"Centre of gravity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... made it more difficult for her to extricate herself. Ned remembered that life and death, sickness and health, success and failure, are merely questions of balance. A nation is successful when its forces are at balance, and nations rise and fall because the centre of gravity shifts. A single Spaniard is as good as a single German, but the centre of gravity ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... natural result of the predominance of Prussia in Germany. The enthusiasm for Poland was not unnatural when the centre of gravity of Germany was still far towards the West. Germany could be great, prosperous, and happy, even if a revived Poland spread to the shores of the Baltic, but Prussia would then cease to exist and Bismarck has taught the Germans to ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... beam formerly used to bear the sails of the mill, the trunnions were fitted to a strong iron ring by the smith, and one evening the great telescope was hung in its place, and in spite of its weight, moved at the slightest touch, its centre of gravity having been so carefully calculated that it swung up and down and revolved with ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... that there was no connection of the force with attractive or repulsive influences.' With the most refined ingenuity he shows that, under certain circumstances, the magne-crystallic force can cause the centre of gravity of a highly magnetic body to retreat from the poles, and the centre of gravity of a highly diamagnetic body to approach them. His experiments root his mind more and more firmly in the conclusion that 'neither attraction nor repulsion causes the set, or governs the final position' of the crystal ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... remaining part of the globe would recede from its orbit in one direction as the moon receded in another, and that in proportion to the respective momentum of each, and would afterwards revolve round their common centre of gravity. ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... the vessel was slowly drawing ahead; but every moment its broadside was set nearer to the rock, which was now within fifty feet of them. The fore-chains were past the point, though little hope remained of clearing it abaft. A ship turns on her centre of gravity as on a pivot, the two ends inclining in opposite directions; and Captain Truck hoped that as the bows were past the danger, it might be possible to throw the after-part of the vessel up to the wind, by keeping away, and ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... still has some difficulty in realising that the Irish centre of gravity has shifted from Westminster to Dublin. He indignantly refused to accept an answer to one of his questions from little Mr. PRATT, and loudly demanded the corporeal presence of the CHIEF SECRETARY. Mr. MACPHERSON, however, considers that his duty requires him to remain in Ireland, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... their attainment. Here at home, far from London, with restored strength, I find myself less concerned with them than are my friends and neighbours, yet more keenly interested than ever in life and letters, art and politics—all that men and women are saying and doing. Only the centre of gravity has shifted, ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... me alone with my own reflections. Just opposite to the closet was the door of some apartment; I leant accidentally against it; it was only a-jar, and gave way; the ordinary consequence in such accidents, is a certain precipitation from the centre of gravity. I am not exempt from the general lot; and accordingly entered the room in a manner entirely contrary to that which my natural inclination would have prompted me to adopt. My ear was accosted by a faint voice, which proceeded from a bed at the ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... questions there dealt with are, both in themselves and from the nature of the sources, and how exposed to criticism the historian is who attempts to unfold his position towards them in a few pages. As is self-evident, the centre of gravity of the book lies in that which forms its subject proper, in the account of the origin of dogma within the Graeco-Roman empire. But one should not on that account, as many have done, pass over the beginning which lies before the beginning, or arbitrarily adopt ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... to determine the centre of gravity of a spherical sector. "The question is easy," I said to him. "Very well; since you find it easy, I will complicate it: instead of supposing the density constant, I will suppose that it varies from the centre to the surface according to a determined ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... we seek first the inner Kingdom, all these things, financial means and so forth, will be added. But there are thousands who drive for the financial and other incidental ends, and as a matter of fact miss the Kingdom entirely. To find the personal centre of gravity in the world is to master life, to fail to find it is to ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... crown. This work gained for its author the esteem of Guido Ubaldi, who had distinguished himself by his mechanical and mathematical acquirements, and who engaged his young friend to investigate the subject of the centre of gravity in solid bodies. The treatise on this subject, which Galileo presented to his patron, proved the source of his future ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... the earth is so fixed that it can never fail; and the sea, though shut in by the land, preserves its rotundity, without ever falling away, being preserved in its position by attraction towards the centre of gravity. By the consideration of many natural reasons, and by perceiving that not above the third part of a great circle of the sphere was discovered, being the extent eastwards from Cabo Verde to the farthest then known land of India, he concluded that there remained ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... none of the best. After clearing the water, it required all Cleopatra's strength and activity to climb the bank. Having slipped into the saddle as he regained footing, I was lying flat against the side of his neck, to help his centre of gravity and give him a hold with his front feet, when he brushed under a low coolibah, and the spur of a broken branch or something started at the neck of the undergarment which I cannot bring myself to name, and ripped it to the very tail, nearly dragging me off the saddle. When we reached level ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... science of the motions of fluids. He also discovered the valuable mechanical principle that if any number of bodies be connected so that by their motion there is neither ascent nor descent of their centre of gravity, these bodies are ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... wand out of his hand, I lifted his Columbine on my shoulders, and pursued him, striking him with the wand, to the great delight and mirth of the company. The Columbine was screaming because she was afraid of my tumbling down and of shewing her centre of gravity to everybody in the fall. She had good reason to fear, for suddenly a foolish Merry Andrew came behind me, tripped me up, and down I tumbled. Everybody hooted Master Punch. I quickly picked myself up, and rather vexed I began a regular fight ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... containing several hundred leaves of figures and calculations by Hariot. A large bundle of Hariot's papers. They are arranged in packets by Professor Rigaud. Spots on the Sun. Comets of 1607 and 1618. The Moon. Jupiter's Satellites. Projectiles, Centre of Gravity, Reflection of bodies. Triangles. Snell's Eratosthenes Batavus. Geometry. Calendar. Conic Sections. De Stella Martis. Drawings of Constellations, papers on Chemistry and Miscellaneous Calculations. Collections from Observations of Hannelius, Warner, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe. On the vernal and autumnal ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... precipices, the lip on which we stood seemed slightly to overhang, so that in order to see one had apparently to crane away over, quite off balance. Only by the strongest effort of the will is one able to rid oneself of the notion that the centre of gravity is about to plunge one off head first into blue space. For it was fairly blue space below our precipice. We could see birds wheeling below us; and then below them again, very tiny, the fall away of talus, and the tops of trees in the basin below. And opposite, and all around, ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... ill-timed restraints or injudicious incitements, the nurse frequently renders the child obstinate or passionate. An infant should never be interrupted in its operations; whilst it wishes to use its hands, we should not be impatient to make it walk; or when it is pacing, with all the attention to its centre of gravity that is exerted by a rope-dancer, suddenly arrest its progress, and insist upon its pronouncing the scanty vocabulary which we have compelled it to learn. When children are busily trying experiments upon objects within their reach, we should not, by way of saving them trouble, break the ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... Shakespeare seems to be breaking up the solid earth under our feet—there is always some point and standard of sanity—a Kent or an Horatio—to which all enormities and passionate errors may be referred; to which the agitated mind of the spectator settles back as upon its centre of gravity, its ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... stone image of Our Lady upon a pedestal, crowned, and half surrounded from beneath by some kind of metallic garland arching upward. At the farther end the two curves of masonry of which I have spoken, rising all the way by steps, meet upon a terrace. This terrace is, so to speak, the centre of gravity of the whole. ...
— Lourdes • Robert Hugh Benson
... Cyrenaic, the errant disciple of Socrates. He made pleasure the end of life, and taught that it might be sought without a greater regard to customary morality than was made prudent by the penalties to be feared as a consequence of its violation. Where the centre of gravity of the system of the Cyrenaics falls is evident from their holding that "corporeal pleasures are superior to mental ones," and that "a friend is desirable for the use which we can make of him." [Footnote: Diogenes Laertius, Lives of ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... Marcella. He said, 'With you, Louis, it's got to be drastic. It's got to be an earthquake. There's more than the drink in you that's got to be rooted out. All the foundations of you, all the structure of you, have to crumble, to fall together in a heap. Your spiritual centre of gravity has got to shift. Do you see?' I didn't see. But that's the very most important thing, Marcella—about the centre ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... down-stream direction. It is an inverted reminder of the wind-moulded spruce. Although the stout beech props itself by great roots thrown landward, yet, sooner or later, the ripples will filter in beyond the centre of gravity and the mighty tree will topple and mingle with its shadow-double which for so many years the stream ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... labours of the day; his arms crossed on his breast, his head a little to one side, as if in deep contemplation, as he gazed earnestly into the fire, and his chair tilted on its hind legs so as to balance with such nicety that a feather's weight additional outside its centre of gravity would have upset it. He had divested himself of his coat—a practice that prevailed among the young gentlemen when at home, as being free- and-easy as well as convenient. The doctor, a tall, broad-shouldered man, with red hair and whiskers, paced the room sedately, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... should be in a work of art; superfluous decoration has no beauty for an artist. It is by means of these metal "loadings" at the heel that the weight of the head is counteracted and the exact point of equilibrium determined. The centre of gravity in a violin bow should be at 19 centimetres (7.48 inches) from the nut; in a 'cello bow at 175 to 180 millimetres (6.89 to ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... same. The root always is self. The whole seed of sin is in preferring one's own way to God's way; one's self to God. The stream of life is turned the wrong way. It is turned in. Its true direction is up. The true centre of gravity for man is not downward, nor inward, but upward ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... propaganda I have already spoken in detail in the second chapter. It may be mentioned again here that the centre of gravity of our active propaganda lay in the economic question, which was to a certain extent the key to the understanding of our American policy ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... formidable dangers arise to threaten the equilibrium of Europe, and even menace England itself. These European emergencies coinciding with the troubles at home bring about a new change of the old forms in the Revolution of 1688, the main result of which is, that the centre of gravity of public authority in England shifts decisively to the parliamentary side. It was during this same time that France had won military and political superiority over all its neighbours on the mainland, and in connexion with it had concentrated an almost absolute power at home in the hands of the ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... Frank, perfectly unmoved, "the centre of gravity is disturbed,—well, as I was saying,—Here's the doctor!" and the young gentleman, who was no other than Frank Digby, brother of Louis' cousin Vernon, dismounted from his rostrum in the same instant ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... the universal electro-magnetic Aether by its two complementary motions, the centripetal and the centrifugal, the whole forming one ultimate unity which we call the Universe, having for its centre one common point or central orb, which indeed forms the centre of gravity ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper |
