnight, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... particularly hurt to see him idle, and negligent, and apparently indifferent to the great object to be pursued. This event, and the conversations which have passed between us relative to it, will probably awaken in his mind a greater degree of emulation, and make him studious of acquiring Distinction among his Schoolfellows, as well as of securing to himself the affectionate regard of ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... name no names,) was at that time nearly clear; and I managed to shift my costume before the public fairly knew what I was about. I found, indeed, that a combination of the two styles enabled me to retain much of my old audience while acquiring the new. It was like singing a hymn of serious admonition to a lively, rattling tune. One is diverted: there is a present sense of fun, while a gentle feeling of the grave truths inculcated lingers in one's mind afterwards. The pious can find ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... pipes and dreaming of ideals. Who am I? How do I know? That's my trouble. Am I at all?—It's very hard to "be." I study Victor Hugo; spout his odes— I tell you this, because this sort of thing Is all contemporary youth. I spend Extravagant fortunes in acquiring boredom. I am an artist, Highness, and Young France. Also I'm carbonaro at your service. And as I'm always bored I wear red waistcoats, And that amuses me. At tying neck-cloths I once was very good indeed. That's why They sent me here to-day to play the tailor. I'll add, to make the picture quite ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... faithful Frank was but half a pleasure to Bert. Next in importance to his being able to swim himself was Frank's acquiring the same invaluable accomplishment. Invaluable? Yes, one might indeed rightly use a stronger term, and say indispensable; for the education of no boy is complete until he has mastered the art of swimming. And if the boys knew ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... distinguished officer, brigadier in the King's service, and major-general, as well as myself, in the United States' army; and some other excellent officers, who have kindly consented to share the chances of my fate. I rejoice at having found such a glorious opportunity of occupying myself, and of acquiring knowledge. I am conscious that I am making an immense sacrifice, and that to quit my family, my friends, and you, my dearest father, costs me more than it could do any other person,—because I love you all far more tenderly than any other person ever loved his friends. But this voyage will ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... we did, absolutely ignorant of the language, should certainly take an elementary phrase-book or something of the sort to study on the voyage. We forgot to do this, and had infinite trouble afterwards in getting what we wanted, and lost much time in acquiring the rudimentary knowledge of Hindustani which enabled us to worry along with our native servants, &c. No mere "globe-trotter" need attempt to learn any Kashmiri, as Hindustani is "understanded of the people" as a rule, and the tradesmen in Srinagar ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring some rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk at the eleventh hour, or four o'clock in the afternoon, too late to redeem the day, when the shades of night were already beginning to be mingled with the daylight, have felt as if I had committed some sin ...
— Walking • Henry David Thoreau
... sons capable of receiving education and acquiring a knowledge of the various trades sufficient to make a livelihood? We refer to the appended letters from the masters of the various trades that our boys are learning: and as to education, our own experience ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... had so long governed, both in peace and war, with so much success. There was also an admirable propriety in his style of conversation, in which wit was tempered with gravity; a wonderful aptitude for acquiring, and at the same time communicating, information; and his life was in perfect correspondence and unison with his language. He used to say that the government of Rome was superior to that of other states for this reason, because in nearly all of them there had been single ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... great metropolis had worked wonders in the boy. He no longer looked or felt "green," and he was fast acquiring a business way that was bound, sooner or later, to be highly ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... improved; you must have noticed it. And then she has encouraged my ambition. I shall be a Deputy; and I shall make no blunders, for I shall consult my Egeria. Every great politician, from Numa to our present Prime Minister, has had his Sibyl of the fountain. A score of deputies visit Valerie; she is acquiring considerable influence; and now that she is about to be established in a charming house, with a carriage, she will be one of the ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... the 29th of July, 1873, we, Mrs. Le Plongeon and myself, arrived, on the 6th of August, at Progreso. We remained in Merida from that date, studying the customs of the country, acquiring friends, and preparing to fulfil the mission that had brought us to Yucatan, (viz: the study of its ruins), until the 6th of November, 1874. At that epoch the epidemic of small-pox, that has made such ravages in Merida, and is yet active in the interior villages ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... migrated there, moreover, possessed, thought he, "feelings quite unprepared to make good citizens. A sense of inferiority early impressed on their minds, destitute of every thing but bodily power and having no character to lose, and no prospect of acquiring one, even did they know its value, they are prepared for the commission of any act, when the prospect of evading ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... you are talking about, for I am familiar with the anatomy of the horse. My road is the trackless forest, and I am more at home there than in a city. Like you I am fond of nature, but unlike you I know little of human nature, and I would rather listen to your experience than undergo the labour of acquiring it. Man is an artificial animal, but all the inhabitants of the forest are natural. The study of their habits, propensities, and instincts is very interesting, and in this country the only one that is formidable is the bear, for he is not only strong and courageous, but he has the power ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... raises one nation above others, or the train of adventitious ones that increase for a while and continue that superiority, nothing can be more clear and certain, than, that they have a natural tendency to come back to a level, merely by the exertions of men in the direction of acquiring wealth by industry, and without any of those causes which arise out of war, or interrupting the ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... on this porch I get any amount of company. I know every one in the place and feel that I am acquiring the local accent through my prolonged conversations with the natives. I am utterly incapable of thinking of desirable parcels of real estate, and bonds leave me indifferent. I reckon in codfish now, like the rest of the population. I ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... the choice of the mode, but this very richness may become a difficulty. It is not impossible that the general use of foreign tongues in Poland may be attributed to indolence of mind or want of application; may be traced to a desire to escape the necessary labor of acquiring that mastery of diction indispensable in a language so full of sudden depths, of laconic energy, that it is very difficult, if not quite impossible, to support in it the commonplace. The vague agreements of badly defined ideas cannot be compressed ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... is distinctly commonplace, e.g. the letter to Robert Mitchell on the fall of Napoleon; or the following to his parents: "There are few things in this world more valuable than knowledge, and youth is the season for acquiring it"; or to James Johnstone the trite quotation, "Truly pale death overturns with impartial foot the hut of the poor man and the palace of the king." Several are marred by the egotism which in most Scotch peasants of aspiring talent takes the form of perpetual comparison of ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... continent. Here we see the most wonderful republic in the world, born within a hundred years, a great community peopling a continent, having every facility in the world for homes—no land-locked monopoly, closing the door to the poor acquiring homes, or if it does, it should be broken down at every hazard by wise laws passed from time to time. I reverently thank God for our homes, for our great cities, for our state and, more than ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... circumstance is due the astonishing power of advertisements. When we have read a hundred, a thousand, times that X's chocolate is the best, we imagine we have heard it said in many quarters, and we end by acquiring the certitude that such is the fact. When we have read a thousand times that Y's flour has cured the most illustrious persons of the most obstinate maladies, we are tempted at last to try it when suffering from an illness of a similar kind. If we always read in the same papers that A is an arrant ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... with hope, ventures to the "utmost port, washed by the furthest sea," for such merchandise at the caprice of woman, Science plods sedately after man, beguiling him with the hope of some less risky and laborious means of acquiring the gems, while at the same time she soothes the irrepressible passion of every damsel with strings of artistic counterfeits manufactured from the scales of silvery fish, and as pleasant to glance ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... friend to literature, and especially to genuine merit, it is with peculiar pleasure I allude to a notice in a late paper of this city, in which Mr. S. Kirkham proposes to deliver a course of Lectures on English Grammar. To such as feel interested in acquiring a general and practical knowledge of this useful science an opportunity is now presented which ought not to be neglected. Having myself witnessed, in several instances, within the last ten months, ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... Instead of the elegant knife-edged nose, so typical of the Dukes of Southwesterland, there began to appear on his face the broad nostril and hollow bridge of his grandfather Timothy. No illustrious line of politicians was promised a continuator in that graying blue eye, for it was acquiring the expression of the orb of a particularly objectionable cousin of his own; and, instead of the mouth-curves which had thrilled Parliamentary audiences in speeches now bound in calf in every well-ordered library, there was the bull-lip of that very uncle of his ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... ability and assurance. He said that medicine surpassed all other arts, and he surpassed all other physicians. His father had been a weaver, and in his youth Thessalus followed the same calling, and never had any medical training. This did not prevent him, however, from acquiring a great reputation as a doctor, and making a fortune from medical practice. At first, he associated himself with the views of the Methodici, but afterwards amended them as he thought fit, until he had convinced ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... that woman brings a loftier reverence to the shrine of man than she has done in any past age, seeing, as she now does, in him the incarnation of the freedom of which she is vaguely conscious and which she is perceptibly acquiring. So sets the main current that is bearing civilization along; but beneath the great feminine tide there is an undercurrent of hatred and revolt. This is particularly observable in the leaders of the movement; women who in the tumult of their aspirations, and their passionate yearnings towards ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... these words and he liked them. Here was a spirit like Colonel Winchester's own, or like that of the great Southern cavalry leaders. The Southerners were born on horseback, but the Northern men were acquiring the same trick of hard riding. Dick glanced back at the long column. Armed with carbine and saber the men were riding their trained horses like Comanches. Eager and resolute it was a formidable force, and his heart swelled with pride and anticipation. He believed that they were going to give ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... territory and question of sovereignty unresolved; territory contested by Morocco and Polisario Front (Popular Front for the Liberation of the Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro); territory partitioned between Morocco and Mauritania in April 1976, with Morocco acquiring northern two-thirds; Mauritania, under pressure from Polisario guerrillas, abandoned all claims to its portion in August 1979; Morocco moved to occupy that sector shortly thereafter and has since asserted administrative control; the Polisario's government in exile was seated as an OAU ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Dundonald, in a letter to Lord Melbourne, dated the 11th July, 1839, "that my services as a naval officer have been useful and honourable to my country; and, referring to those services and to the peculiar opportunities I have since had of acquiring further professional knowledge, I may say, without vanity, that her Majesty has no officer in her navy more experienced than myself; and yet, from the extraordinary circumstances of my case, I am the only flag-officer in her Majesty's service who, if called upon to take a command, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... of Englishmen? For, within these few days, the Victor of Waterloo expressed his conviction that England was the only country in which "the poor man, if only sober and industrious, WAS QUITE CERTAIN of acquiring a competency!" And it is this man, imbued with this opinion, who is to be hailed as the presiding wisdom—the great moral strength—the healing humanity of the Tory Cabinet. If rags and starvation put up their prayer to the present Ministry, what ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... broke out in 1846. When Congress was about adjourning that session, President Polk asked them to place two millions of dollars under his control, to be used by him in the recess, if found practicable and expedient, in negotiating a treaty of peace with Mexico, and acquiring some part of her territory. A bill was duly gotten up for the purpose, and was progressing swimmingly in the House of Representatives, when a member by the name of David Wilmot, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, moved as an amendment, "Provided, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... speed the savour and the sting, None but the weak deride; But ah, the joy of lingering About the country side! The swiftest wheel, the conquering run, We count no privilege Beside acquiring, in the sun, The ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... and insupportable doctrine to me, and necessarily tending to Atheism. When I had heard, with disgust, in the dissecting-rooms the plan of the physiologist of the gradual accretion of matter, and its becoming endowed with irritability, ripening into sensibility and acquiring such organs as were necessary, by its own inherent forces, and at last rising into intellectual existence, a walk into the green fields or woods by the banks of rivers brought back my feelings from nature to God; I saw in all the ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... rapidly acquiring the habit of going round to Sheep Street after dinner. But in those evenings that he did not devote to Mrs. Levitt he applied himself ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... gave it, with hereditary rights, to his son Philip, surnamed the Bold, thus founding that second Capet house of Burgundy which filled such an important place in the history of France during the 14th and 15th centuries, acquiring as it did a territorial power which proved redoubtable to the kingship itself. By his marriage with Margaret of Flanders Philip added to his duchy, on the death of his father-in-law, Louis of Male, in 1384, the countships ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... be present at the debates in the senate-house. When they entered the military service, he not only gave them the rank of military tribunes in the legions, but likewise the command of the auxiliary horse. And that all might have an opportunity of acquiring military experience, he commonly joined two sons of senators in command of each troop of horse. He frequently reviewed the troops of the equestrian order, reviving the ancient custom of a cavalcade [179], which had been long laid aside. But he did not suffer any one ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... child's mind what food is to the body. Each is a means to an end. It is to cause growth. As by the proper use of food and exercise the limbs and muscles expand, and acquire their full and appointed size, symmetry, and strength, so by acquiring and using knowledge of various kinds, the various faculties of the mind attain their full power and proportion. For this reason mainly the pure mathematics and the ancient languages, Latin and Greek, have held their place in almost every ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... accuracy of the machine to the nervous fascinating faultiness of the human hand. No, I don't care for the writers who are specially praised for their style. I find their productions cold and bald as a rule. I want something warmer—more full-blooded. Most of the stylists write as if they began by acquiring a style and then had to sit and wait for a subject. I believe style is the enemy of matter. You compress all the blood out of your subject when you make it conform to a studied style, instead of letting your style form itself out of the necessity for expression. This is rank heresy, I know, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... falling into this fourfold division, the present commentaries will therefore consist of the four following parts: 1. The rights of persons; with the means whereby such rights may be either acquired or lost. 2. The rights of things; with the means also of acquiring and losing them. 3. Private wrongs, or civil injuries; with the means of redressing them by law. 4. Public wrongs, or crimes and misdemesnors; with the means ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... prove but little for my merits; they might be worthy notice in your comrade, you demand more subtle duties in your chief. Gentlemen, has it ever been said of Paul Lovett that he sent out brave men on forlorn hopes; that he hazarded your own heads by rash attempts in acquiring pictures of King George's; that zeal, in short, was greater in him than caution, or that his love of a quid (A guinea) ever made him neglectful of your just aversion to a quod? (A prison) ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... discusses the effects of Poise on personal efficiency. The second instructs the reader how to secure that evenness of temperament which is the chief characteristic of Poise. It includes, in addition, a series of practical physical exercises to be used in acquiring Poise. ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... The average farmer who comes in with a load of wool has the appearance of a man whose primary intention is to buy up all the stores (although he may go away with a bag of coffee only), and afterwards consider with great deliberation the question of acquiring the whole town. All this is based upon the fact that he has a load of wool for sale. The merchant would rather give him five shillings than fivepence per pound, because it would be a certain sign that ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... this strange personage was, whence she had come, nor whither she was going; nor were there any means of acquiring this information, as it was a rule of the house—one of M'Pherson's special points of etiquette—that no stranger should ever be questioned on such subjects. All being allowed to depart as they came, without ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... Ireland grows calm again. Mr. Conway, who has gone thither secretary to Lord Hartington, has with great prudence and skill pacified that kingdom: you may imagine that I am not a little happy at his acquiring renown. The Primate is to be ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... how far these two modes of acquiring knowledge—finding out, and being told—may severally be good, and in perfect instruction combined, I have to point out to you that, broadly, Athens, Rome, and Florence are self-taught, and internally ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... Having possession of and jurisdiction over the river, Congress, with a view of improving its navigation and protecting the people of the valley from floods, has for years caused surveys of the river to be made for the purpose of acquiring knowledge of the laws that control it and of its phenomena. By act approved June 28, 1879, the Mississippi River Commission was created, composed of able engineers. Section 4 of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... an unlawfully reproduced layout-design or any article incorporating such an integrated circuit where the person performing or ordering such acts did not know and had no reasonable ground to know, when acquiring the integrated circuit or article incorporating such an integrated circuit, that it incorporated an unlawfully reproduced layout-design. Members shall provide that, after the time that such person has received sufficient notice that the ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92 • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... learning the gun exercise, as he did in acquiring a knowledge of all the other duties of a sailor. Every day he rapidly gained health and strength, while the colour returned to his cheeks, which were getting well-browned by the ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... also enterprising and resourceful it would be a mistake to render it permanently hostile by the Allies overstepping the bounds of justice, because in this case neither national nor general interests would be furthered. You may hinder Germany, they argued, from acquiring the hegemony of the world, but not from becoming the principal factor in European evolution. If thirty years hence the German population totals eighty million or more, will not their attitude and their sentiment toward their neighbors constitute an all-important ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... married life would have been quite sufficient reason to deter her from risking a repetition of them, but faith had taught her to see in those past crosses, only valuable opportunities of practising virtue and acquiring merit, therefore she gave the apprehension of their renewal no place in her deliberations. The interior attraction which sweetly but irresistibly urged her to devote herself all to God,—this it was which determined her ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... of being catechised. I refuse to answer your question. Besides, it has nothing to do with the fact. You must take my word for it, that I have heard some people, or, it may be, only someone of the workpeople, speak as though it were the interest of the employers to keep them from acquiring money—that it would make them too independent if they had a ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... hair and smiled tolerantly. It was natural that his little Eleanor should be capricious and variable and addicted to moods. She was evidently acquiring temperament. ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... published. In his profession of civil engineer he was greatly benefitted by his skill in drawing and painting. He went to Paris in 1797, and being received into the family of Joel Barlow, he there spent seven years, studying chemistry, physics and mathematics, and acquiring a knowledge of the French, Italian, and German languages. In Dec. 1797, he made his first experiment on sub-marine explosion in the Seine, but without success. His plan for a sub-marine boat was afterwards perfected.—In 1801, while he was residing with his friend, Mr. Barlow, he ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... a prahu. The people about him speak of his pursuits without disguise, and many informed us the prahu near his house is intended for a piratical vessel. Nothing could exceed the polite kindness of our rascally host, and I spent the rainy evening in his house with some satisfaction, acquiring information of the coast to the northward, which he is ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... teachers, whether they have much or little knowledge of the art, to teach children to read intelligently and to read aloud intelligibly. They do this without waste of time or effort, and at the same time that the books aid pupils in acquiring skill in reading, they present material which is ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... that Clemenceau, a man far too intelligent not to be a practical Socialist at heart, has become semi-reactionary for want of support. This has not much to do with literature. Neither has the history of Joan of Arc. To return to literature, it is indubitable that Anatole France is slightly acquiring the ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... been contrary to the perfect mental tranquillity which I court. And forasmuch as, while thus indifferent to the thought alike of fame or of forgetfulness, I have yet been unable to prevent myself from acquiring some sort of reputation, I have thought it incumbent on me to do my best to save myself at least from being ill-spoken of. The other reason that has determined me to commit to writing these specimens ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... in on the evening of the fourth day. The next morning the accepted cattle were counted and received, the through outfits relieved, the remudas started overland under a detail, and the remainder of the men sent home by rail. In acquiring a nucleus, Wells Brothers fell heir to a temporary range and camp, which thereafter became ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... blind as those who will not see, none so deaf as those who will not hear. It is impossible to withhold sympathy with the indignation and mental anxiety of these industrious men, who have made Dublin what she is, and whose only notion of happiness is the fulfilment of duty, their sole means of acquiring wealth or middleclass comfort, hard and honest work. That the backbone of the city should stand with their fortunes subject to the will of a few unscrupulous agitators is indeed, as they say, an inscrutable dispensation ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... amuse myself in the midst of this curious specimen of a social Macedoine—quite well—and am acquiring a taste for that true epicurean apathy which one enjoys in perfection, among people whom one expects neither to interest, nor to be interested by; and I sit down among them as calmly comfortable as I can conceive a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... pack-horses, made camp, cooked the meals, and gave invaluable advice and "first aid" all for the munificent wage of five dollars a day! That sum made the replacement of climb-shattered cameras, the purchasing of a few coarse, cheap garments, and the acquiring of a Montgomery Ward ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... allow the same Actions to be the proper Instruments, both of acquiring Fame, and of procuring this Happiness, they would nevertheless fail in the Attainment of this last End, if they proceeded from a Desire ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... in pencil and Indian ink, when a boy of twelve or fourteen, it is very singular how large a proportion consists of careful studies of stranded boats. Now, after some fifteen years of conscientious labor, with the single view of acquiring knowledge of the ends and powers of art, I have come to one conclusion, which at the beginning of those fifteen years would have been very astonishing to myself—that, of all our modern school of landscape painters, next to Turner, and before the rise ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... power of reacting or of carrying on their functions in the presence of a toxin, we should expect that alcohol would to a certain extent deprive them of this power or interfere with their capacity for acquiring a greater resisting power or of reinforcing the powers of resistance. It appears indeed to reinforce the poison formed by pathogenic organisms. Dr. Delearde maintains moreover that chronic alcoholism increases enormously the difficulty of rendering an animal ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... had resolved to make another and a bold venture. Accordingly appeared in the St. Louis papers an advertisement to the effect that Dr. von Ingenhoff, the well-known German physician, who had spent two years on the Plains acquiring a knowledge of Indian medicine, was prepared to treat all diseases by vegetable remedies alone. Dr. von Ingenhoff would remain in St. Louis for two weeks, and was to be found at the Grayson House every day from ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... attempt of the United States to measure up to these responsibilities are the various tariffs that have been established for protection as well as revenue, the interstate and trade commissions that exist for the regulation of business, and the individuals and boards that are maintained for acquiring and disseminating information relating to all kinds of economic interests. The United States Patent Office encourages invention, and American inventors outnumber those of other nations. The United States Department ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... judiciously conducted, may effect in forming the tempers and habits of young children; in giving them, not so much actual knowledge, as that which at their age is more important, the habit and faculty of acquiring it; and it correcting those moral defects which neglect or injudicious treatment would soon confirm and render incurable. The early age at which children are taken out of our National Schools, is an additional reason for commencing a regular and systematic discipline of their ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... It had been a hot day, yet out on the water, busy with their sport, and acquiring a deep coating of sunburn, the boys had not noticed the heat especially. Now they mopped their faces as they strolled almost listlessly along ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... disagreement they have one with another. And thus many are ignorant of mathematical truths, not out of any imperfection of their faculties, or uncertainty in the things themselves, but for want of application in acquiring, examining, and by due ways comparing those ideas. That which has most contributed to hinder the due tracing of our ideas, and finding out their relations, and agreements or disagreements, one with another, has been, I suppose, the ill use of words. It is impossible that men should ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... acquiring of more medical appliances and the widening of the scope of the exhibits, more and more space was needed, and attention was turned to the area of the medical gallery which had been occupied by the materia medica collection for almost four decades. To gain more exhibit space, it was ...
— History of the Division of Medical Sciences • Sami Khalaf Hamarneh
... own number: thus on the death of Pascal, the cardinal of St. Sabina was created pope by the title of Eugenius II. Italy having come into the hands of the French, a change of form and order took place, the popes acquiring greater temporal power, and the new authorities adopting the titles of count and marquis, as that of duke had been introduced by Longinus, exarch of Ravenna. After the deaths of some pontiffs, Osporco, a Roman, succeeded to the papacy; but on account of his unseemly ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... was mutual—the senior tutor, a flaccid being, with a hand that felt like a fish two days out of water, a large nose, and a perpetual cold in his head. He consistently and impartially disbelieved every one on their word, requiring material proof of each assertion; an original mode of acquiring the confidence of his pupils, and precluding any thing like an attempt at deception on their part. I remember well a discussion on his merits that took place in the porter's lodge one night just after twelve. When ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... climate and modes of life, should affect pronunciation, we can not say; but it is evident that material influences of some sort are producing a change in our bodily constitution, and we are fast acquiring a distinct national Anglo-American type. That the delicate organs of articulation should participate in such tendencies is altogether natural; and the operation of the causes which give rise to them is palpable even in our handwriting, which, if not uniform with itself, is generally, ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... a thousand dollars of my own to dispose of, the bargain would have been concluded on the spot; but I was in the impossible position of being materially unable to buy the picture and morally unable to tell her that it was not worth acquiring ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... fearful period the delusion of the criminals was as great as that of the judges. Depraved persons who in ordinary times would have been thieves or murderers, added the desire of sorcery to their depravity, sometimes with the hope of acquiring power over their fellows, and sometimes with the hope of securing impunity in this world by the protection of Satan. One of the persons executed at the first burning, a prostitute, was heard repeating the exorcism which was supposed ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... carriage to his lodgings to take him to Malmaison; and she treated him "as a good mother would have treated a dear son."* (* Girard, F. Peron page 50.) He gave to her a pair of black swans from Australia, and the Empress generously discharged debts which he had incurred in acquiring ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... democratical, that I think it a fault in your constitution that the governor should be eligible for three years successively. It appears to me that a government of three years may furnish an opportunity of acquiring a very dangerous influence. But this is not the worst.... A man who is fond of office, and has his eye upon reelection, will be courting favor and popularity at the expense of his duty.... There is a barbarism crept in among us that extremely shocks me: I mean ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... balance between our organism, with all its component parts, and the outer world; it serves us especially for acquiring a knowledge of that world. Organic disturbance obliges us to set up a fresh and more spiritual equilibrium, to withdraw within the soul. Thereupon our bodily constitution itself becomes the object of thought. It is no longer ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the natives using rude pipes, in which they smoked a certain dried leaf with apparent gratification. Tobacco was native to the soil, and in the use of this now well-nigh universal narcotic, these simple savages indulged in an original luxury, or habit, which the Spanish invaders were not slow in acquiring. ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... was in danger of occupying the position of having actually set up a temporary government on foreign soil for the purpose of acquiring through that agency territory which we had wrongfully put in its possession. The control of both sides of a bargain acquired in such a manner is called by a familiar and unpleasant name when found ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... preventing costiveness, seldom fail to ruin their constitution. They ought rather to remove the evil by diet than by drugs, by avoiding every thing of a hot or binding nature, by going thinly clothed, walking in the open air, and acquiring the habit of a regular discharge by a stated visit to the place of retreat. Habitual looseness is often owing to an obstructed perspiration: persons thus afflicted should keep their feet warm, and wear flannel next the skin. Their diet also should be of an astringent quality, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... and sailed the next week for California, then just open to American enterprise. The most glowing stories were told of fortunes won in an incredibly short time, Having no regular occupation, and having a strong motive for acquiring money, it is not surprising that I should have been dazzled with the rest, and persuaded to make the journey to the land ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... character of this life outside the profession, is profoundly dependent on the compass of our early studies. He that leaves the school for the shop at thirteen, is on one platform. He that spends the years from thirteen to twenty in acquiring general knowledge, is on a totally different platform; he is, in the best sense, an aristocrat. Those that begin work at thirteen, and those that are born not to work at all, are alike his inferiors. He should be able to spread ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... pleasure, dividing their time duly. O son of the Kuru race, whether independence of these (three), or their possession is the better for those that desire happiness, should be settled by thee after careful thought. And thou shouldst then, O king, unhesitatingly act either for acquiring them, or abandoning them all. For he who liveth wavering between the two doubtingly, leadeth a wretched life. It is well known that thy behaviour is ever regulated by virtue. Knowing this thy friends ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa |
