"Constraining" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I have said to others, that a specter rose upon me that day in the library. It was such to me,—an apparition and nothing else. Perhaps he meant to impress himself as such, for I had heard no footfall and only looked up because of the constraining force of the look which awaited me. I knew afterward that it was a man whom I had seen, a man whom you yourself had introduced into the house; but at the instant I thought it a phantom of my forgotten past sent to shock ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... breed within them. But, if they seek to glorify God, let them not lift heavenward their unclean hands! If they would serve their fellowmen, let them do it by making manifest the power and reality of conscience, in constraining them to penitential self-abasement! Would thou have me to believe, O wise and pious friend, that a false show can be better—can be more for God's glory, or man' welfare—than God's own truth? Trust me, such men ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... dogmatism, which leaves to the child itself the direction of its effort, and confines itself to the seconding of its effort. Now, there is nothing easier than to alter this purpose, and nothing harder than to respect it. Education is always imposing, violating, constraining; the real educator is he who can best protect the child against his (the teacher's) own ideas, his peculiar whims; he who can best appeal to the child's ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... could not possibly have that influence over him which I have. You might threaten, easily enough, and come to an open rupture, but that is what I wish to avoid. I wish to bring him to a confession, not so much by direct threats as by various constraining ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... the honour,' Ulick made answer, so that Mr. Kendal's smile grew broad. It was the funniest thing to see Ulick sporting with Sophy's gravity, constraining her to playfulness, with something of the compulsion exercised by a large frolicsome puppy upon a sober old dog of ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... body and limbs. When dressed her appearance is beautiful; when undressed she is all beauty. Her walk is composed and slow; she looks like a cypress or a palm stirred by the wind. I cannot describe how the swelling, symmetrical breasts raise the constraining vest, nor how delicate and supple her limbs are. And when she speaks, what sweetness ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... reluctantly demanded, constraining his ill temper in remembrance of the partnership and its stock in trade, 'a going to give her 'and where she has already given ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... naked still unclothed. Want and misery still stretched out their hands to be relieved. But they could not stay the feet of the Apostle. He had heard the supreme call! God had a supreme gift to bestow; the world had a supreme need; and to bring the need and the gift together was his absorbing, constraining zeal. Would God it were ours also! Friends, my plea for China is not for its temporal needs; it is not that its women's feet are bound, that its men are opium-stupefied, or that it needs our Western ideas, as it is waking from its Eastern ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... pacifying, cleansing, enlightening, directing, and we get all these in the good news of One that has died for us, and that lives to be our Lord. The will needs authority which is not force. And where is there an authority so constraining in its sweetness and so sweet in its constraint as in those silken bonds which are stronger than iron fetters? Hope, imagination, and all other of our powers or weaknesses, our gifts or needs, are satisfied when they feed on Christ. If we feed upon anything else it turns ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Jerome. He held it before his mother, and slipped one hand behind her neck, constraining her gently to raise her head. "Here, mother," said he, ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Rainham, rising from his seat with a constraining gesture; "why, don't you remember we were going to dine together? Dick will stay too, n'est ce pas? It will be like old times. Mrs. Bullen has been preparing quite ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... for his strong self-will, which first exhibited itself in violent, domineering, and headstrong obstinacy. His father died when he was a child; but fortunately he had a wise mother, who trained his will with great care, constraining him to obey, but encouraging the habit of deciding and acting for himself in matters which might safely be left to him. His mother believed that a strong will, directed upon worthy objects, was a valuable manly quality ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... platform (Sibaud), April 11th, 1871, I not only felt richly rewarded for the steep climb, from which the good pastor of Bobbio sought to dissuade me, but I gained an enlarged view of the wonderful power of the gospel of Christ in ennobling and constraining the souls of these valley men to such deeds of daring and suffering. If, as I firmly believe, the gospel teaches that willingness to do and suffer for Christ is the evidence of our belonging to Him, how luminous and abundant are the title-deeds of the Vaudois to be reckoned "not least ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... Necker founds Hospitals; gives solemn Philosophe dinner-parties, to cheer her exhausted Controller-General. Strange things have happened: by clamour of Philosophism, management of Marquis de Pezay, and Poverty constraining even Kings. And so Necker, Atlas-like, sustains the burden of the Finances, for five years long? (Till May, 1781.) Without wages, for he refused such; cheered only by Public Opinion, and the ministering of his ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Suddenly, a constraining force seized him. He instinctively fought to free himself, then realized that he was being drawn upward, out of the water. Possibly, he thought, the Great One wanted to ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... ashes!" said the Baron, rising and spurning from him his footstool with such violence, that it hit the wall on the opposite side of the apartment—then instantly constraining himself, he muttered, "What need to run myself into trouble for a fool's word?"—then resuming his seat, he answered coldly and scornfully—"No, Sir Priest or Sir Preacher, Catherine is not my wife—Cease thy whimpering, thou foolish wench—she is not my wife, but she is handfasted with ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... son, Have pitched up lordly pavilions, And hope to prosper in this lovely Isle. But I will frustrate all their foolish hope, And teach them that the Scithian Emperour Leads fortune tied in a chain of gold, Constraining her to yield unto his will, And grace him with their regal diadem, Which I will have mauger their treble hosts, And all the power their petty kings ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... weight of glory, Not for crown or palm, Enter we the army, Raise the warrior psalm; But for love that claimeth Lives for whom He died, He whom Jesus nameth Must be on His side. By Thy love constraining, By Thy grace divine, We are on the Lord's side; Saviour, ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown |
