"Double-edged" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the conservative disgust at licence, the jealousy of rival nobles, the venality of military leaders, threw daily fresh stumbling-blocks in his heroic path. It was not six months after the advent of Farnese to power, before that bold and subtle chieftain had seized the double-edged sword of religious dissension as firmly as he had grasped his celebrated brand when he boarded the galley of Muatapha Bey, and the Netherlands were cut in twain, to be re-united nevermore. The separate treaty of the Walloon provinces was soon destined to separate the Celtic ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... slay, plunging with your hands the two double-edged swords into the deserter of her father, the deserter of her husband, who destroyed numbers of the Grecians perishing by the spear at the river, whence tears fell into conjunction with tears, fell on account of the iron weapons ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... Kaspar said, 'Went Court Garden—Man—had a knife—gave a bag—struck—I ran as I could—bag must lie there.' Kaspar was found to have a narrow wound, 'two inches and a half under the centre of the left breast,' clearly caused by a very sharp double-edged weapon. In three or four days he died, the heart had been injured. He was able to depose, but not on oath, that on the morning of the 14th a man in a blouse (who had addressed him some days earlier) brought him a verbal message from ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... remaining at Monte Carlo was double-edged—to bring Olive into the orbit of his fascination, and to mark time until the mystery of John Riviere had been set ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... a plain, double-edged, admirably-tempered dagger—a very workmanlike article indeed. On the cross hilt of it I swore one day that I would live thenceforth for one thing alone—the discovery of the murderer of old D'Avray's child, whom I ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... drew near to the old king, and inspired him with youthful courage. He swung his spear aloft and threw it at the leader of the host and smote him to the earth. Odysseus and Telemachos rushed into the fray with double-edged swords. They would have made an end of the whole multitude, but Athena called aloud: "People of Ithaca, cease from fighting! Retire at once from this contest ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... point. Disdaining to take advantage even of such a foe, he threw aside his gun, and springing upon the gigantic Peksuot, grasped at the knife which was suspended from his neck, the blade of which was double-edged, and ground to a point as sharp as a needle. There was a moment of terrific conflict, and then the stout Indian fell dead upon the ground, with the blood gushing from many mortal wounds. Another Englishman closed ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... ancient pythoness now but provoke the scientific smile: but no tripod ever mounted by the prophetess of old was so shaky as the chronological trinity of points upon which this Orientalist stands to deliver his oracles. Moreover, his arguments are double-edged, as shown. If the citadel of Buddhism can be undermined by Professor Max Muller's critical engineering, then pari passu that of Christianity must crumble in the same ruins. Or have the Christians alone the ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... o'clock. This narrows the inquiry. This demands of the prisoner to show, if he was not in this place, where he was. It calls on him loudly to show this, and to show it truly. If he could show it, he would do it. If he does not tell, and that truly, it is against him. The defence of an alibi is a double-edged sword. He knew that he was in a situation where he might be called upon to account for himself. If he had had no particular appointment or business to attend to, he would have taken care to be able so ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... to understand that correspondence is a double-edged weapon which is of as much advantage for the defence of the husband as for the inconsistency of the wife. You should therefore encourage correspondence for the same reason that the prefect of police takes special care that the street lamps of Paris ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... the speech he had just made was like the sword of the archangel, double-edged; if Sieyes was unfrocked, Talleyrand was unmitred. He cast a rapid glance at his companion's face; the ex-bishop of Autun was smiling his ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... Franks came down to see what they could get; all (save a few knights round the king) on foot, without bow or lance; but armed with sword, shield, and heavy short-handled double-edged francisc, or battle-axe. At the bridge over the Ticinus they (nominal Catholics) sacrificed Gothic women and children with horrid rites, fought alike Goths and Romans, lost a third of their army by dysentery, and ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... not known amongst them, neither have they any knowledge of God or a soul. A tribe called Wakuavi, who are white, and described as not unlike myself, often came over the water and made raids on their cattle, using the double-edged sime as their chief weapon of war. These attacks were as often resented, and sometimes led the Wamara in pursuit a long way into their enemy's country, where, at a place called Kisiguisi, they found men robed in red cloths. Beads were imported, he thought, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... as we paced to and fro in front of the house, "this marriage rather simplifies matters. The photograph becomes a double-edged weapon now. The chances are that she would be as averse to its being seen by Mr. Godfrey Norton, as our client is to its coming to the eyes of his princess. Now the question is, Where are we to ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... resented this indifference, by suddenly becoming quite tragical, and actually despatching two or three heroes with very little ceremony. The first of these unfortunate gentlemen perished, if I remember correctly, by "a tremendous backstroke of a two-handed, double-edged sword, that severed his head from his body." At this sentence, which seemed pretty decisive, Johnny was somewhat staggered, but, immediately recovering himself, he bade Max "go on," expecting, I verily believe, that it would turn out that the ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... side of the gate, then," replied the novice, "if you think him so dangerous. For my part, I should not fear him, were he deprived of that huge double-edged axe, which gleams from under his cloak, having a more deadly glare than the comet which astrologers prophesy such ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... for the double-edged compliment. However what you say is very interesting. Well now, my idea is that David Vavasour Williams did not die in a military hospital; he recovered and returned, firmly resolved to lead a new life.—Is his father living by ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... to see Nucingen on business; but he waited for Contenson, he was dreaming of Esther, telling himself that before long he would see again the woman who had aroused in him such unhoped-for emotions, and he sent everybody away with vague replies and double-edged promises. Contenson was to him the most important person in Paris, and he looked out into the garden every minute. Finally, after giving orders that no one else was to be admitted, he had his breakfast served in the summer-house at one corner of the garden. In the banker's ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... days I took delight In LEAR'S immortal Dong, Whose nose was luminously bright, Who sang a silvery song. He did not terrify the birds With strange and unpropitious words Of double-edged ontong; I'm sure he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 19, 1917 • Various
... pulling from his waistcoat a curiously-constructed pistol, having a double-edged spring knife attached to the barrel. 'That's a great tempter to a desperate man, is it not? I cannot resist going up with this every night, and trying his door. If once I find it open he's done for; I do it invariably, even ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... Sikeliot cities in this age is, in the double-edged saying of Empedocles, connected with one of their noblest tastes. They built their houses as if they were going to live for ever. And if their houses, how much more their temples and other public buildings? In some of the Sikeliot cities, this ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... right to suppose, though he cannot prove, that the fourth and fifth were written during the episcopate of Victor (A.D. 190-198 or 199). But in his partiality for late dates he forgets that the weapon which he wields is double-edged. If the fourth and fifth books 'must,' as he confidently asserts, have been written some years after the third, it follows by parity of reasoning, that the first and second must have been written some years before it. Yet, with a strange inconsistency, he assumes in the ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... "always wavering in the peculiar twilight, between profound sense and nonsense, between childish play and matured humor." Two brothers who have lost their sisters appear, and then an insolent giant, swaggering with a double-edged sword and attended by an enamored fool, and finally a knight-errant devoting his fortune to pay the stingy sexton for the burial of a victim of poverty; they are now hunting for the princess, the sisters, and the beloved lady, and to free them from the sorcerer; none ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... deem it prudent to hide the truth which it would perhaps be better to make known. But when he came to know of them, his whole soul revolted, as naturally must be the case with a man of honor, and in "Don Juan" he came down upon Southey with a double-edged sword, throwing ridicule upon the author's writings, and odium upon his conduct as ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... the right, Sir Marmaduke drew a double-edged Italian knife from his girdle, and with a rapid and vigorous gesture, drove it straight between the ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... our great men are ranged in two hostile camps. The Royalists are 'Romantics,' the Liberals are 'Classics.' The divergence of taste in matters literary and divergence of political opinion coincide; and the result is a war with weapons of every sort, double-edged witticisms, subtle calumnies and nicknames a outrance, between the rising and the waning glory, and ink is shed in torrents. The odd part of it is that the Royalist-Romantics are all for liberty in literature, and for repealing laws and conventions; while ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Blake in high fettle at knowing himself armed with a portentous weapon for the destruction of Anthony Wilding. Upon closer inspection of it, however, he came to realize—as Richard had realized earlier—that it was double-edged, and that the wielding of it must be fraught with as much danger for Richard as for their common enemy. For to betray Mr. Wilding and the plot would scarce be possible without betraying young Westmacott, and that was unthinkable, ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... tremendous crisis in the fight that Monkey won his greatest success. Leaping lightly to the ground whilst the backs of his foes were still turned towards him, he was able with the double-edged sword which he held in each of his hands to despatch three more of his enemies. The last remaining foe was so utterly cowed when he beheld his comrades lying dead upon the road that he took to flight, and soon all that was to be seen of him was a black speck slowly vanishing ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... oracles, friend, the less said the better; I shall ask you to choose your instances, you see. Will Apollo's answer to the Lydian suit you? That was as symmetrical as a double-edged knife; or say, it faced both ways, like those Hermae which are made double, alike whether you look at front or back. Consider; will Croesus's passage of the Halys destroy his own realm, or Cyrus's? Tet the wretched Sardian paid a long price for his ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... destined for them to catch it; but at their clamour[492] a bushy-bearded lion appears in the way, and turns them all back, although ardently pursuing: thus the Greeks hitherto indeed ever kept following in troops, striking with their swords and double-edged spears. But when they beheld Hector entering the ranks of heroes, they were troubled, and the courage of all ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... declaiming, Neal with his grey hair, his tall spare form, and his air of old-fashioned punctilium, would sit near, fixing the speaker with his pale-blue eyes,—a little threateningly; always ready to shatter an exuberance, to check an oratorical flow by some quick double-edged word that would make Manisty trip and stammer; showing, too, all the time, by his evident shrinking, by certain impregnable reserves, or by the banter that hid a feeling too keen to show itself, how great is the gulf between a literary ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sighed. "So you see, commander, you are going into a double-edged situation. Everything in it that can accrue to your advantage, could also ...
— Shock Absorber • E.G. von Wald
... Gentleman tried the other side of the double-edged blade, continuing obstinately, and Moussa Isa contrived a strange sound which died away on a curious bubbling note and ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren |
