"Paramount" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... about the union. Neither was it fear. The slowly-matured view of the economical and social necessities and, before all, the ripening moral sense of the masses were the motives that induced the forty three representatives of Lithuanian and Ruthenian provinces, led by their paramount prince, to enter into a political combination unique in the history of the world, a spontaneous and complete union of sovereign States choosing deliberately the way of peace. Never was strict truth better expressed in a political instrument than in the preamble of the first Union Treaty (1413). ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... attribute of the Deity being impugned that the hypothesis is objectionable. Design and intelligence in the creation are left paramount as before, and our impression of the skill exercised, and the means employed, only transferred to another part of the work. He who produced the primordial condition the author supposes, who filled space with such a mist, composed of such ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... prosper in some district of our Indian Empire? Forty years ago we began to put forth organised botanical efforts for settling that question. Forty years ago, and even earlier, according to my remembrance, Dr Roxburgh—in those days the paramount authority upon oriental botany—threw some energy into this experiment for creating our own nurseries of the tea-plant. But not until our Burmese victories, some thirty years since, and our consequent treaties had put the province of Assam into our power, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... introduced by African slaves. Without placing undue importance on the fact that negroes are very rarely, if at all, found in the north-western part of Mexico, it seems entirely beyond the range of possibility that a foreign implement could have become of such paramount importance in the religious system of several tribes. Moreover, this opinion is confirmed by Mr. R. B. Dixon's discovery, in 1900, of a musical bow among the Maidu Indians on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, northeast of San ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... treachery on every hand. This had taught me that enemies of my race were numerous, while, it was probable, not more than a dozen fellow-countrymen were then in New Orleans. They would prove powerless were I to become involved in any quarrel. Extreme caution under such conditions became a paramount duty, and it can scarcely be wondered at that I hesitated to trust the black, continuing to study the real purpose of his mysterious message. Yet the rare good-humor and simple interest of his face tended to reassure me. A lady, he said—well, surely no great harm would result from such an interview; ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... ignorance that people have a misconception of these truths. The development of the human mind is no less important than the development of the physical condition of man. His education, therefore, is a paramount duty of the state, and his protection against the weakening of his physical condition is equally important. That legislation has recognized these facts is shown in laws, not only of the nation, but of each individual state, which seek to guard and protect the youth against unwise ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... living was the paramount consideration to which this gentleman had given his mind from the time when he found himself a popular subaltern in a crack regiment, admired for his easy manners and good looks, respected by meaner men for his good blood, and rich in everything except that vulgar dross without ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... occasioned by attacks from outside sources, viz., the Resolutiones disputationis de virtute indulgentiarum, the Asterisci adversus obeliscos Joh. Eccii, and the Ad dialogum Silv. Prieriatis responsio, still he never was diverted by this necessary rebuttal from his paramount duty, the edification of the congregation. The autumn of the year 1518, when he was confronted with Cajetan, as well as the whole year of 1519, when he held his disputations with Eck, etc, were replete with disquietude and pressing labors; still Luther served his congregation ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... affair. This should be a 'German,' and nothing else. Kitty Fisher was to lead, and neither quadrille nor country dance would be tolerated for a moment. Miss Kennedy found on her arrival that, for this night at least, round dances were paramount: it was such, or none. Well, she thought she could stand it, at first,—there were enough people always ready to promenade. But this was not an outdoor party, the night was too cool to make it even partially such; and to ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... to Lord Aberdeen on a subject which at this moment appears to her of paramount importance—viz., the augmentation of the Army. The ten thousand men by which it has been ordered to be augmented can hardly be considered to have brought it up to more than an improved PEACE establishment, such as we have ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... Mr Watkins, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby slowly, as if she were making a tremendous effort to recollect something of paramount importance; 'that Mr Watkins—he wasn't any relation, Miss Knag will understand, to the Watkins who kept the Old Boar in the village; by-the-bye, I don't remember whether it was the Old Boar or the George the Third, but ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... and the dinner being ready, I ordered it to be served.—Won't you wait a little longer for Lord G——? No. I hope he is safe, and well. He is his own master, as well as mine; (I sighed, I believe!) and, no doubt, has a paramount pleasure ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... been generally accepted as just by civilized peoples, but which has been for three centuries commonly ignored by statesmen because the right could not be practically applied without imperiling national safety, always the paramount consideration in international and national affairs. The two phrases mean substantially the same thing and have to an extent been used interchangeably by those who advocate the principle as a standard of right. "Self-determination" ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... cabal, and made so dexterous an use of the influence of that cabal that he was appointed to succeed Halifax in the high dignity of Lord President without being required to resign the far more active and lucrative post of Secretary. [60] He felt, however, that he could never hope to obtain paramount influence in the court while he was supposed to belong to the Established Church. All religions were the same to him. In private circles, indeed, he was in the habit of talking with profane contempt of the most sacred things. He therefore determined ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... not one of the elements that give people, when they commit the paramount stupidity of marrying, reason to hope that they may not be miserable. Not one. If he were a strong man I should pity him less. But he's not. He's immensely dependent on his tastes, his ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... more than once expressly states (in various passages which will be found in the foregoing sections) that he did not recognise the authority of the Ancients, on scientific questions, which in his day was held paramount. Archimedes is the sole exception, and Leonardo frankly owns his admiration for the illustrious Greek to whose genius his own was so much akin (see No. 1476). All his notes on various authors, excepting ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... ceased to have any value whatever. The soldiers were unpaid, ill fed, and mutinous. If on the English side it seemed that the task of conquering was beyond them, the Americans were ready to abandon the defense from sheer exhaustion. It was then of paramount necessity to General Washington that a great and striking success should be obtained to animate the spirits of ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... as his employers were concerned, Walter did his duty, but forgot that, apart from his obligation to the mere and paramount truth, it was from the books he reviewed—good, bad, or indifferent, whichever they were—that he drew the food he eat and the clothes that ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... suits them so much better. The Spaniard is nervously anxious not to appear, or to be, behind any other European nation in what we call "modernity," a word that signifies that to be "up-to-date" is of paramount importance, leaving wholly out of the question whether the change be for the better or infinitely towards the lower end ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... habit into a passion. It was now his one ambition to arrange a new succession excluding the Vaufontaines, a detested branch of the Bercy family. There had been an ancient feud between his family and the Vaufontaines, whose rights to the succession, after his eldest son, were to this time paramount. For three years past he had had a whole monastery of Benedictine monks at work to find some collateral branch from which he might take a successor to Leopold John, his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... responsible for breaking down the hieratic tradition which forbade the use of stone for civil purposes. "In Roman architecture the engineering element became paramount. It was this which broke the moulds of tradition and recast construction into modern form, and made it ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... Lagidae, who had divided the vast dominion among them, Greek influence had spread all over Palestine. Greek towns were founded, theatres and gymnasia established; Greek art was admired and her philosophy studied. The Hellenic movement was paramount, and the aristocratic families did their best to further it. Even the high priests, like Jason and Menelaos, who were supposed to be the guardians of the national exclusive movement, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... near Dumfries, out of which it is scarcely possible for a stranger to extricate himself; and there was no small difficulty in procuring a guide, since such people as he saw were engaged in digging their peats—a work of paramount necessity, which will hardly brook interruption. Mr. Walker could, therefore, only procure unintelligible directions in the southern brogue, which differs widely from that of the Mearns. He was beginning to think himself in a serious dilemma, when he stated ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... thumping-mania of Francis Coleridge was a furor of jealousy—strangely enough not felt by him, but felt for him by his old privileged nurse. She could not inspire her own passions into Francis, but she could point his scorn to the infirmities of his rival. Francis had once reigned paramount in the vicarage as universal pet. But he had been dethroned by Samuel, who now reigned in his stead. Samuel felt no triumph at that revolution; Francis no anger. But the nurse suffered the pangs of a baffled stepmother, and looked with novercal eyes of hatred and ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... upheaval of human thought which produced in history the French Revolution and in literature the resurgence of romance. During the eighteenth century, both in England and in France, society was considered paramount and the individual subservient. Each man was believed to exist for the sake of the social mechanism of which he formed a part: the chain was the thing,—not its weakest, nor even its strongest, link. But the French Revolution and the cognate romantic ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... in giving paramount importance to the name of his late father-in-law, Mr. Povey had displayed a very ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... had remained alone with Madame d'Harville, possessed to an extreme degree of foreknowledge and insight into the character of the prisoners. Her word and judgment was of paramount authority in the house. ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... s'amuse a juger:" but notwithstanding these good qualities, he was often culpably deficient in respect for the opinions of his subordinate coadjutors. At times a vain desire to impress on the minds of spectators that his intellect was the paramount power of the bench; at other times a personal dislike to one of his puisnes caused him to derogate from the dignity of his court, in cases where he was especially careful to protect the interests of suitors. With silence more disdainful than any words could have ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... the American mind and American character.... Professor Perry is not one of those scholars whose interests are confined to books. In these essays, accordingly, while the literary interest is perhaps paramount, social and political realms are likewise laid ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... studies in Europe was to restore his mother's sight by removing a cataract from one of her eyes, an achievement which no doubt formed the basis of marvelous tales. But the misfortunes of his people were ever the paramount consideration, so he wrote to the Captain-General requesting permission to remove his numerous relatives to Borneo to establish a colony there, for which purpose liberal concessions had been offered him by the British government. The request ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... will then become a question whether such ridicule be just, and this can only be decided by the application of truth as the test of ridicule." How easy to make any subject or any person ridiculous! To hold that ridicule is paramount to the discovery or attestation of truth, is to exalt the ape-element in man above the human and the angelic principles, which also belong to his nature, and to enthrone a Voltaire over a Newton or a Milton. Those who laugh proverbially do not always ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... upright." And he thought of this and of that; of his uncle when he should learn what had happened, it would be irksome, no matter how it turned out; but he immediately consoled himself with the thought that with his uncle, matters concerning kinship and wealth were always paramount, and these could advance the interest of the family. Jagienka was indeed nearer, but Jurand was a greater land owner than Zych of Zgorzelice. Moreover the former could easily foresee that Macko could not be long opposed to such a liaison, the more so when he should behold ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... asking himself why he should consider Daymond's claim paramount to his own; he was not given to searching analysis of his own motives. The man who values his illusions soon learns the best way of preserving them, and the illusion in question was doubly valuable, since it bade fair, under judicious ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... strikingly disproportionate to their fitness to expound the doctrines or illustrate the virtues of the Christian religion. They seem to have frequently compounded for their sins of sensuality and their deeds of blood by championing the unity and purity of the faith—two things that were held to be of paramount importance, especially in Spain, where to be outside formal communion with the Church was to be either a Jew or a Mahometan, or in other words, an enemy ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... what fitness, let it be asked of the noble lord, his patron, has this alien, whom the concession of a gracious prince has admitted to civic rights, constituted himself the lord paramount of our internal polity? Where is now that gratitude which loyalty should have counselled? During the recent war whenever the enemy had a temporary advantage with his granados did this traitor to his kind not seize that moment to discharge his piece against the empire of which he is a ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... standing army; they have not secured the liberty of the press; they have reserved the power of abolishing trials by jury in civil cases; they have proposed that the laws of the federal legislatures shall be paramount to the laws and constitutions of the States; they have abandoned rotation in office; and particularly, their President may be re-elected from four years to four years, for life, so as to render him a King for life, like a King of ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... locket, and if Gertrude had stepped into the golden frame, the likeness could not have been more startling. She looked at it until her lips blanched and were tightly compressed, and the memory of Gertrude became paramount. Murray Hammond's face she barely glanced at, and its extraordinary beauty stared at her like that of some avenging angel. With a shudder she put it away, and turned to the letters that St. Elmo had written to Agnes and ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... harmony which ought always to exist between Congress and the Executive, and to turn that which the Constitution intended only as an extraordinary remedy for extraordinary cases, into a common means of making Executive discretion paramount to the discretion of Congress in the enactment of laws." It was literally making the extreme medicine of the Constitution its ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... law, and not infrequent among the Pharaohs, whether of the earlier or the later dynasties. In any case, it is certain that she took the direction of affairs under his reign, reducing him to a cipher, and making her influence paramount in every department ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... by no means strained. Davidov and Khostov were always with the Spanish officers, drinking and card playing, or improving their dancing and Spanish with the girls, whose guitars were tuned for the waltz day and night. The dignitaries met as usual and conversed on all topics save those paramount in the minds of each. Nevertheless, there were three significant facts as well known to Rezanov as had they been aired ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... Yankeeland goes on to speak about the "internal evidence" of the Bible. This he says is "paramount," though he takes care to skip off as quickly as possible to outside testimony. He cites a number of persons trained up as Christians in favor of the "supernatural" character of the Bible. The first is Chief Justice Chase, of the Supreme ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... cattle industry was paramount in the development of the frontier region found by the first railways, it should not be concluded that this upthrust of the southern cattle constituted the only contribution to the West of that day. There were indeed earlier influences, the chief ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... set its foot on the land of Britain as early as the reign of Diocletian; and that as enemies. How far their settlement was permanent, and how far the particular section of them, mentioned by Mamertinus, represented the whole of the invasion, is uncertain. The paramount fact is the existence of hostile Franks in Middlesex nearly 200 years before the ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... majesty of the Law, the sacredness of the Union, and the integrity of the Constitution. There will be time enough, after this is done, to discuss all minor questions and all collateral issues. One paramount duty lies directly before us. Let us perform this duty fearlessly, and leave the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... Doctor Cullis says: "We do not give these instances of the healing of the body, dear friends of Jesus, as in any degree paramount to the healing of the soul; but that as the dear children of God, we may claim all our privileges, and enjoy the knowledge of our fullness of possession in Him who declares" all things are, yours." Shall we in any manner, of smallest or largest import, limit ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... separated he must make her an allowance, but it need only be enough for the bare necessaries of life if the separation is due to her misconduct. The father and mother have joint control of the children, but during the father's lifetime his rule is paramount. When he is dead or incapacitated parental authority remains in the mother's hands. It is her right and duty to care for the child's person, to decide where it shall live, and to superintend its education. She can claim it legally from people ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... I trust, will have some weight with those who may have lent an ear to any of those vague calumnies from which no naval commander can secure his good name, who knowing the paramount necessity of regularity and strict discipline in a ship of war, adopts an appropriate plan for the attainment of these objects, and remains constant and immutable in the execution. To an Athenian, who, in praising a public ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... for a court-martial. That, of course. Through no other tribunal could a just and a satisfactory decision be reached, and it was paramount that another verdict besides that pronounced by public opinion be obtained. Unquestionably, he would be acquitted. His past service, his influence, his character would prove themselves determining factors ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... life, and of physical upon moral science. He speaks with respect of the work of Darwin and Tyndall; but as formerly in the Rede Lecture, and afterwards in the "Eagle's Nest," he claims that natural science should not be pursued as an end in itself, paramount to all other conclusions and considerations; but as a department of study subordinate to ethics, with a view to utility ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... but there was another still paramount to that. My duties towards the beings of my own species had greater claims to my attention because they included a greater proportion of happiness or misery. Urged by this view, I refused, and I did right ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... Minor, or from St Peter who appears to have watered them, [92:1] or from the immediate disciples of one or other of these two Apostles. But during the childhood and youth of Polycarp himself the influence of St John was paramount. Irenaeus reports (and there is no reason for questioning the truth of his statement) that St John survived to the reign of Trajan [92:2], who ascended the imperial throne A.D. 98. Thus Polycarp would be about thirty ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... for the Bible, has not emancipated itself yet. But that it can emancipate itself is becoming progressively more clear. And even if we drop comparisons, Judaism stands for a life in which goodness and God are the paramount interests. ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... She had several times mentioned to her mother the prospect of their return to Rotherwood, but Mrs. Saxon had always evaded the subject, saying: "Wait till Daddy comes back!" and the welcoming of their three heroes had seemed a matter of such paramount importance that in comparison with it even the question of their ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... open question, so far, whether her own happiness should or should not be preferred to that of others. But that her personal interests were not to be considered as paramount appeared ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... slavery in this country was pronounced defunct by law. It took it for granted that the enslavement of the colored man—not necessarily the negro—was no longer possible under the Stars and Stripes. Then and there it committed a grievous blunder. Its paramount error was in assuming that a political party could for all time be depended upon as a party of freedom. It trusted to the assurances of politicians that they would protect the colored man in all his natural and acquired rights, and ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... Buddhism flourished greatly in China. Tun-huang, as the westernmost outpost of China proper, had then for nearly two centuries enjoyed imperial protection both against the Turks in the north and the Tibetans southward. But during the succeeding period, until the advent of paramount Mongol power, some two generations before Marco Polo's visit, these marches had been exposed to barbarian inroads of all sorts. The splendour of the temples and the number of the monks and nuns established near them had, no doubt, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... have a good memory, and you have given me the facts faithfully. Of the order in which you present them, I say nothing—truly, it is deplorable! But I make allowances—you are upset. To that I attribute the circumstance that you have omitted one fact of paramount importance." ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... is something independent of circumstances, and paramount to them. But when you once talk of your rights and your wrongs in love, all love is gone, or going. I hope it hasn't come to ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... enough; and two usually make a place very uncomfortable for any ordinarily constituted person. But at G— it was not a case of one poet or even two. There were twenty of us, if there was one, and we each of us considered our claim to the laurel wreath paramount. Indeed, like the bards of old, we fell to the most unseemly contentions, and hated one another as only poets ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... to discover in what way this great mystery of justice does truly and inevitably work itself out within us. The heart of him who has committed an unjust act becomes the scene of ineffaceable drama, the paramount drama of human nature; and it becomes the more dangerous, and deadlier, in the degree of the ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... external organic union, irrespective of doctrinal differences, and ad extra, a unionistic intercourse with the Reformed and other Protestant denominations. And throughout its history this has remained the paramount object of the General Synod. In accordance with this policy she has made concessions in both directions, as required by expedience and the circumstances, to doctrinal laxism as well as to Lutheran confessionalism, the latter especially during the last decades. Union ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... than the ostensible one. But this is probably not the case with the mass of readers. To the younger portion of the community, which constitutes everywhere the very great majority, the subject of dress is one of intense and paramount importance. An author who treats it appeals, like the poet, to the young men end maddens—virginibus puerisque—and calls upon them, by all the motives which habitually operate most strongly upon their feelings, to buy his book. When, after opening their purses for ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... a united Poland, Bohemia and Greater Rumania is of paramount importance, because if Poland and Rumania remain as small as they are at present, and if the Czecho-Slovaks and Yugoslavs are left at the mercy of Vienna and Budapest, the Germans will be masters of ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... of paramount importance in the family calculations just now. In her considerations of the prospective move to the East, the price of this flax had figured largely. Family discussions had centred about that field for weeks. It was the one definite starting point in ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... in 1838, killed a Mr. Cilley in a duel, truly and eloquently said, on the floor of the House of Representatives, when lamenting the unfortunate issue of that encounter, that society was more to blame than he was. "Public opinion," said the repentant orator, "is practically the paramount law of the land. Every other law, both human and divine, ceases to be observed; yea, withers and perishes in contact with it. It was this paramount law of this nation and of this House that forced me, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... and Ill Offices of the minor Knights of his own Order, over whom he obtains a complete Victory XXXIV He performs another Exploit, that conveys a true Idea of his Gratitude and Honour XXXV He repairs to Bristol Spring, where he reigns paramount during the whole Season XXXVI He is smitten with the Charms of a Female Adventurer, whose Allurements subject him to a new Vicissitude of Fortune XXXVII Fresh Cause for exerting his Equanimity and Fortitude XXXVIII The Biter ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... of the word, Imagination; but the word, Taste, has been stretched to the sense which it bears in modern Europe by habits of self-conceit, inducing that inversion in the order of things whereby a passive faculty is made paramount among the faculties conversant with the fine arts. Proportion and congruity, the requisite knowledge being supposed, are subjects upon which taste may be trusted; it is competent to this office—for in its intercourse with these the mind is ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... in his chair. The other's personality grew on him. The crisp voice had a certain magnetic quality that made what he said important, somehow. However, Joe's interest in Roman history wasn't exactly paramount. ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... Gilman's conscience was also of the Puritan cast, and justice had been given time to make its claim paramount to that of the conventional proprieties. Hence the invalid yielded the point without reopening ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... beginning to prize the general weal, the legist is of high account, and the priest paramount. Higher civilization engenders the influence of the man of letters, the artist, the dramatist, the wit, the poet, and the orator. Or when, with a wisdom surpassing the philosophy of the schools, we tumble down to prose, and assume the leathern apron ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... cares how many shots "Puffing Billy" fired yesterday. For me the strain is tightened by news heliographed this morning that another son has come round from Bulawayo and joined the relieving force as a lieutenant of Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry. I don't know whether pride or anxiety is paramount when I think of these two boys fighting their way towards me. Both are with Lord Dundonald's Irregular Horse, of which we have heard much from Kaffirs, who tell us that Thorneycroft's Rifles and the "Sakkabulu boys," who are now identified as the South African Light Horse, ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... mental impression is giving way before the new education through physical, mental and spiritual expression. Expression is the essence of growth; and since the school is to foster child growth it must place child expression in a place of paramount importance. ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... better quarters could have been found for an invalid. The attendants spoke under their breath, and moved only on tiptoe—nothing was done unless PAR ORDONNANCE DU MEDECIN. Aesculapius reigned paramount in the premises at Fairladies. Once a day, the ladies came in great state to wait upon him and inquire after his health, and it was then that; Alan's natural civility, and the thankfulness which he expressed for their timely and charitable assistance, raised him considerably in their esteem. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... by the military chronicler, Pedro Pizarro, that his kinsman did, in fact, urge the suit strongly in behalf of Almagro; but that he was refused by the government, on the ground that offices of such paramount importance could not be committed to different individuals. The ill effects of such an arrangement had been long since felt in more than one of the Indian colonies, where it had led to rivalry and fatal collision.4 Pizarro, therefore, finding ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... Territory, with his legislative council petitioned that body to repeal the anti-slavery clause in the Ordinance of 1787 and to establish slavery in the territory, but without avail, and finally recognizing that the influence of Rev. James Lemen, Sr., was paramount with the people of Illinois, he made persistent overtures for his approval of his pro-slavery petitions, but he declined to act and promptly sent a messenger to Indiana, paying him thirty dollars of the Jefferson fund given him in Virginia to have the church and ...
— The Jefferson-Lemen Compact • Willard C. MacNaul
... respite either by night or noon. And the King don Alfonso he found at Sahagun. Of Castile is he the ruler, of Leon furthermore. And likewise of Asturias, yea, to San Salvador. As far as Santiago for lord paramount is he known. The counts throughout Galicia him for their sovereign own. As soon as Muno Gustioz got down from horseback there, Before the Saints he kneeled him, and to God he made his prayer. Where the court ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon
... along the boundaries. These latter, while intended as camps for the outriders, had been erected in the days, none too remote, when Apaches, Arrapahoes, and even Cheyennes raided southward, and they had been constructed with the idea of defense paramount. Upon more than one occasion a solitary line-rider had retreated within their adobe walls and had successfully resisted all the cunning and ferocity of a score of paint-bedaubed warriors and, when his outfit had rescued ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... official life may also be named Sir Geoffrey Lagden, Sir William St. John Carr, and the Hon. John Daverin. Lagden was for many years British Resident in Basutoland, the Switzerland of South Africa, where the native tribes are practically independent under a British protectorate. Griffith, the paramount chief of the Basuto nation, has been a Catholic since 1911. Sir Geoffrey's tactful policy and wise counsels did much to promote the prosperity of this native state, and during the trying days of the South African War, he was able to secure ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... St. Germain was no part of the project of a contemplated massacre of the Protestants. The Montmorencies, not the Guises, were in power, and were responsible for it. The influence of the former had become paramount, and that of the latter had waned. The Cardinal of Lorraine had left the court in disgust and retired to his archbishopric of Rheims, when he found that the policy of war, to which he and his family were committed, was about to be abandoned. Even in the earlier negotiations ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... Perrote's eyes as she went away, and Amphillis entirely sympathised with her. She was coming to realise the paramount importance to every human soul of that personal acquaintance with Jesus Christ, which is the one matter of consequence to all who have felt the power of an endless life. The natural result of this was that lesser matters fell into their right place without ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... eventful day, which began with the capture of one of the Union works, and ended with substantial gains along their front, saw intense activity on all sides. The abandonment of Petersburg by Lee was now plainly imminent, and the preventing of his army's escape was the paramount object. The whole vast field of operation about the besieged city became a seething theater of complicated movement, and the Second Connecticut, under frequent orders for immediate advance, was formed in line at ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... of France—which was also the wish of his people—seemed to be favoured by circumstances in England. The influence of Pitt was daily growing weaker, and Bute was fast gaining paramount ascendancy. The French ministers, therefore, flattered themselves that there would be no great difficulty in negociating; especially as they were ready and willing to make some sacrifices, in order to obtain peace. Accordingly an interchange of memorials was commenced, and in the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... walls of New street, surging up around the doorways, and piling themselves densely and painfully within the cramped galleries of the Room itself. They had made good the fresh calls for margins up to 143, the closing figure of the night before. The paramount question now was, How would gold open? They had not many minutes to wait. Pressing up to the fountain, around which some fifty brokers had already congregated, a Bull operator with resonant voice bid 145 for twenty thousand. The shout startled the galleries. Their margins were once ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... all students of music, and of the voice as used in both singing and speaking, the paramount importance of learning early to listen most attentively to others when executing music; and, above all, to listen with the greatest care to themselves, and never to accept any musical tone that does not fully satisfy the ear. When one considers how much ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... (faulty hand or arm position and unnecessary upper arm action), is the aim of this exercise. The pause between each stroke—caused by relinquishing the hold on the bow—reminds the student that mental control should at all times be paramount: that analysis of technical detail is of ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... smoke before the first drop of rain, and the Duke therefore concluded that any errand undertaken, and continued, in a downpour must be for a purpose of paramount importance. So he watched with curiosity the approaching figure, observing with surprise that it was a child of ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... noted here that the socialists, who might be supposed to consider as paramount the interests of society or of the public, are the very people who are least inclined to do anything of the kind. [Footnote: This concept was suggested to me by Professor Thomas Nixon Carver of Harvard ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... Milton, of which, also, there are many traces of imitation. The great distinction, however, between him and these divine authors, is, that imagination in them is subordinate to reason and judgment, while, with him, it is paramount and supreme—that their ornaments and images are employed to embellish and recommend just sentiments, engaging incidents, and natural characters, while his are poured out without measure or restraint, and with no apparent design but to ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... necessary evil." It is claimed that monogamy begets narrow sympathies and leads to selfish idolatry. The fallacy of this argument lies in the misapprehension of the term selfishness. Self-preservation is literally selfishness, yet who will deny that it is a paramount duty of man. If perverted, it may be vicious, even criminal; but selfishness, in so far as it is generated by monogamy, is one of the chief elements of social economy; furthermore, it favors the observance of the laws of sexual hygiene. As we have said elsewhere, true love increases benevolence, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... questions." In England, Canon Lyttelton, who is distinguished among the heads of public schools not least by his clear and admirable statements on these questions, states (Mothers and Sons, p. 99) that the mother's part in the sexual enlightenment and sexual guardianship of her son is of paramount importance, and should begin at the earliest years. J.H. Badley, another schoolmaster ("The Sex Difficulty," Broad Views, June, 1904), also states that the mother's part comes first. Northcote (Christianity and Sex Problems, p. 25) believes that ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... from the establishments at the Great Slave Lake, to receive the supplies of ammunition and some other stores in the winter which were absolutely necessary for the prosecution of our journey, or to get the Esquimaux interpreter, whom we expected. If I had not deemed these circumstances paramount I should have preferred the route ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... though the last-comers, the virtual upstarts, between the States which have earlier gained their place, and now claim our share in the dominion of the world, after we have for centuries been paramount only in the realm of the intellect.—GENERAL v. ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... upon her autumn round of visits, a circumstance for which Noel was openly and devoutly thankful. Not that her influence was by any means paramount with him, but her presence might of itself have been sufficient to drive him away. The only person who could really manage him was his brother-in-law, but as he had apparently forgotten Noel's very ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... more than from men,—from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms. It is in their hearts that the "sentimental" religion some people are so fond of sneering at has its source. The sentiment of love, the sentiment of maternity, the sentiment of the paramount obligation of the parent to the child as having called it into existence, enhanced just in proportion to the power and knowledge of the one and the weakness and ignorance of the other,—these are the "sentiments" that have kept our soulless ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... his early emancipation from paternal control. There are very many cases in which, simply from considerations of sex, a female cannot stand forward as the head of a family, or as its suitable representative. If they are even ladies paramount, and in situations of command, they are also women. The staff of authority does not annihilate their sex; and scruples of female delicacy interfere for ever to unnerve and emasculate in their hands the sceptre however otherwise potent. Hence we see, in noble families, the merest boys put forward ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... you my own resistless desire for variety left me: my nature concentrated into one paramount wish,—to be all things to you. What I had felt vaguely before and stifled—the nothingness of life, the inevitableness of satiety—I repudiated utterly, now that they were personified in you; I would not recognize the fact of their existence. ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... of Europe is certain to undergo some very decided changes within the next decade, very possibly in less time. Social and economic conditions, let alone the paramount political ambitions of the individual rulers, must bring about a decided alteration in state boundaries in Central Europe. This will be accomplished either with or without war—with bloodshed most likely. History and human propensities have shown the inability to settle any vital points ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... range of an airship a thoroughly reliable engine is a paramount necessity. The main requirements are—firstly, that it must be capable of running for long periods without a breakdown; secondly, that it must be so arranged that minor repairs can be effected in the air; and thirdly, ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... glaring fact that many do not accept all that God says because He says, but because it meets the requirements of their condition, feelings or fancy. They lay down the principle that a truth, to be a truth, must be understood by the human intelligence. This is paramount to asserting that God cannot know more than men—blasphemy on the face of it. Thus the divine rock-bed of faith is torn away, and a human basis substituted. Faith itself is destroyed ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... incorporeal, and is put into the body subject to numerical and harmonical relation, and thus to divine regulation. Hence the tendency of his speculations was to raise the soul to the contemplation of law and order,—of a supreme Intelligence reigning in justice and truth. Justice and truth became thus paramount virtues, to be practised and sought as the end of life. "It is impossible not to see in these lofty speculations the effect of the Greek mind, according to its own genius, seeking after God, if haply it might ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... and interests of Great Britain impose upon her one paramount obligation—to interfere as little as possible with the affairs of other nations, especially in Europe—never, except upon compulsion—when bound by treaty, or when the eye of a profound and watchful statesmanship ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... name, "The paramount right of the originator, discoverer or introducer of a new variety within the limitations of this code, is recognized ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting • Various
... Gravity," nodded the jester, "but the Church is paramount ever; set the pope a-blowing of tunes upon a reed and kings would lay by their sceptres and pipe too and, finding no time or lust for warring, so strife would end, swords rust and wit grow keen. And wit, look you, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... heretofore recognized as a man of great ability, and now he takes a position which he holds for life, and where his influence is paramount. On one occasion a young house-keeper was swearing lustily because he could find no one to carry his turkey home for him. A plain man standing by offered to perform the service, and when they arrived at the door the young man asked, 'What shall I pay you, sir'? 'O ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... the very first I have had to fight opposition and falsehood. I have been accused of being drunk when I was sober, and outrageous falsehoods have been told about me when the truth would have been bad enough. After I had got fairly started to lecture I had always one object paramount, and that was to save myself from the drunkard's terrible fate and doom. After a short time men who drank would come to me and congratulate me, saying that I had opened their eyes, and that from that day forward they would drink no more liquor. Mothers, wives, and sisters, who had sons, ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... Florence, Savonarola by his Lenten sermons in 1491 drew immense crowds to the Duomo. From that moment he became the paramount power in the pulpit. His vivid imagery and his predictions of coming troubles seemed to produce a magical effect on the minds of the people. But this growing influence was a source of considerable vexation to Lorenzo de' Medici and his friends. Savonarola vehemently denounced the greed of the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... the world. His passions were violent; as these often obtained the mastery over him, he could not always square his conduct to the obvious line of self-interest, but self-gratification at least was the paramount object with him. He looked on the structure of society as but a part of the machinery which supported the web on which his life was traced. The earth was spread out as an highway for him; the heavens built up as ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... of charging Helena and Gregory with such assurances, their rigid bending into mental forms, large and small, in which he had no confidence, put Lee outside the solidity of his family. In the instruction, the influences, widely held paramount in the welding of polite Christian characters, Fanny was indefatigable—the piece of silver firmly clasped in the hand for collection, the courtesy when addressed by elders, the convention that nature, birds, were sentimentally beneficent. When Gregory ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... effort of generosity. You cannot say to him, 'All this may be interesting to you, but I have no concern in it': you cannot put him off in that way. He retorts the Latin adage upon you-Nihil humani a me alienum puto. He has got possession of a subject which is of universal and paramount interest (not 'a fee-grief, due to some single breast'), and on that plea may hold you by the button as long as he chooses. His delight is to harangue on what nowise regards himself: how then can you refuse to listen to what as little amuses you? Time and tide ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... a coming-of-age function; I was at a betrothal or a wedding; so-and-so asked me to witness the signing of a will; I have been acting as witness to A, or I have been in consultation with B." All these occupations appear of paramount importance on the day in question, but if you remember that you repeat the round day after day, they seem a sheer waste of time, especially when you have got away from them into the country; for then the thought occurs to you, "What ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... most modest proportions, the principle of the conservation of energy retains, nevertheless, a paramount importance; and it still preserves, if you will, a high philosophical value. M.J. Perrin justly points out that it gives us a form under which we are experimentally able to grasp causality, and that it teaches ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... weakness thoroughly conquered sometimes becomes an element of additional strength in human character. As the exercise of muscle builds up physical vigour, so the persistent exertion of will develops mental and moral power. Men who have a paramount aim in life should never hesitate in strangling all irrelevant and inferior appellants for sympathy. A comparatively briefless attorney should trample out as he would an invading worm the temptation to dream rose-coloured visions, wherein bows, arrows, and bleeding hearts ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... thinks," Morris hastened to explain, lest the sensitive feelings of his Lady Paramount should suffer. "But mine mamma she never seen your dog. He iss a awful nice dog; I ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... quite such an ass as to suppose a court is going to regard any schoolboy obligation as paramount to that which your oath of office demands. Look hyuh, Billy, your head's just addled! I can't work ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... thing of paramount importance, so Vanderlyn suddenly reminded himself, was that no one—not even Madame de Lera—should ever know that he and Margaret Pargeter had left Paris that night, together. How could this fact be best concealed, and ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... return. Admiral Brion also besought him to go back to Venezuela. At the end of December Bolivar reached Margarita Island with some Venezuelan exiles. Once there, he issued a proclamation convoking an assembly, for his paramount desire was to have the military power ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell |
