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Basis   /bˈeɪsəs/  /bˈeɪsɪs/   Listen
Basis

noun
(pl. bases)
1.
A relation that provides the foundation for something.  Synonyms: footing, ground.  "He worked on an interim basis"
2.
The fundamental assumptions from which something is begun or developed or calculated or explained.  Synonyms: base, cornerstone, foundation, fundament, groundwork.
3.
The most important or necessary part of something.  Synonym: base.



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"Basis" Quotes from Famous Books



... history. In the Middle Ages there was but one criterion for every question that arose, and that criterion was the past. Whatever had been, should continue. All Church dogmas were settled by an appeal to the ancient Fathers; all political aspirations were fought out on the basis of descent. Tradition was the god of mediaeval Europe. At last, however, questions arose for which tradition had no answer. On the Renaissance in Italy, on the invention of printing and of gunpowder, on the discovery of America, the ancient Fathers had not spoken. On these things, therefore, ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson

... etc., are still less pure varieties of C. Construct a table of the naturally occurring forms of this element, in the order of their purity. Carbon forms the basis of all vegetable and animal life; it is found in many rocks, mineral oils, asphaltum, natural gas, and in the air ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams

... Christian sects was held the judgment of God, between them and their chief enemy—the death of the Emperor Julian. But I have no means of tracing, and will not conjecture, the course of his own thoughts, until the tenor of all his life was changed at his baptism. The candour which lies at the basis of his character has given us one sentence of his own, respecting that change, which is worth some volumes of ordinary confessions. "I left, not only parents and kindred, but the accustomed luxuries of delicate life." The words throw full light on what, to our less courageous ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... Vassili knew how to establish permanently the nature of one government by constituting in autocracy the necessary attribute of empire, its sole constitution, and the only basis of safety, force and prosperity. This limitless power of the prince is regarded as tyranny in the eye of strangers, because, in their inconsiderate judgment, they forget that tyranny is the abuse of autocracy, and that the ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... with the "Tillicum" and afterwards returned to give us a late supper. Desire kept out of my way. One might almost have thought that she was shy—if so, a most perplexing development. For why should she feel shy? It wasn't as if we had not put the whole affair on a perfectly business basis. Perhaps there is some elemental magic in names, so that, to a woman, the very word "marriage" has power to ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... with our own, and learn lessons of wisdom. The rise and fall of the Roman Empire is especially rich in the facts which bear on our own development. Nor can modern history be comprehended without a survey of the civilization which has entered into our own, and forms the basis of many of our own institutions. Rome perished, but not wholly her civilization. So far as it was founded on the immutable principles of justice, or beauty, or love, it will never die, but will remain a precious legacy to all generations. So far as it was founded on pride, injustice, and selfishness, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... "I'm afraid we're reduced to the spark method. It would take too long to procure materials pure enough for any other plan. Friction is out of the question for such people; they haven't the patience. Suppose we go ahead on the flint-and-spark basis." ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint

... of Major Winthrop, at the promising commencement of his military career, the nation lost one of its purest, noblest, and most capable spirits. His industry, sagacity, and intrepidity all rested on a firm basis of fixed principle and deep enthusiasm; and had he lived, we have little doubt that both his moral and practical power would have been felt among the palpable forces of the country. In the articles he contributed to this magazine, describing his brief military ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... possible, forms the basis of the story, giving the clearness and simplicity of treatment necessary in a history for the grammar grades. Altogether, this book in a new field is admirably adapted to successful ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... damn a woman's fame! In what respect was Mrs. Manley to blame? In what particular was she guilty? to marry her cousin, who passionately professed love to her, and who solemnly vowed himself a widower, could not be guilt; on the other hand, it had prudence and gratitude for its basis. Her continuing in the house with him after he had made the discovery, cannot be guilt, for by doing so, she was prevented from being exposed to such necessities as perhaps would have produced greater ruin. When want and beggary stare a woman in ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... miner and every loader of coal in any mine in this state who under the terms of his employment is to be paid for mining or loading such coal on the basis of the ton or other weight shall be paid for such mining or loading according to the total weight of all such coal contained within the car (hereinafter referred to as mine car) in which the same shall have been removed out of the mine unless otherwise agreed between employer ...
— Mining Laws of Ohio, 1921 • Anonymous

... husband. But there was something spurious about his domesticity, Ursula did not like him any more. Something ugly, blatant in his nature had come out now, making him shift everything over to a sentimental basis. A materialistic unbeliever, he carried it all off by becoming full of human feeling, a warm, attentive host, a generous husband, a model citizen. And he was clever enough to rouse admiration everywhere, and to take in his wife sufficiently. She did not love ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... which was involved in the name Hamlet, Amleth, or Hamalet—the idea that the universe, suspended in the wide region of Nowhere, lies, an amulet, upon the breast of the Great Latona,—a paper that was the basis of his reputation in ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... him settle the problems of the Republic on Sunday afternoon. The club held its first session in our empty parlor on Dover Street, and the United States Government was in a fair way to be put on a sound basis at last, when the numerous babies belonging to our establishment broke up the meeting, leaving the Administration in suspense ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... home vegetable gardens require. Large tracts of soil that are almost pure sand, and others so heavy and mucky that for centuries they lay uncultivated, have frequently been brought, in the course of only a few years, to where they yield annually tremendous crops on a commercial basis. So do not be discouraged about your soil. Proper treatment of it is much more important, and a garden- patch of average run-down,—or "never-brought-up" soil—will produce much more for the energetic ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell

... Story, of to-day, may add their evidence. The essentially autobiographic in such a connection must be accepted with reserve. So must be taken much admirable writing as to the art in which the critic or teacher has labored. Didactics are not necessarily literature. Perhaps the best basis of determining the right to literary recognition of men and women who have written and printed more or less without actually professing letters, will be the interest of the matter they have left to the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... irresistible mirth. "Young women who elope with grooms are not likely to have much basis of happiness in themselves. And you think me capable of fancying love for a man without education or refinement, a man with whom I could have nothing in common that would last beyond a day! What have I ever done, papa, that you ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... a committee, of which Wm. S. Johnson and Charles Pinckney were members. It recites that, "for extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the basis whereon these republics, their laws and constitutions, are erected; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws, constitutions, and governments which forever hereafter shall be formed in the said Territory; to provide also for the establishment of States and permanent government, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam

... buildings does, it is true, give the impression of a long interval between their abandonment and the traveller's visit, whilst the whole interval between the capture of the city and Polo's departure from China was not more than fifteen or sixteen years. But this is too vague a basis for theorising. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... to look at the prospects before us, if a peace is established on the basis of Southern independence, the only peace possible, unless we choose to add ourselves to the four millions who already call the Southern whites their masters. We know what the prevailing—we do not mean universal—spirit and temper of those people have been for ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... classify essential oils either on a botanical basis or according to their chemical composition, but neither method is very satisfactory, and, in describing the chief constituents and properties of the more important oils, we have preferred therefore to arrange them alphabetically, as being ...
— The Handbook of Soap Manufacture • W. H. Simmons

... but by a comparison of the arguments on both sides. If we consider merely their extension, and whether they are adequate with ideas, the series of conditions may be regarded as all homogeneous. But the conception of the understanding which lies at the basis of these ideas, contains either a synthesis of the homogeneous (presupposed in every quantity—in its composition as well as in its division) or of the heterogeneous, which is the case in the dynamical synthesis of cause and effect, as well as of the necessary ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... so sure that [the home government] would now gladly take the state before the war as the general basis of the peace, that I was prepared to take on me the responsibility of trespassing upon their instructions thus far. Not only so, but I would at this moment cheerfully give my life for a peace on this basis. If peace was possible, ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... Willoughby Road. There stood near by until within the last twenty years an old building known as the Chicken House. This is supposed to have been once a hunting lodge of King James I., though there is little basis for the tradition. It became later a mean hovel, the rendezvous for the scum and riffraff of the neighbourhood. It stood a little back from the road just at the spot where Pilgrim Place now is, and contained some very curious stained ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... simply make use of a convenient political machinery to serve their private ends. Therefore their position, however strong it may seem for the moment, is insecurely founded. It rests upon no moral basis, it finds no stronghold in the national character. Outsiders may think the average American citizen strangely tolerant of abuses, and indeed I find him smiling with placid amusement at things which, were I in his place, would make my blood ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... leave of the vegetable materials, it will be proper, at least, to enumerate the several vegetable acids which we either have had, or may have occasion to mention. I believe I formerly told you that their basis, or radical, was uniformly composed of hydrogen and carbon, and that their difference consisted only in the various proportions of ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... sleigh drawn by especially fleet horses. On making a careful examination, they found that this sleigh bore from bank to bank a number of kegs of specie sufficient to enable each bank in its turn to show the examiners a temporary basis in hard money for its ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... desert him. But he was no longer the young and inspired knight, self-convinced and convincing, who had issued from the little church long ago. In person he was bloated with drink and repulsive to all who saw him; and the vanity which had so often been the temporary basis of his changing character had grown monstrous under the long repression of circumstances. With the first moment of success it broke out and dictated his actions, his assumed humility was forgotten in an instant, as well ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... are evidences of good, honest labor in those two volumes, much of which must have been done by himself. There is an aim at truth and impartiality, but many of his general statements will seem, to any one who has gone over the original material, to rest on a slight basis. If Blaine had felt the necessity of giving authorities in a footnote for every statement about which there might have been a question, he certainly would have written an entirely different sort of ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... 11th of February, Colonel Arbuthnot came to Halifax from Fort Frederick, with two Indian chiefs of the Passamaquoddy tribe, to make peace on the basis of the old Indian Treaty of 1725. Representatives of the St. John river tribe arrived a few days later. The Indians appeared before the Governor and Council with an interpreter. They were received with every courtesy and presented with gold lace blankets, laced ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... of religious communities, with a God-King at its head;—the customs of all these communities had the force of religious laws, and ethics were identified with obedience to custom; filial piety was the basis of social order, and loyalty itself was derived from filial piety. But this Western creed, which taught that a husband should leave his parents and cleave to his wife, held filial piety to be at best an inferior virtue. It proclaimed that duty to parents, lords, and rulers remained ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... follies of a peculiar phase of human society. Others, who feel differently, and are attracted towards this study, are making an experiment for us as to whether anything better than bewilderment can come of it. At present it seems to me that to rest any fundamental part of religion on such a basis is a melancholy misguidance of men's minds from the true sources of high and pure emotion ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 3 of 3) - The Life of George Eliot • John Morley

... scene with inquisitive astonishment. However, she did not speak of it to her husband, which proved that she adopted it as the basis of secret study. The marquis's smile, the significance of which escaped her, set ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... speaking quickly and brusquely, "I am under a cloud here, and—your mother called to see my daughter this afternoon, and I thought that possibly you would pardon me if I put it all on a little different basis." ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... as a basis, he worked his way gradually down the code till he had embraced nearly all the possibilities of Eskimo life—a work which kept him busy all the winter, and was not quite finished when "time and tide" obliged him and his companions to quit ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... that the dictatorship is inevitable as a method to fight the ancient regime. But such a dictatorship evidently becomes a barrier from the moment when the revolution undertakes the construction of a new society on a new economic basis. The dictatorship condemns the new ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... until after the newness wears off and the grotesque with it. After I know her I shall be able to consort with her again without feeling solicitous about her and conscious of myself. I wish we were on that happy basis now." ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... correspondence placed in his hands. It is sufficient to say here that her letters strikingly exhibit her oneness of purpose. In all without exception, the one thing is prominent, and although ordinary topics are not overlooked, they are invariably turned to good account, and made the basis of apposite and profitable reflection. One of her correspondents observes: "Her letters were always refreshing to me, and brought my mind in immediate contact with one who lived in the spirit of prayer and general devotedness. I never knew ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth

... nice," she said. "For one thing, I haven't any bills. I never lived on a cash basis before. It's a sort ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... perhaps despisal, separated them, he began again to despair, and felt himself urged once more to speak. Seizing therefore an opportunity in such manner that she could not escape him without attracting very undesirable attention, he began a talk upon the old basis. ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... exposed to the same situation, one will develop a complex, the other will remain immune? The only soil we know of, the real foundation stones of our being and living, are the cells we are made of. Tell me the cellular basis of a complex, and I will grant that you have ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... terms that did not provide for counting at least three-fifths of the slaves and that "if the Eastern states meant to exclude them altogether the business was at an end." It was finally agreed to reckon three-fifths of the slaves in estimating taxes and to make taxation the basis of representation. The whole discussion was renewed, however, in connection with the question of importation. There were more threats from the far South, and some of the men from New England, prompted by commercial interest, even if they did not favor the sentiments ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... your book which you were so kind as to send us. But that was grace before meat, which lacks the "physical basis" of after-thanksgiving—and I am going to supplement it, after my ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... first turned their attention to the physical history of the earth, they saw at once certain great features which they took to be the skeleton and basis of the whole structure. They saw the great masses of granite forming the mountains and mountain-chains, with the stratified rocks resting against their slopes; and they assumed that granite was the first primary agent, and that all stratified rocks must be of a later formation. ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... waterspouts now came into view, and subsequently a third, if not more, so that they felt as if completely surrounded by them. Some were well defined, extending in an unbroken line from the sea to the sky, like pillars resting on the ocean as their basis, and supporting the clouds; others, assuming the shape of a funnel or inverted cone attached to the clouds, extended their sharp points to the ocean below. From the distinctness with which they were seen, it was judged ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne

... gratuitously as possible, the exciting and poisonous food which is at last to end in the revolutionary fever."[113] The second class, strange to say, rested their hopes in this instance on the singularly slippery basis of soap. Sir C. Keightley moved (on the 20th of June) that instead of diminishing the stamp duty on newspapers, the duty on hard and soft soap should be reduced. The reduction of such duty would, ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... To be sure there were two berths, and I could remain in the upper one, and she could turn in below, and I would turn my face to the wall and not look, but I doubted if a lady, who was a perfect stranger, and whose opinion of soldiers was so pronounced, could compromise on such a basis, so when the mate knocked at the door I took my pants and shoes and went out the door leading on deck, and went below, without being discovered. I found my companions, who had been routed out of their beds, dressing themselves as best they could by the light from the furnace, when the stokers would ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck

... follow on the abolition of Monarchy, and in spite of the king's evasions he persisted in negotiating with him. But Cromwell stood almost alone. The Parliament refused to accept Ireton's proposals as a basis of peace; Charles still evaded; and the army grew restless and suspicious. There were cries for a wide reform, for the abolition of the House of Peers, for a new House of Commons; and the Agitators called on the Council of ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... said that a third, perhaps half of them, had not only taken no part in the murder, but had not even set foot in the church. How should they kill them? The killing must be placed upon the basis of reprisals. But the killing of these eighty people required a ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... this kind, the possibilities that lie in the use of the instrument are associated with the contingency of large error, especially in the biology of the minuter forms of life, unless a well grounded biological knowledge form the basis of all specific inference, to say nothing ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various

... this view is more easily discerned than its metaphysical basis. Individual existence with its tantalising mirage of pleasures being the root of all evil, the first step towards finding a remedy is to recognise this truth, to obtain insight into the heart of things athwart the veil of Maya or delusion. ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... W. POWELL, has continued the work of the linguistic classification of the Indian tribes in North America north of Mexico, and in connection with it is preparing a map upon a linguistic basis showing the original habitat of the tribes. The ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various

... it is, good niece. It forms, to my mind, so fine a basis for the invariable harmony of the matrimonial state. To be brief—as I always endeavour to be, without becoming obscure—you two young people (ah, what a gift is youth! one can never be too thankful for it) ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... The fundamental basis of the whole science of grafting is cambium. What then is this important substance by means of which one plant may be made to live and grow and produce on the roots of another? If we strip off the bark of any actively growing, woody plant we will find just beneath ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting - Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913 • Various

... agitation. I hoped therefore, that, by placing her in the pew, I might at least liberate her for the moment from the besetting memorials of sorrow and calamity. But, as if in the very teeth of my purpose, one of the large columns which supported the roof of the chapel, had its basis and lower part of the shaft in this very pew. On the side of it, and just facing her as she lay reclining on the cushions, appeared a mural tablet, with a bas-relief in white marble, to the memory of two children, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... from a few reflections on the apparent hostility of practical men to pure theory, which must after all be the basis of all intelligent action. How much nobler to help to establish principles serviceable to humanity than to make later unconscious use of those same principles to advance one's own selfish interests! Why must there needs be mutual ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... said Pott solemnly, 'a waverer. I should like to show you a series of eight articles, Sir, that have appeared in the Eatanswill GAZETTE. I think I may venture to say that you would not be long in establishing your opinions on a firm and solid blue basis, sir.' 'I dare say I should turn very blue, long before I got to the end of them,' ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... instances, he does not trace the line of succession, he takes care, in others, to mention the father and many of his sons. [44:1] The Jewish notion current in the time of our Lord as to the existence of seventy heathen nations, seems, therefore, to have rested on a sound historical basis, inasmuch as, according to the Mosaic statement, there were, beside Peleg, precisely seventy individuals by whom "the nations were divided in the earth after the flood." We may thus infer that our Lord meant to convey a great moral lesson by the appointment alike of the Twelve and of the Seventy. ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... feel sure that I have lived at least part of my life in Boston, or near there. One doesn't have even shadowy memories of big monuments and historic places without some basis; and it was not the memory of having seen pictures of them. It ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope

... their fellow-men. Of all the school clubs established by Zinzendorf this "Order of the Mustard Seed" was the most famous and the most enduring. As the boys grew up to man's estate they invited others to join their ranks; the doctrinal basis was broad; and among the members in later years were John Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man, Cardinal Noailles, the broad-minded Catholic, and General Oglethorpe, Governor of Georgia. ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... of one's waking-sleeping schedule with respect to the standard 24-hour cycle. This is a useful concept among people who often work at night and/or according to no fixed schedule. It is not uncommon to change one's phase by as much as 6 hours per day on a regular basis. "What's your phase?" "I've been getting in about 8 P.M. lately, but I'm going to {wrap around} to the day schedule by Friday." A person who is roughly 12 hours out of phase is sometimes said to be in 'night mode'. (The term 'day mode' is also (but less ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... of the very gravest concern to at least nine-tenths of the business interests in the United States, Whether an all-round reduction of the present tariff either on an ad valorem or a specific basis Could be effected without a serious disturbance of the general industrial ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock

... that Auntie "didn't like it." This would do one of two things, either stop their friendship off short,—it wouldn't do that, she was happily confident,—or commence things upon a new and more definite basis. ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... availing himself of the prejudice in his favor, so largely diffused amongst 25 the lowest of the Kalmucks, that his own title to the throne in quality of great-grandson in a direct line from Ajouka, the most illustrious of all the Kalmuck Khans, stood upon a better basis than that of Oubacha, who derived from a collateral branch; secondly, with respect 30 to the sole advantage which Oubacha possessed above himself in the ratification of his title, by improving this difference between their situations to the disadvantage of his competitor, as one ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey

... forms from the indistinguishable. The latter we find designated as the [Greek: to amorphon], the [Greek: hudor prokosmikon], the [Greek: chaos], as the essentially unintelligible, yet necessarily presumed, basis or sub-position of all positions. That it is, scientifically considered, an indispensable idea for the human mind, just as the mathematical point, &c. for the geometrician;—of this the various systems of our geologists and cosmogonists, from Burnet to ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... broached, and the matter accepted, without any bald reference to necessity, without the slightest violation to the tenets of hospitality. No reference was made to a previous understanding. Joe's visit was established on a purely social basis, and as such it would be presented to Mrs. Mosby, whose penchant for alarm might thus ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... hanging him at the earliest opportunity. In his younger days he had lived in perpetual warfare against Society, its institutions and constitutions—a warfare that he carried on without scruple and without quarter: he would have had no cause for complaint had he been dealt with on this basis of his own choosing. Society, however, had chosen to fancy that it could reform Francois, or, failing that, could keep him alive and yet harmless. Thanks to this sanguine view, he found himself, at the age of forty-five, ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope

... once that the Tower was established on a firm basis. In the entire history of firm basisis I don't find a basis more ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various

... one point we must have suffered at the same. Never to suffer would have been never to have been blessed. But it has been shown that, in the inorganic life, pain cannot be thus the necessity for the organic. The pain of the primitive life of Earth, is the sole basis of the bliss of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... Dr. Johnson says: 'That a sick man is a scoundrel.' There is a basis of truth in that apparent cruelty. It is true that 'scoundrel' is rather a harsh term to apply to a man whose moral obliquities have not received the official stamp in open court by a jury of his peers. The ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... the whole of Volume I., with the same interest and admiration as before; and I am convinced that my judgment was right and that it is a memorable book, the basis of all future work on the subject. I have nothing particular to say, but perhaps you would like to hear my impressions on two or three points. Nothing has struck me more than the admirable and convincing manner in which you treat Java. To allude to a very ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... was only one thing for him to do. He must meet her on her own basis of boyhood, and not make the mistake of treating her as a woman. He wondered if he could love the woman she would be when her nature awoke; and he wondered if he could love her just as she was and himself wake her up. After all, whatever it was, she ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... jealous friends at best. Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favours call; She comes unlook'd for, if she comes at all. But if the purchase costs so dear a price, As soothing folly, or exalting vice; Oh! if the Muse must flatter lawless sway, And follow still where fortune leads the way; Or if no basis bear my rising name, But the fallen ruins of another's fame; 520 Then teach me, Heaven! to scorn the guilty bays, Drive from my breast that wretched lust of praise, Unblemish'd let me live, or die unknown; Oh, grant an honest fame, or ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... thoroughly their financial setup, draw up a budget, and use their present resources to acquire equipment for the new home. They decide questions which are to form the basis of the marriage and largely influence its success: Is the wife to have her own share of the family income, her own checking account? Must she ask her husband for money for each household expense, or will she have an allowance on which to run the home? In addition, is she to have money for her ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various

... claims; that, starting from the Divine Sacrifice as the central fact of human life, it was intended to root out of our hearts the noxious weed of selfishness by the power of the Divine love, and to build up the organisation of men in their common relationships upon this new basis. ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival

... him the slave of others, and of the training of the individual so as to become a law to himself, and in possession, therefore, of the right to the control of all his vital interests, the project definable as an insane attempt to realise a social system on the basis ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... while major-general commanding the Fifth Army Corps, under my command, in reference to accusations or imputations assumed in the order to have been made against him, and I understand through the daily press that my official report of the battle of Five Forks has been submitted by him as a basis of inquiry. ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan

... his own well-defined view of truth, he could confidently lend his mind away to his fifty or his hundred men and women. They served to give his ideas a concrete body. By sympathy and by intelligence he widened the basis of his own existence. If the poet loses himself to find himself again through sympathy with external nature, how much more and in how many enriching ways through sympathy with humanity! Thus new combinations ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... sums of money, was a few years after abandoned and demolished. The mole was entirely destroyed; and the garrison, being brought over to England, served to augment that small army which the king relied on as the solid basis of his authority. It had been happy for the nation, had Charles used his victory with justice and moderation equal to the prudence and dexterity with ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... lack finality. During the Middle Ages, however, and especially towards the end of them, the most important branches of medicine, diagnosis and therapeutics, took definite shape on the foundations that lie at the basis of our modern medical science. We hear of percussion for abdominal conditions, and of the most careful study of the pulse and the respiration. There are charts for the varying color of the urine, and of the tints of the skin. With Nicholas of Cusa there came the definite suggestion of the need ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... in vain to attempt a clear classification of the Leviathan, founded upon either his baleen, or hump, or fin, or teeth; notwithstanding that those marked parts or features very obviously seem better adapted to afford the basis for a regular system of Cetology than any other detached bodily distinctions, which the whale, in his kinds, presents. How then? The baleen, hump, back-fin, and teeth; these are things whose peculiarities ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... told her, frankly. "I shall always love her, in a way. But she is married; she never thinks of me. And I like you so much, Alix; I like our music and cooking and tramps and reading— together. Isn't that a pretty good basis for marriage?" ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris

... great. In his father's time, however, no change could be made. He did not scruple to speak to the old man of these things; but he spoke of them rather as dreams, or as distant hopes, than as being the basis of any purpose of his own. His father would merely say that the old house, looking out upon the ancient synagogue, must last him his time, and that the changes of which Anton spoke must be postponed—not till he died—but till such time as he should ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope

... Bomford repeated, condescendingly, "is a very useful sum. Those peculiar gifts of yours may vanish. Take the advice of a business man. Remember that you will still have two or three beans left. It is only one we ask for. I want to put the matter on as broad a basis as possible. We make our appeal on behalf of the cause of science. You must not refuse us." Burton rose to his feet determinedly. "Not only do I refuse," he said, "but it is not a matter which I am inclined to discuss any longer. I am sorry if you are disappointed, but my story was really ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Then the basis of the trouble came out. One Davis, M.P. from England, had also dealt with our friend. Davis, as we reconstructed him, was of the blunt type, with probably very little feeling of democracy for those in subordinate positions, and with, most ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... had been either discouraged or at the least lethargic, the pretender Tien Wang had been busily engaged in establishing his authority on a sound basis, and in assigning their respective ranks to his principal followers who saw in the conferring of titles and posts, at the moment of little meaning or value, the recognition of their past zeal and the promise of reward for future service. The men who rallied round ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... requisite to neutralize both, by getting out of the sphere of their hourly influence. The inhabitants of Kingston, a naval and military town, whose revenues had been chiefly derived from those sources, were loyal, without considering it of the utmost consequence that their loyalty should form the basis of every government, or that the governor was not to open his mouth, or use his pen, unless by permission. They were the true ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... general of public advantage, as they tend to improvement of trade, and employment of the poor, and the circulation and increase of the public stock of the kingdom; but this is supposed of such as are built on the honest basis of ingenuity and improvement, in which, though I will allow the author to aim primarily at his own advantage, yet with the circumstances ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe

... stern coolness which formed the basis of his character, Brian de Bois-Guilbert communicated this hideous intelligence, which was not so calmly received ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... in psychical therapeutics are closely analogous to the cures wrought by Jesus on some victims of "demoniac possession."[7] The cases of apparition,[8] also, which have been investigated and verified by the Society for Psychical Research have laid a solid basis of fact for the Biblical stories of angels, as at least, a class of phenomena to be regarded as by no means altogether legendary, but having their place among natural ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton

... upon a conception of royal power unimpaired by those feudal relationships by which in western countries monarchy was being reduced to its lowest estate. The old Magyar tribal system was abolished and as a basis of administration there was adopted the Frankish system of counties. The central and western portions of the country, being more settled, were divided into forty-six counties, at the head of each of which was placed a count, or lord-lieutenant ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... Bay was now the event to which all thoughts turned, and for which preparations on a grand scale were made. It was to form, as it were, the basis of the more important voyage Fritz had in view, and to which, unsuspected by the rest, he could ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... in remaniements of the Chanson DE ROLAND, comparatively rapid and quite revolutionary variations from the oldest—the Oxford—manuscript. Rhyme is substituted for assonance; the process entails frequent modernisations, and yet the basis of thirteenth-century texts continues to be the version of the eleventh century. It may be worth the while of scholars to consider these parallels carefully, as regards the language and prosody ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... scientific belief. Mr. Powell tells us that in his first expedition, eight years ago, and for three years after that, he tried hard to find in the west the equivalents of the State epochs and periods so well known as the basis of geological nomenclature, and nearly all taken from the exposures in New York and other Eastern and Southeastern States. It was not until this attempt was abandoned that he began to make progress. He had to study the ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... sir, that we give so much importance to birth in this island, by which means proud beggars set unwashed blackguards in motion, and the substantial subjects are the sufferers. Property, sir, is in danger, and property is the only true basis of society." ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... royal idea, in so far as the busy monarch of France had any fixed purpose in the matter, that the colony should be placed upon a feudal basis—that lands should be granted and sub-granted on feudal terms. In other words, the king or his representative stood ready to give large tracts or fiefs in New France to all immigrants whose station in life warranted the belief that they would maintain the dignity of seigneurs. These, in turn, ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro

... enlarges again on his views in reference to the basis of astrology as concerned with nativities and the importance of planetary conjunctions. He gives particulars of his own nativity. "Jupiter nearest the nonagesimal had passed by four degrees the trine of Saturn; the Sun and Venus ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant

... a true prophet, and, as we shall see later, his exertions were a potent factor in establishing the fine arts on a firm basis in New York. ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... of a scientific basis for color values is also emphasized, believing this to be essential in the ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell

... "began to take root in Judaism and then it gained believers even among men who were little inclined towards Mysticism. Juda ben Asher (Asheri) for instance, discussing this doctrine in a letter to his father endeavored to place it upon a philosophical basis." (Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. XII, p. 232.) We also read, "The Cabalists eagerly adopted the doctrine on account of the vast field it offered to mystic speculations. Moreover it was almost a necessary corollary of their psychological system. The absolute ...
— Reincarnation • Swami Abhedananda

... or judicial officers of a State, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any one of the male inhabitants of such State being twenty-one years of age and a citizen of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crimes, the basis of representation thereon shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... in getting the papers sent in years ago. To this influential person he said a good deal about the state of the family finances, the need there was for clearing matters up and starting on a better basis, and his own determination to face things fairly and set to work in earnest. What kind of work was not mentioned; apparently that had nothing to do with the Captain's resolution; there was one thing, however, that was mentioned definitely—the need for the banker brother's advice—and pecuniary ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... the letters {Greek: IOTA,ETA,SIGMA}, signifies Yes, Ies or Jes. In composing their version of the Gospel story, having, like their race, no inventive genius, they appropriated that of Serapis as its basis and laid its scene in the land of their ancestry, but inconsistently retained the sign of the cross and the phraseology connected there with, which, having special reference to the Nile River and its annual inundation, had no ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill

... just as much a habit as breathing or any other physical function. I had got myself into the habit of eating large quantities of food. Also, I had accustomed my system to certain amounts of alcohol. I was organized on that basis—fatly and flabbily organized, to be sure, but organized just the same. Now, then, when I arbitrarily cut down the amount of food and drink for which my system was organized that entire system rose up in active revolt and yelled for what it had been ...
— The Fun of Getting Thin • Samuel G. Blythe

... can be no reliable character which has not its basis in these strong qualities. The beautiful must ever rest in the arms of the sublime. The gentle needs the strong to sustain it, as much as the rock flowers need rocks to grow on, or yonder ivy the rugged wall which it embraces. When we are admiring ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... ready to pay the highest possible price for them, as I have said," urged the Englishman, realising as he spoke that it was futile to urge the sale upon that basis. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... a wayward, venturesome youth. His father and mother had built their hopes high with him as a foundation, and he had proved a decidedly insecure basis; for one night, in the winter of 1863, he stole away from his home in New York; before spring he was fighting in the far Southland, a boy of sixteen carrying a musket in ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... of these lands on the Santa Cruz and San Pedro are covered by Mexican titles—and many of these again by squatter claims. It is absolutely necessary that Congress should by some wise and speedy legislation settle, upon some definite basis, the land titles of Arizona. Until this is done, disorder and anarchy will reign supreme over the country. The present condition of California is in a great degree to be attributed to the want ...
— Memoir of the Proposed Territory of Arizona • Sylvester Mowry



Words linked to "Basis" :   constituent, foundation, explanation, portion, assumption, meat and potatoes, common ground, on an irregular basis, supposal, component part, component, supposition, part, fundament



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