"Adapt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the reason of it, his setting himself up in the dark parts of the world to be worshipped instead of God, and as God, and the many stratagems he made use of, to delude mankind to their ruin; how he had a secret access to our passions and to our affections, to adapt his snares so to our inclinations, as to cause us even to be our own tempters, and to run upon our own destruction by ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... Gorm was a man of totally different character from his brother Donald. He was of a quiet and peaceable disposition and demeanour—steady, sober, and conscientious; qualities which were thought to adapt him well for the line of life in which he was placed. This was as a domestic servant in the family of an extensive highland proprietor, of the name of Grant. In this capacity Duncan had, about a year or so previous to the precise ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... would respectfully ask your excellency whether you know of any one thing recommended by me for the benefit of the naval service being complied with? Have the laws been revised to adapt them to the better government of the service? Has a corps of marine artillery been formed and taught their duty? Have young gentlemen intended for officers been sent on board to learn their profession? Have young men ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... prudence beyond the practice of Machiavel. Examine the dog-rose upon the hedge, how by putting forth thorns it raises itself to the light and ranges irresistible along the leafy parapets; see how the flowers adapt their form and colour to the convenience of the bee or the predilections of the bird; consider the furze armed with spines against browsing muzzles, and be near when it casts its seed wide upon the earth; and then say if among states or governments there is a wiser economy or ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... lowest orders of European population, transplanted to the United States with a fixed and implacable aversion to everything bearing the name and in the shape of monarchy, the priesthood are accustomed studiously to adapt themselves to this state of feeling, being content with that authority that is awarded to their office by ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... they are becoming more cultivated—and there are now many highly-cultivated men among them—are introducing Gothic architecture more and more into their churches. There are elements in it, it seems, which do not contradict their Puritanism; elements which they can adapt to their own worship; namely, the very elements which Mr. Ruskin ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... of his surroundings till he investigates and so gathers knowledge. But he has to adapt himself not only to the physical but to the human environment in which he lives. In stories of all kinds, children study human life in all kinds of circumstances, nay, if the story is sufficiently graphic they almost go through the experiences ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... must study himself and adapt the exercises according to need. Feelings of enjoyment, however, are not a safe guide. We are so apt to let the dull and stupid feeling take possession in the morning and omit the exercises for the ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... But even when the stimulation received is not at once prolonged into movement, it appears merely to await its occasion; and the same impression which makes the organism aware of changes in the environment, determines it or prepares it to adapt itself to them. No doubt there is in the higher vertebrates a radical distinction between pure automatism, of which the seat is mainly in the spinal cord, and voluntary activity which requires the intervention of the brain. ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... what is happening now is not what the Germans planned, [laughter,] and they have yet to show that they can adapt themselves to the force of circumstances created by the military power of their enemies with the same efficiency that they have undoubtedly shown in regard to plans long prepared, methodically worked out, and executed ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... aim of education is to develop, not the ideal mental constitution, but the real mind just as we find it, the real creature just as he is; and since we cannot change the human mind to make it fit the machine, the effort should be to adapt the educational process to suit the human mind. To what extent they are doing this is one of the great questions for teachers of the present day. To what extent,—admitting that now in some particulars they fail,—it may be possible to modify and adapt methods ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... as possible. The book, therefore, gives in Part 1 the elements of description, narration, exposition, and argument, and reserves for Part II a more complete treatment of each. In each part the effort has been made to adapt the material presented to the maturity and power of ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... the position of affairs, and Hallin expressed his sympathy. He had a singularly attractive voice, the voice indeed of the orator, which can adapt itself with equal charm and strength to the most various needs and to any pitch. As he spoke, Marcella was conscious of a sudden impression that she already knew him and could be ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... people on this sector have had that for over ten centuries. They have hypnotic techniques for getting back into a part of the subconscious mind that we've never been able to reach. And after I found out how they did it, I was able to adapt some of our ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... received and sold fish for the Friday markets of northern Europe, but sold all kinds of manufactured goods. It was said that they had two sets of scales—one for buying and one for selling. Norwegians had either to adapt themselves to the new methods or give their sons to the ceaseless battle of the open sea. From the Baltic and Icelandic fisheries, the North Sea and the Lofoden Islands, their ships got the heaviest and the ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... when it had just began to speak by her before-prudent Care and Assistance. And this, to be sure, was occasion'd by the Pedantry of those two Monarchs, Elizabeth and James, Both great Latinists. For it is not to be wonder'd at, if both the Court and Schools, equal Flatterers of Power, should adapt themselves to the Royal Taste. This, then, was the Condition of the English Tongue when Shakespeare took it up: like a Beggar in a rich Wardrobe. He found the pure native English too cold and poor ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... entirely for the high-spirited, passionate little stranger,—bearing every mark of refined birth and good breeding in her finely-marked features, her straight, slim white body, her slender hands and feet, her dainty ways and fearless bearing,—to adapt herself to the situation. The first excitement over, her terror and fright returned, and the cry went up unceasingly in lisping English interspersed with words utterly unintelligible to the two distracted ladies, begging to be taken to that mother of whom ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... retired business man who started life with nothing, not even good health, I have looked at this subject from a business man's point of view. The principle applies, however, to every walk in life, and each reader can adapt the teaching of this lesson to ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... and stern as she fixed them on Mr. Allen. "I wonder I believe any thing you say, Mr. Allen. How many things do you keep back from me, or state differently from what they are, to save my feelings? or to adapt the truth to my feebleness, which is not like the feebleness of old age, to be sure, but is feebleness in comparison with your knowledge and strength? I hate, hate, hate, your theories about deceiving people. I shall certainly tell my mother, if I keep ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... dancing-master, must have had the soul of a painter, a musician, and a poet in one. He must have been a perfect master of design, grouping, contrast, picturesque, and scenic effect. He must have had the most exquisite feeling for musical expression, to adapt it so admirably to his purposes; and those gestures and movements with which he has so gracefully combined it, and which address themselves but too powerfully to the senses and the imagination—what are they, but the very "poetry of motion," la poesie mise en action, rendering words a ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... derived from books, though many have been written with the object of initiating children into the mysteries of sex. No one but a parent is likely to be on sufficiently intimate terms with the child to enable the subject to be approached without restraint or awkwardness, and no book can adapt itself to the varying needs of individual children. An exposition in cold print, or a single formal lecture on the subject, is apt to do more harm than good. I have seen instructions to parents to deliver themselves of set speeches, examples ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... the number of editions—a most fallacious test of merit—Lane's three volumes, on the whole, have found greatest favour with the British public. He was too timid to give to the world the full benefit of his studies, and he kept a drawing-room audience in view. He was careful to adapt his picture to the English standard of propriety, and his suppressions and omissions are on a wholesale scale. Lord Byron said of English novelists that they give a full length of courtship and but a bust of marriage. Mr. Lane thought it expedient to draw a tight veil, to tell only ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... revelation came both to him and to his mother. To him it was a painful revelation, first because he had this new code to learn, and afterward because of his promise; and it was the latter thing that made the real difficulty. When you are a small boy you can easily adapt yourself and your habits of mind to new conditions and environment; but when you have some one else to think of, and when you are bound by a promise, that ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... amelioration of the physical condition of the human race. In regarding this as the lowest class, no disrespect towards it is intended, for it is absolutely essential as a basis to the higher; but this foundation should be recognized as such by the founder in order that he may adapt it to the superstructure, and not elaborate the former at the expense of the latter. The parent may squander his means upon fine clothes and sumptuous fare until he has nothing left for the intellectual education of his children; the State may build palaces for the physical comfort of its ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... better understanding of our purposes, and a more intelligent recognition of our needs as a Nation, it is not to be assumed that there will be prolonged failure to bring legislative and judicial action into closer harmony. Means must be found to adapt our legal forms and our judicial interpretation to the actual present national needs of the largest progressive democracy in ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... these disadvantages winter was breathing time; and we exerted ourselves to make the best of it. Plague might not revive with the summer; but if it did, it should find us prepared. It is a part of man's nature to adapt itself through habit even to pain and sorrow. Pestilence had become a part of our future, our existence; it was to be guarded against, like the flooding of rivers, the encroachments of ocean, or the ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... ladies acting like chambermaids," says I, "it's because they feel compelled to adapt themselves to the ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... eyes or ears, and my heart not at all. Of course your wishes shall be my law, and my wishes will lead me to seek your acquaintance with deep and undisguised interest. You see the trouble with me is that I have not changed, and it will require a little time for me to adapt myself to the new order of things. I am now somewhat stunned and paralyzed. In this imbecile state I am both stupid and selfish. I ought to congratulate you, and so I do with all the shattered forces of my mind and reason. You ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... the facility with which you adapt yourself to circumstances," scornfully. "You knew that I was but playing. I am fully capable of repaying any insolence offered to me, whether from D'Herouville, the vicomte . . . ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... Bengal, where its status is very low: "According to Hindu ideas, distillers and sellers of strong drink rank among the most degraded castes, and a curious story in the Vaivarta Purana keeps alive the memory of their degradation. It is said that when Sani, the Hindu Saturn, failed to adapt an elephant's head to the mutilated trunk of Ganesh who had been accidentally slain by Siva, Viswakarma, the celestial artificer, was sent for, and by careful dissection and manipulation he fitted the incongruous parts together, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... Maybe a few weeds growing in cracks here and there. Nothing we could use. Anything that would adapt to this ...
— The Gun • Philip K. Dick
... finished form, to civil uses. In the apse of the church they form narrow and tall window lights, somewhat more massive than those of Northern Gothic, but similar in application: the thing to be done was to adapt these traceries to the forms of domestic building necessitated by national usage. The early palaces consisted, as we have seen, of arcades sustaining walls faced with marble, rather broad and long than elevated. This form was kept for the Ducal Palace; but instead ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... reader soon rubs his eyes with bewilderment at the orgy of ambiguity to which he is introduced. Every term in Spencer's fireworks shimmers through a whole spectrum of meanings in order to adapt itself to the successive spheres of evolution to which it must apply. "Integration," for instance. A definite coherence is an Integration; and examples given of integration are the contraction of the solar nebula, the formation of the earth's crust, the calcification ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... thrive in lands that are sandy, and dry, and almost barren. In the latter case, they have to maintain an enormous root system for feeding purposes, and this is detrimental to good bearing qualities. The mocker-nut, pignut, and hairy hickory, perhaps adapt themselves best to sandy soils. This feature may make them valuable species for planting when one has no other soil, because the stocks can be used ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... broadly outlined the scope of the work, with its underlying principles, we may now give attention to the details of the plan for the initial farm. In this I would advise that the enterprise be made to adapt itself, so far as possible, to the present commercial and industrial conditions. That it be an incorporated stock company, limited. That its corporate life be for the longest possible term of years, with the right to renew. That it ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... Angels come and minister to them; and this is immediately followed by a mightier than Angelic Comforter—even the fulfilled promise of the Holy Spirit. "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart, I will send Him unto you." How graciously does Jesus thus adapt Himself to the character and trials of His people! What compensations He gives when they are suffering tribulation! One blessing is taken away—it is only that they may be brought more fully to value others which remain. ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... makes her a perfect mistress of time and character: because we are not to speak upon every occasion, or before every audience, or against every opponent, or in defence of every client, and to every Judge, in the same invariable manner. He, therefore, is the man of genuine Eloquence, who can adapt his language to what is most suitable to each. By doing this, he will be sure to say every thing as it ought to be said. He will neither speak drily upon copious subjects, nor without dignity and spirit upon things of importance; but his language will always be proportioned, ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... air is never oppressive. The autumn is generally very fine. Foggy mornings are common; but they are succeeded by bright pleasant days, without wind or rain. On the whole the climate is pronounced healthy, though somewhat trying to Europeans, who do not readily adapt themselves to a country where the range of the thermometer is as much as 90 deg. or 100 deg.. In the part of Media situated on the great plateau—the modern Irak Ajemi—in which are the important towns of Teheran, Isfahan, Hamadan, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... only in his vivid imagination. For Vye's imagination had buoyed him first through the drab existence in a State Child's Creche, then through a state-found job which he had lost because he could not adapt to the mechanical life of a computer tender, and had been an anchor and an escape when he had sunk through the depths of the port to the last ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... compensatory processes which so frequently claim the admiration of every investigator of civil, as well as of physical economy) there is in the nature of credit an elasticity which causes it, when left unshackled by law, to adapt itself to the necessities of commerce, and the legitimate demands of the market. Well may the productive classes exclaim to those who persist in legislating on the subject, and are not content without determining who may, and who may not, give credit to another, what ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 564, September 1, 1832 • Various
... languages. Now, just as early, and even savage, races are our masters in the decorative use of colour and of carving, so the nameless master-singers of ancient France may be our teachers in decorative poetry, the poetry some call vers de societe. Whether it is possible to go beyond this, and adapt the old French forms to serious modern poetry, it is not for any one but time to decide. In this matter, as in greater affairs, securus judicat orbis terrarum. For my own part I scarcely believe that the revival would serve the ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... knowledge is not to be valued for its own sake. The validity (prama@nya) of anything consists in this, that it directly helps us to get what is good for us and to avoid what is bad for us. Knowledge alone has this capacity, for by it we can adapt ourselves to our environments and try to acquire what is good for us and avoid what is bad [Footnote ref 1]. The conditions that lead to the production of such knowledge (such as the presence of full light and proximity to the eye in ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... Brahmans, the highest of all castes, a social supremacy for which there is no parallel elsewhere. At the same time, inflexibly as they have dominated Hinduism, these higher castes have themselves preserved a flexibility of mind and temper which has enabled them to adapt themselves with singular success to the vicissitudes of changing times without any substantial sacrifice of their inherited traditions and aspirations. Thus it is amongst high-caste Hindus that for the last three-quarters ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... clothes, and his dagger and cap and torn boots, were carefully put away in a loft; he was dressed in clean linen, slippers, and some clothes of mine, which, as is always the way with poor relations, at once seemed to adapt themselves to his size and figure. When he came to table, washed, clean, and fresh, he seemed so touched and happy, he beamed all over with such joyful gratitude, that I too felt moved and joyful.... His face was completely transformed.... Boys ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... speeches he soon distinguished himself by the amazing candor with which he dealt with all questions, and by his curious blending of audacity and humility. Wherever he saw a crowd of men he joined them, and he never failed to adapt himself to their point of view in asking for votes. If the degree of physical strength was their test for a candidate, he was ready to lift a weight or wrestle with the country-side champion; if the amount of grain a man could cradle ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... the deft manipulating of biscuit dough in a basin, and the steaming of pots. The generous meal was spread on a canvas cloth, around which men and women sat cross-legged, after the fashion of Indians. Hare found it hard to adapt his long legs to the posture, and he wondered how these men, whose legs were longer than his, could sit so easily. It was the crown of a cheerful dinner after hours of anxiety and abstinence to have Snap Naab ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... problem (as I heard an apprentice of theirs once express it), What kind of a society do we want to make? When they had settled this question a priori to their satisfaction, they set to work to make their ideal society, and today we suffer the consequences. Human society tries hard to adapt itself to any conditions in which it finds itself, and we have been warped and distorted until we have got used to it, as the foot adapts itself to an ill-made boot. Next, we have come to think that that is the right way for things to be; and it is true that a change to a sound ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... plot in the religious drama, at first restricted to the life of Christ, had been gradually broadened. Some writers, wishing to adapt attractive themes to the aristocratic gatherings of the princely courts, availed themselves of the very form of the sacred drama of the people in the treatment of subjects entirely profane. Thus did Poliziano, whose 'Orfeo,' as ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... efforts to introduce sociological modifications of the law which will have a far-reaching effect on the industrial relations of capital and labor. It is asserted that the common law, on which American jurisprudence is founded, is known as an ever-developing law, which must adapt itself to changing economic and social conditions; and, in this connection, it is claimed that the established theories of legal causation must be enlarged to include economic and social factors in the chain of causes leading to a result. ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... from her in reversing. She said to him one evening, when he was practising reversing and they were entwined in the attitude prescribed by the latest fashion: "Never mind me! Think about yourself. It's the same in dancing as it is in life—the woman's duty is to adapt herself to the man." He did think about himself. He was thinking about himself in the middle of the night, and about her too. There had been something in her tone... her eye... At the final lesson he inquired if she would give him the first waltz at the ball. She ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... rear more young, which would tend to inherit these slight peculiarities. The less fleet ones would be rigidly destroyed. I can see no more reason to doubt that these causes in a thousand generations would produce a marked effect, and adapt the form of the fox or dog to the catching of hares instead of rabbits, than that greyhounds can be improved by selection and careful breeding. So would it be with plants under similar circumstances. If the number of individuals of a species with plumed seeds could be increased by greater powers ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... and their education not fitting them for a different state of society, they suffered severely, both in their comforts and morals. It is now a primary moral duty, enforced by all our juvenile instructors with every citizen, to adapt his family to his means; and thus a regard which each individual has for his offspring, is ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... measures for this purpose, was the building of a new kind of galleys, which "were twice as long, twice as high, sailed more quickly, and were less unsteady than those of the Danes; some of these ships had sixty oars, some more." In addition to these naval improvements, his genius, which seemed to adapt itself alike to all arts, suggested a complete revolution in the existing state of military tactics, both in the field and in fortifications. He was, however, feebly seconded by his people; they had not yet arrived at that degree of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... brought to his work in it that same degree of patient inquisitiveness, plodding industry and painstaking experiment that has so richly rewarded others in the same line of endeavor, namely, the endeavor both to create new things and to effect such new combinations of old things as will adapt them to new uses. We know that the colored man has accomplished something—indeed, a very great deal—in the field of invention, but it would be of the first importance to us now to know exactly what he has done, and ...
— The Colored Inventor - A Record of Fifty Years • Henry E. Baker
... affections, that he could at once comply with and really embrace and enter into their habits and ways of life, and change faster than the chameleon. One color, indeed, they say the chameleon cannot assume; it cannot make itself appear white; but Alcibiades, whether with good men or with bad, could adapt himself to his company, and equally wear the appearance of virtue or vice. At Sparta, he was devoted to athletic exercises, was frugal and reserved; in Ionia, luxurious, gay, and indolent; in Thrace, always drinking; in Thessaly, ever on horseback; and when ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... modern-minded rulers who have adopted some of the household arrangements of the West. Sir Swinton Jacob has shown in the fairy-like palace which he built at Jeypore, but which internally you find exactly suited to the requirements of a modern museum, how possible it is to adapt Indian architecture to present-day needs. There is a good deal of carving, effectively placed and graceful in design and skilfully executed, both on the outside and inside of old houses in the City of Poona; and the balustrades that form the front of the narrow verandahs, ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... and commerce allowed to flow in those channels to which individual enterprise, always its surest guide, might direct it. But we must ever expect selfish legislation in other nations, and are therefore compelled to adapt our own to their regulations in the manner best calculated to avoid serious injury and to harmonize the conflicting interests of our agriculture, our commerce, and our manufactures. Under these impressions I invite ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... of Islam is evidence that it meets the needs of Asiatic and African peoples. Its simple creed—the unity of God, man's immortal soul, and material rewards and penalties in a future life—adapt it to the understanding of half-civilized peoples. As a religion it is immeasurably superior to the rude nature worship and idolatry which it has supplanted. The same is true of Islam as a system of morality. The practice of the virtues recommended by the Koran ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... bids me wait till I see how things go in Spain, and she says you are of the same opinion. The advice would be good, if I could adapt my conduct to the issue of events there. But one of three alternatives must happen. Either Caesar will be driven back, which would please me best, or the war will be protracted, or he will be completely victorious. If he is ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... derive a considerable and important advantage. But the government of the United States, resting on public opinion for all its measures, is liable to sudden and violent changes; it becomes an essential part of our duty to watch the effect of parties on its measures, and to adapt ours to the impulse given by those possessed of influence over ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... I hereby abolish that custom. Our numbers are too few by far. Too many have failed to adapt. Also, as Second Thinker, your death at this time would be slightly detrimental to certain matters now in work. I will myself, however, slay the unfit. To that end repeat The Words under ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... think," said Ned, "that it would be difficult to adapt it to the weight of different individuals, and also to their height. While it might not be too much for a strong man, it might be for a weak one; and if the position of steps and rail were adapted to a tall man, they wouldn't be ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... His success in the Rue Saint Florentin (this was where Talleyrand died) had made him a favourite with the Legitimists, and he had several useful friends among the Orleanists. Well posted in all the fashionable changes, and neglecting no opportunity for pushing himself, he was always quick to adapt himself to the spirit of the time. His theory of what the world should be was a very aristocratic one, but he maintained that there were three orders of aristocracy: the nobility, the clergy, and literature. What he wished to insure was a liberal education, which ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... the interior. We object, however, to the whole verbose description of the manner in which the partitions are shifted, to accommodate the movements of the person concealed. We object to it as a mere theory assumed in the first place, and to which circumstances are afterwards made to adapt themselves. It was not, and could not have been, arrived at by any inductive reasoning. In whatever way the shifting is managed, it is of course concealed at every step from observation. To show that certain movements might possibly be effected in a certain way, is very far from showing that ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... paused in her, and she was glad to rest her eyes on the horizon line and take no thought about any morrow. She helped her cousin and her legal and Mormon aunts with the children and the cabin labor, trying to adapt herself to their habits. But her heart-sickness and sense of fitting in her place like a princess cast among peasants put her at a disadvantage when, the third evening, the King of Beaver came into ...
— The King Of Beaver, and Beaver Lights - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... "he manages, although he is a gentleman, born and bred, to adapt himself to the people beneath him. It is a pity, though, that he hasn't a better sphere ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... stitches placed upon it; a glance at this will be suggestive when she is in doubt as to which to use, for it is often difficult to recollect just the right and most suitable one at a moment's notice. It is necessary to learn only the main varieties, for each individual worker can adapt, combine, and invent variations to suit ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... is no one in this parish except myself who has a decent house to live in," he murmured; and then an idea broke suddenly in his mind. The Greek priests were married. They had been allowed to retain their wives in order to avoid a schism. Rome had always known how to adapt herself to circumstances, and there was no doubt that if Rome knew Ireland's need of children Rome would consider the revocation of the decree—the clergy ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... lover this book may be found of interest as containing the reasons in picture composition, and through them an aid to critical judgment. We adapt our education from quaint and curious sources. It is the apt correlation of the arts which accounts for the acknowledgment by an English story writer that she got her style from Ruskin's "Principles of Drawing"; and of a landscape painter that to sculpture he owed his discernment ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... author of this series has had in view, in the plan and method which he has followed in the preparation of the successive volumes, has been to adapt them to the purposes of text-books in schools. The study of a general compend of history, such as is frequently used as a text-book, is highly useful, if it comes in at the right stage of education, when the mind is sufficiently ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... and that silly Gertrude (that's my maid's name, and what a name it is for a person in that class of life!) put me more and more out of patience with her idiotic conversation, which she tries to adapt to my tastes, and of which the ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... passed the shop, James Mandeville became a familiar figure; for from the first he elected to bestow upon its proprietors his unqualified friendship, and a day rarely went by without a visit from him. He quickly learned to adapt himself to the rule that he must not finger things, nor interrupt when customers were present. He usually brought some plaything with him,—most frequently the flannel donkey,—and amused himself quite happily, with an occasional appeal ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... business, wearisome persons. It is a deep-seated mistake. We cannot cast these things away as mere debris. They must be used, applied, accommodated. These are our materials, which we must strive to combine and adapt. To be disgusted with them, to allow them to disturb our serenity, is as though a painter should sicken at the odour of his pigments and the offscourings of his palette. The truer economy is to exclude all such elements as we can, consistently with honour, tenderness, and courage. Then ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... turn the sick chamber into a kind of paradise. No flowers, no little contrivances for amusement, no delicate article of food to tempt his sickly appetite. Poor Joe! Edith soon saw this, and yet it needs experience in illness to adapt one's self to sick nursing. Besides she was afraid, she did not like to offer books and flowers, and these visits were quite dreaded ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... same opinion." Of this company, he says, "Margaret was a member by the grace of nature.... Men, her superiors in years, in fame and social position, treated her more with the frankness due from equal to equal, than the half condescending deference with which scholars are wont to adapt themselves to women.... It was evident that they prized her verdict, respected her criticism, feared her rebuke, and looked to her as an umpire." In speaking, "her opening was deliberate, like the progress of a massive force gaining its momentum; but as she felt her way, and moving ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... of the further development of a colony to appear in a nest in which workers and soldiers are alike, as stated by Mr. Bates. Then, through the practice of the fighting instinct, we may conceive that natural selection would be competent to adapt the soldiers more perfectly for their duties militant, by developing the head and jaws as offensive weapons. Possibly, were our knowledge of the termites at all complete, we should meet with all stages in the ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... nature—manual or mental—of their employment. In the third place, we must endeavour, by means of our system of education, to increase the mobility of labour. In the modern State, where changes in the industrial organisation are frequent, the worker who can most easily adapt himself to changing circumstances is best assured of constant employment, and a great part of the social evils of our time may be traced to this want of mobility on the part of a large ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... conditions, or being exposed to them in different degrees, a wide and almost unparalleled dissimilarity has today arisen between the different individuals composing our societies; where, side by side with men and women who have rapidly adapted or are so successfully seeking to adapt themselves to the new conditions of knowledge and new conditions of life, that, were they to reappear in future ages in more co-ordinated societies, they might perhaps hardly appear wholly antiquated, are to be found men and women whose social, religious, and moral ideals would ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... on the contrary, has a special talent for variation. Like some individuals of another sort, it is born to adapt itself to circumstances. Dr. Gray enumerates no less than one hundred and ninety-six North American species and varieties, many of which shade into each other with such endless and well-nigh insensible gradations that even our great special student of the Compositae pronounces ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... simple," he said, "elemental; life in peace is neither simple nor elemental, it is subtle, full of changing environments, to which man must adapt himself; the cunning, the astute, the adaptable, will ever rule in times of peace. It is pathetic, the belief of those brave soldiers ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... air of some unwieldy animal trying to adapt itself to the unexpected gambols of a light one. The first supposition was that Elvira had in some way learnt the object of his mission, so he began to declare it with a reproachful look at Susannah. "Our sister ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... anything to be learnt from this fine sentence? Could he adapt it to the needs of daily life? Could he introduce it, with modifications, when he next wrote a letter to his ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... of a great warrior, it is customary to include in the funeral procession the hero's favorite horse, his battle-horse, compelled to adapt to the snail-like pace of the cortege the prancing gait which survives the smell of gunpowder and the waving of standards. On this occasion Mora's great coupe, the "eight-spring" affair which carried him to social ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... "War is like fishing with a golden net; the loss risked is always greater than the catch can be." For he who guides a wagon must walk far otherwise than if he were walking alone; when alone he may walk, jump, and do as he will; but when he drives, he must so guide and adapt himself that the wagon and horses can follow him, and regard that more than his own will. So also a prince leads a multitude with him and must not walk and act as he wills, but as the multitude can, considering their need and advantage more than his will ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... lesson illustrates the first efforts of man to make a shelter. Previous to this he was protected by such shelters as nature afforded. Now he begins to adapt nature's gifts to his own needs. The construction of the rude shelter illustrates what is probably the second step in the evolution of the textile arts, the first being the weaving of a cradle. In both cases the motive was undoubtedly ...
— The Tree-Dwellers • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... ages their motto. Young England, to wit, desires to replace things as they were in the days of the pack-horse, the thumb-screw, the monastery, the ducking-stool, the knight errant, trial by battle, and the donjon-keep. To these he wishes to apply all possible modern improvements, to adapt them to present ideas, and to present events. Though he would have no objection to his mailed knight traveling per first-class railway, he would abolish luggage-trains to encourage intestine trade and the breed of that noble animal the pack-horse. He ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... "you shall see the nunnery. But sleep as late as you please. We are not early risers here; anyhow we shall adapt the hours to your convenience. Good-night!" He closed the door quietly, but his heavy tread resounded ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... to other flowers of its kind; another by a sweet fruit which attracted birds to scatter its seed. Meanwhile other animals and plants that had not these advantages perished for the lack of them. The result would be to maintain, and perpetually, though with exceeding slowness, more and more to adapt to the conditions of their life, those species whose peculiarities gave them some advantage in ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... premised. But here is an argument whose primary premise is a false premise—a mere begging of the very question in dispute. Did Atheists admit the universe was contrived, designed, or adapted, they could not deny there must have been at least one Being to contrive, design, or adapt; but they see no analogy between a watch made with hands out of something, and a universe made without hands out of nothing—Atheists are unable to perceive the least resemblance between the circumstance of one ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... industries, with their restless energy, and breaking up the crust of Oriental apathy and indolence; and have brought back in return the ideas gained from an observation of the associations and accessories of Eastern life, to adapt them to the requirements and ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... thing not formed, may exist; whereas that which existeth not, cannot be formed. Thus is the matter before the thing made; not because it maketh it, seeing itself is rather made; nor is it before by interval of time; for we do not first in time utter formless sounds without singing, and subsequently adapt or fashion them into the form of a chant, as wood or silver, whereof a chest or vessel is fashioned. For such materials do by time also precede the forms of the things made of them, but in singing it is not so; for when it is sung, its sound is heard; for there is not first ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... the Significance of Mental Evolution. (1) The biological view regards Mind as an organ evolved to adapt behavior to the environment, (2) and tends to reduce its action to a mechanical process. (3) Parallelism in the end reduces Mind to an epi-phenomenon {an important undoubted fact which has been often ignored ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... too many instances of poor shooting by men who passed for good riflemen, owing to ignorance of principles whose observance would alone enable them to adapt their practice to varying circumstances, to have any doubt of the important truth contained in the above extract; and we would urge its careful consideration and a compliance with its suggestions ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... say, then, of the proposal to adapt Christianity to the needs of the world to-day by eliminating or ignoring its characteristic doctrines? You might as well propose to fit a ship for service by taking out its compass and its charts and cutting off its rudder. Make Christianity silent ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... they are not content with copying a single situation. They have not been "in the game" long enough to realize either the risk that they are taking or the wrong that they are doing a fellow writer, so they not only adapt to their own needs a strong situation in another's story but precede and follow it with other incidents and situations which are substantially the same as those surrounding the big situation ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... And these forms were still fresh and vigorous; they had not yet hardened into formalism. In Beethoven's works we rarely find form employed for its own sake, as a mere "tour de force" of skilful workmanship, rather is it made to adapt itself to the individual needs of the composer. Finally Beethoven's career coincided with momentous changes and upheavals in the social, political and artistic world. He is the embodiment of that spirit of individualism, of human freedom and self-respect which found its expression ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... midsummer the lovely rose-pink blooms inland with cheerful readiness to adapt itself to harder conditions than most of its moisture-loving kin will tolerate; but it may be noticed that although we may oftentimes find it growing in dry soil, it never spreads in such luxuriant clusters as when the roots are struck ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... Japan a certain school of progressive ideas in reference to the art of the country. This school is of opinion that Japanese art should not, so to speak, remain stereotyped, but that it should assimilate and adapt and apply all that is good and beautiful in Western art. The objects that this school has in view are no doubt laudable, but I confess I hope with all my heart that those objects will fail of accomplishment. There has been already far too much Europeanising of Japanese art, and the ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... subject is "Righteousness, Temperance, and a Judgment to Come." My audience was composed of hearers from far and near; and almost all classes, as to intelligence and social standing, were represented. A man like myself, who only occasionally strikes such a crowd, hardly knows how to adapt himself to the situation. If he lets himself down to the comprehension of the illiterate, the highbred city folks may say: "He is beneath his calling." And if he lifts himself up to their standard of appreciation, ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... dangerous as well as the most efficacious method of meeting temporary and urgent necessities. It is better to suspend openly, and for a given time, a particular privilege, than to pervert, by encroachment and subtlety, the fixed laws, so as to adapt them to the emergency of the hour. The experience of history, in such cases, confirms the suggestions of reason. In countries where political liberty is finally established, as in England, it is precisely after it has obtained a signal triumph, that the temporary suspension of ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... life, so strangely picturesque. Which one of us in his ambitious days has not dreamed of a miracle of poetic prose, musical, without rhythm and without rhyme, supple enough and rugged enough to adapt itself to the lyrical movements of the soul, to the undulations of reverie, and to the assaults ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner |
