"Definition" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... another, and the change of its direction. Man himself cannot increase the sum of motion; he can only alter its direction. The whole conception of force may disappear from a theory of the universe; and we can adopt a geometrical definition of motion as the shifting of one body from the neighbourhood of those bodies which immediately touch it, and which are assumed to be at rest, to the neighbourhood of other bodies. Motion, in short, is strictly locomotion, and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... way. Aunt Poll's sole trouble was lest Sally should take cold. The proprieties, those gods of modern social worship, as well as their progenitors, the improprieties, were unknown to these simple souls; they did things because they were right and wrong. They were not nice according to Swift's definition, nor proper in the mode of the best society, but they were good and pure; are the disciples and lecturers of the 'proper' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... and in Iberville's day), while the other was to run through the valley of the Great Lakes, down through the valley of the hostile Iroquois, into the harbor of New York. This is not observable on the topographical maps simply because of our unimaginative definition of a watershed. A watershed is changed, according to that definition, only by an actual elevation or depression of the surface of the earth, whereas a railroad or canal that bridges ravines and tunnels or climbs elevations, or a freight rate that diverts traffic into a new course, as suddenly ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... years on his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Noah Webster spent thirty-six years on his dictionary. What a sublime patience he showed in devoting a life to the collection and definition of words! George Bancroft spent twenty-six years on his "History of the United States." Newton rewrote his "Chronology of Ancient Nations" fifteen times. Titian wrote to Charles V.: "I send your majesty the Last Supper, after working on it almost daily for seven years." He worked on his ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... could stamp it. Change in style of dress, gain or loss of money, make a man feel and appear more changed than having his chin shaved or his nails cut. In fact, as soon as we leave common parlance on one side, and try for a scientific definition of personality, we find that there is none possible, any more than there can be a demonstration of the fact that we exist at all—a demonstration for which, as for that of a personal God, many have hunted but none ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... on which I wish to say a few words. The definition given by Adam Smith of the three elements of national wealth, "Land, Labour, and Capital," cannot be too often repeated. How to blend them in proper proportions, is a problem, which has puzzled generations of statesmen, philosophers, and ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young
... reign or a council can be selected to mark the beginning of a great school. Such a body of doctrine must have existed piecemeal and unauthorized before it was collected and recognized and some tenets are older than others. Enlarging I-Ching's definition we may find in the Mahayana seven lines of thought or practice. All are not found in all sects and some are shared with the Hinayana but probably none are found fully developed outside the Mahayana. Many of them have parallels in ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... my master, Blumenbach, and admit five races (the Caucasian, Mongolian, American, Ethiopian, and Malayan), or that of Prichard, into seven races (the Iranian, Turanian, American, Hottentots and Bushmen, Negroes, Papuas, and Alfourous), we fail to recognize any typical sharpness of definition, or any general or well-established principle in the division of these groups. The extremes of form and color are certainly separated, but without regard to the races, which can not be included in any of these classes, and which have been alternately ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... Greeks had never seen this tree changed into bird, this cloud changed into flower. Not trapped by memories grown into tradition that must not die, they hit upon an approach that man could master. For it was the Greek beginnings which led to the Oxford definition of how to make scientific inquiry ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... thing the pupil requires to do in this lesson after learning the definition of the following Three Laws—is to be able to clearly understand the examples under each Law, and whether they verify ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... discussion. Mrs. Decie was happiest in conversations of a literary order, making frequent use of such expressions as: "After all, it produces an illusion—does anything else matter?" "Rather a poseur, is he not?" "A question, that, of temperament," or "A matter of the definition of words"; and other charming generalities, which sound well, and seem to go far, and are pleasingly irrefutable. Sometimes the discussion turned on Art—on points of colour or technique; whether realism was quite justified; and should we be pre-Raphaelites? ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... ruminated; "but the really serious thing about it is that it will bore any man to death. Point that out to her, Mary! Tell her that jealousy is self-love, plus the consciousness of your own inferiority to the person of whom you are jealous. And it has the same effect on love that water has on fire. My definition ought to be in ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... restraint of trade and monopolies were already unlawful at common law, and these terms, by a long series of decisions both here and in England, had been defined as definitely as the nature of the subject matter permitted. While incapable (like the term "fraud") of precise definition covering all forms which the ingenuity of man might devise, nevertheless their meaning and scope were well within the understanding of any man of reasonable intelligence. Whatever legal uncertainties have arisen have been chiefly owing to two questions: ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... is more than justified by sober facts, it does not tell us what Masonry is, much less its mission and ministry to mankind. If now we turn to the old, oft-quoted definition, we learn that Masonry is "a system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols." That is, in so far, true enough, but it is obviously inadequate, the more so when it uses the word "peculiar" as describing the morality of Masonry; and it gives no hint of a world-encircling ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... stated. I never heard of any other foundation of Dramatic Poesy than the imitation of nature; neither was there ever pretended any other by the ancients or moderns, or me, who endeavour to follow them in that rule. This I have plainly said in my definition of a play; that it is a just and lively image of human nature, &c. Thus the foundation, as it is generally stated, will stand sure, if this definition of a play be true; if it be not, he ought to have made his ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... he continued, "that the communication was through the medium of a sphere. Moreover, keep in mind that physics accepts the path of a beam of light as its definition of a straight line. Yet, the path is a curve; if extended sufficiently it would be a circle, the ...
— As Long As You Wish • John O'Keefe
... was a man of position,—destined, probably, to rise much higher; a man of parts,—with capacity to make the most of them; not ill-looking; with agreeable manners,—when he chose; and he came within the lady's definition of a gentleman, 'he always did the right thing, at the right time, in the right way.' And yet—! Well, I take it that we are all cads, and that we most of us are prigs; for mercy's sake do not let us ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... disturbed by a smaller crater on its own east wall. The craters in many cases, possibly in the majority if we could detect them, have central mountains, some of them being excellent tests for telescopic definition—as, for example, the central peaks of Hortensius, Bessarion, and that of the small crater just mentioned on the east wall of Thebit A. A tendency to a linear arrangement is often displayed, especially among the smaller class, as is also ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... ever-vital aspects of religion into the vocabulary of the hour. The language of religious discourse is liable to a subtle kind of pedantry, requiring a vigorous intellect adequately to dissolve. New illustrations, novel forms of definition, are often helpful in expelling the dreariness of outworn and meaningless phrases. Ruskin's task is facilitated by the nice balance of his intellectual and imaginative endowments, by the fact that his words are ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... majority of which have no direct connection with spiritual beings, while it will also be allowed that these do not lie without the field ordinarily covered by the word superstition. For our purposes, therefore, it is necessary to enlarge this definition. This may be done by emphasizing the first component part of the word, and introducing into it the notion of what has been left over, or of survival, made familiar by the genius of Edward B. Tylor. In these lingering notions we have opinions respecting relations of cause and effect ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... the city next morning I took my dog. It was a strange whim; but one which was to lead to a remarkable development. I have always been a lover of dogs. I was lonely. There is a bond between a dog and his master. It goes beyond definition; it roots down into nature. I ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... Gentlemen on this side will not accept it, I hope the noble Lord the Member for the West Riding (Viscount Goderich) will not include them amongst those who are in favour of clemency. I am quite sure the people of England will accept that definition—that civilised Europe will accept it; and that history— history which will record our proceedings this night, and our vote on this Resolution—will accept it. Sir, I do not see how any one claiming to be an Englishman or a Christian can by any possibility ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... "freedom of the press," according to the universally received acceptation of the expression, means only an exemption from all previous restraints on publication, but not an exemption from any punishment Government pleases to inflict for what is published. This definition does not at all distinguish between publications of different sorts, but leaves all to the regulation of the law, only forbidding Government to interfere until the publication is really made. The definition, if true, so reduces the effect of the amendment ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... time I imagine you are wondering how the stereoscopic camera was behaving itself as such. It is due to the psychic entities to say that whatever was produced on one-half of the stereoscopic plates was produced on the other—alike good or bad in definition. But, on a careful examination of one which was rather better than the other ... I deduce this fact, that the impressing of the spirit form was not simultaneous with that of the sitter.... This I consider an important discovery. I carefully examined one in the stereoscope and found ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... what embroidery is, and a formal definition seems unnecessary. As a matter of fact, it would be a difficult task to give one, since weaving, lace-making, and embroidery are but subtle variations of ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... import into our thought the negative quality which entirely vitiates our action. We rightly perceive that the laws of the Universe can never be altered, and if our notion of Faith be, that it is an attempt to work in contradiction to these laws, the best definition we can give it is that given by the little girl in the Sunday school, who said that "Faith is trying to make yourself believe what you know is not true." The reason for such a misconception is, ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... come over our pulpits," Arthur remarked, "since the time when Paley gave that utterly selfish definition of virtue, 'the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... with the devil as were commonly believed in under the name of witchcraft. The witchcraft spoken of in the Bible meant no more, he maintained, than "hatred or opposition to the word and worship of God, and seeking to seduce therefrom by some sign"—a definition which he had found in some English writer on the subject, and which he ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... am not one to take my civic duties lightly," I replied with some hauteur, "but observe that I merely said I had reason to suspect the imminence of the peril. I should like to know the legal definition of infestment, if you please. I cannot definitely say that house-breaking has taken place as yet. I do not know that there has even been petty larceny. There may have been merely loitering with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various
... very material distinction, which is pointed out in the general definition; that between democracy and aristocracy. In the first, supreme power remains in the hands of the collective body. Every office of magistracy, at the nomination of this sovereign, is open to every citizen; who, in the discharge of his duty, becomes the minister of the people, ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... hunting is not one of the lost arts is apparent even in our day, for the term "undue influence" is as common in our courts as Ambrose Bierce's definition of "husband," or refined cruelty, or "injunctions" restraining husbands from disposing of property, or separate maintenance, or even "heart balm" and the consequent breach ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... attention. Yonder is a tree, which is a noun common; the tree is shady, which is an adjective qualifying the noun 'tree,' and casts its shade obliquely, which is an adverb governing the qualifying verb 'casts.'" Thus, as we walked, I proceeded to give her a definition of the various parts of speech with their relation one to another, and found her to be, on the whole, very quick and of a retentive memory. Encouraged thus, I plunged into my subject whole-heartedly and was discussing the difference ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... cottages on its outskirts. This town, too, has a flourishing look, accounted for by the operation of the South Eureka and Central Eureka mines. A gentleman whom I met on the street imparted this information, and asked me if I remembered Mark Twain's definition of a gold mine. I had to confess I did not. "Well," said he, "Mark Twain defined a gold mine as 'a hole in the ground at one end, and a d—d fool at the other!'" The appreciative twinkle in his eye suggested the possibility that this definition ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... over definition of these qualities; but we must recognise, in Scott, the absence of lightness of touch, of delicacy in the small sword-play of conversation. In fencing, all should be done, the masters tell us, with the fingers. ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Goethe's favourites, worthy, in his opinion, to be compared with the Canticles.[8] There is a melody in the language of this song, not to be imitated in any translation. We confess that Frederic Schlegel's definition of architecture, "frozen music," occurs to us when we read ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... and I will tell you who you are." Make it therefore your business, wherever you are, to get into that company which everybody in the place allows to be the best company next to their own; which is the best definition that I can give you of good company. But here, too, one caution is very necessary, for want of which many young men have been ruined, even ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... truth in this definition, or origination of humour, is evident; for you cannot conceive a humourous man who does not give some disproportionate generality, or even a universality to his hobby-horse, as is the case with Mr. Shandy; or at least there is an absence of any interest but what arises from the humour itself, ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... Sophy you would have to coin a term or fall back on the dictionary definition of a spinster. "An unmarried woman," states that worthy work, baldly, "especially when no longer young." That, to the world, was Sophy Decker. Unmarried, certainly. And most certainly no longer young. In figure she was, at fifty, what ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... au lait, Meaning of, noir, Meaning of, Cake, Coffee, Corn, mixers, Molasses corn, Southern corn, Cakes, Buckwheat, Corn griddle, Griddle, Procedure in baking griddle, Rice griddle, Calorie, or calory, Definition of, Canapes, Meaning of, Canard, Meaning of, Candy, Composition of stick, Canned fruit, Composition of, Canning of foods, Capers, Meaning of, Capon, Meaning of, Caramel, Meaning of, Carbohydrates, Composition of, Elements in, in cereals, Carbon, Carbonic-acid, or ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... acknowledging the courtesy of the proprietors of "Shurey's Publications" by whose permission "The Cigarette Case" is included in the present volume. Also it has been suggested that a definition should be given of the word that forms the volume's title. That word means "contrary to the ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... looked. On every side I beheld beautiful inorganic forms, of unknown texture, and colored with the most enchanting hues. These forms presented the appearance of what might be called, for want of a more specific definition, foliated clouds of the highest rarity; that is, they undulated and broke into vegetable formations, and were tinged with splendors compared with which the gilding of our autumn woodlands is as dross compared ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Shelby, had therefore no trivial chance of capturing the nomination; and in the Boss's opinion the favored pawn owed a decent deference to the master chess-player. So Shelby thought, too; but they split over definition of terms in the same ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... turns on this, Are we to believe in a living God, or are we not? If we are not, then David's words are of course worse than nothing. If we are, I do not see why David was wrong in calling on God to exercise that moral and providential government of the world, which is the very note and definition of a living God. ...
— David • Charles Kingsley
... office; Director. Sec. 232. Mission of office; duties. Sec. 233. Definition of law enforcement technology. Sec. 234. Abolishment of Office of Science and Technology of National Institute of Justice; transfer of functions. Sec. 235. National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Centers. Sec. 236. Coordination with other entities within ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives
... Mendelssohn, but also for a Nachmanides, a Vital, and a Luria' (M. Joseph, op. cit., p. 47). Used in a vague way, mysticism stands for spiritual inwardness. Religion without mysticism, said Amiel, is a rose without perfume. This saying is no more precise and no more informing than Matthew Arnold's definition of religion as morality touched with emotion. Neither mysticism nor an emotional touch makes religion. They are as often as not concomitants of a pathological state which is the denial of religion. But if mysticism means a personal attitude towards God in which the ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... do, then, from beginning to end, is, I repeat once more, simply to draw spaces of their true shape, and to fill them with colours which shall match their colours; quite a simple thing in the definition of it, not quite so easy in the doing ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... definitions and standards of literacy. Unless otherwise noted, all rates are based on the most common definition - the ability to read and write at a specified age. Detailing the standards that individual countries use to assess the ability to read and write is beyond the ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... my definition of metaphysics, that is to say, the science of the unknown, the science of guessing. Metaphysics is where two fools get together, and each one admits that neither can prove, and both say, "Hence we infer." That is the science of metaphysics. For this these ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... to you why I think such circles do not exist in this country. In the first place, we are still too provincial in this big city of ours. New York always reminds me of a definition I once heard of California fruit: "Very large, with no particular flavor." We are like a boy, who has had the misfortune to grow too quickly and look like a man, but whose mind has not kept pace with his body. What he knows is undigested ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... study of physics or whatever; these are manmade laws—commands, not descriptions. They don't necessarily have anything to do with facts at all. Take the word 'insanity,' for instance; the word isn't even used by head-shrinkers any more because it's a legal definition that has nothing whatever to do with the ...
— ...Or Your Money Back • Gordon Randall Garrett
... punishments embracing every degree of human suffering, from the lowest, consisting of a slight restraint upon freedom of action, to the highest, consisting of long and tedious torture.' It was with the latter part of the definition in mind that Clarke told his story. He chose to represent servitude in the chain-gangs of Van Diemen's Land and Norfolk Island as the condition of slavery which Sir Richard Bourke and Sir George Arthur admitted it ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... essence of Home Rule. Other things, however important in themselves, are matters of subordinate detail, and open to discussion or compromise. The limitations to the sphere within which the Irish Parliament is to exert independent authority, the definition of the term "Irish concerns," the constitution of the Irish Parliament, the nature and appointment of the Irish executive (which, though it is no doubt generally assumed to be a Cabinet chosen in effect like the Victorian Ministry, by the ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... an air of being clear without being easily legible; it was large and rather roundish, with a lack of definition about the letters and a disposition to treat the large ones as liberal-minded people nowadays treat opinions, as all amounting to the same thing really—a years-smoothed boyish rather than an adult hand. And it filled seven sheets of notepaper, each ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... if we were to follow out the admirable discussion in which M. Taine extends this definition to architecture and music. These closely allied arts are distinguished from poetry, painting, and sculpture, by appealing far less directly to the intelligence, and far more exclusively to the emotions. Yet these arts likewise aim, by bringing ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... and his criticism is far more valuable as the attitude of a fresh mind than as that of a specialist towards the question. Moreover, in his objections many difficulties are raised which are not settled by an appeal to either of the men above mentioned. We have given Nietzsche's definition of life in the Note on Chapter LVI., par. 10. Still, there remains a hope that Darwin and Nietzsche may some day become reconciled by a new description of the processes by which varieties occur. The appearance of varieties among animals and of "sporting plants" in the vegetable ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... directing them to secure protection for all neutrals of the United States who had not affiliated politically with either Great Britain or the South African Republics, either by exercising the franchise or otherwise. While those whom this definition did not cover were not to be directly under the protection of the United States, the State Department expressed itself as ready to use its good offices in their behalf in case they were involved in trouble resulting from the war. Such had been the ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell
... contrary, we arrived at the result that according to this latter theory the velocity of light must always depend on the co-ordinates when a gravitational field is present. In connection with a specific illustration in Section 23, we found that the presence of a gravitational field invalidates the definition of the coordinates and the ifine, which led us to our objective in the special ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein
... why I would n't," exclaimed Polly, with flashing eyes. "I should like to know why teaching may not be an art. I confess I don't know exactly what an artist is, or rather what the dictionary definition of art is; but sit down in Miss Burke's room at the college; you can't stay there half an hour without thinking that, rather than have her teach you anything, you would be an ignorant little cannibal on a desert island! ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... valve by. Calorimeter of boilers, definition of. Cams, proper forms of. Cast iron, strength of, proportions of cast iron beams; effects of different kinds of strains on beams; strength to resist shocks not proportional to strength to resist strains; ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... define a bud. Ask them what the bud would have become the next season, if it had been allowed to develop. It would have been a branch, or a part of one. A bud, then, is an undeveloped branch. They can always work out this definition for themselves. Conversely, a branch is a developed bud, or series of buds, and every mark on the branch must correspond to something in the bud. Let them examine the specimens with this idea clearly before their minds. The lesson to prepare should be to write out ...
— Outlines of Lessons in Botany, Part I; From Seed to Leaf • Jane H. Newell
... affords a large margin for misapprehension, as well as definition. In French the equivalent word is personne. In Spanish, Italian, and Latin, it is persona. The Latin verb personare is compounded of the prefix per (through) and ...
— Rudimental Divine Science • Mary Baker Eddy
... blackberry vines. The truly representative poetry of colonial times is Michael Wigglesworth's "Day of Doom". This is the real heart of the Puritan, his conscience, in imperfect rhyme. It fulfills the first part of our definition, but shows by its lack of beautiful style that both elements are ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... least this age and country it exists as the atrophy of a cureless decline. It were well, however, that we should say what it is we mean by fine-bodyism; and we find we cannot do better than quote our definition from the first speech ever delivered by Chalmers in the General Assembly. 'It is quite ridiculous to say,' remarked this most sagacious of men, 'that the worth of the clergy will suffice to keep them up in the estimation of society. This worth must be combined with importance. ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... and more detailed definition of the dialectic as applied by Engels is given by that philosopher in his famous reply to Eugene Duhring known as the "Umwaelzung der Wissenschaft." In that work a more thorough and patient investigation is made into the sources of materialistic philosophy of the ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... present Johnson's definition of network—"anything reticulated or decussated at equal distances with interstices between the intersections"—but with the quibbler we have no time to dally. Some people insist on having their literature illustrated, just as others refuse to attend lectures that are not reinforced ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... has three distinct ones: his reading vocabulary, his writing vocabulary, his speaking vocabulary. Of these, the reading vocabulary is the largest. There are thousands of words he recognizes in reading and although he might not be able to construct a dictionary definition for everyone, he has a sufficiently clear idea to grasp the meaning. In this rude approximation to sense he is aided by the context, but for all practical purposes he understands the word. If he were writing, carefully taking ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... accustomed to put it to myself, perhaps more clearly, that the price we have to pay for money is paid in liberty. Between these two ways of it, at least, the reader will probably not fail to find a third definition of his own; and it follows, on one or other, that a man may pay too dearly for his livelihood, by giving, in Thoreau's terms, his whole life for it, or, in mine, bartering for it the whole of his available liberty, and becoming a slave till death. There are two ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... belligerents; but in their formulated demands that of open trade with the colonies of belligerents does not appear, although there is found one closely cognate to it,—an asserted right to coasting trade, from port to port, of a country at war. The Rule of 1756 therefore remained, in 1793, a definition of international maritime law laid down by British courts, but not elsewhere accepted; and it rested upon a logical deduction from a system of colonial administration universal at that period. The logical ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... by persuasion or by compulsion. As we shall see, in practice they tend to involve a coercive element. Only in their rejection of violence are all these terms in agreement. Perhaps we are justified in accepting opposition to violence as the heart of the pacifist philosophy. Under the definition of violence which has been suggested, this would amount to virtually the same thing as saying that the pacifist has such respect for every human personality that he cannot, under any circumstances whatsoever, intentionally inflict permanent injury upon any human being either ...
— Introduction to Non-Violence • Theodore Paullin
... has long enjoyed the advantages of a definite scale and notation. Should not the art of coloring gain by similar definition? The musical scale is not left to personal whim, nor does it change from day to day; and something as clear and stable would be an advantage in ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... much misused word. It is commonly used at the present day when speaking of the edifices erected for the purpose of the assembling of the church to worship God. The quoting of a few texts will give us the Bible definition of this word. ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... de physique sociale. C'est l'element personnel de l'histoire qui en fait la realite.—VACHEROT, Revue des Deux Mondes, 1869, iv. 215. Demander la liberte pour soi et la refuser aux autres, c'est la definition du despotisme.—LABOULAYE, December 4, 1874. Les causes justes profitent de tout, des bonnes intentions comme des mauvaises, des calculs personnels comme des devouemens courageux, de la demence, enfin, comme de la raison.—B. CONSTANT, Les ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... his last speech, had noted this as one of the "fundamentals" he was bound to preserve. How did the Parliament meet the difficulty? Very ingeniously. They said that the phrase "such as profess faith in Jesus Christ" was a vague phrase, requiring definition; and, the whole House having formed itself into a Committee for Religion, and this Committee having appointed a working sub-Committee of about fourteen, the sub-Committee was empowered to take steps for coming to a definition. Naturally enough, in such a matter, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... you the labors of savage life, but I should observe that they are only temporary, and when urg'd by the sharp tooth of necessity: their lives are, upon the whole, idle beyond any thing we can conceive. If the Epicurean definition of happiness is just, that it consists in indolence of body, and tranquillity of mind, the Indians of both sexes are the happiest people on earth; free from all care, they enjoy the present moment, forget the past, and are without ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... story is an Allegory. They have probably read other stories of a similar nature, and may be asked to frame a simple definition. An Allegory is a story, not literally true, containing incidents that have a deeper meaning than is apparent on the surface. Its purpose is to teach some moral truth or universal principle. It differs from the Parable in being longer ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... is the outgrowth of "observation lessons." The book is based upon the idea that the proper way to begin the study of plants is by means of plants instead of formal ideals or definitions. Instead of a definition as a model telling what is to be seen, the plant shows what there is to be seen, and the ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... heard for the first time of those new engines of war, so beast-like in appearance and performance. The vagueness of our descriptions was due to the censorship, which forbade, wisely enough, any technical and exact definition, so that we had to compare them to giant toads, mammoths, and prehistoric animals of all kinds. Our accounts did, however, reproduce the psychological effect of the tanks upon the British troops when these engines appeared for the first time to their astonished ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... properly mean only those, which are caused by the sensorial power of association. Whence it appears, that those fibrous motions, which constitute the introductory link of an associate train of motions, are excluded from this definition, as not being themselves caused by the sensorial power of association, but by irritation, or sensation, or volition. I shall give for example the flushing of the face after dinner; the capillary vessels ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... witness; and that they come into consideration from this point of view, clearly appears from the words, "The Lord be witness against you." As regards [Hebrew: ed] with [Hebrew: b] following, compare, e.g., Mal. iii. 5.—Another mistake is committed in the definition of the way and manner of the divine witness. The greater number of interpreters suppose it to be the subsequent admonitory, reproving, and threatening discourse of the prophet. Thus, e.g., Michaelis, who explains: "Do not despise and lightly esteem such a witness, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... against ordre. But suche is the empire and regiment of all woman (as euidentlie before is declared) and therfore, I say; it is a thing plainlie repugnant to good ordre, yea it is the subuersion of the same. If any list to reiect the definition of Augustin, as ether not propre to this purpose, or elles as insufficient to proue mine intent: let the same man vnderstand, that in so doinge, he hath infirmed mine argument nothinge. For as I depend ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... of passions called love? There is no word harder to get a satisfactory definition of. Because, whatever you say about it, there comes quickly to your mind some one who loves you, or you think of the passion that burns in your own heart for some one. And, as you think of that, no words that anybody may use seem at all strong enough, or tender enough, to tell what love ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... they had no greater joy than to develop its all-embracing applications, and they sought to subjugate Christendom to its imperial ascendency. By itself, the habit of lofty contemplation would have made them pietists or Christian psalmists, and a mere turn for definition would have made them quibblers or schoolmen; but the two united, and together animated by a strenuous faith, made them theologians. In such intellects the seventeenth century abounded, but we question if in dialectic skill, guided ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... conceited of all animals, says that he alone has the prerogative of thought, and condemns the other animals to the meaner mechanical operation which he calls instinct. But as instincts are unerring and thoughts generally go wrong, man has not much to boast of according to his own definition. When you say you think, and take it for granted, that I am Yorkshire, you err. I am not Yorkshire. Confining yourself to instinct, can you divine when we shall sup? The cows you are about to visit divine to a moment when ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... unqualified denial of polygamy in Utah. Such was the plan of the elders who went to Europe. The public denial of John Taylor, later president of the church, is abundant evidence. When they deny polygamy now they have the consistency of definition to back them; to their manner of explaining, polygamy is the act of taking new wives; to the non-Mormon, polygamy is the possessing of more than one wife. For this reason we are very bold in saying that ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... of the world in which the physical philosopher for the most part resides. Science has been defined as "organized common sense;" by whom I have forgotten; but, unless we stretch unduly the definition of common sense, I think it is hardly applicable to this world of molecules. I should be inclined to ascribe the creation of that world to inspiration rather than to what is currently known as common sense. For the natural history sciences the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... The best definition of the true purpose of comedy which I know is that it is to "chastise manners with a smile" (Ridendo castigat mores); and it has no better exemplification in the literature of opera than Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg." Wagner's mind dwelt much on Greek things, and as he followed a ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... became frequently the recipient of other small presents from him: a pot of preserves of a quality I could not purchase in shops, and whose contents in their crafty, gingery dissimulation so defied definition that I never knew whether they were animal, vegetable, or mineral; two or three hideous Chinese idols, "for luckee," and a diabolical fire-work with an irregular spasmodic activity that would sometimes be prolonged until the next morning. In return, ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... in itself! Its very definition signifies the inclusion of everything upon any subject whatsoever that has ever been written upon the Americas! But in the bibliographer's reading this term is generally taken to imply those early works relating to the discovery and settlement of the United ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... sensibility? "Quickness of sensation; quickness of perception; delicacy." Thus is it defined by Dr. Johnson; and the definition gives me no other idea than of the most exquisitely polished instinct. I discern not a trace of the image of God in either sensation or matter. Refined seventy times seven, they are still material; intellect dwells not there; nor will fire ever ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... is totally changed. You neither are agreed upon the definition of the soul, nor on that of matter. Descartes, as I observed in my last, maintains that the soul is the same thing with thought, and Mr. Locke has given a pretty good proof ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... a young lawyer of more than average ability, is realized Pope's definition of an honest man—"the noblest work of God." Those who think that all lawyers are a set of unscrupulous and unprincipled men are sadly mistaken. There are in our midst men of the legal profession who follow the paths of high-souled honor ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... was about twenty-five and had formed a somewhat indefinite definition of friendship, but one entirely his own (and perhaps Mary's) Bibbs went to bed, and was the only Sheridan to sleep soundly through the night and to wake at dawn ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... figure of Wolfram's rhapsodical rhetoric, the image of the fount, a shadowy smile of superiority has dawned upon his face. As the applause dies, he grasps his harp and rises to take exception to Wolfram's definition. Such a song-feast was in fact a song-debate. His words come warm and ready: "I too, Wolfram, may call myself so fortunate as to behold what you have beheld. Who is there unacquainted with that fountain? ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... My definition puts the hope of extending university education in this sense to the whole nation without exception. I am aware that to some minds such indiscriminate extension will seem like an educational communism, on ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... peculiarity of organization," constitutes a species. Now leaving out the question of "origin," which we cannot determine, and taking only the proof of separate origin, "the constant transmission of some characteristic peculiarity of organization," we have a definition which will compel us to neglect altogether the amount of difference between any two forms, and to consider only whether the differences that present themselves are permanent. The rule, therefore, I have endeavoured to adopt is, that when the difference between two forms inhabiting ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... that Beethoven intended these movements to be expressions of his overflowing humorous spirits and the suggestive term "scherzo" is his own invention. In music, as in literature, much hinges upon the definition of humor, and there is the same distinction in each art between wit—light and playful, and humor—broad, serious, and, at times, even grim. A genuine humorist is always a deep thinker, one who sees all sides of human nature—the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... without a fertile soil and other possibilities for the advancement of civilization there, railroads would never have been constructed. The railroads have developed what was inherently not a desert in its most rigid definition, but a misunderstood region, which only awaited the touch of the genius of agriculture, made possible alone by the building of ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... South America. South Carolina deer killed in almost hopeless condition of private preserves in. South Dakota few laws needed by. Sparrow pest. Sparrows consume weed-seeds. Spoonbill, Roseate. Sportsman, case of a character of true definition of a. Sportsman's Platform. Sportsman's Review. Sports Afield. Sprague, John P. Spruce Woods Game Preserve. Squirrel, fox, extinct in New York; gray, in danger, red, as bird destroyer Squirrels killed in Louisiana Standard-Union, Brooklyn Stanford, Harry P.; ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... Jesus Christ." In justification our sins are pardoned and we are accepted as righteous because of the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed unto us and received by faith alone. And yet to him this definition in every day language means that, being justified, we stand before God as if we never had sinned. No wonder that in the light of such a doctrine Paul could say, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... quite contrary to this. He assumed freedom to exist only where law is not, that is, in the savage state, and to be surrendered, piece for piece, with every acknowledgment of social obligation. Seldom was ever so plausible a doctrine equally false. Law is properly the public definition of freedom and the affirmation of its sacredness and inviolability as so defined; and only in the presence of it, either express or implicit, does man become free. Duty and privilege are one and the same, however men may set up ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... "But Heaven, by definition, is a place where all is perfect. Therefore, in Heaven everybody is exactly like everybody else, and therefore, everybody is thoroughly and completely bored! There is no torture like boredom, Dixon, and—Well, have ...
— The Ideal • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... formulas the terms have lost all resemblance to the former meaning, the original "salt meat boiled in a pot." Such changes are very often observed in the terminology of our modern kitchens, in every language. They make the definition of terms and the classification of subjects extremely difficult. They add much to the confusion among cooks and guests in public dining places and create misunderstandings that ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... expected that the result of the great movement traced in the chapters of this work can be summed up in a few words. We set out with a definition of our subject which we said could only be fully verified after religion had accomplished its growth and had fully unfolded its nature. We also set out with the assumption that all the religion of the world is one, and that it exhibits ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... Definition of Paragraph. How to Secure Unity. Length of Paragraph. How to Secure Coherence. The Topic Sentence. Too Frequent Paragraphing. Unity in the Paragraph. Paragraphing of Speech. Coherence in the Paragraph. Paragraphing for Emphasis. Examples of Unity. Examples showing how Unity is ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... struck its hard red light through the fringe of leafless trees to the westward, and gave their outlines that black definition which a French school of landscape saw a few years ago, and now seems to see no longer. In the whole scene there was the pathetic repose which we feel in some dying day of the dying year, and a sort of impersonal melancholy weighed me down as ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... Words, derived from other Languages, viz. Hebrew, Arabick, Syriack, Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, British, Dutch, Saxon, useful for the advancement of our English Tongue; together with the definition of all those terms that conduce to the understanding of the Arts and Sciences, viz. Theology, Philosophy, Logick, Rhetorick, Grammar, Ethic, Law, Magick, Chyrurgery, Anatomy, Chymistry, Botanicks, Arithmetick, Geometry, Astronomy, Astrology, Physiognomy, ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... DIGESTION. Definition of the Process. Saliva. The Ptyalin. Effect of Eating Sugar with Starchy Foods. Gastric Digestion. The Stomach; The Gastric Juice; Peptones; Digestion In the Intestines; Importance of Digestion; Tabular Statement of ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... them, above all things, consent to be intelligible to the plainest capacity; for though speech, according to the averment of a wily Frenchman, was given to us to conceal our thoughts, no one has yet ventured to extend the same mystifying definition to the ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... also the existence of life in the form of one or more primordial germs. He does not adopt the theory of spontaneous generation. What life is he does not attempt to explain, further than to quote (p. 326), with approbation, the definition of Herbert Spencer, who says, "Life depends on, or consists in, the incessant action and reaction of various forces,"—which conveys no very ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... suffrage is now claimed by one class of thinkers as a privilege based upon citizenship and secured by the Constitution of the United States, as by lexicographers as well as by the constitution itself, the definition of citizen includes women as well as men. No State can rightfully deprive a woman-citizen of the United States of any fundamental right which is hers in common with all other citizens. The States have the right to regulate, but not to prohibit ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Leeds's devil!" I said to my friend, after satisfactory definition of the Pine Rat; "what fiend may he be, if ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... the young brother rulers held a little court which for intimate gayety and charm surpassed all others. Gallic in its love of beauty, loving life and all its loveliest expressions, it was a court of dance and song—the heart of hearts of Gruyere, itself the centre and the very definition of Romand Switzerland. Often intermarried, the Burgundian counts preserved in its perfection the blond beauty of their ancient race, surpassing in athletic skill the strongest of their subjects, and with the same bonhomie with which their conquering ancestors ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... definition of good and inferior ivory is however, in point of fact, somewhat incorrect, since ivory obtained from the coast of Africa is often much inferior to that obtained from the Indian Archipelago. The best ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... children," returned Mrs. Farraday, as she saw them off, after tenderly embracing Miss Adair and making plans for their future meeting. "How lovely it would be!" she murmured to herself, with a lack of definition, as she went back to the stately house behind the tree, where ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... to say that one could always tell an honorable man by his conduct to his wife, his children, and his servants; and I hope it will appear from these memoirs that the Emperor conducted himself as an honorable man, according to his own definition. He said, moreover, that immorality was the most dangerous vice of a sovereign, because of the evil example it set to his subjects. What he meant by immorality was doubtless a scandalous publicity given ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... the greatest of games. I am not going to quarrel with the definition. I am going to accept it. From that point of view there is something to be said for it. As a game it can be respectable; as a business it is contemptible. Wars for profit—for gold mines, for mere extension of territory, for markets—degrade a people. It is like playing cricket for ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... I am not surprised to find Old Phelps lately rising to the audacity of criticising his exemplar. In some recently-published observations by Phelps upon the philosophy of reading is laid down this definition: "If I understand the necessity or use of reading, it is to reproduce again what has been said or proclaimed before. Hence, letters, characters, &c., are arranged in all the perfection they possibly can be, to show how certain ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... offals, after which many of these streams are brought together to form the finished flour. What is known as patent flour is derived from the reduction of the middlings, while the break flours are recovered before the offals are completely removed; hence they are not of so high a grade. No absolute definition can be given, however, of the term "patent flour," as usage varies the meaning in different parts of ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... word, then," said his friend, "if you must have a definition, Hatton may rank under the genus 'antiquary,' though his species is more difficult to describe. He is a heraldic antiquary; a discoverer, inventor, framer, arranger of pedigrees; profound in the mysteries of genealogies; an ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... couldn't, Miss Wisdom," said Tom. "For it's all the harder when you know what goes before; for then you've got to say what definition 3 is, and what axiom V is. But get along with you now; I must go on with this. Here's the Latin Grammar. See what you can make ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... majority vote of the General Conference. The Doctor sometimes writes more clearly than he speaks, and it was so in the occasion of writing this article. Over against this we have one of (as Dr. Hamilton would say) the "subtle insinuations" of the Episcopal Address, which declares that no definition of "layman" settles the question of eligibility as to any class of persons. For many are classed as laymen for the purposes of lay representation, and have to do with it officially as laymen, yet ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... step toward the unity of this language was taken in 1881 by the congress of Paris, which rendered the use of the C.G.S. system definitive and universal. This labor was completed in 1884 by the meeting of a new congress at Paris, at which a definition of the C.G.S. and practical units was distinctly decided upon. That the unit of light defined by the congress has not rapidly come into favor is due to the fact that its practical realization is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... This definition of exhalants is from the theory of Haller and others. It is now believed that the fluids exude through the thin coats of the blood vessels. This process is called exosmose, and is ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... the use of the book and the system of its construction may be given here. Each title or subject is defined once in the text. Where a title is synonymous with one or more others the definition is only given under one title, and the others appear at the foot of the article as synonyms. It may be that the reader is seeking the definition of one of these synonyms. If so a reference to the index shows him at once what page contains ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... endowed by its inventor. It remembered, compared, judged, reasoned: does the drowsy, digesting paunch remember? Does it compare? Does it reason? I defined the Capricorn-grub as a bit of an intestine that crawls about. The undeniable accuracy of this definition provides me with my answer: the grub has the aggregate of sense-impressions that a bit of an intestine may ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre |
