"Take shape" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... distribution of Connellsville coke reached the unprecedented figures of 125,000 tons. The production for the year foots up over 4,500,000 tons. The expansion and development of industries throughout the Middle and Southern States continues, and hundreds of new enterprises will take shape early in the spring. Iron and steel makers are projecting new furnaces and mills in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama. Some forty or fifty cotton mills are projected between Georgia and Texas. Mining companies representing ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... never be rid of the fallacy that words obey thought, that one thinks first and phrases afterward. There must first, it is true, be the intention, the desire to utter something, but the idea does not often become specific, does not take shape until it is phrased; certainly an idea is a different thing by virtue of being phrased. Words often make the thought, and the master of words will say things greater than are in him. A remarkable example is a paragraph from Miss Keller's sketch in the Youth's Companion. Writing of the moment when ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... arranged of themselves. We are not told of the series of checks and failures through which[113] they have passed. Innumerable are the inventions that remained for a long time in a state of conjecture, matters of pure imagination, because various circumstances did not permit them to take shape, to be demonstrated and verified. Thus, in the thirteenth century, Roger Bacon had a very clear idea of a construction on rails similar to our railroads; of optical instruments that would permit, as does the telescope, to see very far, and to discover the invisible. It is even ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... patronage and control. But, as the times did not seem ripe for such a vast consummation, he made no attempt to give his ideal a practical form, and concentrated his energies on the lesser movement which was beginning to take shape for a union of the Presbyterian Churches in England and the non-Established Presbyterian Churches in Scotland. He was one of those who brought this project before the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church in May 1863, when he appeared in support of ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... cantons were thus irremediably declining, the sense of unity was at the same time powerfully stirring in the nation and seeking in various ways to take shape and hold. That combination of the whole Celtic nobility in contradistinction to the individual canton-unions, while disturbing the existing order of things, awakened and fostered the conception of the collective unity of the nation. The ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... dispute. A man under the stress of a feeling which by its intensity has become a monomania, often finds himself in the frame of mind to which opium, hasheesh, or the protoxyde of azote might have brought him. Spectres appear, phantoms and dreams take shape, things of the past live again as they once were. What was but an image of the brain becomes a moving or a living object. Science is now beginning to believe that under the action of a paroxysm of passion the blood rushes to the brain, and that such congestion ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... in anything of the wonder of the scene, when her attention is attracted by an arch of white mist above the earth, and, as it seems, but a few paces from her. Gradually this path of mist grows clear as crystal, and the colours glancing in it take shape, and ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various
... being, or a divine being, paints something we feel may have life. But it is impossible to imagine Time with a body as it is to imagine a painting embodying Newton's law of gravitation. It is because such abstractions do not readily take shape that Watts drew so much on the imaginative tradition of his predecessors. Where these pictures are impressive is where the artist slipped by his conscious aim, and laid hold of the nobility peculiar to the men and women he used as symbols. It is not Time or Death which awes us in Watts' ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... varying proportions wherever thought becomes self-conscious. Here we have in its lowest terms the material for the ontological question, the first and the last problem of philosophy. God and the world, at first dimly conceived and scarcely differentiated, gradually separate and take shape in the mind as distinct entities. The concepts become principles, fixed by language and mental imagery. The gulf between them widens until they stand at opposite poles of thought. In their isolation ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce
... pages, as if she had not quite understood, and Cosmo, who had understood entirely, watching the lovely, dark, anxious face. He saw she had not mastered the story, but, which was next best, knew she had not. He began therefore to search her difficulty, or rather to help it to take shape, and thereon followed a conversation neither of them ever forgot concerning the degrees of truth: as Cosmo designated them—the truth of fact, the truth of vital relation, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... so that his own good impulses (which create those angels) may gain in authority, and none of the dangers that surround his poor life make the least impression upon him until he hears that there are hobgoblins hiding in the wood. His moral life, to take shape at all, must appear to him in fantastic symbols. The history of these symbols is therefore the ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... apprehension of it was indeed necessary, for it initiated one into the secrets of expression and of structure, in which the force of personality was largely displayed, taking shape from the thought in them, as clothes take shape from their wearers. But deeper still lay the mystical interpretation. In the world of books he heard the voice of the soul, sometimes lamenting in desolate places, sometimes singing blithely to itself, as a shepherd sings upon a headland, in sight of the ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... With the coup d'oeil of a general or the foresight of a prophet, Champlain, the illustrious first founder of French empire in America, in 1608 fixed the starting-point of it at the natural fortress of Quebec. How early the great project had begun to take shape in the leading minds of the nation it may not be easy to determine. It was only after the adventurous explorations of the French pioneers, traders, and friars—men of like boundless enthusiasm and courage—had been crowned by the achievement of La Salle, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... Canada party struggles did not take shape until well after the War of 1812. At the founding of the colony the people had been very much of one temper and one condition. In time, however, divergences appeared and gradually hardened into political divisions. A governing class, or rather clique, was the first to become differentiated. ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... to take shape or coherency as a whole, the Subaltern was back listening to the thump, thump of the German picks, and busily completing his preparations. It was near noon, and perhaps the workers would stop for a meal, which would give ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... factors are those which, coming on the top of this long, preparatory working, in whose absence they would remain without effect, serve as the source of active persuasion on crowds; that is, they are the factors which cause the idea to take shape and set it loose with all its consequences. The resolutions by which collectivities are suddenly carried away arise out of these immediate factors; it is due to them that a riot breaks out or a strike is decided upon, and to them that enormous majorities ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... diligently and wiping the sweat off their faces as natural as life. In the absorbing interest of watching those five hundred little people make the castle grow step by step and course by course, and take shape and symmetry, that feeling and awe soon passed away and we were quite comfortable and at home again. We asked if we might make some people, and he said yes, and told Seppi to make some cannon for the walls, and told Nikolaus to make some halberdiers, ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... take shape the woman and her glass died out of sight behind the rail of the steamer. In about a minute she reappeared, stood up erect, and applied a speaking-trumpet to her mouth. It was possible that a high, shrill voice might have been ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... Berlin to an important conference. Here I looked at sketches, plans, and working drawings until my eyes swam. Four more months passed which I utilized to the full. I then went to Kiel and saw a remarkable framework of steel slowly take shape upon the stocks across the way at Gaarden. Rotund, snug, and harmless the thing lay there. Inside it were hidden all the countless, complicated, and powerful features of those sketches and working drawings. I cannot boast that the reality as ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... Congress made a great impression at home and abroad, in spite of the attacks and ridicule with which the Spaniards tried to discredit it. On that eventful day Bolvar saw his dream of a great nation, Colombia, take shape, even though it were in danger of dying ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... saw the shadows and forebodings that Hugin and Munin told him of take shape and substance. And now others came across the Rainbow Bridge. They were Frigga and Sif and Nanna, the wives of Odin and Thor and Baldur. Frigga looked upon the Norns. As she did, she turned a glance of love and sadness upon Baldur, her ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... concrete cause, to fasten the blame on a man, or a group of men, and angrily hold them responsible for the misery of the world. It was as yet but a brief apparition, the first faint sign of a strange obscure, imperious soul, ready to break forth, the soul of the multitude ... It began to take shape when Maxime came home, for after the night in the streets of Paris, he fairly sweated with it; his very clothes, the hairs of his head, were impregnated. Worn out, excited, he could not sit down; his only thought was to go back again. The decree of mobilisation was to come out that day, war ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... Stanton walked over, thumbed the answer button, and watched George Yoritomo's face take shape ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... his dark companions, had no doubt early received and accepted the vast mysteries of the Christian faith; and as that other mystery began to grow in his mind, and that idea of worlds that might lie beyond the sea-line began to take shape in his thoughts, he found in the holy wisdom of the prophets, and the inspired writings of the fathers, a continual confirmation of his faith. The full conviction of these things belongs to a later period of his life; but probably, during his first voyagings in the Mediterranean, ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... of the national movement, the nature and functions of which we are at last dealing with, will, in fact, be created before everything else. Its formation is perfectly simple. It will take shape among those energetic Jews to whom I imparted my ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... ideals have begun to take shape. The most significant feature of modern times is the growing spirit of democracy. Men of all classes are awakening to their rights, and are accepting their share in the task of social reconstruction. 'We know how the masses,' says Eucken, 'are determined to form ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... on, the world outside was not altogether indifferent to affairs in Dalton Hall. In the village and in the immediate neighborhood rumor had been busy, and at length the vague statements of the public voice began to take shape. ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... in a moment of time, a moment, long—in seeming—as an hour. The girl's revolver crackled, there behind him. Stern saw a little round bluish hole take shape in the obeah's ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... the poem; and poet and critic passed the nights in hot if unproductive debate. On the whole, it seemed likely that the critic would win the day, and the essay on "The Rhythmical Structures of Walt Whitman" take shape before "The Banished God." Yet if the light in the cave was less supernaturally blue, the chant of its tides less laden with unimaginable music, it was still a thronged and echoing place when Undine Spragg ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... it is not one man; not one nation even, not one race, nor even one race kindred that is assembling this endless caravan of war. It is a spirit that is calling from the vasty deep of this world's treasure, unto material things to rise, take shape and gather at this tryst with death. It is the spirit of democracy calling across the world. The supreme councils of the Allies—what are they? They change, form and reform. Generals, field marshals, staff officers in gold lace, cabinets, presidents, puppet kings, and God knows ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... flutter of wings, a sound, and then a silence? I am too old for love; I am too old To flatter and delude myself with visions Of never-ending friendship with fair women, Imaginations, fantasies, illusions, In which the things that cannot be take shape, And seem to be, and for the moment are. [Convent ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... wall I wander; The hoary stones have set my heart astir; My thoughts take shape and move beside me in the guise Of the stern men who built the wall in early olden days. One by one the melancholy phantoms go stepping from me, And I follow them in and out among the stones. I think ...
— The Song of the Stone Wall • Helen Keller
... forest—his income would be essentially of his own making and would include all that he makes. He would not, like the primitive man, get the literal things that he fashions, but he would get the amount of wealth that he creates—the value of the literal products which take shape under ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... more generous minds among the artisans with the determination to grapple with the problem of the unskilled workmen. From the Dockers' strike of 1889 the New Unionism became a fighting force in public affairs, and the idea of a Labour party began to take shape. On the new problems Liberalism, weakened as it already had been, was further divided, and its failure in 1892 is to be ascribed far more to this larger cause than to the dramatic personal incident of the Parnell ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... the inspector, who was astonished at a deduction which harmonised with a theory which had begun to take shape ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... darkness. The woman's breath began to come too fast, her knees began to feel as if they might turn to water at any moment. At last, when within perhaps fifty paces of the shack, to her infinite relief she saw a dark, tall figure take shape just over the top of a bush, at the turn of the trail. She had room for but one thought. It was Dave, back earlier than he had expected. She did not stop to wonder how or why. With a little, breathless cry, she exclaimed: "Oh, Dave, I'm so glad! Take the baby!" and reached ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... seas to the otherworld, where he remains for an indefinite time in happiness, oblivious of earth. It is easy to see that the belief that Arthur was still living, though not in this world, might gradually take shape in such a form as this, and that his absence from his country might be interpreted as his prolonged sojourn in the distant land of a fairy queen, who was proffering him, not the delights of her love, but healing for ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... urging upon them the value of training in a night school about to be opened. Now he knew all about the courses the school would offer and he was strong on generalities as to the value of education. But try as he would, the letters refused to take shape. Then suddenly he asked himself, "What type of man am I ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous |
