"Renunciation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was subdued; but that condition seemed irrecoverably gone, and she recoiled from the remembrance of it. No prayer, no striving now, would bring back that negative peace; the battle of her life, it seemed, was not to be decided in that short and easy way,—by perfect renunciation at the very threshold ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... material things must be transferred to a perception of and dependence on spiritual things. For Spirit to be supreme in demonstration, it must be supreme in our affections, and we must be clad with divine power. Purity, self-renunciation, faith, and understanding must reduce all things real to their own mental denomination, Mind, which divides, subdivides, increases, diminishes, constitutes, and sustains, according ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... good-looking, and accomplished caballero should have been the victim of not one, but even many, erotic episodes, did not strike the holy father as being peculiar; but that he should have been brought by a solitary unfortunate attachment to despair and renunciation of the world appeared to him marvelous. He was not unfamiliar with the remorse of certain gallants for peccadillos with other men's wives; but this Americano's self-abasement for the sins of his own wife—as he foolishly claimed her to be—whom he hated and despised, struck Father ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... and was a sensualist. He fasted, and loved luxury. He could control his appetites, and fling self-control to the winds. But in all that he did and left undone there was the diligent spirit at work of the man who can persevere, in renunciation even as in pursuit. And that presence of the diligent spirit made him ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... don't. If I had thought so three years ago, I'd be dust or ashes at this present moment. It can't be that you would feel hurt if Tom Appleton there should fail to keep his oath and should continue to live in spite of your renunciation of him?" ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... of Christ on the subject was. But it was evident that the Reformation had begun in earnest. Though nineteen Anabaptists were condemned in St. Paul's to be burned, and on fourteen of them the sentence was carried out, Paul's Cross echoed with renunciation of the Pope's authority. The miraculous rood of Bexley, in Kent, having been exposed as a fraud there, was brought up to Paul's Cross, February, 1538, and the mechanism having been shown to the indignant audience, it ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... its further ravages. This was nothing less than killing his love, by immediately getting Claudet married to Reine Vincart. Sacrifices like this are easier to souls that have been subjected since their infancy to Christian discipline, and accustomed to consider the renunciation of mundane joys as a means of securing eternal salvation. As soon as this idea had developed in Julien's brain, he seized upon it with the precipitation of a drowning man, who distractedly lays hold of the first object that seems to offer him a means of safety, ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... happy in Darwaysh-hood, he cared naught for rule or government or aught of worldly vanities; so he sent back the official with his duty and grateful thanks, requesting that he might be left to live his life in solitude and renunciation of matters mundane. Now when Queen Shahrazad had made an end of telling her story and yet the night was not wholly spent, King Shahryar spake saying, "This thy story, admirable and most wonderful, hath given me extreme delight; and I pray thee do thou tell us another tale ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... "Lovely!" Then she brushed her elderly rosy cheek against his shabby coat and kissed it. They had been married for thirty years, and she had held up his hands as he placed upon the altar of a repugnant duty, the offering of a great renunciation. She had hoped that the birth of their last, and only living, child, Edith, would reconcile him to the material results of the renunciation; but he was as indifferent to money for his girl as he had been for himself.... So there they were, now, living rather ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... lunch at his club. The place was deserted, the Beargarden world having gone to the races. As he sat eating cold lamb and drinking soda-and-brandy he did confirm himself in certain modified resolutions, which might be more probably kept than those sterner laws of absolute renunciation to which he had thought of pledging himself in his half-starved morning condition. His father had spoken in very strong language against racing,—saying that those who went were either fools or rascals. He was sure that this was exaggerated. Half the House of Lords and two-thirds of the ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... never be anything to each other," he answered firmly, "on any other terms than the renunciation of all that Bivens leaves. I don't care what you do with it, just so you wash your hands of it. You and I must begin life just where we left off when the shadow of his money darkened the world for us both. You ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... Peace is attainable only when each man, in return for the protection vouchsafed to him, gives up his natural right to all. The compact by which each renounces his natural liberty to do what he pleases, provided all others are ready for the same renunciation,—to which are added, further, the laws of justice (sanctity of covenants), equity, gratitude, modesty, sociability, mercifulness, etc., whose opposites would bring back the state of nature,—this compact is secured against violation by the transfer of the general ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... of the life of Bjarki mentioned above, such as his bravery, strength, his being in the service of Hrolf Kraki, his killing a fierce beast, and slaying Agnar, the saga-man found ready to his hand; but not the renunciation of his kingdom. Earldoms and kingdoms are not renounced "for light and transient causes." As regards Siward, who renounced his earldom, he seemed to be destined for a greater career, as subsequent events ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... greatly surprised me. You have pleaded and continue to plead his cause very powerfully: but have you no consideration for me? Granting all you have supposed in his favour possible, am I so situated as to justify a romantic renunciation of claims which, if asserted, may aid me to accomplish ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... with experiences of joy, this fired her to revolt. A woman who belongs to the old education readily believes that it is not to experiences of joy, but of sorrow, that she must look for her true blessedness; her ideal is one of renunciation; religious motive is in her enforced by what she deems the obligation of her sex. But Cecily was of the new world, the emancipated order. For a time she might accept misery as her inalienable lot, but her youthful ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... says of him: "He identified the kingdom of God with human society after the manner of the social gospel. But since he believed in an absolute renunciation of violence for all men, Tolstoy was an anarchist, repudiating the state altogether. Biblical nonresistance declines to participate in the coercive activities of the state, but nevertheless regards those as necessary for the maintenance of order in a sinful society, and is not ...
— Introduction to Non-Violence • Theodore Paullin
... to find Barbara rather tiresome. Having forced her to renounce her gods, she now despised her for so easy a renunciation. Every day did she force Barbara through her act of denial, and the Inquisition of Spain held, in all its records, ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... great strength and patience in a resigned endurance of the inevitable; and if we take into consideration the possibility of its being logically at variance with his system, he may perform all that which the highest morality requires. But a renunciation which is more than silent resignation, and which under certain circumstances can also become a joyful renunciation of all that was beloved and dear to man on earth, does not grow out of the soil of naturalism, ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... Her erotic excitement was out of control. She wriggled on her sleep-sofa. She held out her hand to him. She whispered: "Poor man, come." He did not take her hand. With lowered eyes, in a face filled with unhappy renunciation, whose effect ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... king of Spain hopes, in spite of the renunciation of his rights, to mount the throne of France. But, among the people attached to the regency, he may meet ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... never know that such things as evil, misery, and death existed. Of course the plan failed, the prince discovered the things hidden from him, and he became converted to the life of self-denial and renunciation associated with the saintly teaching of Buddha. This story is the frame into which a number of charming tales are set, which have found their way into the popular literature of all the world. But in this spread of the Indian ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... reminding us of the statement in Grundy's Reminiscences that Branwell declared he invented the plot and wrote the major part of "Wuthering Heights." Certain it is he possest transcending genius and that in this room that genius was slain. Here he received the message of renunciation from his depraved mistress which finally wrecked his life; the landlady, entering after the messenger had gone, found him in a fit on the floor. Emily Bronte's rescue of her dog, an incident recorded in "Shirley," ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... Mrs Delvile, her eyes sparkling with joy, and her cheeks glowing with pleasure, "now again do I know Miss Beverley! now again see the refined, the excellent young woman, whose virtues taught me to expect the renunciation even of her own happiness, when found to be incompatible with ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... he went on to show the necessity of renunciation as the first step towards the perfecting of character, even the hard, keen faces of the men before him began to relax and change expression. He dwelt, in turn, upon the startling novelty of Christ's teaching and its singular success. He spoke of ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... the many beautiful features of mediaeval life through its painting and poetry and religion. We know Saint Francis and are familiar with the heroic records of saintliness and renunciation. We know, the great cathedrals, the pageantry and splendor, the exquisite handicraft, the tapestries and illuminated manuscripts, the vast learning and the incomparable dialectic. We know also the social injustices, ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... obtained over these essential supplies. We can, if we choose, cut off Germany altogether from these vital economic necessities, if she does not consent to abandon militant imperialism for some more civilized form of government. We hope that this war will end in that renunciation, and that Germany will re-enter the community of nations. But whether that is so or not, whether Germany is or is not to be one of the interested parties in the African solution, the fact remains that it is impossible to contemplate a continuing struggle for the African ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... (or thought themselves so) to give way to the prejudices of the majority. But Peel did not understand this knocking under to violence and folly, and his pride was mortified, because it was a sort of renunciation of his authority as leader and chief of the whole party. Accordingly it was with reference to these proceedings that Peel spoke with great bitterness to Sandon, and said that 'he never would be the tool of the Lords,' He left town in high dudgeon, and was ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... power he recognised come to his friend in the stony places through which he had been constrained to walk with God? Sitting there Kemper was brought suddenly for the first time in his life face to face with the profoundest truth that lies hidden in the deeps of knowledge—that renunciation may become the richest experience in the consciousness of man; that to renounce for the sake of goodness is not merely to refrain from sin but to achieve virtue; and that he who gives up his happiness and is still happy has gained not only the beauty of his forfeited joys, but has added to his ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... doubt of the efficacy of his schemes attacked him for the first time. "Under her own hand and seal," were terms the explicitness of which commended them to his grave consideration. His next thought was to oblige Mabel to indite a formal renunciation of her unworthy suitor. There were ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... showed the immense effort the Baronne de Listomere was making in lowering herself to flatter the pride of the old maid. "I will see what can be done," she said; "I hardly dare hope anything. Go and consult Monsieur de Bourbonne; ask him to put your renunciation into proper form, and bring me the paper. I will see the archbishop, and with his help we may be able to stop the ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... of peace; but it does not follow from thence that the effect of these two actions is the same, when applied to objects of so different a condition, or that the right of war alone, without cession or renunciation, is a title sufficient ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson
... mournful gestures. And when finally, from the couch upon which he had drawn her, Dolly opened upon him her blue eyes, humid as twin stars at dawn, he placed her little scissors in her hand, and with head bowed low, in an ecstatic agony of self-renunciation bade her do her duty. The little scissors could not do it this time, though. It ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... of every feature. Existence, from a demon-haunted vapor, had begun to change to a morning of spring; life, the life of conscious well-being, of law and order and peace, had begun to dawn in obedience and self-renunciation; his resurrection was at hand. But you then, and now you and Mr. Bascombe, would stop this resurrection; you would seat yourselves upon his gravestone to keep him down!—And why?—Lest he, lest you, lest your family should be disgraced by letting him out ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... "Renunciation is easy, where desire would bring nothing save fresh rejection and shame. Not to him who, in the hour of the utmost peril, sought aid from the Egyptians is the honor of the chief command of the warriors due, but rather ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... upright man, or one at least conscious of good intentions, consented publicly to describe the circumstances of his elevation, and was thereby forced to condemn himself as guilty of simony and unworthy of the papal office. He quietly laid down the insignia of the papacy, and his renunciation did him honor. Henry, with the bishops and the margrave Boniface, immediately started for the city, which did not shut its gates against him; for Benedict II had hid himself in Tusculum, and his brothers did not venture ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... be obtained from them. They play whist, they dress badly and speak French dreadfully! The only Moscow people here this year are Princess Ligovski and her daughter—but I am not acquainted with them. My soldier's cloak is like a seal of renunciation. The sympathy which it arouses is as ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... not fear to be degraded by this feeling, I am not ashamed of my love, I am proud of it. It is not my fault that I love. It has come about against my will. I tried to escape from my love by self-renunciation, and tried to devise a joy in the Cossack Lukashka's and Maryanka's love, but thereby only stirred up my own love and jealousy. This is not the ideal, the so-called exalted love which I have known before; ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... strange note from a lover; but to Winifred Anstice it was full of the assurance that the man to whom she had given her heart (for she admitted it to herself now) was of a nature large enough to put himself and his own feelings aside and to believe that she too was capable of the larger vision, the renunciation of present happiness for pressing duty. The highest plane upon which those who love can meet is this of united work ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... occasion to enter seriously on this argument with the present laird or his grandfather, nor could I have any temptation to such a renunciation from either of them. I acknowledge, the benefit of being chief of a clan is in our days of very little significancy, and to trace out the progress of this honour to the founder of a family, of any standing, would perhaps be ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... vow, therefore, remained unwitnessed and unratified, but he held it inviolable nevertheless. And it lay but lightly upon him, joyfully almost—rather as a ridding of himself of possible perturbations and obsessions, than as an act of most austere self-renunciation. In his ignorance he merely went forward with an increased freedom of spirit. All of which is set down, not without underlying pathos, in ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... to be little more than a higher form of selfishness. Perhaps it only needs a leader to turn this store of energy into wider channels and to make it subservient to larger ends. Perhaps the labor and patience and self-renunciation that are necessary to the regeneration of the world are to come from women. Such an absolute disregard of self as they are capable of, if it were once allowed to overflow the narrow limits of the home, might in no long time turn a goodly portion of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... sense this gradual renunciation of beauty was the second step after his disillusion had been made complete. He felt that he was leaving behind him his chance of being a certain type of artist. It seemed so much more important to be a ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... dear lady, into this life of renunciation I would not take a companion, certainly not of the sex you are thinking of, even would she care to come, which I doubt. There are times when a man is better without the woman, when a woman is better without the man. Love drags us from the ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... moment; but he had persevered, and had resented the little effort. The idea in his mind that she was unwilling to hear him abuse Arthur Fletcher, unwilling to renounce the man, anxious to escape his order for such renunciation, added fuel to his jealousy. It was not enough for him that she had rejected this man and had accepted him. The man had been her lover, and she should be made to denounce the man. It might be necessary for him to control his feelings before old Wharton;—but ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... to Emmeline's feeble character, the heroine of the present story is intended to set forth the manner in which a Christian may contend with and conquer this world, living in it but not of it, and rendering it a means of self-renunciation. It is therefore purposely that the end presents no great event, and leaves Marian unrecompensed save by the effects her consistent well doing has produced on her companions. Any other compensation would render her self-sacrifice incomplete, and make ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... husband's decision, and Caesar made melancholy plans for the future, founded on the renunciation of all struggle. ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... shelter of maternal arms, the glossy head, forgetful for the instant, nestled against his shoulder, soothed and at peace. While Duty had manacled the queen, the woman had been justified. Then she sighed. With a weary gesture of renunciation she sat upright in her saddle, looking directly to the front. A single tear hung quivering on ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... at Van again—terribly. Her fingers felt like iron rods, pressing into his flesh. As if to complete her renunciation she dropped his hand abruptly. She mastered some violent convulsion that left the merest flicker of ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... of the Revolution, quitting the place in which it had no longer any hopes, went to excite the clubs and municipalities, and bestow its energies on the elections. The Assembly had committed the fault of declaring its members not re-eligible for the new legislature. This act of renunciation of itself, which resembled the heroism of disinterestedness, was in reality the sacrifice of the country; it was the ostracism of superior power, and an assurance of triumph to mediocrity. A nation how rich soever in genius and virtue, never possesses ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... since, and it is with pleasure that I can say in the spirit of thankfulness and humility, there have been those whose lives are all the sweeter and brighter through my life and instructions. Sweet lady, you know what I mean when I say, having obtained freedom through renunciation I realized illumination, and through the light which I have received I am in the possession of knowledge which the many know little about, and through the light and knowledge which I have received I came to know you long before seeing you to-day. I have seen you many, many times though ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... creature seemed to suffer acutely under this renunciation. A desolate air of utter and complete loneliness fell upon ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... what the French call a devote. She gave herself up to mythical thoughts, and expressed a desire of taking the veil. Her confessor, however, was a keen student of human nature, and he perceived that she was too young to decide upon the renunciation of earthly things. Moreover, her grandmother, who had no intention that Aurore should become a nun, hastened to Paris and ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... Charles II. Moreover Louis XIV had married the eldest daughter of Philip IV, whose only son was a weakly boy. It is true that Maria Theresa, on her marriage, had renounced all claims to the Spanish succession. But a large dowry had been settled upon her, and by the treaty the renunciation was contingent upon its payment. The dowry had not been paid nor was there any prospect of the Spanish treasury being able to find the money. Besides it was no secret that Louis claimed the succession to Brabant for his wife and certain other portions of the Netherlands under what was ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... his official allegiance was plainly due to the Church of England; and yet, at the same time, he owed much to the forbearance of the men who had been dominant under the Commonwealth. The mind of the nation had, indeed, reacted toward monarchy, but not with such an absolute and hardy renunciation of the doctrines of popular sovereignty as to make it safe for the returning king to do precisely as he chose. The glorious Revolution that was destined so soon to follow upon the heels of the gracious Restoration gave evidence, when it came, that there were some things ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... could lay claim upon his personal assets. To surrender these possessions proved no act of self-sacrifice, considering his wife's fortune, upon which the law had no claim. His wife, however, joined him in the act of renunciation, and they stood together penniless. Beyond this point there could be no legal, and, to many minds, no moral responsibility for the debts of his firm. One can speculate upon the force of the temptation to take advantage of the position. Mark Twain was sixty years old, and ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... indictment has ever been made against those to whom self-denial and renunciation are merely a luxurious attitude ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... our business is not with death, but with life. We believe no longer in the nothingness of the grave, nor in safety bought with the price of a forced renunciation; life must be enjoyed in order to be fruitful. Lazarus must leave his dunghill, so that the poor need no longer exult in the death of the rich. All must be made happy, that the good fortune of a few may not be a crime and a curse. As the laborer sows his wheat, he must ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... thought, a reciprocal introspection which bore the signs, in both, of exquisite sensibility. It was done without false shame, but not without mutual coquetry. The two hours which Emmanuel spent with the sisters and old Martha enabled Marguerite to accept the life of anguish and renunciation on which she had entered. This artless, progressive love was her support. In all his testimonies of affection Emmanuel showed the natural grace that is so winning, the sweet yet subtile mind which breaks the uniformity of sentiment as the facets of a ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... self-control and temperance in all things, there would be no joy without remorse, no pleasure without fatigue—that it is from within that happiness must come, if it come at all, and that unless the mind has schooled itself to peace by the renunciation ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... to her by the hostess. He wore no shirt-collar,—he had on black gloves,—and was flourishing a red bandanna handkerchief! Match me this, ye proud children of poverty, who boast of your paltry sacrifices for each other! Virtue in humble life! What is that to the glorious self-renunciation of a martyr in pearls and diamonds? As I saw this noble woman bending gracefully before the social mendicant,—the white billows of her beauty heaving under the foam of the traitorous laces that half revealed them,—I should have wept with sympathetic emotion, but that tears, except ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... oppositions that exist, and is casting his lot on the side of right. He renounces everything that hinders him from fighting successfully, then goes forth into the thick of the battle. The break must be a definite one and made in a determined manner. "Without earnestness of renunciation the new life sinks back to the old ... and loses its power to stimulate to new endeavour. As human beings are, this negation must always ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones
... can never be offered as a sacrifice, because its imperfection is perpetual], so the one that is stolen is irremediably unfit [we deduce from this verse that it can never more become of use, even if there has been a renunciation; that is, if we have heard the owner renounce the object by saying, for example, "Decidedly, I have lost this purse;" although in regard to the ownership of the animal, we said, in the treatise Baba Kama (68a), that the holder became the possessor, if the first owner ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... day my name is a power among them and their descendants. Also it has grown into something of a proverb among all those Kafirs who know the story. They talk of any great act of liberality in an idiom as "a gift of Macumazana," and in the same way of one who makes any remarkable renunciation, as "a wearer of Macumazana's blanket," or as "he who has stolen ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... the cases of fetichism, with a renunciation of a normal or of a perverted sexual aim, is formed by cases in which a fetichistic determination is demanded in the sexual object if the sexual aim is to be attained (definite color of hair, clothing, even physical blemishes). No other variation of the sexual impulse verging on the pathological ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... and farewell she had been meditating all day became suddenly inadequate. She must ask his pardon and break to him very gently the hard sentence of renunciation and separation. Keen remorse took hold of her as she remembered his gentle ways with the sick and suffering, his strength and wisdom, when fighting against disease and death. Oh that she had never come across his path, or that she had had a mother or friend to warn her of the dangerous ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... the infamy of its continuance, and to go out from among the people whose instincts and conventions his presence outraged. Near Redfield sat David Gillespie with his eyes fixed on Dylks in a stare of hungry hate, and with him sat his daughter, who testified by her removal from the Little Flock her renunciation of her faith in him. Redfield showed greater patience than Gillespie, and at times his eyes wandered to the face of the girl who did not seem to feel them on her, but sat gazing at her forsaken idol in what might have seemed puzzle for him and wonder at ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... of mythology is an East Indian, not an Egyptian, aquatic; but since we desire to link our fancy with the flower of the Nile, we will ignore the poets and the Brahmins. After all, we only desire it as a symbol of the renunciation of the past on which we have agreed. Eleanor, what if we should indeed resolve to leave the past behind us from this hour, and face ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... speak of this?" she said impatiently. Then their eyes met for a moment, and he knew that he was false to himself and that his talk of renunciation was a mockery. ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... unpopular in these ordinances.] There is nothing, therefore, in the requirements and ordinances of Islam, excepting the fast, that is very irksome to humanity, or which, as involving any material sacrifice, or the renunciation of the pleasures or indulgences of life, should lead a man of the world to hesitate in embracing ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... its territory, and to impose conditions upon possessors—was nearer to liberty and equality than any nation has been since. If the Senate had been intelligent and just,—if, at the time of the retreat to the Mons Sacer, instead of the ridiculous farce enacted by Menenius Agrippa, a solemn renunciation of the right to acquire had been made by each citizen on attaining his share of possessions,—the republic, based upon equality of possessions and the duty of labor, would not, in attaining its wealth, have ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... on the narrow bed, her bony profile against the wall and her knees hugged up to her after the manner of the excessively thin, a smile had come out on Miss Neugass's face as if the taste of renunciation ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... the attitude of Congress as to Cuba. It enforced the renunciation of Spanish sovereignty there, but, in spite of the most earnest Spanish efforts, it refused to accept American sovereignty. It loaded neither ourselves nor the Cubans with the so-called Cuban debts, incurred by Spain in the efforts to subdue them. It involved ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... have been sufficient to turn the dull fare of ordinary life into the mysterious Bread and Wine which only lovers know; and with her beside him there had been no heights to which he might not have attained, no splendour of achievement, of renown, even of renunciation, which might not have been reached before the closing cadence which is death had ended, irrevocably, ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... conviction. She made Cornelia's tragedy her romance, and solemnly exulted in its fatality, while she lifted her in her struggle of conscience to a height from which for the present at least, Cornelia could not have descended without a ruinous loss of self-respect. In the renunciation in which the worshipper confirmed her saint, Ludlow and his rights and feelings were ignored, and Cornelia herself was offered nothing more substantial than the prospect that henceforth she and Charmian could live for each other in a union that should be all principle ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... across the tea-cups. Harriet, as his thin mouth twitched with just the hint of a smile, looked straight into his eyes, and she knew he was as frightened as she. But from neither was there a visible sign of consternation. "No tea," the man said, making of the decision a splendid and significant renunciation. ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... complication with a political position, became the most delicate which ever existed, it was not to be expected that a character like his, which had hitherto been so great from its unshaken constancy, would make a speedy renunciation of the object which he had proposed to himself ever ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... that now. It has been an object of curiosity to me that people raise so many just roses. Here is a world by itself. There is a rose for every station in society. There are roses for beast and saint; roses for passion and renunciation; roses for temple and sanctuary, and roses to wear for one going down into Egypt. There are roses that grow as readily as morning-glories, and roses that are delicate as children of the Holy Spirit, requiring the love of the human heart to thrive upon, before sunlight and water. There is a rose ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... faiths with, in addition, the spiritual unction, the passion of love and sympathy, self-devotion, and compassion, in which Buddhism and Christianity are alike pre-eminent. The negative side of Buddhism, with its passionless calm and self-renunciation, is the only one that has been realised in the West, and the teachings of Mahayana which have borne fruit and flower, visible to all the world, of happiness, courtesy, kindliness in the spiritual attitude of a whole people, have never received the ...
— Buddhist Psalms • Shinran Shonin
... weeks obtained the release of his sister from the Hoxton Asylum by formally undertaking her future guardianship,—a charge which was borne, until Death released the compact, with a steadfastness, a cheerful renunciation of what men regard as the crowning blessings of manhood, [8] that has shed a halo more radiant even than that of his genius about the figure—it was "small and mean," said sprightly Mrs. Mathews—of ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... hundred or a thousand; indeed, why not all but the chosen few or the imperial one, thus arriving logically at oligarchic or despotic rule. And if a man may divest himself of this right, what right is sacred from his renunciation? That a man may refuse to exercise any right is true, and that in changing his abode he may sever his political and social relations is equally true; but these facts only prove that his natural rights inhere in his person, go with him in his movement, subject ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... War of Independence. It was, from a military stand-point, a complete and immediate success; politically, it was unquestionably a failure. From Berwick-on-Tweed Edward marched to Dunbar, cheered by the formal announcement of Balliol's renunciation of his allegiance. He easily defeated the Scots at Dunbar, in April, 1296, and continued an undisturbed progress through Scotland, the castles of Dunbar, Roxburgh, Edinburgh, and Stirling falling into his hands. Balliol determined to submit, and, on the 7th July, 1296, he met Edward ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... portions of the Buddhist scriptures. So far as I have been able to learn, there are no positive immoralities connected with Buddhistic worship. The example of Buddha has in it some worthy elements, such as the renunciation of earthly and sensual ambitions. But Buddhism, for all that, is a pessimistic religion. It denies to man the existence of a soul, and it gives him no hope for anything but practical extinction. Buddha no longer lives to help his worshipers. In the struggle ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... Lady Anne, who was in the room with her children when these few words passed between the two in a very low tone, thought it was a reconciliation. Ethel knew it was a renunciation on Kew's part—she never liked him so much as at that moment. The young man was too modest and simple to guess himself what the girl's feelings were. Could he have told them, his fate and ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... resist this last mendacious opportunity, although he was perfectly sincere in his renunciation, touched in his sympathy, and there was even a film of moisture in his ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... type of conflict, which may be called vacillation, occurs when two positive tendencies are aroused that are inconsistent with each other, so that gratification of the one entails renunciation of the other. Old Buridan's celebrated problem of the ass, placed equally distant from two equally attractive bundles of hay, and whether he would starve to death from the exact balance of the two ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... the supreme ideal of the ascetic life, and that men who come especially under His influence must pass out of home, out of family, out of the normal ties of evolution, and give themselves to a life of asceticism, to a life of renunciation, to share, however feebly, in that mighty yoga by which ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant
... who devoted exclusively to it an energy of will and power of intellect that in worldly professions might have raised him to the highest positions of honor and wealth. Of his sincerity, of his self-renunciation, of his deep and fervent piety, of his almost boundless activity, there can be no question. Yet with all these qualities he was not an amiable man. He was hard, punctilious, domineering, and in a certain sense even selfish. A short time before he left England, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... clamoured for its share of personal happiness. Yes—it was happiness she still wanted, and the glimpse she had caught of it made everything else of no account. One by one she had detached herself from the baser possibilities, and she saw that nothing now remained to her but the emptiness of renunciation. ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... the Jean Valjean of Victor Hugo's noble romance not a figment of the theatre, but an all too actual type? The believer who looks to another world to redress the wrongs and horrors of this; the sage who warns us that the law of life is resignation, renunciation, and doing-without (entbehren sollst du)—each of these has a foothold in common language. But to say that all infractions of love and equity are speedily punished—punished by fear—and then to talk of the perfect compensation of the universe, is mere playing with words, for it does ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... was silent for a minute. God only knew what passed through his soul at that minute—what agonies of self-renunciation, what martyrdom of all that makes life pleasant and dear to a man! It is certain his mother did not ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... awake? That and the final, mysterious emotion which had shown itself in her face as he had last looked upon it? A thousand times had he pondered over that startled look and the signs of agitation. Was it fear? Was it dismay? Was it renunciation? Whatever it was, it sorely disturbed him; it had partly undone the charm of the moment before—the charm that could not and ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... showed a spirit becoming a better parentage. In his presence, and in spite of his dissuasions (for he acted with all the nobility one might expect) she took off her veil with her own hands and laid it aside with a look expressive of eternal renunciation. She loves him, sir; and there is no selfishness in her heart and never has been. For all her frail appearance and the mildness of her temper, she is like flint where principle is involved or the welfare of those she loves is at stake. My daughter may die from ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... mind which was the most natural and the most reasonable, and which was certainly the most probable means of securing me from all error. I set out with a perfect distrust of my own abilities, a total renunciation of every speculation of my own, and with a profound reverence for the wisdom of our ancestors who have left us the inheritance of so happy a constitution and so flourishing an empire, and, what is a thousand times more valuable, the treasury of the maxims ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... these remarks very well, M. Wilkie evinced a desire to offer some objections; but Madame d'Argeles had already resumed: "So I went to my notary this morning. I told him everything; and by this time my renunciation of my rights to the estate of the Count de Chalusse ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... came. Julie performed her last real act of renunciation when, in spite of the protests of her friends, she wore the grey watered- poplin, made modern by her own hands. The wedding-day was the anniversary of Farette's first marriage, and the Cure faltered in the exhortation when ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of Greek marble sculpture is at variance with what we moderns have been accustomed to since the Renaissance. By practice and theory we have been taught that sculpture and painting are entirely distinct arts. And in the austere renunciation by sculpture of all color there has even been seen a special distinction, a claim to precedence in the hierarchy of the arts. The Greeks had no such idea. The sculpture of the older nations about them was polychromatic; their own early ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... a thoughtful one with Gifford Woodhouse; Helen's words had stirred those buried hopes, and it was hard to settle back into a life of renunciation. He was strangely absent-minded in his office. One day Willie Denner, who had come to read law, and was aspiring to be his clerk, found him staring out of the window, with a new client's papers lying untouched before ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... it is the second. I believe that humanity cannot escape the necessity of first learning a defensive morality. I have read, observed, and made diligent inquiry, and have been unable to find any abuse, practiced to any considerable extent, that has perished by voluntary renunciation on the part of those who profited by it. On the contrary, I have seen many that have yielded to the manly resistance of those who ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... could grudge no price however high for a little last happiness for an unhappy creature who loved you. Do not try to find me, Eve; do not seek to know what becomes of me. My intellect for once shall be backed by my will. Renunciation, my angel, is daily death of self; my renunciation will only last for one day; I will take advantage now of that ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... pressure which had been brought to bear upon it by the cohorts, and to wipe out the rancor against the imperial power which was still dormant in the aristocracy. This restoration was not, therefore, a sheer renunciation of privileges and powers inherent in the sovereign authority, but an act of political sagacity planned by a woman whose knowledge of the art of government had been received in the school ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... through moments of exalted sentiment, even a little dramatic in their tragedy and renunciation, but circumstance is stronger always than any highly strung emotion of good or evil. At the end of their good-bye at Madrid their story should have closed, as the stories in books so often do, with the hero and ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn |
