"Significant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... specimen of Lincoln's writings that has been preserved is a communication to the voters of Sangamon County in 1832, when Lincoln was for the first time a candidate for the State legislature. It is significant of Lincoln's imperfect command of English at that time that "some of the grammatical errors" were corrected by a friend before the circular was issued. Although this circumstance makes it impossible for us to judge exactly what ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... bath their clothes are carefully disinfected, and then handed back to them thoroughly cleansed and fit for further use. Notwithstanding all these precautions, there is, of course, a certain amount of sickness which is inevitable among so great a number of men, but it is significant in proportion to the numbers employed. After many months with troops I can emphatically say that the bodily care of our men, by the medical authorities, is beyond all praise, and has done much to preserve the redundant health which is characteristic of our Army in the ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... wore away. She steadfastly refused to go to the cool seashore, she declined the countless invitations that came to her, and she went but seldom into the city. Her mother was at Newport. They had had one brief, significant encounter just before the elder woman went off to the seashore. No doubt her mother considered herself entitled to a fair share of "the spoils," but she would make no further advances. She had failed earlier in the game; she would not humble herself again. And so, one hot day in August, just ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... hard in the face of the speaker. "I repeat," said he, at length, sinking his voice, and with a significant tone, "in these bold attempts, success is the sole sanction. Succeed, and we will ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... centuries she has worshipped at the shrine of Confucius; for eighteen centuries she has had Buddhism, and for twelve centuries Mohammedanism: and during all this time if we believe the statements of her own people, she has slept. Does it not therefore seem significant, that less than a century after the Gospel of Jesus Christ had been preached to her people, and the Bible circulated freely throughout her dominions, she opened her court to the world, began to build railroads, open mines, erect educational institutions, ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... exceed the men in strength; any superiority, when it exists, being mainly shown in such passive forms of exertion as bearing burdens. In civilisation, even under the influence of careful athletic training, women are unable to compete muscularly with men; and it is a significant fact that on the variety stage there are very few "strong women." It would seem that the difficulty in developing great muscular strength in women is connected with the special adaptation of woman's form and organisation to the maternal function. ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... "Methodist,", applied to the members of a particular church because they were considered over-exact or methodical in their ways. There is no governmental significance there. The name Catholic? or Universal? is chiefly significant from the fact that the claim implied by it is not true. Now let us look for a moment at the word Unitarian, and see whether it has a right to be placed not only on a level with these, but infinitely ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... half-incredulous joy, and buys him up, at the rate of a million copies a year. Our own best writers are more read in England, or, at any rate, more talked about, than their native crop; not so much, perhaps, because they are different as because their difference is felt to be of a significant and typical kind. It has in it a gleam of the new day. They are realistic; but realism, so far as it involves a faithful study of nature, is useful. The illusion of a loftier reality, at which we should aim, must be evolved from adequate ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... practice medicine, to gather wealth, learning, or postage stamps. But though each of these represents a natural desire, they cannot all be counted equally good. They must be tried by some standard other than themselves. For desires are not detachable facts. Each is significant only as a piece of a life. In connection with that life it must be judged. And when we ask if any desire is good or bad, we really inquire how far it may play a part in company with other desires in making up a harmonious existence. By its organic quality, accordingly, we must ultimately ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... gain or loss One bright and balmy morning, as I went From Liege's lovely environs to Ghent, If hard by the wayside I found a cross, That made me breathe a prayer upon the spot— While Nature of herself, as if to trace The emblem's use, had trailed around its base The blue significant Forget-Me-Not? Methought, the claims of Charity to urge More forcibly along with Faith and Hope, The pious choice had pitched upon the verge Of a delicious slope, Giving the eye much variegated scope!— "Look round," it ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... made no answer to these significant words of the engineer. They now understood the danger by which they ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... that significant cry of alarm, and almost simultaneously the "plash" made by the little Portuguese as her body dropped down upon the water. He had slewed himself round, and was making a hurried effort to get to his feet, when the boy, flung with violence upon his stooping back, once ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... virtually subject the treasure also to his disposal. The first Roman Emperor, in his attempt to seize the sacred treasure, silenced the opposition of the officer to whose charge it had been committed by a significant allusion to his sword. By a selection of political instruments for the care of the public money a reference to their commissions by a President would be quite as effectual an argument as that of Caesar to the Roman knight. I am not insensible of the great difficulty that exists in drawing a ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... Illicit drugs: significant illicit cultivation of cannabis for CIS markets, as well as limited cultivation of opium poppy and ephedra (for the drug ephedrine); limited government eradication of illicit crops; transit point for Southwest Asian narcotics bound for Russia ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... highly probable that the first decisive assurances of Sunderland's support were conveyed orally by Sidney to William about the middle of August. It is certain that, from that time till the expedition was ready to sail, a most significant correspondence was kept up between the Countess and her lover. A few of her letters, partly written in cipher, are still extant. They contain professions of good will and promises of service mingled with earnest intreaties for protection. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... weighed against the true and real exchangeable wealth of Great Britain; wealth of which this coined and convertible paper-money is merely the standard sign of value, the recognised medium by which all things are bartered. It is easy to give one or two significant and startling illustrations of this fact—significant and startling in other respects than in enabling us to see pretty clearly through the currency-cobwebs industriously woven from time to time amongst us. All the money in the three kingdoms, the whole circulating medium of the realm—gold, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... conditions are at that time such as often amply to account for what are received as spiritual ecstasies or agonies. I imagine whatever the laity may do, few physicians are inclined to consider their patients' utterances in articulo mortis as satisfactorily significant of anything but their bodily state. Certainly by what you tell me of —— his moral perceptions do not appear to have received any accession of light whatever from the near dawning of that second life which seems sometimes to ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... schoolboy lately released from imprisonment. But his face sobered somewhat as his eye fell upon his friend. It was not that John Leaver had not looked up with a smile, as Burns approached, nor was it that he now showed physical distress of any significant sort. A certain hard expression of the deep-set eye told the story to ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... all the races and communities inhabiting this frontier province, which has been truly described as the sword-hand in India, are vying with each other in showing their high appreciation of the good work done by Your Excellency, of which not the least significant proof lies in the arrangement for the defence of the country at all vulnerable points of the frontier, the Hindus are anxious to show that they yield to none in the enthusiasm which marks the demonstrations held in your honour. But Your Excellency commands our esteem ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... important of all our social institutions is the marriage. It is the paternal source of all other relations. There is no exhibition of the divine goodness in conditioning our race that is more significant and lovely. By it our world is a collection of families in which the tenderest affections are cherished and the worst generally subdued. Here there is a community of interests. Here we experience the highest motives to a virtuous influence, especially in forming the character of the youth of ...
— The Christian Foundation, March, 1880
... rude shelter where they had passed the night. When they issued from beneath its concealment, they found the scout awaiting their appearance nigh by, and the only salutation between them was the significant gesture for silence, made ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... of your own religion;—their personality, observe, as distinguished from merely symbolical visions. For instance, when Jeremiah has the vision of the seething pot with its mouth to the north, you know that this which he sees is not a real thing; but merely a significant dream. Also, when Zechariah sees the speckled horses among the myrtle trees in the bottom, you still may suppose the vision symbolical;—you do not think of them as real spirits, like Pegasus, seen in the form of horses. But when you are told ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... around it and tied in a hard knot. There was no name upon it to tell whose it was, or whence it came, except the name of a German steamer, on which its owner had probably crossed the ocean, and the significant word 'Hold,' showing that it had not been used in the state-room. It had been checked at the Grand Central depot in New York for Shannondale, and the check was still attached to the iron handle when it ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... on his progress—daily reports, if any significant developments occur. And I want a model of that device as soon as it's developed and has had preliminary tests. If it works, it might be valuable for community defense." ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole
... quite third not to say fourth-rate. The press is very energetic in fostering taste, but I don't think it is natural to the people. They like pictures somewhat as the savage does, because they appeal readily to the imagination, and tell a story which can be read with very little trouble. It is significant of this, that there is hardly a hut in the bush where you will not see woodcuts from the Illustrated and Graphic pasted up, and that the pictures most admired at the exhibitions were those which ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... on Ways and Means. In 1876, at President Grant's request, went to New Orleans in company with Senators Sherman and Matthews and other Republicans, to watch the counting of the Louisiana vote. He made a special study of the West Feliciana Parish case, and embodied his views in a brief but significant report. In January, 1877, made two notable speeches in the House on the duty of Congress in a Presidential election, and claimed that the Vice-President had a constitutional right to count the electoral vote. Opposed the Electoral Commission, yet when the ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VIII.: James A. Garfield • James D. Richardson
... per cent, on about twenty-five thousand dollars. That is quite a lucky windfall, Richard; but, my boy, don't you realize what a terribly significant fact it would appear in the eyes of any one bent upon investigating the mysterious disappearance of these valuable documents?" and he laid a trembling hand on Dick's ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... loves, he questions the worth of the object of his passion. That established, nothing else is of great importance. There is a grand and noble quality in this, but it misses much. About the other state of affairs—wherein the woman's appurtenances of all kinds, as well as the woman herself, are significant—is a delicate and subtle aura of the higher refinement—the long refinement of the spirit through many generations—which, to an eye accustomed to look for gradations of moral beauty, possesses a peach-blow iridescence ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... yet have I seen a man fight so fierce and so hard as this Americano. He may be the devil himself, but his claws are clipped now. And here he lies till he does as we want, or——" The young Mexican did not finish his sentence, but the gleam in his eyes was significant. ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... be thou my good!'—that's what Milton's bad angel said. 'Fowl, be thou my fare!'—that's what I say." From which significant response, followed by an apt imitation of a turkey-gobbler, the boys understood that he had some device for obtaining poultry ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... scientist," Verkan Vall elaborated. "She is not above diverting herself with love affairs, but that's all they are—a not too important form of diversion. And, if you recall, she had just participated in a most significant experiment: you can be sure that she had other things on her mind at the time than pleasure jaunts with ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... minute or two. The giant was plunged in gloomy abstraction, and Vetch and the Moocher interchanged a significant glance. Gabbett had been ten years at the colonial penal settlement of Macquarie Harbour, and he had memories that he did not confide to his companions. When he indulged in one of these fits of recollection, his friends found it best to leave him ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... and mulatto faces. Herodotus, in an incontrovertible passage, alludes to the Egyptians as "black and curly-haired"[4]—a peculiarly significant statement from one used to the brunette Mediterranean type; in another passage, concerning the fable of the Dodonian Oracle, he again alludes to the swarthy color of the Egyptians as exceedingly dark and even ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... of Germany, the Fatherland of Tone? And how do they account for the flourishing condition of some of our other arts? If we are hopelessly materialistic, why should American painters and sculptors have such a high world-standing? And why should their strongest, most original, most significant work be precisely in the sphere of poetic, suggestive landscape, and ideal sculpture? The answer is self-evident. It is no utterly prosaic age, and people that founded our superb orchestras, that produced ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... any capacity not present at birth, it becomes a matter of serious importance that parents do all in their power to guide properly the mating of their children. The teaching of the Gospel on this point is most significant. ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... It is perhaps significant that almost all the railroad companies now in receivers' hands were among those for whose financial policy no one amongst the leading banking houses had a continuous and recognized responsibility, though I must not be understood ...
— High Finance • Otto H. Kahn
... always to be attentive to the maturing of wild fruit. Plants are so unobtrusive in their material processes, and always at the significant moment some other bloom has reached its perfect hour. One can never fix the precise moment when the rosy tint the field has from the wild almond passes into the inspiring blue of lupines. One notices here ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... earliest complicated geared device on record and it is therefore all the more significant that it carries a feature found in later clocks. From the manuscript description alone one could not tell whether it was designed for automatic action or merely to be turned by hand. Fortunately this point is made clear by the most happy survival of ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... talking to a friend about the bringing up of our boys and, in the course of our conversation, he expressed a sentiment which struck me as profoundly significant. He said: "I would rather have my boy be something fine, even if he got nowhere by it, than to see him receive recognition and reward for doing something not so fine—and I would rather have my boy feel that way about ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... When she was alone again, she laid the flowers down and once more tenderly contemplated the figures on the handsome gem. It had no doubt been engraved by Teuker, the brother of Pollux. How fine the carving was, how significant the choice of the subject represented! Only the heavy gold setting disturbed the poor child, who for so many years had had to stint and contrive with her money. She said to herself that it was wrong of the young fellow, who, besides being poor, had to support his sister, to rush into such an ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ornament may originate in ideographic features, mnemonic, demonstrative, or symbolic. Such significant figures are borrowed by decorators from other branches of art. As time goes on they lose their significance and are subsequently treated as purely decorative elements. Subjects wholly pictorial in character, ...
— Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art. • William Henry Holmes
... produced by official tyranny was however almost impotent as against the wrong-doers, who were so strongly entrenched in their places that it seemed as though nothing could shake them. Many of them, conscious of their misconduct, doubtless felt secret misgivings whenever any specially significant outburst of popular dissatisfaction occurred. But for many years they were able to present a united and brazen front, and to crush anyone who dared to so much as wag a finger against them. It was intimated on a former ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... Captain so anxious to have it put right just at this moment? He'd have no use for the summerhouse while he was driving Elisabet home. Was it because he wanted to shut the place up so no one else should use it while he was away? It was a significant move, ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... of Hesiod's death, it will be well to inquire how far the "autobiographical" notices can be treated as historical, especially as many critics treat some, or all of them, as spurious. In the first place attempts have been made to show that "Hesiod" is a significant name and therefore fictitious: it is only necessary to mention Goettling's derivation from IEMI to ODOS (which would make 'Hesiod' mean the 'guide' in virtues and technical arts), and to refer to the pitiful attempts in the "Etymologicum Magnum" (s.v. {H}ESIODUS), to show how prejudiced and lacking ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... I may use the expression, in their strongest light, by the force of a judicious obscurity than Milton. His description of death in the second book is admirably studied; it is astonishing with what a gloomy pomp, with what a significant and expressive uncertainty of strokes and coloring, he has finished the portrait of the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... as I drew this bow at a venture, and then said, "You must know, Batchelor, that I have a right to sit in that room when I choose. And," he added, dropping his voice to a whisper and looking at me in a most significant way—"and if the door happens to be open, and if you and Smith happen to talk secrets, there's every chance of their ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... exchanged a significant look; neither of them now doubted in the least that the audacious attack had been the result of a plot to which the Indian servants were parties, and each guessed that the other entertained the same suspicion as to who was the ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... truth, which could only have come from one that was content to take up his own opinions for ease or profit." If we accept all that is said of Earle's piety and devotion, and give its proper weight to the very significant epithet "innocent," used both by Walton and Clarendon, we shall, I think, be slow to suspect his motive in attacking the sceptic. The honest doubter, it must be remembered, was not the familiar—much ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... by shaking in people's faces his ridiculous tin bolts held in white kid-glove hands, and facetiously knocking them on the head. He happened, while talking to a lady, to be right in front of the young Prince. A friend tapped him discreetly on the shoulder, giving him a significant look. "What is the matter?" said Mr. X, in a loud voice, glaring at his friend. A gentle whisper informed him that he had better turn round and face the Prince. "Heavens!" said the ungracious Jupiter. "I can't help it; I'm always treading ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... regime, people spoke differently than at the time of the Revolution, and we have not the same language as the men of 1830, 1848, or the Second Empire. In general, language is now characterized by greater simplicity: we no longer wear perukes, we no longer write in lace frills: but there is one significant difference between us and almost all of our ancestors—and it is the source of our exaggerations—our nervousness. Upon over-excited nervous systems—and Heaven knows that to have nerves is no longer an aristocratic privilege!—words do not ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... a complete physical and mental wreck, to whom if he could see no prospect of coming relief, the gloom of life appeared to stretch away as a vast wilderness, with a prospect of such overwhelming depression, that he could only conclude his evidence with the significant but heartrending warning that he could face it no longer! The Witness here fairly broke down, and, bursting into a hysterical fit of weeping, had to be led from the room by a bevy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... ask the meaning of his words. The guard's look was sufficiently significant. He said not a word, but the deadly pallor of his countenance showed how much he felt. Springing at once on the broken carriage, and seizing an axe from the hand of a man who appeared exhausted by his efforts, he began to cut through ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... change, that seemed significant of his character, he lost his ardor, dropped the half-bold, half-masterful air, ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... to be the case can be understood from the fact that another volume follows this story, bearing the significant title of "The Boy Scouts' Woodcraft Lesson; or, Proving Their Mettle in the Field." And the young reader who has become interested in the various doings of the scouts belonging to the Beaver Patrol can find in the pages of that book further accounts of what Acting Scoutmaster Paul Prentice and ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... it was the more disquieting, and the Stock-Exchange is ever ready to rock to an alarm. Yet just now, the man whose silent smile could give birth to such sweeping potentialities did nothing more significant than gaze absently at the tide of life which eddied through Broadway's canon and at the disintegrating tombstones which spoke of death in ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... Vernon. But the whirligig of time equalizes all things, and, in Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six, General Washington, Commander of the Continental Army, occupied the mansion of Colonel Morris, the Colonel and his lady being fugitive Tories. In his diary, Washington records this significant item: "Dined at the house lately Colonel Roger Morris confiscated and the occupation of a ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... eyes glisten as he tells us that Kipling is better, and who discusses with a great deal of sense and acuteness the question of the English poet-laureateship! Could anything be more marvellous or more significant? Said I not well when I declared the Atlantic Ocean of less account ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... the figures at the table, Walter nudged the old gentleman, gave him a significant, laughing glance, then stepping forward addressed the waxen man in a serious tone as though he thought him ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... and saw enough to let him understand some strange crime was in agitation. He has great acuteness and sensibility: he looked at me when I first came, in a very significant manner; and would ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... brought against religion and the church which seems to be more significant. Is there not a danger that an interest in these may hamper freedom of thought and ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... either for laying purposes by the fowls, or reserved as a storage-room for their feed. The roof is broadly drawn over the body of the building, to shelter it, and through the point of the roof, in the center, is a ventilator, with a covered top, and a vane significant of its purpose. It is also sufficiently lighted, with glass windows, into which our draughtsman has put the diamond-paned glass, contrary to our notions; but, as he had, no doubt, an eye to the "picturesque," ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... The last clause was significant enough. "He prepared this to give me a social knockout!" coolly said the renegade. "All right! But wait! By Gad! I fancy I'll take a cool revenge in joining Ram Lal and Berthe Louison. Suppose that the old duffer were put out of the way? Could I then count ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... the Chinese method the grim, but very significant formula that is employed (I believe it is a literal fact) in the exercise yards of the American penitentiaries. "What have YOU brought?" asks the San Quentin or Sing Sing convict of the new arrival, meaning, "And how long is your sentence?" ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... Trojans feast upon meat which is served to each man on a wheaten cake. Young Iulus, greedily devouring his, exclaims playfully that he is so hungry he has actually eaten the board on which his meal was spread! Hearing these significant words, his happy father exclaims they have reached their destined goal, since the Harpies' ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... is to explain the advance to that level, in the course of many hundreds of thousands of years: a period fully a hundred times as long as the whole history of civilisation. Time itself is no factor in evolution, but in this case it is a significant condition. It means that, on this view of the evolution of man, we are merely assuming that an advance in brain-development took place between the Miocene and the Pleistocene, not similar to, but immeasurably less than, the advance ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... The significant interrogatory, on account of the manner in which it was put, was hailed by the boys with a ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... continued working his lips and his throat, as if trying to swallow his wrath as he had done his wine. Sir Ralph, not knowing well what to make of these ambiguous signs, looked for instructions to the friar, who by significant looks and gestures seemed to advise him to follow his example and partake of the good cheer before him, without speaking till the baron should be more intelligible in his demeanour. The knight and the friar, accordingly, proceeded to refect themselves ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... brilliantly progressing—how am I to tell what floods of glory brightened the autumnal countryside; how, unless the reader were an amateur himself, describe the heights of idiotic vanity to which the carrier climbed? One significant fact shall paint the situation: thenceforth it was Harker who played, and the military ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... which, after a partial hearing, was solemnly pronounced by Bahram himself. The descendants of Arsaces were degraded from the royal dignity, [86] which they had possessed above five hundred and sixty years; [87] and the dominions of the unfortunate Artasires, [8711] under the new and significant appellation of Persarmenia, were reduced into the form of a province. This usurpation excited the jealousy of the Roman government; but the rising disputes were soon terminated by an amicable, though unequal, partition of the ancient kingdom of Armenia: [8712] and a territorial acquisition, which ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... the overwhelming certitude of a personal contact, a prevenient and an answering love. For it is always in a personal and emotional relationship that man finds himself impelled to surrender to God; and this surrender is felt by him to evoke a response. It is significant that even modern liberalism is forced, in the teeth of rationality, to acknowledge this fact of the religious experience. Thus we have on the one hand the Catholic-minded but certainly unorthodox Spanish thinker, Miguel ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... the point, the success of the program provided its own impetus to total integration. The prediction that a significant number of black officers and men would be ineligible for reassignment or further training proved ill-founded. The Air Force, it turned out, had few untrainable men, and after the screening process and transfer of those eligible was completed, ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... Religious Sentiment.—In ordinary life we find everywhere traces of the mixture of religion with sexual sensations and images. The religious ceremonies of marriage among all peoples constitute a significant ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... first of all, upon the very significant, though brief, outline sketch of the facts of universal sinful human nature which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Inquisition, and so curtailed the power of the priests that they could no longer plunder with impunity, or rob the Terreros of the fruits of their father's enterprise by threatening them with the censure of the Church, which, in the reign of a feeble king, had a significant meaning. The new code of mining laws, the cheapness of quicksilver, and the opening of commerce, had all combined to make their fortune, which they might lose in a moment if the heir to the throne should prove ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... are secrets in all families." These secrets the world commonly affects to know all about, but we think few will have reached the age of threescore without becoming convinced of how much pretending ignorance there is in this assumption of the world. "Tot ou tard tout se scait" is a significant saying of our old friends, the French, who know as much of things, in practice as any other people on the face of the earth; but "tot ou tard ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... has gone out of date; he has been replaced by the diverting one. And the change is significant of much: The early nineteenth-century maid pretended to ignorance; the early twentieth-century maid ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... seem shyness, but only a sort of proud beauty of silence, which might cover Heaven knows what deeps of passion and of knowledge! Little Rose was glowing and simpering, and the two older ladies were giving each other significant glances. Maurice's "fellows," shepherded by their host, shambled speechlessly along in the background. The instant that they saw the bride they had fallen into dumbness. Brown said, under his breath to Hastings, "Gosh!" And Hastings gave Morton a thrust in the ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... insisted on by the Saga-writers, of the eyes of the person remaining unchanged, is very significant, and points to the fact that the skin was merely drawn over the body ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... That is what we call a three or four-pronged fork in my country. The word comes from the same root as the German greifen, and our own grip, and gripe, and grope, and grab—and grub too!" he added, "which in the present case is significant." ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... metaphorical relation to it. Many words—father, | | soul, ineluctable, for example—have emotional | | associations which stand to the literal meaning somewhat | | like overtones to the fundamental. This tone-quality of | | language is one of the primary and most significant sources | | of poetical effect, but it should never be confused with the | | musical term on which it is patterned. ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... stronger now, was sitting up part of each day. I reached out my hands and took their hands, bringing them together in a significant contact. Miss Spurgeon bent over me, placing a kiss upon my brow. "You are a dear boy," she said. And Reverdy said: "The Lord keep you always, son." Their eyes showed the tears, and as for me my cheeks were suddenly wet. Then from what they said I learned ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... Another modern development, significant of the growing appreciation of what is real and valuable in primitive culture, is the instruction of the younger generation in the Government schools in the traditional arts and crafts of their people. ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman
... significant of the modesty of this really notable man that when, in 1801, he again sailed to Australia, he mentioned quite casually in a letter that he had passed through Bass Strait without any reference to his own connection with the passage. It was not, to him, "the strait which I discovered," ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... as near as we are, and he didn't start any sooner," was the significant remark of ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... word "mayor," Faustus pricked up his ears, and the Devil gave him a significant side-glance. Faustus thereupon took the Bible from the casket, handed it over to the senators, and said, with some ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... she inquired casually. "It is generally not difficult to find me when there is dancing." And then with a significant smile: "But perhaps there were so many men about me that I was completely hidden from the view ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... the instances in which this knight most conspicuously showed his prudence, worth, valour, endurance, fortitude, and love, was when he withdrew, rejected by the Lady Oriana, to do penance upon the Pena Pobre, changing his name into that of Beltenebros, a name assuredly significant and appropriate to the life which he had voluntarily adopted. So, as it is easier for me to imitate him in this than in cleaving giants asunder, cutting off serpents' heads, slaying dragons, routing armies, destroying fleets, and breaking enchantments, and ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... had reached the cheerful dining-room, and with a very significant exchange of glances Toinette and Cicely took their seats, the latter whispering under cover of the bustle caused by the entrance of the other pupils: "My goodness, if Miss Carter had ever spoken like that to us, we should ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... some. And if marginal headings are found in some, proposals for their improvement would be in place, since such headings are rarely good. For example, the heading "Political Divisions," quoted above, would be much more definite and significant if changed to "The Countries in North America," and children could soon learn to make such improvements. Headings of chapters, likewise, often need rewording in a simpler, ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... the captain looked at him sternly. Then the Secret Service man, still whistling with a strangely significant whistle, ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... sight, merely juxtaposed. Hauptmann would undoubtedly assert that, in modern society, the various social classes live in just such juxtaposition and have contacts of just the kind here chronicled. His real purpose in combining the two fables is more significant. Following the great example, though not the precise method, of Moliere, who produced La Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes on the boards of his theater five months after the hostile reception of L'Ecole des ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... disport a few moments; and then the rustling of the reeds indicated that it was about to advance. With heavy footfalls it came toward me; as it approached my nervousness increased; I could not mistake that significant tread; undoubtedly it was a grizzly bear. But how could I escape? Bruin, though his progress was not unimpeded, was surely drawing near. Following my first impulse in this pressing emergency, I placed myself forward in the boat, and, seizing a handful of green blades on either side of it, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... grasped his own bull neck with an unpleasantly significant gesture and winked knowingly at the girl, who turned white as death and remained gazing at him with a sort of horrified fascination which he presently ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... mighty wrongs to petty perfidy Have I not seen what human things could do? From the loud roar of foaming calumny To the small whisper of the as paltry few— And subtler venom of the reptile crew, The Janus glance[510] of whose significant eye, Learning to lie with silence, would seem true— And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, Deal round to happy ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... Soph," with a significant half smile. "She's such a good old thing. And she's had so little in ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... straight. Very well, we will say Tuesday; and I really am very much obliged to Percival for his suggestion, for after all this talk, and the things Edith Bryce told you yesterday, I shall be quite nervous in calling alone.' But here a significant look from her daughter checked her, and she ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of Romans is full of proof-texts favoring holiness of life. Paul asks, 'Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?' 'God forbid,' he answers. And then Paul asks a most significant and conclusive question, 'How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?' Mark the words, 'dead to sin.' What could Paul mean, except that we are ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... what was said. The frequency with which different individuals knelt on the ground, to scent an odor that is always so pleasant to the red man, would of itself have given a clew to the general character of the discourse; but the significant and expressive gestures, the rapid enunciation, and the manner in which the eyes of the speakers glanced from the faces near themselves to the spot consecrated by whiskey, pretty plainly told the story. It was while thus intently occupied in endeavoring to read the singular ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... Measures of Treatment and Disposal thence, we should certainly find answerable Improvements and lasting good Effects. The several Kinds of Learning and Business would come to be more advanced, and the Lives of Men become more useful and significant to the World. ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... story connected with this warlike enterprise so significant of the times that it must be told. Whether or not William believed Hereward to be an enchanter, he took steps to defeat enchantment, if any existed. An old woman, who had the reputation of being a sorceress, was brought to the royal ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... had failed to move the brutal egoism of his brother, beating upon it like the lightest of sea-foam on a rock of basalt, he was made to fall back upon the alternative of heavy denunciation. And it was significant that this commonplace tirade drew more applause than all the pretty wit that had gone before it. Seldom have I been so profoundly impressed with the difficulties of an art which depends for its success (financial, that is to say) on the satisfaction ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... simply that Jean Castel was engaged upon an important mission for France, and all were commanded to give him what help they could. It was signed by the fat and famous general of brigade, Vaugirard, and therefore it was a significant document. ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... profession of his faith; here is the history also of his examination, to see whether he were fit to preach or not. It is remarkable that in both these instances the most significant indication that he had, both of his descent from God and of his being worthy of the Messiahship, consisted in this simple exposition of the line of his preaching,—that he took sides with the poor, neglected, and lost. He emphasized ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... pacified accordingly. The region that lieth near unto those lakes of gory water, from that time hath been celebrated as Samanta-panchaka the holy. The wise have declared that every country should be distinguished by a name significant of some circumstance which may have rendered it famous. In the interval between the Dwapara and the Kali Yugas there happened at Samanta-panchaka the encounter between the armies of the Kauravas and the Pandavas. In that holy region, without ruggedness of any kind, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... her enforced seclusion by clumping noisily about the passages, till Miss Todd, hearing the racket, dropped a significant hint as to the necessity of compulsory felt slippers for girls who had not learnt to walk lightly. So, fearing that the Principal might really carry out this threat, Diana betook herself to the garden, ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... compared with most Semitic peoples, they had been disposed to peace. But now a martial spirit is evoked. A military class arises. Wars for plunder and conquest ensue. The use of horses in battle is a new and significant fact. The character of the people changes for the worse. The priestly class become more compact and domineering. Temples are the principal edifices, in the room ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... JOANNA. They had conversed. "An empty table, is it not?" said she. "Nowhere!" said he, and they proceeded. His "Nowhere!" had a penetrating significance—the more significant for the sense ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... deeds cause or signify that which is against that other man's honor. In the former case it is not a matter of reviling but of some other kind of injustice, of which we have spoken above (QQ. 64, 65, 66): where as in the latter case there is reviling, in so far as deeds have the significant force of words. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the ancient, the amazingly ancient, forces that have dominated whole races for centuries. In most places, in fact, the ancient force is still clearly the dominant one. Observe, too, therefore, that I have written not of where half the world has waked up, but only of where it is waking up. The significant thing is that the waking is really taking place at all, and of this there ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... over that way, take a look at that sign on the front of my store," said Smith, giving her a significant, intimate glance. "The more you see that name in print ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... Cumae—where Tarquinius Superbus spent the last years of his life in exile—and by others in Rome. But the majority of writers associate it with the building of the great temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. Several prodigies, significant of the future fate of Rome and of the reigning dynasty, occurred when the foundations of this temple were dug and the walls of it built. A fresh human head, dripping gore, was found deep down beneath the ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... nevertheless, to blame those early folk for not understanding, as finely as we do, the true science of government to be complete and unquestioned mastery. We have learned much since then. Let us look back to those days for a moment, to get the just perspective. One of the first significant things we notice is that those people were free to criticize their politicians—baaing across the hurdles, as it were. That was why they had to have explained to them the "Objects of the War." They actually did not want to die. They were reluctant to ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... suddenly a loud crash is heard in the gorges of the mountain. It is the roar of the storm. The maple tops writhe and twist in the sweep of the winds that come up in eddies from the river far beneath. The sky is suddenly darkened. The snow falls thick and fast. These portents are sufficiently significant to startle the whole party. The dance is broken up and every one prepares to depart as fast as ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... by serious failures in professional competency. The charge preferred against him which seems most to have attracted attention, and to have been considered most damaging, was taking his fleet into action in a confused and disorderly manner. It is significant of professional standards that this should have assumed such prominence; for, however faulty may have been his previous management, the most creditable part of his conduct was the manner of his attack. He did not wait for ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... almost lost in the hugh old walnut chair of his forefathers. Down the table sit the ten ministers of the departments of state, all of them loving the handsome little fellow on the necessary pile of statutes, but all of them more or less indifferent to his significant yawns and ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... was flushed with a faint, exquisite rose; the wooden, slightly vacant expression was gone; she walked with a lissome, conscious grace which he had not before observed, and the slow, enigmatic smile with which she greeted him held much that was significant behind it. ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... ways. First, as overpassing (supergreditur) the rule of reason, and in this sense we say that it is a sin. Secondly, it may simply denominate "super-abundance"; in which sense any super-abundant thing may be called pride: and it is thus that God promises pride as significant of super-abundant good. Hence a gloss of Jerome on the same passage (Isa. 61:6) says that "there is a good and an evil pride"; or "a sinful pride which God resists, and a pride that denotes the glory ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... but the most significant. Caesar declared Gaul a Roman province and annexed it to the Empire toward the end of 57 B.C.; that is, at the end of his second year as proconsul, unexpectedly, with no warning act to intimate such vigorous intent,—a surprise; and why? Look to Rome and you will understand. In 57 B.C., ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... through the gate that morning on his way to the duties of his first day. The neighborhood children were already on their way to school, but they were mostly the children of tobacco tenants, and when he passed the school-house he saw a young woman on the porch—two facts that were significant. The neighborhood church was going, the neighborhood school was going, the man-teacher was gone—and he himself was perhaps the last of the line that started in coonskin caps and moccasins. The gentleman farmers who had made the land distinct and distinguished ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... a surgical instrument "baume d'acier" (steel balm), or in the saying which mocks the credulous faith many people vaguely have in the efficacy of mineral waters: "Croyez cela et buvez de l'eau" (Believe that and drink water). There is something desperately significant in a language in which the lover who supports, protects and is deceived is called "le dessus," and the one who is favored at his expense "le dessous;" while the words "une femme," a woman, without qualification, are identical with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... to some extent, foreseen the line the superintendent would take; but a post to which he thought he had a claim had been offered to somebody else. The post was not remarkably well paid, but since he was passed over now, he would, no doubt, be disappointed when he applied for the next, and it was significant that as he stood at the top of the ravine he first ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... yourself, considering the extreme precautions you have taken to deprive me of this resource; but as according to our French customs, any answer is an act of civility, I am not willing to concede the advantage of politeness—besides, although silence is sometimes very significant, its eloquence is not understood by every one, and the public which has not leisure to analyze disputes (often of little interest) has a reasonable right to require at least some preliminary explanations; reserving to itself, should the discussion degenerate into the recriminative ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... and clear of outline as a Grecian temple, grew up the science of Geometry. Perfect for all time, and as incapable of change or improvement as the Parthenon, appear the Elements of Euclid, whose voice comes floating down through the ages, in that one significant rejoinder,—"Non est regia ad mathematicam via." It is the reply of the mathematician, quiet-eyed and thoughtful, to the first Ptolemy, inquiring if there were not some less difficult path to the mysteries. But the Greek Geometry was in no wise confined to the elements. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... near the carpus, and the Telemetacarpals, in which the splint is far from the carpus, and articulated with the digital phalanges. All the known species of deer can be classified under these two heads; and it is a significant fact that this pedal division is borne out by certain cranial peculiarities discovered by Professor Garrod, and also, to a certain extent, by an arrangement of hair-tufts on the tarsus and metatarsus. In the Old World deer, which are with few exceptions Plesiometacarpi, ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... that they assented to the principles of the bill; and that, therefore, no further delay should take place in its progress. Lord Brougham said that he drew no happy augury of the fate of the bill from the very significant speech of the Duke of Wellington. He would not say any sinister motive lurked in his proposition for delay; but if he was averse to the present measure, as he appeared to be, why did he not throw it out altogether? ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... they both changed color. For the first time they met outside a drawing-room; and the change in their environment seemed to warrant some change in their relation to one another. After the first greeting, and a short significant pause—for what can be more significant than silence between two people who have reached that stage of sensitiveness to each other's moods when every word or movement seems like ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... with such shame or sinks him to such hopelessness as when he finds that what he has persistently clamoured for and refused to be content without, has proved the bitterest and most disastrous element in his life. This particular form of ruin is nowhere described with more careful, and significant detail than in the narrative of Israel's determination to have a king over them like other nations. Samuel, forseeing the evils which would result from their choice, remonstrated with them and reminded them of their past success, ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods
... Jacob Boehme and his influence. I soon found, however, as my work of research proceeded, that Boehme was no isolated prophet who discovered in solitude a fresh way of approach to the supreme problems of the soul. I came upon very clear evidence that he was an organic part of a far-reaching and significant historical movement—a movement which consciously aimed, throughout its long period of travail, to carry the Reformation to its legitimate terminus, the restoration of apostolic Christianity. The men who originated the movement, so far as anything historical can be said to be "originated," ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... lady's mental equilibrium. She had endeavoured to prevent this meeting, because she thought it was not fair to Fitz. She noted the approval with which Mrs. Harrington's keen eyes rested on the young sailor, and endeavoured somewhat obviously to draw Agatha's attention to it by frowns and heavily significant nods, which ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... conventions. It was not that he had need to assume a false and superficial polish, or that he particularly cared to show his equality with those accustomed to polite society; but that he probably conceived the splendid display and significant formality of that ancient nobility which had so cruelly snubbed him from the outset as being, nevertheless, the best conceivable prop to ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... government? Or was it Mr. Bayard and his disloyal associates in Delaware to whom he was addressing words of hostility to the National Administration and of infidelity to the Union of the States? It is significant that Mr. Bayard acknowledged allegiance to the National Government only as he owed it through the State. This was the rank heresy upon which the leaders of the Southern ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... moan out on the reefs, the sweet, fresh tang, the clear, antiseptic breath of salt, and always by the glowing, hot, colorful day or by the soft dark night with its shadows and whisperings on the beach, that significant presence—the sense of something vaster than ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... the while. Presently, after feeling the edge himself, he bent over the stone again, and she went on turning the wheel still singing softly. At last he stopped again and felt the edge. With a smile which showed her fine white teeth, she said, "Is that for me?" making a significant sign across her throat ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... arts, and their knowledge of drugs was very great, I would suffer one of them, called Philip, who always attended us as language-master, to try what he could do for me, on condition, that he should omit all superstitious ceremonies. He agreed, and immediately putting on the most solemn and significant expression of face, worthy of so eminent a practitioner, began to paw me all over, varying his features with every motion of his hand, so that, notwithstanding the pain I felt, I could not refrain from bursting into laughter ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel
... be a small matter compared with being taken to prison and put on the treadmill, a position in which he boasted of having once been placed. When he happened to mention this to a tramp on the road, I was greatly amused to hear the tramp in a significant and confidential tone of voice quietly ask, "What was ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... most significant elements in the disintegration of the old Congregationalism in New England itself, however, were furnished by the Unitarians and the Universalists. For nearly a generation the liberal movement in religion had been progressing. The Unitarian revolt, of which Channing was the most ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner |
