"Potent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... indeed fair; but, O Most Potent and Fearful Majesty, they have, one and all, most ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... knew what would become him better. But vanity is a potent motive: and his conscience, even when supported by La Tribe, struggled but weakly. From neither would he ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... women and men from all the country roundabout, smelling strongly of poultry. It was such a cold day that the bank was chilly and windows could not be raised. The aroma that arose before the wickets was indescribably potent. Evan felt his head swim and his stomach sicken. But work was behind him, pushing him along; he knew he must get through somehow. Filter was not able to handle the cash, especially on a market-day, and Evan would not have ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... O potent saccharin! Thou chemic offspring of by-products coaly, Late comer on the culinary scene, To hail thy aid, although it may be lowly Even compared with beet; for thou hast been Employed in sweetening my roly-poly— Thou whom ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... of the more potent chiefs may vie with the king in point of actual possessions, they fall very short in rank, and in certain marks of respect, which the collective body have agreed to pay the monarch. It is a particular privilege annexed to his sovereignty, not to be punctured nor circumcised, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... one essay through, she had no time, but she was somewhat struck with a few sentences which caught her eye; for example—'A mere dream, a vague hope, ought in some cases to be more potent than a certainty in regulating our action. The faintest vision of God should be more determinative ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... world as he was in his literary character, in practical life his Americanism was real and potent. He deplored the War of 1812 and the war with Mexico, but believed firmly that it was no man's duty to go back of the government's decision. In the conduct of his mission to Spain he showed the utmost steadiness, loyalty, and self-possession in many trying situations. He was, ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... kind and merciful Gods!" exclaimed he, "grant but this one prayer, and the voice of Edwin shall no more importune you with presumptuous vows. Blot from the book of fate the tedious interval. Give me to find the potent villain. Though he be hemmed in with guards behind guards; though his impious mansion strike its foundations deep to the centre, and rear its head above the clouds; though all the powers of hell combine on his side, I will search him ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... their alliance with Maximilian was not able to afford them even present protection; and, by closely uniting them to a power which was rival to the greatness of France, fixed them in perpetual enmity with that potent monarchy: that their vicinity exposed them first to the inroads of the enemy; and the happiest event which, in such a situation, could befall them, would be to attain a peace, though by a final subjection ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... "But great and potent as the priests of Buddh are," says a writer in the Foreign Quarterly Review, "there is a kind of sacred personage still greater than the highest of them, and next in rank to the sovereign; this is no other than ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... time-spirit was not confined to the Christian Church. For the city of Alexandria, where that spirit seems to have been peculiarly potent as shown in the transfigured Judaism of Philo, was the birthplace of the Neo-Platonic school already mentioned above. And among its greatest members, such as Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, the religious ...
— Pantheism, Its Story and Significance - Religions Ancient And Modern • J. Allanson Picton
... attractive incarnation of martial valour, poetic genius, and purity of heart. If the mocking spirit of the soldier of Lepanto could "smile chivalry away," the name alone of his English contemporary is potent enough to conjure it back again, so long as humanity is alive ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... from the fumes of the disinfectant, and declared that the remedy, like vaccination, was only a mitigated form of the disorder. The landlords of our studies looked on with irresolute wonder, when some of us sprinkled their floors with a potent decoction poured from watering- pots. Most of them regarded it as a kind of magical rite into which it would not be seemly to inquire. In one house a practical seaman, late home from a cruise, took a less reverent view of the lustration, and ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... gross superstition it had been instrumental in fostering— was always able to control events; so that no Government, not despotic, could stand against it for any great length of time. For all, freedom at intervals triumphed, and the priests became the "outs;" but ever potent, and always active, they would soon get up a new "grito" to bring about a revolutionary change in the Government. Sanguinary scenes would be enacted—hangings, shooting, garrottings—all the horrors of civil war that accompany the bitterest ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... would also be kept. The natural lawlessness and fiery passion inborn in Rake had of course not been cooled by the teaching of African warfare; and his hate was intense against the all-potent Chief of his regiment; as intense as the love he bore to the man whom he had followed ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... and that the constitution must prove as powerless as a rope of sand in restraining the passions of the people. And some of them, as we have seen, who wrote or spoke in favor of a well-balanced and potent government were branded by ungenerous men as the advocates of royalty and aristocracy, and held up to the people as traitors to republicanism, and fit subjects for the finger of scorn to point at. They were charged with blind prejudice in favor of British institutions, and as ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... heaved a sigh at the remembrance of all her books and boxes, and various comforts there. By degrees the girls came to spend the chief of the morning upstairs, at first only in working and talking, but after a few days, the remembrance of the said books grew so potent and stimulative that Fanny found it impossible not to try for books again. There were none in her father's house; but wealth is luxurious and daring, and some of hers found its way to a circulating library. She became a subscriber; ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... of disinfecting the atmosphere which we cannot consider this evening, such as the very potent one of burning sulphur. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various
... adjustments, in which the national interests of the judges, many of whom would be untrained in juridical procedure, would be decided, if not deciding, factors. Manifestly the expediency of the moment would be far more potent in the decisions reached than the principles and precepts ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... So potent was the spell of the mosque's witchery that the next instant I should have forgotten both door and panel had not Joe touched the toe of my boot with his own—he was sitting close to me—and in explanation lifted his eyebrow a hair's ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... come later, when mortality is a universal fate, as a means of rebirth and escape from death. Then the sexes develop their latest function, most prominent among the younger vertebrates, of acting as nature's most potent method of variation and differentiation. In the pursuit of the different, nature has exalted sex, and the intensity of the sex life. As far as the preservation of a species is concerned, and the reproduction ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... observe, that the Hottentots, when they kill any of the dangerous snakes, invariably cut off the head and bury it; and this they do, that no one may by chance tread upon it, as they assert that the poison of the fangs is as potent as ever, not only for weeks ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... black pedestal the letters in silver were conspicuous—Tarunta—the Deity. This amazing creation arrested the attention of my friend Chapman, and myself, and we stood half spell-bound under the influence of its seraphic and potent beauty. ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... settlers without provocation. He enlarged upon the terrible consequences which would follow if the Indians persisted in waging war upon the white man. If the lieutenant had proved that he was powerful on the war-path, he also demonstrated that he was equally potent in an argument, and the savages were as completely overwhelmed by his logic as ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... chance, That are but mutes or audience to this act, Had I but time,—as this fell sergeant—Death, Is strict in his arrest—O, I could tell you— But let it be. Horatio, I am dead! Thou livest; report me and my cause aright To the unsatisfied. O, I die, Horatio; The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit, I cannot live to hear the news from England; But I do prophesy the election lights On Fortinbras; he has my dying voice; So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less, Which have solicited. The rest is ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... O potent plant! so rare a taste Has never Turk or Gentoo gotten; The hempen Haschish of the East Is powerless ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... minute point, near Polaris," says Nichol, "so minute, that it requires a good telescope to discern its being. I have seen it as represented by a good mirror, blazing like a star of the first magnitude; and though examined by a potent microscope, clear and definite as the distinctest of these our nearest orbs, when beheld through an atmosphere not disturbed. Nay, through distances of an order I shall scarcely name, I have seen a mass of orbs compressed and brilliant, so that each ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... down in the end to the personal influence that is always most potent in dealing with these problems. We had a gang start up once when my boys were of that age, out in the village on Long Island where we lived. It had its headquarters in our barn, where it planned divers raids that aimed at killing the ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... spent on the edge of the grey sea, she could outface all foreign seasons. She could walk across the silent plaza when its dust lay dazzling white under the heat-pale sky and the city slept; the days of heavy rain and potent pervasive dampness pleased her by their prodigiousness; and when the thunderstorm planted vast momentary trees of lightning in the night she was pleased, as if she was watching someone do easily what she had always impotently desired ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... and fields which the ploughshare of the husbandman has never turned. In this state it is offered to man, not in the barbarous and isolated condition of the early ages, but to a being who is already in possession of the most potent secrets of the natural world, who is united to his fellow-men, and instructed by the experience of fifty centuries. At this very time thirteen millions of civilized Europeans are peaceably spreading over those fertile ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... my story, is a New England village, situated about ten miles from Boston. It is one of those thriving places which have sprung into existence in a moment, as it were, under the potent stimulus of a railroad and a water privilege. Twenty years ago it consisted of only one factory and about a dozen houses. Now it is a great, bustling village, and probably in a few years will become a city. Trains of cars arrive and depart every hour, as the Traveller's Guide says; and a double ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... contentions, the method of the critical school must be used tentatively and without dogmatism. Moreover, we must always remember that the critical student comes to his task with assumptions which are oftentimes more potent with him from his very blindness to their existence. Assumption in scientific investigation is inevitable. Suppose a critic to be markedly under the influence of some evolutionary hypothesis. Suppose him to believe that the formula which makes progress a movement ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... reading of a letter as the symmetrical opposite (the right glove matching the left, or inside of an outside) of the writing thereof. Save in the case of lovers or moonstruck persons, like those in Emerson's essay on "Friendship," the reading of a letter is necessarily less potent, and, as the French say, intimate, in emotion, than the writing of it. Indeed, we catch ourselves repeatedly thrusting into our pocket for perusal at greater leisure those very letters which poured out like burning lava from their writers, or were conned over lovingly, ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... me) what next should I urge To sustain him where song had restored, him? Song filled to the verge His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it yields 130 Of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty: beyond, on what fields Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten the eye, And bring blood to the lip, and commend them the cup they put by? He saith, "It is good:" still he drinks not: he lets me praise life, Gives assent, yet would ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... follow this example Paul had his own name. "The struggling stream of duty, which had not volume enough to bear man to his goal, was suddenly reinforced by the immense tidal wave of sympathy and emotion"; and to this new and potent influence Paul gave the name of faith. So vital is this word to Paul's religious doctrine that all Pauline theology and controversy has centred in it and battled round it. "To have faith in Christ means to be ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... human activity, we must inquire—"Is this a means to good states of mind?" In the case of art our answer will be prompt and emphatic. Art is not only a means to good states of mind, but, perhaps, the most direct and potent that we possess. Nothing is more direct, because nothing affects the mind more immediately; nothing is more potent, because there is no state of mind more excellent or more intense than the state of aesthetic ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... Balfour's record for twenty-five years had been one of consistent friendliness toward the United States. When President Cleveland's Venezuelan message, in 1896, had precipitated a crisis in the relations of the two countries, it was Mr. Balfour's influence which was especially potent in causing Great Britain to modify its attitude and to accept the American demand for arbitration. That action not only amicably settled the Venezuelan question; it marked the beginning of a better feeling between the English-speaking ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... literature are stepping into a new arena, on which potent forces that may radically affect both are struggling with each other. Is Jewish poetry on the point of dying out, or is it destined to enjoy a resurrection? Who would be rash enough to prophesy ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... exchange for a woolly token from young Gumbo's pate. Of course he said he was regum progenies, a descendant of Ashantee kings. In Caffraria, Connaught and other places now inhabited by hereditary bondsmen, there must have been vast numbers of these potent sovereigns in former times, to judge from their descendants ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... soon found himself fighting on the defensive. Heinzman wanted the improvements already existing condemned and sold as a public utility to the highest bidder. He offered further guarantees as to future improvements. In addition were other and more potent arguments proffered behind closed doors. Many cases resolved themselves into a bald question of cash. Others demanded diplomacy. Jobs, fat contracts, business favours, influence were all flung out freely—bribes as absolute as though ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... Middle Ages was more conducive to the prosperity of a town than the reputation of having a holy man within its borders, or the possession of the miracle-working relics of a saint. Just as St. Elizabeth made Marburg so St. Sebaldus proved a very potent attraction to Nuremberg. As early as 1070 and 1080 we hear of pilgrimages to Nuremberg in honor of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... offensive and defensive weapons. The Spanish writers speak of them as skilled archers, rude antagonists, but not poisoning their weapons.[17-2] Besides the bow and arrow, [c]ha, they used a lance, achcayupil,[18-1] and especially the blow-pipe, pub, a potent weapon in the hands of an expert, the knowledge of which was widely extended over tropical America. Their arrow points were of stone, especially obsidian, bone and metal. Other weapons were the wooden war club, [c]haibalche; the sling, ica[t]; ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... exists, is to acknowledge that this rather puzzling double conception is necessary to the expression of the phenomena of motion or change, and that this and similar double notions, instead of being anomalies, are among the higher and more potent ...
— Parmenides • Plato
... have some taste, occupation, or pursuit, adequate to charm and engross us—a ruling passion, a favourite study. Accordingly, the victims of dulness and ennui are often advised to betake themselves to something of this potent character. Kingsley, in his little book on the "Wonders of the Shore," endeavoured to convert mankind at large into marine naturalists; and, some time ago, there appeared in the newspapers a letter from Carlyle, regretting that he himself had not been indoctrinated into the ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... some fair form— Tidings of glorious face and lovely bloom, Which stir and goad the regions turgid now With seed abundant; so that, as it were With all the matter acted duly out, They pour the billows of a potent ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... had had was under a spell of suggestion from the extraordinary vivid boy who had once been a man; all his own excitement, his acceptance of the incredible had been merely the effect of a stronger, more potent will imposed on his own. How strong that will was, he guessed from his own instantaneous obedience to Frank's suggestion of sleep. And armed with impenetrable commonsense he came down to breakfast. ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... on the point of postponing his departure. He suffered throughout the journey as he had never suffered on any journey before; and during his first few days at Primiero, could only lead the life of an invalid. He rallied, however, as usual, under the potent effects of quiet, fresh air, and sunshine; and fully recovered his normal state before proceeding to Venice, where the continued sense of physical health combined with many extraneous circumstances to convert his proposed short ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... certain moods of the soul, certain spiritual fevers, if I may so call them, which directly open the inner being to a cognisance of this astral region I have mentioned. In your case it happened to be a peculiarly potent drug that did it. ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... turned to me once more with his European manner. 'A tiger's body has wonderful power after his death,' he answered. 'His fangs and his claws are very potent charms. His heart gives courage. Whoever eats of it will never know fear. His liver preserves against death and pestilence. But the highest virtue of all exists in his whiskers. They are mighty talismans. Chopped up in food, they act ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... capture it without bombardment, and possibly their staff yet hoped that it might fall undamaged into their hands. The attitudes of English and French artillerymen towards large towns which they saw opposite to them were naturally different. On this particular front St. Quentin was a potent hostage in the enemy's power and one which accounted for the extremely quiet conduct of the war in that sector after the ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... day of peril dark Wont to believe the dotage of fond love From the fair Cyprian deity, who rolls In her third epicycle, shed on men By stream of potent radiance: therefore they Of elder time, in their old error blind, Not her alone with sacrifice ador'd And invocation, but like honours paid To Cupid and Dione, deem'd of them Her mother, and her son, him whom ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... divine right of kings. No common man should have been given such a glimpse of empire; but, in justice to the magic of such glances which come once from the eyes of every good woman, for some good man, in each lifetime, it must be acknowledged that their potent wizardry turns the commonplace, even the tawdry surroundings of a thousand million every-day lives, into ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... these enchantments brought infinite peace to his soul. The inhabitant of Paris has one great blessing, which he does not take into account until he suffers from its loss—one great half of his existence is filled up without the least trouble to himself. The all-potent vitality which ceaselessly envelops him takes away from him in a vast degree the exertion of amusing himself. The roar of the city, rising like a great bass around him, fills up the gaps in his thoughts, and never leaves that ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and the potatoes, and made firm, definite, accurate protests when things went wrong; even sending samples of queer cream to the Board of Health for analysis. What with my business stationery and her accurate figures our letters were strangely potent, and we were well supplied, while our friends sadly and tamely complained of imposture ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... were for the most part younger, and Clavering was scarcely half his age: but when they met in conclave something usually happened, for the seat of the legislature was far away, and their will considerably more potent thereabouts than the law of the land. Sheriff, postmaster, railroad agent, and petty politician carried out their wishes, and as yet no man had succeeded in living in that region unless he did homage to the cattle-barons. They were ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... Redmayne treated him to an exhibition of the driest fireworks on record. Mr. Sandys assented to everything, and the number of times that he exclaimed "True, true! admirably said!" exceeded belief. He said to Howard afterwards that the unmixed wine of intellect had proved a potent beverage. "One must drink it down," he said, "and trust to assimilating it later. It has been a glorious week for me, my dear Howard, thanks to you! Quite rejuvenating indeed! I carry away with me a precious treasure of thought—just a few notes of suggestive trains ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a very warlike and potent people about forty years since, (1624) at which time they were in their meridian. Their chief Sachem held dominion over divers petty Sagamores, as over part of Long Island, over the Mohegans, and over the Sagamores of Quinapak, yea, over all the people that dwelt ...
— John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter Cockenoe-de-Long Island and The Story of His Career from the Early Records • William Wallace Tooker
... bit of philosophy to his memory for future use and set to work removing the heavy belt worn by the Earl. This, he knew, was another potent talisman, which could guard its wearer from physical harm when ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... fails, the formation of fresh ideals and fresh hypotheses is demanded; but that which causes one postulate to prevail over another is always the satisfaction which, if successful, it promises to some need or desire. Thus 'thought' is everywhere inspired by 'will.' It is an instrument, the most potent man has found, whereby he brings about a harmony with his environment. This harmony is always something of a compromise. We postulate conformity between Nature and one of our ideals. We usually desire more than we can get, but insist on all ...
— Pragmatism • D.L. Murray
... upon a stage of development which possesses for the modern student a singular and potent charm True, many traces still remain of the sculptor's imperfect mastery. He cannot pose his figures in perfectly easy attitudes not even in reliefs, where the problem is easier than in sculpture in the round. His knowledge of human anatomy—that is to say, of the ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... during the season, and with every meeting her witchery over Joe had become more potent. He had stolen a glove from her during one of his visits to Goldsboro, her home town in the South, and during the exciting games of the last World's Series he had worn it close to his heart when he had pitched his ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... these strange and eventful Providences, in the light of the wonderful changes wrought by Emancipation, I am more and more constrained to believe that the reasons, which years ago led me to aid the bondman and preserve the records of his sufferings, are to-day quite as potent in convincing me that the necessity of the ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... intention of giving it expression. He had uttered the girl's name with no more emotion than that of his father, but it seemed to Knight that by that very fact he had managed to convey a warning more potent than any that had followed. Otherwise he would scarcely have taken the trouble to mention her. The possibility of subtlety in this great, slow-speaking giant piqued him to a keener interest. He resolved to probe a ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... this Business was very few, and the worst in France; the King's own Subjects were not to be employ'd, unless a few Straglers; besides there were no Transportships, nor in fine, any Thing that look'd like an Attempt to Conquer three Potent Kingdoms. King William had in a manner the whole Kingdom in his Design at his Descent, he also had the English Army secur'd to him, he brought over 15000 Veterans in a Fleet of 600 Sail, but this sham Descent was destitute of all these Advantages. ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... our people, the industries and the general welfare of our nation, cannot be permitted to depend upon the policies and dictates of any particular group of men, whether employers or employees." And this conviction has grown apace with the years until it stands today as the most potent check to aggression by either trade ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... has an unmistakable resemblance to the male organ in its active state, the foliage of the tree or bush is equally remindful of the female. What more clear than that the conjunction of Tree and Serpent is the fulfilment in nature of that sex-mystery which is so potent in the life of man and the animals? and that the magic ritual most obviously fitted to induce fertility in the tribe or the herds (or even the crops) is to set up an image of the Tree and the Serpent combined, ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... him; and this time it was not the heart of the Pharisee. There is no lure known to the man part of the race that is half so potent as the tale of a ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... connected as it usually is with industrial inefficiency in the man, bad housekeeping in the woman, and lack of self-control in both, is of course, a potent factor in non-support and probably ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... was, perhaps, the potent influence in fixing Hawthorne's attention on a definite object, and incited him to seek in the history of his own country, and especially in the colonial tradition of New England, which was so near at hand, the field of fiction. ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... all potent ruler, rise, And vindicate thy people's cause; Till every tongue in every land 95 Shall offer up ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... The most potent argument for letting things drift was his own craving for her. She was becoming necessary to him. Whenever he thought of her it was with a tender glow. Her soft long-lashed eyes would come between him and the editorial he was writing. A dozen times a day he could see ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... horde of savage things it normally ruled? Did the termite hordes make a practice of devouring their helpless and worn-out directing brains as it was known they devoured all their worn-out, no longer potent queens? ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... intercessory; but kindling desire loses a part of its purest spirituality if the lips try to express it. It is a truism that we can think more lucidly and profoundly than we can write or speak. The silent intercession and unvoiced imploring is an honest and potent prayer to heal and save. The audible prayer may be offered to be heard of men, though ostensibly to catch God's ear,—after the fashion of Baal's prophets,—by speaking loud enough to be heard; but ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... Odd! yet how can the Indian Bureau know that Crazy Horse and Two Bears and Kicking Mule want to buy Mr. ——'s bullets to kill his brother with? How, indeed, should Mr. —— know? Army officers, 'tis true, have warned them time and again; but when were army officers' statements ever potent in the Interior Department against the unendorsed assertion of Crazy Horse or Kicking Mule that he only wanted to kill buffalo? Indeed, is not Mr. —— himself eager to go bail for the purchaser, since his ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... fetters of his self-repression; for in the growing glory of the dawn, he watched also the glorious resurrection of the one great love of his life. Again, after many years, she lived in him: in every thought and hope and dream; not now as a child, potent, through ignorance, to wound him past endurance; but as a woman, beautiful through time and sorrow, magnificent in the wreck of her woman's life. Still he knew well that if love was to be his, it must remain ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... caused here by the production of a splendid Japanese punch-bowl, supported upon a teakwood stand. In it the host proceeded to brew a potent and steaming mixture, whose fragrance must have delighted the jocund gods of jollity and laughter. Tom was notorious for being chronically in pecuniary difficulties, but he was always adding to his collection of bibelots, and he never was known to lack the ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... shook, as the thing on the bed shook. The sense of loneliness grew upon him until it became complete, appalling. For the first time he understood that loneliness can possess a ponderable quality. It was, he felt, potent and active in the room—a thing he couldn't understand, or challenge, ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... Harry's fine person and clothes (and which was the most potent is not known), she accepted the heart, and he set about to inform his father of his good fortune, for mother he had none. 'Twas with inward quakings, for beauty, were it Helen's own, is but a blunted arrow against a seasoned heart of seventy: and Sir Francis ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... who, yourselves in doubt, Light up false fires, and send us far about;- Still may yon spider round your pages spin, Subtile and slow, her emblematic gin! Buried in dust and lost in silence, dwell, Most potent, grave, and reverend friends—farewell! Near these, and where the setting sun displays, Through the dim window, his departing rays, And gilds yon columns, there, on either side, The huge Abridgments of ...
— The Library • George Crabbe
... with these decrees, presidential elections were held on the first Wednesday in January. The Antifederalists were still potent for mischief in New York, with the result that, just as that state had not joined in the Declaration of Independence until after it had been proclaimed to the world, and just as she refused to adopt the Federal Constitution until after more than the requisite ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... the more Foster's work should have towered into the blue. Trade and troops were the life of the nation. Hughes, White, Borden, Rowell, Meighen, were all shoved into greater eminence by the work they did in the war; Foster was no bigger or more potent a figure in war work or any other kind of work when peace was signed than he ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... raised to the very heavens by the power of Neptune, and supposed that they had overwhelmed the bark which carried AEneas and his companions, the objects of her eternal hatred. She smiled, as the face of Nature smiles when the clouds that have long covered it with gloom, have disappeared before the potent influence of the "glorious orb that gives the day," and at length she rapturously cried out, "How lucky to have written my France, while France was still so French!"—Lady Morgan was ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... generous, simple-hearted, easily deceived, but always philanthropic man, who comes through all his trials without bating a jot of his love for humanity and his faith in human nature. But the master-work of his plastic hand was Sam Weller, whose wit and wisdom pervaded both hemispheres, and is as potent to excite laughter to-day ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... wax-like blossoms, which from their intense sweetness form a strong attraction to bears and other animals of the forests; they also form a valuable harvest for the natives, who not only eat them, but by fermentation and distillation they produce a potent spirit, which is the favourite intoxicating liquor of ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... hazardous to the independence, of the States, was not attended with any evil consequences. The factions and the anarchy which had before been the consequence of the course now adopted were prevented by the potent influence of national fear lest the enemy might triumph, and crush the hopes, the jealousies, and the enmities of all parties in one general ruin. Thus the common danger awoke a common interest, and the splendid successes of her allies kept Holland ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... alone, perhaps it would not have been sufficient ground for his recall; but coming as it did on the top of all the others, it was, I think, the most potent factor. ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... sprung, The Church invokes the Spirit's fiery Tongue; Those gracious breathings rouse but to controul The Storm and Struggle in the Sinner's Soul. Happy! ere long his carnal conflicts cease, And the Storm sinks in faith and gentle peace— Kings own its potent sway, and humbly bows The gilded diadem upon their brows— Its saving voice with Mercy speeds to all, But ah! how few who quicken at the call— Gentiles the favour'd 'little Flock' detest, And Abraham's children spit upon their rest. Once ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... Majesty. This is a divine and most potent charm, called the Invincible. Marichi's holy son gave it to the baby when the birth-ceremony was performed. If it falls on the ground, no one may touch it except the boy's parents or ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... Louis XV. Round the doors of these inns in summer-time might always be found groups of loquacious Breton and Norman sailors in red caps and sashes, voyageurs and canoemen from the far West in half Indian costume, drinking Gascon wine and Norman cider, or the still more potent liquors filled with the fires of the Antilles. The Batture kindled into life on the arrival of the fleet from home, and in the evenings of summer, as the sun set behind the Cote a Bonhomme, the natural magnetism of companionship drew the lasses of Quebec down to the beach, where, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the absence of Gov. Porter and Hon. Schuyler Colfax; but the gracious presence of Mrs. Colfax was a reminder of her husband's fidelity to our cause, and Mrs. Porter's sympathetic face was a scarcely less potent support than would have been a speech from the governor. Just before the close of the meeting the following telegram was sent to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... HANOVER; and in reviewing his life it is not easy to forbear a wish that he had lived in a happier time, when he might, among the descendants of that illustrious family, have found a more liberal and potent patronage. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... with this service alone, she undertook to fry pancakes for the officers' breakfast. It was through these kindly services, ungrudgingly done, at any time of the day or night, that her name was established as one of the most potent factors in contributing to the comfort and welfare of the men, and there was no hole or tear of the men's clothes that "Ma" could ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... again what I said to my friend Calvisius, when my grief was fresh: "I am afraid I shall not live so well ordered a life now." Send me a word of sympathy, but do not say, "He was an old man, or he was infirm." These are hackneyed words; send me some that are new, that are potent to ease my trouble, that I cannot find in books or hear from my friends. For all that I have heard and read occur to me naturally, but they are powerless in the presence ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... their glorious Revolution: they trusted reason and have had their reward; no such leap forward has ever been made as France made in that one decade, and the effects are still potent. In the last hundred years the language of Moliere has grown fourfold; the slang of the studios and the gutter and the laboratory, of the engineering school and the dissecting table, has been ransacked for special terms to enrich and strengthen the language in order that it may deal easily with the ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... under. At this the town of Mansoul began to prick up its ears, and what is it, pray, what is it, thought they; and he said, I have somewhat to say to you concerning your King, concerning his law, and also touching yourselves. Touching your King, I know he is great and potent, but yet all that he hath said to you is neither true, nor yet for your advantage. 1. It is not true, for that wherewith he hath hitherto awed you shall not come to pass, nor be fulfilled, though you do the thing ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... vain. Once, upon the steps of a quaint and picturesque cottage stood an artist, with eyes that flashed heaven's own azure, and lit his waving curls with a gleam of gold. His pleading look tempted the Child of the Kingdom with potent affinities of land and likeness; his fair cottage called her from wall and casement, with the spiritual eyes of ideal faces looking down upon her, forever changeless and forever pure; but when, from purest pity, kindness, and beauty-love, she would have drawn near the hearth, a sigh ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... urous on its brow, "which serpent threw himself upon him who approached it, coiled itself around his neck, and killed him." A sorcerer had invested these protectors of the ancient Pharaohs with their powers, but another equally potent magician could elude their vigilance, paralyze their energies, if not for ever, at least for a sufficient length of time to ferret out the treasure and rifle the mummy. The cupidity of the fellahin, highly inflamed by the stories which they were accustomed to hear, gained the mastery over their ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... securely bound to a flat plate on the outside. This plate was formerly of shell, or later of metal. To this hair string was ascribed certain magic powers, especially in love affairs, and the possession of it was a potent spell. ...
— Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore • J. Walter Fewkes
... purposes of the State, Titian having, as has been seen, made good his gravest default, was reinstated in his lucrative and by no means onerous office. He regained the senseria by decree of August 28, 1539. The potent d'Avalos, Marques del Vasto, had in 1539 conferred upon Titian's eldest son Pomponio, the scapegrace and spendthrift that was to be, a canonry. Both to father and son the gift was in the future to be productive of more evil than good. At or about the same time he had commissioned ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... controlled friendship with a person of the same sex. And here it is pertinent to put forward what the author conceives to be the fundamental trouble with the Imogenes of both sides of the Atlantic. It is pertinent because he was, at the time of writing this book, under the influence of a very potent and inspiring friendship for a man now dead, a friendship which moulded his ideas and inspired him to hammer out for himself a characteristic philosophy of life. And one of the most important determinations of that philosophy deals with the common errors concerning friendship and love. ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... Middlemarch tolerated this deficiency in him as if he had been a Lord Chancellor; indeed it is probable that his professional weight was the more believed in, the world-old association of cleverness with the evil principle being still potent in the minds even of lady-patients who had the strictest ideas of frilling and sentiment. It was perhaps this negation in the Doctor which made his neighbors call him hard-headed and dry-witted; conditions of texture which were ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... fact, the Prime Minister, and even his supposed wishes and preferences, were the most potent forces in Madagascar. No one seemed able to exercise any independent influence, and time after time the men who showed any special ability or gained popularity have been removed, swept away as it were, out of the path of the man who had ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... no wise the cause of the conflict, but only an incident. In the later controversies that arose, however, its effect in operating as a lever upon the passions, prejudices, or sympathies of mankind, was so potent that it has been spread, like a thick cloud, over the whole horizon of ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... consequences of the frightful catastrophe that has fallen upon us through the mad act of an insensate War Cabinet. I can only say that if this is to be our spirit we are indeed defeated. Where is our devotion to manly sports, so potent in the moulding of our National character? What has become of our immemorial Right to Look On? Where is our boasted liberty, deprived as we are now to be of a chance to find the winner? What did WELLINGTON say of Waterloo? and MARLBOROUGH ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 27, 1917 • Various
... who had had all the trouble he anticipated with the chariot of Progress—and a good deal more—came in for a cup of Prochnow's potent, bewitching coffee. ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... 'hawed,' not knowing what to answer to this; while I burned all over with joy at having so potent an advocate coming to my aid in this ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... deep and earnest feeling, all high and noble thought so naturally puts on a style of modesty and reserve. It communicates itself, not by verbal emphasis or volume, but by a sort of blessed infection too subtile and too potent for words to convey. Volubility strangles it; and it is felt to be insincere when it grows loquacious. A wordy grief is merely a grief from the throat outwards; "the grief that does not speak," this it is that "whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break." And the truly eloquent speaker ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... one of the most potent causes of wrinkles and the remedy, of course, is the getting of good air. Excellence of the highest degree may not be attainable; if not, let us get the best we can. With good air should come good living and plenty of ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... idolaters, though of a comparatively enlightened kind; but here, as in other things, there was a discrepancy between their professed and actual belief, for they had a genuine and potent faith which existed without recognition ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... engines, daggers, pistols, disguised murderers, and so forth. Yet his firm grasp upon the essential qualities of diseased and guilty human nature saves him, even at his wildest, from the unrealities and extravagances into which less potent artists of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... the world be growing dark, And twilight cool thy potent day inclose! The sun, beneath the round earth sunk, still glows All the night through, sleepless and young and stark. Oh, be thy spirit faithful as the lark, More daring: in the midnight of thy woes, Dart through them, higher ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... guilty of extraordinary violence towards the patriarch of Aquileia and three other bishops whom he dragged to Ravenna. His successor was Romanus who held office till 597. In the same year, 589, Authari was married at Pavia to Theodelinda, who was to be so potent an instrument in the conversion of the Lombards and therefore in the salvation of Italy. And in the following year, 590, pope Pelagius II. died, and Gregory the Great was chosen to ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... in the faces of Madonnas; and adoration succeeds to sympathy, since the excellences we admire are akin to the perfections we adore. "The occult elements" and "latent affinities," of which material pursuits never take cognizance, are "influences as potent in adding a charm to labor or repose as dew or air, in the natural world, in giving a tint to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... how ill you can conceive the image of my dear love, who has no witchcraft but beauty, no charm so potent as ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... toward its own fulfilment; but there is no such heroic element in our drama, and what is remarkable is, that, under whatever government, democracy grew with the growth of the New England Colonies, and was at last potent enough to wrench them, and the better part of the continent with them, from the mother country. It is true that Jefferson embodied in the Declaration of Independence the speculative theories he had learned in France, but the impulse to separation came ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... ought to be grateful For such an infallible, all-potent party, At this time of day too, to show us the way to— Wherever you'd lead us, with confidence hearty. And as for those duffers, your confidence suffers To tug at the sceptre, with vain thoughts of swaying it, What can ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... has fashioned to His own image and likeness. You proclaim the day which the Lord has made, and Poetry exults and rejoices in it. You praise the Creator for His works, and she shows you that they are very good. Beware how you misprise this potent ally, for hers is the art of Giotto and Dante: beware how you misprise this insidious foe, for hers is the art of modern France and of Byron. Her value, if you know it not, God knows, and know the enemies of God. If you have no room for her beneath ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... registrar?' and the answer would be, 'No, we are Samurai and were united before the Elders.' In Catholic countries those who use only the civil marriage are considered outcasts by the religiously minded, which shows that recognition by the State is not as potent as recognition by the community to which one belongs. The religious marriage is considered the only one binding by Catholics, and the civil ceremony is respected merely because the State has brute force ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... delight of contemplating his own actions with that delicious complacency that others ought to do, if they were not hood-winked, No power is adequate to ravish from him the merited esteem of himself; no authority is sufficiently potent to give it to him when he deserves it not; the mightiest monarch cannot lend stability to this esteem, when it is not well founded; it is then a ridiculous sentiment: it ought to be considered, it really is "vanity and vexation of spirit," it ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... used up on old Hilbrook." It passed through Ewbert's languid thought, which it stirred to a vague amusement, that the son of an older church than the Rixonite might have found in this thoroughly terrestrial attitude of his wife a potent argument for sacerdotal celibacy; but he did not attempt to formulate it, and he listened submissively while she went on: "One thing: I am certainly not going to let you see him again till you've seen the doctor, and I hope he won't come ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... living in the same house with her for the remainder of his life. He had wished to marry Linda Tressel, because she was young, and was acknowledged to be a pretty girl; and he still wished to marry her, if not now for these reasons, still for others which were quite as potent. He wanted to be her master, to get the better of her, to punish her for her disdain of him, and to bring her to his feet. But he was not a man so carried away by anger or by a spirit of revenge as to be altogether indifferent to his own future happiness. There had ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... one of the men whose voice was most potent at that time: a man whose heart was then aflame with the idea of remaking China. They dared much, did these men, and Tantsetung, a Chinaman of high rank and a Christian, consecrated himself on his knees to ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... a head-dress of the tail feathers of the green parrot, professional uniform and potent specific against evil spirits, fluffed gently as he slowly stalked towards the council house. From the other side of a hut walked MYalu as if he had come from a different direction. In the open gate of the royal enclosure sat a muscular young man upon his haunches, ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... His presence brought a strange peace and calm over her soul. His influence was more potent over her than that of Langhetti. In this strange company he seemed to her to be the centre and ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... where fertile only calculated to produce few articles,—a people thus disadvantageously situated, in respect to territory and soil, and moreover engaged in a most perilous, doubtful, and protracted contest for their religion and liberty, with by far the most potent monarch of Europe,—this people, blessed with knowledge and freedom, forced to become industrious and enterprizing by the very adverse circumstances in which they were placed, gradually wrested from their ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... the lover who had courted her in Habana. It was all very wonderful, very exciting, very real. Dona Isabel found herself robed for him in her wedding-gown of white, and realized that she was beautiful. It seemed also as if her powers of attraction were magically enhanced, for she exercised a potent influence over him. Her senses were quickened a thousandfold, too. For instance, she could see great distances—a novel and agreeable sensation; she enjoyed strange, unsuspected perfumes; she heard the music of distant waterfalls and understood the whispered language of ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... countries, contributed to furnish the ancient wine-cellar, and gratify the variety of taste among connoisseurs; and for such as had not the means to purchase foreign productions, the juice of the English grape, either alone or mingled with honey and spice, furnished a not unpalatable and not very potent stimulant. As claret and hock with us, so anciently Bastard and Piment were understood in a generic sense, the former for any mixed wine, the latter for one seasoned ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... aurora borealis. Thus the months went by until the middle of May arrived, and the ptarmigan began to appear. A considerable number were shot, their flesh having a beneficial effect on the crew. Under the snow was found an abundance of sorrel, a most potent antidote against scurvy. Footsteps of deer were seen, the animals evidently moving northwards. As soon as the cold decreased, the commander made an excursion across Melville Island, on which the vegetable productions were dwarf willow, sorrel, ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... at such times, there is no potation equal to porter and stout, or, what is better still, an equal part of porter and stout. Ale, except for a few constitutions, is too subtle and too sweet, generally causing acidity or heartburn, and stout alone is too potent to admit of a full draught, from its proneness to affect the head; and quantity, as well as moderate strength, is required to make the draught effectual; the equal mixture, therefore, of stout and porter yields all the properties desired or desirable as a medicinal agent ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... the membranes and the womb, we find the occasion of unnaturally firm adhesions which prevent the spontaneous detachment of the membranes. Again, in low conditions of health and an imperfect power of contraction we find a potent cause of retention, the general debility showing particularly in the indisposition of the womb to contract, after calving, with sufficient energy to expel the afterbirth. Hence we find the condition common with insufficient or innutritious ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... lady had enormous influence in the parish. And as Laurence's plans and hopes and ambitions unfolded before her, she threw this potent influence, with all it implied, in the scale of the young lawyer's favor. They began their work at the bottom, as all great movements should begin. What struck me with astonishment was that so many quiet women seemed to be ready and waiting, as for a hoped ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... Henry pitched his camp at Leith, Albany was within reach with what is called a great army, but did not advance a step to meet the invader—in face of whom, however, young David of Rothesay, and with him many potent personages, retired into Edinburgh Castle with every appearance of expecting a siege there. But when no sign of any such intention appeared or warlike movement of any kind, nothing but the gleam of Henry's spears, stationary day ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... works, she starts a ghost. If such the mode, what can we hope to-night, Who rashly dare approach without a sprite? No dreadful cavern, no midnight scream, No rosin flames, nor e'en one flitting gleam. Nought of the charms so potent to invite The monstrous charms of terrible delight. Our present theme the German Muse supplies, But rather aims to soften than surprise. Yet, with her woes she strives some smiles to blend, Intent as well to cheer as to amend: On her own native soil she knows the art To charm the fancy, ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald
... "Thrice potent, generous, and august emperor; here let my knees cleave to the earth, until thou shalt do me justice on that inhuman caitiff Gobble. Let him disgorge my substance which he hath devoured; let him restore to my widowed arms my child, my boy, the delight ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... commonly styled Our Lady of the Hermits. I was astonished by the profuse ostentation of riches in the poorest corner of Europe; amidst a savage scene of woods and mountains, a palace appears to have been erected by magic; and it was erected by the potent magic of religion. A crowd of palmers and votaries was prostrate before the altar. The title and worship of the Mother of God provoked my indignation; and the lively naked image of superstition suggested to me, as in the same place it had done to Zuinglius, the ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... the "Economic Interpretation of History," which gave a great impetus to the study, by historians, of the economic influences upon political and social development. Professor Seligman showed conclusively that one of the most potent forces in the growth of civilization has been man's reaction upon his material environment. Since that time the pendulum has swung so far in this direction that many students of history and economics would seem to think that all of life can ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers
... Grove in 1884 looked almost as unchanged as though it had shared the slumbers of the "Sleeping Beauty" since 1871. Only, a certain potent charm had fled with the presence of the departed master. It was now but his pictured eyes and silver hair that lit up the dimness of the room that had been sacred to him. The books and papers covering ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... not a word to say; but I must feel convinced that at times, judging from conversation, expressions, letters, etc., you have as completely given up belief in immutability of specific forms as I have done. I must still think a clear expression from you, IF YOU COULD HAVE GIVEN IT, would have been potent with the public, and all the more so, as you formerly held opposite opinions. The more I work the more satisfied I become with variation and natural selection, but that part of the case I look at as less important, though more interesting to me personally. As you ask for criticisms ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... question. Satan, as we have seen, has an object in deceiving the human family, as far as possible, to their destruction, by signs and wonders. In this work, according to the prophecy before us, he will go to the extent of his power, and show his most potent signs. Bringing the supposed forms and features of the dead before living witnesses, is his most successful method at the present time. But as this work is, as yet, done largely in the dark, it gives more room for jugglery and imposition. The time ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... Good is a more potent mover than evil: because evil does not cause movement save in virtue of good, as Dionysius states (Div. Nom. iv). Hence an evil does not prove an obstacle to reason, so as to require virtues unless that evil be great; there ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... daughter" was still as guileless, reverent, potent a thought in Draxy's heart as when, upon her unconscious childish lips, the words had been a spell, disarming and winning all ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... of other regions which grow similar crops is a potent factor in determining the desirability of a region. For example, the farmers east of the Allegheny mountains during the nineteenth century competed with the farmers of the central West who had free, fertile, easily tilled land on which to grow maize, wheat and oats. Cattle ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... earth, and consequently the resultant force which expresses the joint result of all the individual forces must also be directed through the centre of the earth. A force of this character, whatever other potent influence it may have, will be powerless to affect the rotation of the earth. If the earth be rotating on an axis, the direction of that axis would be invariably preserved; so that as the earth revolves around the sun, it would still continue to rotate around an axis which always ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... in whole acres of typography is fast exhausting itself, that the famed Encyclopaedical Tree has borne no fruit, and that Diderot the great has contracted into Diderot the easily measurable. The humoristic method is a potent instrument for working such contractions and expansions at will. The greatest of men are measurable enough, if you choose to set up a standard that is half transcendental and half cynical. A saner and more patient criticism measures the ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... glory in what it lacks, and I flattered myself that I had a natural gift for finesse and subtlety, and was a born deviser of wars. Again and again I told myself how I and Lawrence's Virginians—grown under my hand to a potent army—should roll back the invaders to the hills and beyond, while the Sioux of the Carolinas guarded one flank and the streams of the Potomac the other. In those days the star of the great Marlborough had not risen; ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... and self-reliance, while, by the liberty they confer of association and combination, they facilitate industrial enterprise on a large scale. The same institutions, in another of their aspects, give a most direct and potent stimulus to the desire of acquiring wealth. The earlier decline of feudalism [in England] having removed or much weakened invidious distinctions between the originally trading classes and those who had been accustomed to despise them, and a ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill |
