"Persuade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... crushing sense, at the conclusion of one of these interviews, of having been put down as a tiresome and heavy young man. I fully believed in my own liveliness and sprightliness, but it seemed an impossible task to persuade my elders that these qualities were there. A good-natured, elderly friend used at times to rally me upon my shyness, and say that it all came from thinking too much about myself. It was as useless as if ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... given some command in French to Morin; to Courthope she spoke again in hasty sentences, reiterating the evidence against him. Her manner was a little different now—it had not the same straightforward air of command. He began to hope that he might persuade her, and then discovered suddenly that she had been deliberately riveting his attention while the command which he had not understood was being obeyed. A noose of rope was thrown round his arms and instantly tightened; with a nimbleness which he had not expected Morin knotted it fast. ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... in the ostracism which in the past they exercised as employers of labour, whether agricultural or industrial, which, besides its direct effect of breeding and perpetuating sectarian hate, served in an economic sense to unfit Catholics for employment, and to persuade those who in fact were least unfitted and retained their perceptive faculties, that the scope for their energies was to be found only abroad, and so tended to leave behind a residue of labourers rendered unfit ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... was again banished from her father's sorrow. Ah! her desire now was not to find him happy, but to be allowed to share his sorrows; not to force him to be sociable, but to persuade ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... nice, Gregory!" she said. "You and Captain Ashton know each other, don't you. No, I couldn't persuade Oliver to come; he wouldn't give up his whist. Isn't Oliver dreadful; he moves from the saddle to the whist-table, and back again; and that is all. Captain Ashton and I have been comparing notes; we find that we have missed hardly any of Madame Okraska's concerts in London. ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... practical and to attach its volume of feeling to what is momentous in human life. Literature has its piety, its conscience; it cannot long forget, without forfeiting all dignity, that it serves a burdened and perplexed creature, a human animal struggling to persuade the universal Sphinx to propose a more intelligible riddle. Irresponsible and trivial in its abstract impulse, man's simian chatter becomes noble as it becomes symbolic; its representative function lends it a serious beauty, its utility endows it ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... been destroyed or disfigured, and regretted having wished to drive too keen a bargain, but on finding it intact, I am ashamed to say the collector's instinct got the better of the woman, and I used every conceivable argument to persuade him to come to my price. The old fellow was ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... persuade Margaret that her fears were nothing, though, remembering the letter from d'Aguilar, Betty was somewhat troubled. The thing had a strange look, but, poor, vain fool, she thought to herself that, even if there were some trick, it was certainly arranged ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... hastily returned to the charge, endeavouring to persuade his little granddaughter that the "bogie" had really been "cook's black cat," generally condemned to the kitchen and blackbeetles, but occasionally let loose to roam the upper floors in search of nobler game. ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fastidious eye of the lawyer's accomplished wife could detect no flaw in the demeanour of Miss Peck, and she added her entreaties to those of Gladys. In truth, the poor little careworn woman was not hard to persuade. She had no ties save those of memory to bind her to the fen country, so she gave her promise freely, accepting her new home as ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... I had made up my mind to marry Nellie. I had never openly avowed myself her suitor, but we were cousins, and had grown up together, so that I knew her well enough to be sure of my ground. I liked her so well that it was easy to persuade myself that I was in love with her. She more nearly fulfilled the requirements of my ideal wife than anyone I knew. She was pleasant to look upon, without being distractingly pretty; small and fair and womanly. She dressed nicely, sang and played agreeably, danced well, and had ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Their object was to persuade us to go into Boston, as fast as possible; and, it was a little difficult, at times, not to listen to their arguments. If my Lord Percy had not come out, with a strong party, and two pieces of artillery, we might not have stood it much longer. Our men were fagged ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... my dears, nothing could persuade me. Run along and leave me to diversions of my own," ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... of which he was a minister, was for a considerable time disregarded. At last, however, he was called before the ecclesiastical commission, and he determined upon emigration, 'Some reverend and renowned ministers of our Lord' endeavored to persuade him that the forms to which he refused obedience were 'sufferable trifles,' and did not actually amount to a breach of the second commandment. Mr. Cotton, however, argued so forcibly on the opposite side, that several of the most eminent became all that he was, and afterward ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... tried to persuade myself, was the nature of Ruth's regard for me: and upon looking back I could not charge myself with any misconduct towards the little maiden. I had never sought her company, I had never trifled with her (at least until that very day), and being so engrossed with my own love, I had scarcely ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... against him by Wolseley, who was staying with her, and, not having seen the telegrams of the 27th, because we had made them into private telegrams and kept them back, told us that she thought that to send Dufferin was bad treatment of Malet. We had therefore to send her Malet's telegrams in order to persuade her that it was necessary ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... turtle," he continued, "we are in the lap of luxury. They lard the alderman and inspire the poet. When a ship comes to our assistance I will persuade the captain to freight the vessel with them ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... best to explain to the Duchess that the desired object could hardly be effected after the fashion she proposed, and he endeavoured to persuade her that justice was sure to be done in an English court of law. "Then why are people so very anxious to get this lawyer or that to bamboozle the witnesses?" said the Duchess. Mr. Low declared it to be his opinion that the poorest man in England was not more likely ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... my friends, may seem to some already prolonged. But have I not left much unsaid? Did you guide the pen, secrets of grief could be revealed, all unknown but to your sex. But enough has been written to persuade the thoughtful, that suffering must be to woman a thing of fearful account. Our afflictions, it has been well said, never leave us as they found us. We are always either hardened, or improved, by the discipline of Providence. The question then with woman, what use she is ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... and all its three towers scowling down at him. Behind it were the edges of a group of out-buildings. He veered around toward these. Outside the garage he saw the chauffeur, with his livery coat off, polishing a fender. Great! Perhaps he could persuade the chauffeur to help him. He put on what he felt to be a New York briskness, furtively touched his tie again, and ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... have the power: Zahlen regieren die Welt; and how can one be better employed than in spreading abroad knowledge, and showing the poorer people of the earth how the world might be governed if they would only ally themselves together? It would be more easy to persuade them if we had all of us your ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... comfort them, and to persuade them to remain until they too should be summoned by the Master of Life. But they refused to be comforted, and at ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... yourself too little. I answer for you, if you have the will. Such men as you would willingly persuade us It was their swords, their swords alone that raised them. The lion's apt to be ashamed of hunting In fellowship of the fox—'tis of his fellow Not of the cunning that he ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... gems, for a new flora and a new fauna, and, above all the rest combined, there was room for me! Many well-meaning friends tried to dissuade me altogether, and endeavoured to instil into my mind that what I so ardently wished to attempt was simply deliberate suicide, and to persuade me of the truth of the poetic line, that the sad eye of experience sees beneath youth's radiant glow, so that, like Falstaff, I was only partly consoled by the remark that they hate us youth. But in spite of their experience, ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... or in trembling and astonishment he would have fallen on his face like another opponent of the truth; or, may be, his very reason would have been shattered at the discovery that here before him was that very supernatural and divine Working in Whose existence he had been doing his best to persuade ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... friendly with the Mashongnavi again, and a boy from that village conceived a passion for a Payupki girl. The latter tribe objected to a marriage but the Mashongnavi were very desirous for it and some warriors of that village proposed if the boy could persuade the girl to fly with him, to aid and protect him. On an appointed day, about sundown, the girl came down from the mesa into the valley, but she was discovered by some old women who were baking pottery, who gave the alarm. Hearing the noise a party of the Mashongnavi, ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... a method as this will succeed in keeping your school in order? Why there are boys in almost every school whom you would no more coax into obedience and order in this way than you would persuade the northeast wind to change its ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... of those greenhouses I lose my self-command. And the park!—Fleda, it's the loveliest thing you ever saw in your life; and it's all that delightful man's doing; only he won't have a geometric flower-garden, as I did everything I could think of to persuade him. I pity the woman that will be his wife,—she won't have her own way in a single thing; but then he will fascinate her into thinking that his way is the best, so it will do just as well I suppose. Do you know I can't conceive what he has come over here for? He has been here before, you ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... ado to persuade my companion from entering into the service of the Duke of Saxony, one of whose colonels, with whom we had contracted a particular acquaintance, offering him a commission to be cornet in one of the old regiments of horse; ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... said Tira, in that same tone of tender reasonableness such as mothers use when they persuade children to the necessities of things, "he must remember we ain't alone. An' somehow it seems to scare him. He don't see Him as I do: the ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... august Monarch graciously intimated to me that I should go and see the state of my brethren, I hailed the opportunity which was thus afforded to me to communicate to them the good intentions of the Government, and to persuade them cheerfully to conform to the benevolent intentions of their wise and ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... meditating suicide, as I think you imagine. I am a very average specimen of humanity,—neither brave enough to defy the possibilities of eternity nor cowardly enough to shirk those of time. No, I was only trying idiotically to persuade a girl of eighteen that life was not worth living; and more futilely still, myself, that I did not wish her to live. I am afraid, that in my mind philosophy and fact have but small connection with each other; and though my theorizing for your welfare may be true enough, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... the less pinch for being brilliantly varnished.—It also showeth, for the instruction of Men and States, the connection between democratic opinion and wounded self-love; so that, if some Liberal statesman desire to rouse against an aristocracy the class just below it, he has only to persuade a fine lady to be exceedingly civil "to that sort ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... persuade him, I'm sure," the old lady said, with what she believed to be a winning smile. "You can drive my Mercedes, and he can shoot. I always have a house-party through September, so you both must join it. I'll make you ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... me to my second proposition, mother," said Captain Raymond; "that—seeing what a very large company we shall make, especially if we can persuade our friends from Fairview, the Oaks, and the Laurels to accompany us—we charter a yacht and ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... could do this. If they could persuade their men to believe in them, to begin to be willing to work with them instead of against them, ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... whole hour nothing happened to check my progress. As I advanced, I tried to recollect the shape of the tunnel—to recall to my memory certain projections of rocks—to persuade myself that I had followed certain winding routes before. But no one particular sign could I bring to mind, and I was soon forced to allow that this gallery would never take me back to the point at which I had separated myself from my companions. It was absolutely ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... he seemed to remember hearing there had once been such a custom in Bohemia. 'Mrs. Shimerda is made up her mind,' he added. 'I try to persuade her, and say it looks bad for her to all the neighbours; but she say so it must be. "There I will bury him, if I dig the grave myself," she say. I have to promise her I help Ambrosch make ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... worth—that!" He snapped his fingers with a bitter gesture; then abruptly wheeled and came back to her. "I didn't come here to distress you," he said, looking down at her again. "I know your cup is full already. And it's a thankless task to persuade any woman that her husband is unworthy of her, besides being an impertinence. But what I must say to you is this. There is nothing left to wait for, and it would be sheer madness to stay on any longer. The Rajah has been deeply incriminated and is in hiding. The Government ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... he was obliged to have assistance (which was long before he wanted it in his own opinion) he used to be wheeled in a chair to his School: and even in the delirium of his last sickness insisted on giving his daughters a Greek author, over which they would mumble and mutter to persuade him that he was still hearing his ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... that is possible to be done in the Queen's service," he said to Walsingham; "but I do persuade myself she makes no account of me. Had it not been for the duty that nature bound me towards her and my country, I needed not to have been in that case that I am in. Perhaps I could have fingered more pistoles than Mr. Newell, the late Latiner, and had better ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... as we could persuade mill owners to put in more boilers and extend their furnaces, so that coal could be burned moderately and time for combustion afforded, we often saved as high as 1,000 tons in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... embrace of her aunt to meet the warm congratulations of Pembroke. Whilst he kissed her burning cheek, he whispered, loud enough for every one to hear, "And why may I not brighten in my good aunt's triumph? Attempt it, dear Mary! If you can persuade my father to allow me to make myself as happy with Lady Albina Stanhope as you will render Sobieski, I ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... skill her eyes dart every glance, Yet change so soon you'd ne'er suspect them; For she'd persuade they wound by chance, Though certain aim ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... drowned in the clash of arms and in the almost worse clamour of a thousand different sects. Now that, after his own long search in loneliness and darkness, George Fox had at length found the Voice speaking to him unmistakably in the depths of his own heart, the whole object of his life was to persuade others to listen also to 'the true Teacher that is within,' and to convince them that He was always waiting to speak not only in their hearts, but also through their lives. 'My message unto them from the Lord was,' he says, 'that they should all come together again and wait to feel the Lord's ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... of telling, or from the person of the narrator. And inasmuch as we ourselves are much more experienced and skilful in arranging and grouping facts than are our witnesses and the accused, it often happens that we persuade these people and that is the matter which ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... he said he hoped to persuade me to desist from that intention. He had a situation to offer me, and if we could come to terms, why, good and well. "You see," he continued, "I'm running a theatre here, and we're a little short in the orchestra. ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... few weeds in the garden, the lad threw it down, and said to the farmer, 'I hate you.' This was his favorite expression to those who aroused his displeasure when a child. The good man was astonished at this insubordination, and tried to persuade Myndert to do as he was told. But persuasion was useless; and so were the threats with which the farmer tried to frighten him. As for whipping the boy, he was, like me, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... the spectacled young man intensified. "I wish you'd come out and persuade him to go away," he said. "His language—isn't ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... existence monosyllable experience intellectual across sentence parallel amount embellishment apart foregoing wholly arouse forehead woolly village already forty villain all right foreign till forfeit amateur formally perpetual grandeur formerly persuade perspiration appal fulfill apparatus willful police appetite policies approximate guardian opportunity guessing presence opposite precede disappoint imminent preceptor disappearance immediately accommodation fiend choose commission siege chosen grammar ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... for supposing that he had any assistance in the rest. The internal evidence is strong that they are all from one hand; and external evidence there is none, that I have been able to meet with, which ought to persuade us, that a single line, of verse or prose, purporting to be the work of ROWLEY, existed before the time ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... Lamon. Two days previous he had sent Lamon to Richmond on business connected with a call of a convention for reconstruction. Before leaving, Mr. Lamon saw Mr. Usher, the Secretary of the Interior, and asked him to persuade Mr. Lincoln to use more caution about his personal safety, and to go out as little as possible while Lamon was absent. Together they went to see Mr. Lincoln, and Lamon asked the President if he would make ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... curiosity, my dear Kennedy, and you must put it down to my ignorance of the world. No doubt it is quite a simple thing to persuade a young lady to go off with you for three weeks or so, and then to hand her over to her own family at—what did you ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sagacious breed! If the United Provinces had but ground to stand on, they would, like the philosopher who boasted of his lever, move the world! The sly rogues think that the Amsterdammers have naturally an easy seat, and they wish to persuade all others to ride bare-back. I shall send the pamphlet up into the Indian country, and pay some scholar to have it translated into the Mohawk tongue, in order that the famous chief Schendoh, when the missionaries ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... possession of the territory in Macedonia which she considered she had won in the First Balkan War and which was given over to Serbia and Greece after the Second Balkan War by the Treaty of Bucharest. Throughout the year the negotiations continued whereby the Allies attempted to persuade Greece and Serbia to agree to Bulgaria's terms, but Greece continued obdurate in her determination to hold all she had, and Serbia yielded only in part, and very reluctantly. In August, 1915, beginning the second year of the war, these negotiations ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... had the pull and called all the judges by their first names. He would not usually go into court for less than five hundred dollars, but Mr. Simpkins said he would explain the circumstances to him and could almost promise Mrs. Mathusek that he would persuade him to do it this once for one hundred and fifty. So well did he act his part that Tony's mother had to force him to take the money, which she unsewed from inside the ticking of her mattress. Then he conducted her to the station house to show her how comfortable ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... them. His enterprise was immediately prosecuted, and having occupied the kingdom of Naples, he sent Queen Giovanna a prisoner into Hungary. This victory renewed the fears of those who managed the affairs of Florence, for they could not persuade themselves that their money would have a greater influence on the king's mind than the friendship which his house had long retained for the Guelphs, ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... sudden escape from death pass away; the half-roused debauchee resumes his old career, just as if he had never looked over the brink of eternity and shuddered with horror as he gazed. He who had seen a miracle might very soon, and probably would, if he did not like the doctrine it was to confirm, persuade himself that it was an illusion of his senses, for they have deceived him; unless, indeed, he saw a new miracle every day, and then he would be certain to get used to it. How much more easily could the Jews do ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... of the common afflictions of the people of Palestine. Neglect and ignorance and dirt and the plague of crawling flies spread the germs of disease from eye to eye, and the people submit to it with pathetic and irritating fatalism. It is hard to persuade these poor souls that the will of Allah or Jehovah in this matter ought not to be accepted until after it has been questioned. But the light of true and humane religion is spreading a little. We rejoiced to see the reception-room of the hospital filled with all sorts and conditions of men, ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... have heard that there was an epilogue to this story, relating how certain other great cities showed a narrow objection to Chicago draining herself in the direction of the Mississippi, and how Chicago, after all, succeeded in persuading those whom it was necessary to persuade that, whereas her drainage was unsuited to Lake Michigan, it would consort well with ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... sun on such an expedition operated so severely on his constitution as to produce a very high fever; yet even in this state he would not succumb to it, but persisted in marching for several days at the head of his men, although they, on perceiving his condition, had several times endeavoured to persuade him to make use of a litter which they had framed for the purpose, and wished to carry him in. But he would not remain in it even when they almost forced him to use it, and would take no repose until after having accomplished his duty. In this he was successful, as he surprised and destroyed the ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... drivers did not wish to join in the strike, and the superintendent, seeing this, did his best to persuade all the men to go to work. Upon this the strikers became angry, and bitter words ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 46, September 23, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... gone, Sally frowned. Bother! All her plans were interrupted. Her energies were subdued. Thoughtfully, she began to consider how far she might act alone. She wondered whether she might persuade Gaga to let her go out in the mornings or the afternoons. He must do so, and yet she knew he would not like it. Although the decision always lay with her, he had the sick and nervous man's fussy wish to seem to make a choice. He ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... and here am I, almost helpless. She is in debt to the Cresswells, and they are pressing the claim to her service. Take her if you can get her—it is, I fear, her only chance. Mind you—if you can persuade her; and that may ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... way to the stable, with a hug and a kiss to Martha as I passed her in the kitchen, I got the cowboy to saddle Zoe, fearing I might not persuade one of the big men on such a night, and I was not quite able myself to tighten the girths properly. She had not been out all day, and when I mounted, she danced at the prospect of ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... out of my own brains; for, though they received a very severe shock, and one of rather paralyzing effect, upon my being reminded that whatever I write is not my own legal property, but that of another, which, of course, upon consideration, I know; I cannot, nevertheless, persuade myself that that which I invent—create, in fact—can really belong to any one but myself; therefore, if anything I wrote could earn me L97, I am afraid I should consider that I, and no one else, had ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... them, so haply I might find forgetfulness and my sorrow cease from me, saying, "Take comfort and put away from thee this mourning and travel for a year or two or three, till the caravan returns, when peradventure thy breast may be dilated and thy heart lightened." She ceased not to persuade me thus, till I provided myself with merchandise and set out with the caravan. But all the time of my journey, my tears have never ceased flowing; and at every station where we halt, I open this piece of linen and look on these gazelles and call to mind my cousin Azizeh ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... the contrary, and my own remonstrances on the subject, was adopted—the effects of which were to increase the mother's ailments, as well as those of her infant. Things went on thus for some time longer, when I once more endeavoured to persuade Mrs. A—— to follow my advice, observing, that by an opposite line of conduct she was not only injuring her own health, but that of her child, neither of which, I assured her, in my opinion, would be re-established till the latter had been weaned. I expressed also my complete ...
— Remarks on the Subject of Lactation • Edward Morton
... heard the story, Mrs. Dove, who detested Ishmael as much as her daughter did, tried to persuade her husband not to visit his kraal, saying that it would only breed a feud, and that under the circumstances, it would be easy to forbid him the house upon other grounds. But Mr. Dove, obstinate as usual, refused ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... dance-music. After much consultation a satisfactory compromise was agreed upon by which violins were allowed in many meetings, if the performers "would play the fiddle wrong end up." Thus did our sanctimonious grandfathers cajole and persuade themselves that an inverted fiddle was not a fiddle at all, but a small bass-viol. An old lady, eighty years old, wrote thus in the middle of this century, of the church of her youth: "After awhile there was a bass-viol Introduced and brought into meeting and did not suit the Old people; one ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... about astronomy, and the great size and distance and possible habitation of those orbs. The vague and illusive ideas thus aroused fall in so well with the dumb emotion we were already feeling, that we attribute this emotion to those ideas, and persuade ourselves that the power of the starry heavens lies in the ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... a minute investigation, I cannot persuade myself that Waller and his friends proceeded farther than I have mentioned. What they might have done, had they not been interrupted, is matter of mere conjecture. The commission of array, which their enemies ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... considered as an instance of Addison's jealousy, for, as he could not guess the conduct of the new design, or the possibilities of pleasure comprised in a fiction of which there had been no examples, he might very reasonably and kindly persuade the author to acquiesce in his own prosperity, and forbear an attempt which he considered as an unnecessary hazard. Addison's counsel was happily rejected. Pope foresaw the future efflorescence of imagery then budding in his ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... play was resumed and my attention was concentrated on the stage until I heard a disturbance at the door of the President's box. With many others I looked in that direction, and saw a man endeavoring to persuade the reluctant usher to admit him. At last he succeeded in gaining an entrance, after which the door was closed and ...
— Lincoln's Last Hours • Charles A. Leale
... "Were opposition to come only from so base a quarter, little should I heed, and rather consider it an incitement to keener action; but there are also choice spirits, elect vessels, pillars of the congregation, men inspired with godly zeal, who are persuaded themselves, and would persuade others, that I am lukewarm in the cause, and bear the ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... me a little." She paused and laid her cup aside. "He said that when people have made what they call their last effort, they should always make just one effort more. He promised that if I could once persuade you to take an interest in your work, he would do the rest. He said all that, and a thousand other kinder things—and I sat and listened. But all the time I thought of nothing but their uselessness. Before I left I promised to do my best —but my thought was still the same. It was stronger ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... her hut, and Moslem burial could be given to only one of her legs. A Bedouin named Uddao, whom we hired as mule-keeper, was ordered to spend the night singing, and, as is customary with Somali watchmen, to address and answer himself dialogue-wise with a different voice, in order to persuade thieves that several men are on the alert. He was a spectacle of wildness as he sat before the blazing fire,— his joy by day, his companion and protector in the shades, the only step made by him in advance of ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... floodlike downpour had subsided to a gray and steady rainfall, even Caleb, none too weatherwise, knew that it had come to "stay fer a spell." He knew that the boy who had come marching down the valley road, two days before, was going to stay, too, if it lay within his power to persuade him. ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... the Reverend MacGill was planning a revival. He said he hoped that Tess and Missy would persuade all their young friends to attend. As Missy agreed to ally herself with his crusade, she felt a sort of lofty zeal glow up in her. It was a pleasantly superior kind of feeling. If one can't be fashionable and frivolous one can ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... Schwellenberg had not long been dead, and I have some reason to think she would not have been sorry to have had me supply the vacancy; for I had immediate notice sent me of her death by Miss Planta, so written as to persuade me it was a letter by command. But not all my duty, all my gratitude, could urge me, even one short fleeting moment, to weigh any interest against the soothing serenity, the unfading felicity, of a ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... to put down here all that Milly and Bessie in their partial affection said to persuade me that I was not altogether a useless member of society at large. Delightful as it was to hear, it did not succeed in quieting my newly awakened conscience or sense of responsibility; and perhaps Milly on her part did not intend that ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... opinion of his sincerity had ever taken root in the party, and, which was worse perhaps for a man in his station, the opinion of his capacity began to fall apace. He was so hard pushed in the House of Lords in the beginning of 1712 that he had been forced, in the middle of the session, to persuade the Queen to make a promotion of twelve peers at once, which was an unprecedented and invidious measure, to be excused by nothing but the necessity, and hardly by that. In the House of Commons his credit was low ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... carried conviction with it, as did the flash in her eyes, but Torrance's smile was sardonic. "You would try to persuade me Larry saved the train out of ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... the Atonement for a distilling deacon? If the aim of the Society be only to convert men from sins they have no mind to, and to convince them of errors to which they have no temptation, they might as well be spending their money to persuade schoolmasters that two and two make four, or mathematicians that there cannot be two obtuse angles in a triangle. If this be their notion of the way in which the gospel is to be preached, we do not wonder that they have found it necessary to print a tract upon the impropriety ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... look, and act (I appeal to the fact), At nineteen he determined to marry, And all I could say, Till his twentieth birthday, Would hardly persuade him to tarry. ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... continued, after an ominous silence, during which Jessie intently studied the sky-line, "I can tell you the part that would interest you most. He says if he can persuade his uncle that he is desperately in need of a change, he may see ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... hazardous journey to travel by land from Athens to Peloponnesus; and Pittheus, giving him an exact account of each of these robbers and villains, their strength, and the cruelty they used to all strangers, tried to persuade Theseus to go by sea. But he, it seems, had long since been secretly fired by the glory of Hercules, held him in the highest estimation, and was never more satisfied than in listening to any that gave an account of him; especially those that had seen him, or had been ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... reason, that all were persuaded that his mind was unhinged by the fear of death. Saint-Thomas of Villeneuve, Archbishop of Valencia, heard of his obstinacy. Valencia was the place where his sentence was given. The worthy prelate was so charitable as to try to persuade the criminal to make his confession, so as not to lose his soul as well as his body. Great was his surprise, when he asked the reason of the refusal, to hear the doomed man declare that he hated confessors, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... (who died in the very year that Jogues was exemplifying so faithfully the teaching of Him whose brother he called himself) had permitted the Huguenot who wanted to go, to follow this little priest into those wilds, instead of trying in vain to persuade those to go who would not, who shall say that American visitors from that far interior might not be speaking to-day in a tongue which Richelieu, were he alive, could ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... Holgar I had much ado to find his master again, and endless work to persuade him to quit his sulks and join the other suitors in the hall that night, when each presented his bride-gift. Even when I had won him over, he refused to take the coffer I placed in his hands, though it held his mother's jewels, few but precious. But entering with the last, as became ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Why, Lord, Sir, will you persuade me to that? Don't you know that your Father (according to the Method in such Cases, being certain of my Estate) came to me thus—Sir Timothy Tawdrey,—you are a young Gentleman, and a Knight, I knew your Father well, and my right worshipful Neighbour, our Estates lie together; therefore, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... afraid, Captain Sanders, that you will find it very difficult to persuade anyone that four officers, who as far as I know have no ill feeling against you, should conspire to bring such a charge. However, I shall report the matter to your colonel, tomorrow, with a written statement from these four officers ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... rule are anxious to persuade themselves, and to persuade the doctor that their idiot child was once as bright and intelligent as others; and that the mind was darkened by some grave illness. We have, however, the highest authority, that of Dr. Down, for saying that as a rule which has but few exceptions idiocy ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... He could not persuade himself that his captivity might last for months and possibly for years. He was confident that no matter how vigilant the watch maintained, he would gain a chance to give the Indians the slip within two or three ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor's ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... officers of government, who obeyed the dictates of personal interest, but others, from a mistaken estimate of consequences, or the undue influence of former attachments, or whose ambition aimed at objects which did not correspond with the public good, were indefatigable in their efforts to persuade the people to reject the advice of that patriotic Congress. Many, indeed, were deceived and deluded, but the great majority of the people reasoned and decided judiciously; and happy they are in reflecting ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... learned and accomplished in his own profession, as well as out of it. What he wanted was the calm, firm judgment of his father, and he had the misfortune to live in times which required a double portion of it. Every precaution was taken by me to prepare him for the offer, and to persuade him to form some previous plan of conduct, but all in vain. He would never explain himself clearly, and left everything to chance, till we were all overborne, perplexed and confounded in that fatal interval which opened and closed the negotiation with my brother. With him ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... the command of the little garrison of armed men to Memnon, a veteran legate of great experience, who had lost his left arm in the war against the Goths. The high-priest himself was occupied alternately in trying to persuade the hastily-collected force to obey their leader, and in settling quarrels, smoothing difficulties, suppressing insubordination, and considering plans with reference to supplies for his adherents, and the offering of a great sacrifice at which all the worshippers ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... thermometer. Contrasting this mood with the cold malignancy and resolve of his temper in the soldiers' room at Sessions's, I saw, to my delight, that our secret was forever imprisoned in his breast, gagged and chained down by the iron of his own inextricable infamy. At dawn he awakened me that he might persuade me to reject the evidences brought against his character by his doings and endurings of the night, and that he might rebuild the old house of words in which habitually he found shelter, too abysmally self-conceited ever to see his own hypocrisy. We breakfasted with ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... there were many confirmatory nods and responses. They were eager to find some one to blame, and upon whom they could vent their vexation; and this aristocratic young lawyer, whose words had cut like knives, was like a spark in powder. Many could go away and half persuade themselves that if it had not been for him they might have done something handsome, and even the best-disposed present were indignant. It seemed that the party would break up, before the minister returned, ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe |
