"Militate against" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as with abstraction and concreteness, you should develop facility in gliding from literalness to figurativeness and back again. But you are always to remember that your gymnastics are not to militate against verbal concord. You must never set words scowling and growling at each other through injudicious combinations like this: "She was five feet, four and three-quarter inches high, had a small, round scar between her nose and her left cheek-bone, and moved with ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... Inhabitants of the West-Indies, and those of Europe. And how little the Soil or Climate hath influenced or caused their Courage to degenerate towards cowardize or baseness of mind. As if the very same Argument, deduced from the nature of that Climate, did not equally militate against the valour of our famous Bucaniers, and represent this to be of as ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... Christian system of faith, could not but foresee that the continually progressive knowledge that man would gain by the aid of science, of the power and wisdom of God, manifested in the structure of the universe, and in all the works of creation, would militate against, and call into question, the truth of their system of faith; and therefore it became necessary to their purpose to cut learning down to a size less dangerous to their project, and this they effected by restricting the idea of learning to the dead ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... we find laws in relation to property which recognize natural justice as clearly as does the jurisprudence of Rome; but revolt and rebellion against bad rulers or kings, although apt to take place, were nowhere enjoined, unless royal command should militate against the sovereignty of God,—the only ultimate authority. By the Hebrew writers, bad rulers are viewed as a misfortune to the people ruled, which they must learn to bear, hoping for better times, trusting in Providence for relief, rather than trying to remove by violence. It is He who raises ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... missionary grounds, but of colonizing grounds; if it should not suit missionary needs, you cannot expect to gather in a missionary crop. And, moreover, all of us who are connected with the agents, who are under public instructions, must be conformed to their laws, whether they militate against missionary operation ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... increase that may be expected of a criminal family, we will examine and compare the conditions of life existing among the "Jukes" and the criminal that we have to deal with and thus discover features among the latter which militate against a large birth-rate; but which are not present ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... the inferences of the geologist militate against those of the theologian. Nay, not those of our higher geologists and higher theologians,—not what our Murchisons and Sedgwicks infer in the one field, with what our Chalmerses and Isaac Taylors infer in the other. Between the Word and the Works of God there can be no actual discrepancies; ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... then, is not, even in these free days, when there is such a talk about educating the masses, repaired by the English Government; and this sad fact seems to militate against the power of moral force. However, it is but right to remember that only those establishments are here spoken of which are supported by state aid, and that complete freedom of education, independent of such assistance, does actually ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... alone Dick would have had cause to be immensely grateful to Alan Massey. To good food, good nursing and material comfort the young man reacted quickly for he was a healthy young animal and had no bad habits to militate against recovery. ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... familiar to those who use that work, but it may not be amiss to explain S. Thomas's method in brief fashion. Each "article" is couched in the form of a question, thus: Has contemplation its joys? And the Saint at once sets forth in succession three, sometimes more, arguments which seem to militate against the view he himself holds. These are commonly known as the objections. He then gives us a short paragraph opening with the words: Sed contra, or But on the contrary; and in this paragraph he gives some authority, generally that of Holy Scripture or one of the Fathers, for the view he ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... influence the conduct of those who desire to advance themselves in the world, because they are bound to bear in mind, that they cannot admit of any principle of action which tends, in the slightest degree, to militate against their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... set a high value upon a thing for which you have none—time; he will acknowledge the force of your arguments merely from a dread of their length; he will yield to you in trifles, particularly in trifles which do not militate against his authority; not out of regard for you, but for his time; for what man can prevail upon himself to debate three hours about what could be as well decided ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... the throne. The Duchess of Gordon was selected by Queen Adelaide as Mistress of the Robes at the Coronation. The Queen bestowed upon her many marks of favour and friendship. But the promotion to the highest honours of the Court was not allowed to militate against her soul's welfare. The service of the King of kings ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... necessary to treat, however briefly, of the mythological legend on which this exquisite elegy is founded; yet we venture to do so rather than that the forgetfulness of the reader should militate against his enjoyment of the poem. Proserpine, according to the Homeride (for the story is not without variations), when gathering flowers with the Ocean-Nymphs, is carried off by Aidoneus, or Pluto. Her mother, Ceres, wanders over the earth for her in vain, and refuses to return to heaven till ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... residences at the further end of the Ludwigs Strasse; but not because they thus lived must it be considered that they were palatial people. By no means let it be so thought, as such an idea would altogether militate against whatever truth of character painting there may be in this tale. They were not palatial people, but the very reverse, living in homely guise, pursuing homely duties, and satisfied with homely pleasures. Up two pairs of stairs, however, in that street of palaces, they lived, having there a commodious ...
— The House of Heine Brothers, in Munich • Anthony Trollope
... stand by monogamy it behoves us to examine very carefully certain of its present conditions which militate against the full realization of its value for the individual and for the race. The disproportion of the sexes we have already discussed, and it may here be assumed that that grave obstacle to the success of ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... seem to throw myself all but over it. In short, while the whole person appears to be merely following the mind in producing the desired effect and illusion upon the spectator, both the intellect and the senses are constantly engrossed in guarding against the smallest accidents that might militate against it; and while representing things absolutely imaginary, they are taking accurate cognizance of every real surrounding object that can either assist or mar the result they seek to produce. This seems to me by far the most singular part ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the characteristic attributes or traits which a masterful and inspiring teacher should possess? In the first place he should be physically sound. It may seem like a lack of charity to say, and yet it is true, that any serious physical defect should militate against, if not bar, one from the schoolroom. Any serious blemish or noticeable defect becomes to pupils an ever-present suggestive picture, and to some extent must work against, rather than for, education. Other things being equal, those who are personally attractive and have the most ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... Sunday-school favorite bear witness to the painstaking care of the editors that the leaflets, tracts, and stories poured in from all parts of the country should "shine by reason of the truth contained," and "avoid the least appearance, the most indirect insinuations, of anything which can militate against the strictest ideas of propriety." The tales had also to keep absolutely within the bounds of religion. Many were the stories found lacking in direct religious teaching, or returned because religion was not vitally connected ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... some instances), or any other adequate immunity or compensation granted to the brave defenders of their country's cause. But neither the adoption or rejection of this proposition will, in any manner, affect, much less militate against, the act of Congress by which they have offered five years' full pay in lieu of the half-pay for life, which had been before promised to the officers ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... advice were followed, the rebellion could be put down. Nothing is more likely than that Marlborough's advice should have been sought and should have been given. It would not in the {129} least degree militate against the truth of the story that the outbreak took place so soon after Marlborough had been professing the most devoted attachment to the cause of the Stuarts, and had declared, as we have said already, that he would rather cut off his right hand than do anything ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... design; why, then, should the design which must have attended organic development be other than this? If the thing that has been is the thing that also shall be, must not the thing which is be that which also has been? Was there anything in the phenomena of organic life to militate against such a view of design as this? Not only was there nothing, but this view made things plain, as the connecting of heredity and memory had already done, which till now had been without explanation. Rudimentary organs ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... there is a difference between this case and the Engagement, because there was then no necessity of choosing such instruments, a competency of power might be had, but now it is not so, and therefore the scriptures mentioned do not militate against the present case. Answer 1. The scriptures cited will obviate this. What made Israel and Judah run to Egypt and Assyria for help, but their weakness and necessity? Their wound was incurable, and their bruise grievous, as Jeremiah often laments, and particularly ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... Mosaic account of the peopling of the earth. That account will, I doubt not, stand the test of the most learned and rigorous investigation. Indeed, I have long been convinced, after the closest meditation of which I am capable, that sound philosophy and genuine revelation never militate against each other. The rational friends of religion are so far from dreading the spirit of inquiry, that they wish for nothing more than a candid, calm, and impartial examination of the subject according to all the lights which the ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... prevail. They were, I think, travelling to the southward, at the time they fell in with us, for they had no females among the party, by whom they are usually at other times accompanied. The circumstance of their being unarmed may seem to militate against the supposition that they were travelling, but it is to be borne in mind that these people universally consider the absence of offensive weapons as the surest test of peaceful intentions, and would therefore, if they desired to maintain a friendly footing with the newcomers, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... such a situation as this might militate against any permanent arrangement with Jennie was obvious even to Lester at this time. He thought out his course of action carefully. Of course he would not give Jennie up, whatever the possible consequences. But ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... political, social, or personal, of any kind, will be permitted to exercise the least effect in any question of promotion or detail; and if there is reason to believe that such pressure is exercised at the instigation of the officer concerned, it will be held to militate against him. In our Army we cannot afford to have rewards or duties distributed save on the simple ground that those who by their own merits are entitled to the rewards get them, and that those who are peculiarly fit to do the duties ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... held by them. On the other hand the village of Imjhira in Narsinghpur belonging to a Lodhi malguzar was gallantly defended against a band of marauding rebels from Saugor. Sir R. Craddock describes them as follows: "They are men of strong character, but their constant family feuds and love of faction militate against their prosperity. A cluster of Lodhi villages forms a hotbed of strife and the nearest relations are generally divided by bitter animosities. The Revenue Officer who visits them is beset by reckless charges and counter-charges ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... peculiarity of the devil that he was a liar from the beginning. If we set out in life with pretending to know that which we do not know; with professing to accept for proof evidence which we are well aware is inadequate; with wilfully shutting our eyes and our ears to facts which militate against this or that comfortable hypothesis; we are assuredly doing our best to deserve the ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... of the senseless theories that militate against exertion and industry in Ireland, and occasion many to shrink back from the laudible race of honest enterprise, into filth, penury, and crime. It is this idle and envious crew, who, with a natural aversion to domestic industry, become adepts ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... would protect the money from being clipped or mutilated or melted down. Once money, always money, and he who alters its money status we lock up as a felon. There is no legal reason and no moral reason and no market reason to militate against what I have outlined as a policy. Finance as a science is simpler than the science of soap-boiling, although the money-changers in the temple for their own selfish advantage prefer you to ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... wonderful instincts of neuter ants and bees can be due to the fact that the neuter ant or bee was ever in part, or in some respects, another neuter ant or bee in a previous generation. At the same time I maintain that this does not militate against the supposition that both instinct and structure are in the main due to memory. For the power of receiving any communication, and acting on it, is due to memory; and the neuter ant or bee may have received its lesson from another neuter ant or bee, who had it from another and modified it; ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... turns, pleased and displeased, startled, and half-convinced me that its author is oftener right than wrong. Though the ideas of absolute equality in the sexes are carried too far, and though they certainly militate against St. Paul’s maxims concerning that important compact, yet they do expose a train of mischievous mistakes in the education of females.” We may note that Tom Paine, “the greatest of pamphleteers,” died in ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... do not mean that the enemies of the bank are identically the same individuals who, on other points, attack the Federal Government; but I assert that the attacks directed against the bank of the United States originate in the same propensities which militate against the Federal Government; and that the very numerous opponents of the former afford a deplorable symptom of the decreasing support of ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... this invitation I was not unaware that there existed differences between several of the Republics of South America which would militate against the happy results which might otherwise be expected from such an assemblage. The differences indicated are such as exist between Chile and Peru, between Mexico and Guatemala, and between the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... rejected it utterly, shrugging my shoulders. As for the facts of which I am speaking, and which gave rise to my doubts—at first I simply tried to prove that those facts were false, taking, from the depositions of the witnesses, only that which would militate against their truth and rejecting all the rest, with a terrible simplicity of bad faith. And in the end, in order to dissipate my last scruples, I told myself, just as you told me, "That is the business of the defence; ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... could be adduced against this reasoning they declared to be honorable and full of generous sound, but difficult of execution. It would be more advisable to increase the power of the king in Europe, where the forces could attend to emergencies without the casualties that militate against them in outside seas and dominions. Each one of these arguments was enforced so minutely by the ministers of the treasury that this proposition merited consideration and examination. Had God permitted the king to exclude ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... referable to this period, we meet at the close of this period with shells such as nowadays are distinctively characteristic of high latitudes. It might be thought that the occurrence of Quadrupeds such as the Elephant, Rhinoceros, and Hippopotamus, would militate against this generalisation, and would rather support the view that the climate of Europe and the United States must have been a hot one during the later portion of the Pliocene period. We have, however, reason to ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... taken the liberty of representing to you the facts and the reasons, which seem to militate against the separation or removal of these troops. I am sensible, however, that the same subject may appear to different persons in very different lights. What I have urged as reasons, may, to sounder minds, be apparent fallacies. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... one short strand to another. There is excellent bathing for those who like bathing on shelving sand. I don't. The spot is about half a mile from the hotels, and to this the bathers are carried in omnibuses. Till one o'clock ladies bathe, which operation, however, does not at all militate against the bathing of men, but rather necessitates it as regards those men who have ladies with them. For here ladies and gentlemen bathe in decorous dresses, and are very polite to each other. I must say ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... he might have a dozen if he wished, but that it would not be wise to have more than one solicitor engaged in one transaction, as only one could act at a time, and that to change would be certain to militate against his interest. He seemed thoroughly to understand, and went on to ask if there would be any practical difficulty in having one man to attend, say, to banking, and another to look after shipping, in case local help were ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... Holm bearing with her a note from Lady Arabella in which she asked her god-daughter to pay her a visit. In it, however, the wily old lady made no mention of her further idea of going to Harrogate, lest it should militate against an acceptance of the invitation. Magda demurred a little at first, but Gillian, suddenly endowed with diplomacy worthy of a Machiavelli, pointed out that if she really had any intention of ultimately ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... certainly have made him a great power, possibly a leader, in that sphere. Next, what constantly appears in his writings, even those of the most polemical kind—a singular candour in recognising truths which might seen to militate against his own position, and a power of understanding and respecting his adversaries' opinions, if only they were strongly and conscientiously held. I remember his saying on one occasion that in his earlier experience of sickness and suffering, he ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... that he never did. He visited there, and his shepherds undoubtedly ran sheep on the range covered by the grant. But Valdes and his family never actually resided on the estate. Other points that militate against the claim of his descendants may be noted. First, that minor grants of land, taken from within the original Valdes grant, were made by the governor without any protest on the part of the Don. Second, ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... extraordinary demagogues or newspaper syndicates working the political machine from that direction. So far as the demagogue goes, the increase of population, the multiplication of amusements and interests, the differentiation of social habits, the diffusion of great towns, all militate against that sufficient gathering of masses of voters in meeting-houses which gave him his power in the recent past. It is improbable that ever again will any flushed undignified man with a vast voice, a muscular face in incessant operation, collar crumpled, hair ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... to the geographical features and position of the United Kingdom. Its comparatively small size, the propinquity of industrial centres, our efficient day and night express railway services, especially those running north and south, lessen the value of aircraft's superior speed and militate against the operation of successful internal air services. Possible exceptions might include amphibian services between London and Dublin, accelerating the delivery of mails five or six hours; between Glasgow and Belfast, where the Clyde and the harbour of Belfast could be ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... blinded it must have been evident, at the very moment when Christ appeared, that the sceptre had not departed from Judah. We must not allow ourselves to be perplexed by any events and arguments adduced to prove that the sceptre has departed from Judah; for the very same events and arguments would militate against the eternal dominion of his house which had been promised to David, and would therefore make us doubtful of that also. All these events and arguments lose their significancy, when we remark, that this departing is only an apparent, not a definitive ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... fraudulent and evil, and I invite the careful criticism of this class; and if, in my exposition of this subject, I announce a single proposition which will not bear the closest scrutiny; if I say aught which conflicts with common sense or reason, nay, if you can find one single natural fact to militate against the principles which I announce as fundamental to this science, I will be obliged to the gentleman or lady who will raise the question with me, and I will either prove my position to the satisfaction of this audience or ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... notwithstanding its pomp and pageantry, no expense whatever is incurred by the President personally. No fruits, cake, wine, coffee, hard cider, or other refreshments of any kind are tendered to his guests. Indeed, it would militate against all the rules of court etiquette, now established at the palace, to permit vulgar eating and drinking on this grand gala day. The Marine Band, however, is always ordered from the Navy Yard and stationed in the spacious front hall, from ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... the barbarism of the interior of Africa than to a town in a civilised country. The medical men and the higher classes are split into parties, quarrelling about the nature of the disease, and perverting and concealing facts which militate against their respective theories. The people are taught to believe that there is really no cholera at all, and that those who say so intend to plunder and murder them. The consequence is prodigious irritation and excitement, an invincible repugnance on the part of the lower orders ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... employment of an equal number of stevedores at forty cents an hour; but Mr. Murphy, out of his profound experience, advised against this course, as tending to spread the news of the Retriever's misfortune and militate against securing a crew when the vessel should be loaded and lying in the stream ready for sea. Men employed now, he explained, would only desert. The thing to do was to let a Seattle crimp furnish the crew, sign them on before the shipping ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... addresses indicates that they were composed by one person, or else modelled from the same formula. All had the same source of inspiration. This, however, does not militate against the moral effect of those uttering them. So far as Scotland is concerned, it must be regarded as a fair representation of the sentiment of the people. While only an insignificant part of the Highlands gave their humble petitions, yet the subsequent acts must be ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... head and demand from him such answers as will fill the measure of our preconceived notions. He may know more of the subject, in reality, than the teacher, but this will not avail. In fact, this may militate against him. She demands to know what the book says, with small concern for his own knowledge of the subject. We proclaim loudly that we must encourage the open mind, and then by our witness-stand ordeal ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... improved daily at Hampton Court. In spite of his fierce impatience to get well, in order to engage in the search for Marian—an impatience which was in itself sufficient to militate against his well-being—he did make considerable progress on the road to recovery. He was still very weak, and it must take time to complete his restoration; but he was no longer the pale ghost of his former self that Gilbert had brought down to ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... the conditions which (1) conduce toward, and (2) militate against, France's being a great commercial nation. (b) Give an account of the distinctive manufactures ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... this expression. Does it militate against the physical laws of time and space, or of matter and motion, that a man so ingenious and so expert as this Armenian must undoubtedly be, assisted by agents whose dexterity and acuteness are probably not inferior to his own; favored by the time of night, and watched by no one, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... militate against the ideoplastic theory," I retorted. "It is as easy to produce a phantom with hair plaited as it is to produce one with hair in curls. If it is a case of the modelling of the etheric vapor by the mind of the psychic, these differences would be ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... principles—that from their very nature spirits cannot act upon material beings, and that the Scriptures represent the devil and his satellites as shut up in the prison of hell. To explain away the texts which militate against his system, evidently cost him much labour and perplexity. His interpretations, for the most part, are similar to those still relied on by the believers in his doctrine' (Note by Murdock in Mosheim's Institutes of Ecclesiastical History). The usually candid Mosheim ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... also, in a different way. But with Kant this scepticism was not the gist of his philosophy. It was urged rather as the basis of the unconditioned character which he proposed to assert for the practical reason. Kant's scepticism is therefore very different from that of Hume. It does not militate against the profoundest religious conviction. Yet it prepared the way for some of the just ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... given orders to treat our Wilfred with all possible consideration, and to allow him every indulgence, which did not militate against his safe keeping, for he admired, even while he felt it necessary to slay. So he was not thrust into a dungeon, but confined in an upper chamber, where a grated window, at a great height, afforded him a fair view of that world he was about to leave ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... are curious, inasmuch as they militate against the generally-received opinion that the disease is caused by drinking snow-water; an opinion which seems to have originated from bronchocele being endemial ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... led astray by those passions which we share; we are disgusted by those that militate against our own interests; and with a want of logic due to these very passions, we blame in others what we fain would imitate. Aversion and self-deception are inevitable when we are forced to endure at another's hands what we ourselves would ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... at variance with truth, science can never militate against faith: we naturally speak of them both in their purity: they respond to and they strengthen man's most glorious thought: immortality. And yet you may say, "I was more peaceful, I was safer when, as a child, I closed my eyes on my mother's breast and slept without ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... certain, that our highest joy is in the losing of our egoistic self and in the uniting with others. This love gives us a new power and insight and beauty of mind to the extent of the limits we set around it, but ceases to do so if those limits lose their elasticity, and militate against the spirit of love altogether; then our friendships become exclusive, our families selfish and inhospitable, our nations insular and aggressively inimical to other races. It is like putting a burning light within ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... the laws of America as were actually committed were certainly reprobated by none more sincerely than by myself, if only because nothing could be imagined more certain to militate against my policy, as I have here described it, than these outrages and the popular indignation aroused by them. I fully realized that these individual acts, in defiance of the law of the land and the resulting spread of Germanophobia, were bound to damage me in the eyes of the ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... facts that militate against the theory; the elephant, for instance, is accounted one of the most ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... my lord, are the facts set out as shortly as possible and written on the eve of my departure in circumstances that militate against elegance of expression. I am, to tell the truth, still staggered by this affair, and if I make public my sorrow and my shame I do so in the hope that the Society of which your lordship is President, may see its way to take some kind of action that will make a repetition of such an outrage upon family ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... he; "it endangers your character and your happiness. Yet again, do not suffer me to interfere, if the breaking with Lord Frederick can militate against your felicity." ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... There are many things about the craters which seem to give some warrant for the hypothesis which has been particularly urged by Mr G. K. Gilbert, that they were formed by the impact of meteors; but there are also many things which militate against that idea, and, upon the whole, the volcanic theory of their origin ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... life-time here, they pass to some further state of existence; that people of similar thoughts, tastes and feelings, gravitate together; that married couples do not necessarily reunite, but that the love of man and woman continues and is freed of elements which with us often militate against its perfect realization; that immediately after death people pass into a semi-conscious rest-state lasting various periods, that they are unable to experience bodily pain, but are susceptible at times to some mental anxiety; that ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... delicate and beautiful flowers, each having eight petals. It was true that these "flowers" could protrude and retract themselves, but their motions were hardly more extensive, or more varied, than those of the leaves of the sensitive plant; and therefore they could not be held to militate against the conclusion so strongly suggested by their form and their grouping upon the ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... occurred. Having told him that I had quitted all thoughts of the law, he enquired into my motives; and, being full of the subject and zealous to detail its whole iniquity, I not only urged the reasons that most militate against it both in principle and practice, but, in the warmth of argument, declared that I doubted whether any man could bring an action against another without being guilty of injustice. I considered crime and error as the same. The structure of law I argued was erroneous, therefore criminal; and I ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... than the manager can earn, he quite surely will sooner or later discharge his manager. This may result disastrously for the discharged young man, not merely on account of the loss of employment, but because his failure may militate against his securing satisfactory employment elsewhere. When an employer is seeking a man, he looks for one who has succeeded. There is an old saying, "Nothing succeeds like success," and it is only too true ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... may be valuable as a gas coal and for local consumption, but the large proportions of water and of oxygen militate against its use as a steam producer, only 58 per cent. of it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... be asked, are all the ingredients just mentioned necessary in order to produce the wourali poison? Though our opinions and conjectures may militate against the absolute necessity of some of them, still it would be hardly fair to pronounce them added by the hand of superstition till proof positive can ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... forwards there is a good deal to be done in that way, he is quite content to walk by the side, or in front of the barrow, whilst SARK wheels it, and I walk behind, picking up any bits that have shaken out of the vehicle. (Earth trodden into the gravel-walk would militate against its efficiency.) But of course ARPACHSHAD is, in the terms of his contract, "a working gardener," and I ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... expression. She was one of those women who either fear or despise that which they do not understand. She could scarcely fear Jem, so she persuaded herself that he was stupid and unattractive. At this time there came another influence to militate against any excess of love between Jem and his stepmother. It came to her, for he was ignorant of it. And this was the knowledge that before long the little heir's undisputed reign in the nursery ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... presently, when it has torn its temporary wrappings, would be unable to effect the difficult passage. With the encumbrance of antennae, with long limbs spreading far out from the axis of the body, with curved, pointed talons which hook themselves into their medium of support, everything would militate against a prompt liberation. The eggs in one chamber hatch almost simultaneously. It is therefore essential that the first-born larvae should hurry out of their shelter as quickly as possible, leaving the passage free for those ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... from its lists of candidates, though he had formerly been elected for that place. M. Toreno is expected at Madrid. Senor Olozaga sets out for Paris, to try and persuade Christina to be patient, for that her presence previous to the elections would rather militate against her party. ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... and in the intervals only a few can be caught by hading or trolling. I only once visited this water in August, but was entirely prevented from fishing owing to the high wind. The salmon had also entered the lake, and their presence is supposed to militate against good sport. July is the best time, and there is no doubt that very good fishing can be obtained there, while the lake is easily reached from Savona's, though there is no hotel accommodation, and it is necessary to take a tent and provisions for ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert
... tied up to the wharves, evidently not in commission; but, in actual operation, we seldom meet or pass over one or two daily. To be sure, the low stage of water,—from six to eight feet thus far, and falling daily,—and the coal strike, militate against navigation interests. But the truth is, there is very little business now left for steamboats, beyond the movement of coal, stone, bricks, and other bulky material, some way freight, and a light passenger traffic. ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... will. Then, to the pleasure occasioned in us by moral consistency is joined the invigorating idea of the most perfect suitability in the great whole of nature. In this case the thing that seemed to militate against this order, and that caused us pain, in a particular case, is only a spur that stimulates our reason to seek in general laws for the justification of this particular case, and to solve the problem of this separate discord in the centre of the general harmony. Greek ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... rather perplexed as to what he should next do; his orders were to destroy everything—houses, property, and life; to spare neither age, sex, nor imbecility; and Santerre, undertaking the commission, had thought, in his republican zeal, that he would find no weakness in himself to militate against the execution of such orders. He was mistaken in himself, however. He had led the fierce mobs of Paris to acts of bloodshed and violence, but in doing so he had only assisted with an eager hand in the overthrow ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... the septum which divides them has the function both of an evaporating surface for the lachrymal secretion, and of a ramifying surface for a nerve ancillary to that of smell, it does not disappear entirely: the integration remains incomplete. These and other like instances do not however militate against the hypothesis. They merely show that the tendency is sometimes antagonized by other tendencies. Bearing in mind which qualification, we may say, that as differentiation of parts is connected with difference of function, so there appears to be a connexion between ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... the various types of country there. In reading this section you must make allowances for my love of this sort of country, with its great forests and rivers and its animistic-minded inhabitants, and for my ability to be more comfortable there than in England. Your superior culture-instincts may militate against your enjoying West Africa, but if you go there you will find things ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... many years to his Grace the Duke of Devonshire, in causing the surrounding hills to be well planted) has averaged about 44 degrees Fahr., only a few degrees below that of some of the most frequented winter resorts in Great Britain. Such a temperature, however, may appear to some to militate against Buxton as a health resort except during the summer months, but it must be borne in mind that although the temperature may be said to be somewhat low (a necessity of its altitude), yet the atmosphere is especially pure and dry, and, like that of Davos Platz, plays no inconsiderable ...
— Buxton and its Medicinal Waters • Robert Ottiwell Gifford-Bennet
... generally retreat, and, like all men of true courage, they will never seek a quarrel, and never give in when it is forced upon them. Many descriptions of my encounters with these animals may appear to militate against this theory, but they are the exceptions that I have met with; the fierce look of defiance and the quick tossing of the head may appear to portend a charge, but the animals are generally satisfied with ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... and that of the passage across the Red Sea, are certain in themselves, and in the simple and natural recital given of them by Moses. The profane historians, and some Hebrew writers, and even Christians, have added some embellishment which must militate against the story in itself. Josephus the historian has much embellished the history of Moses; Christian authors have added much to that of Josephus; the Mahometans have altered several points of the sacred history of the Old and New Testament. Must we, ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... happiness. But, notwithstanding this, I must here insist, and endeavour to impress my opinion upon the mind of every father, that his children's happiness ought to be first object; that book-learning, if it tend to militate against this, ought to be disregarded; and that, as to money, as to fortune, as to rank and title, that father who can, in the destination of his children, think of them more than of the happiness of those children, is, if he be of sane mind, a great criminal. Who is there, having lived to the ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... fact that Christ possessed divine attributes, such as omniscience and omnipotence, militate against a perfectly human development. Could He not have possessed them and yet not have used them? Self-emptying is not self-extinction. Is it incredible to think that, although possessing these divine attributes, He should have ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... soul, Hotep saw the prince approach. Rameses had never expressed himself upon the Hebrew question, and the scribe knew full well that neither himself nor Har-hat, nor all the ministers, nor heaven and earth could militate against the counsel of that grim young tyrant. Meneptah spoke with much ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... the creek valley the Indians had made sufficient demonstrations to cause him to swerve from where he would otherwise, and naturally, strike it, and work farther back toward the second line of bluffs, even perhaps as far back as Captain Godfrey gives the trail. The only thing to militate against this would be the element of time, which seems hardly to oppose it. However he got there, Custer is at last upon the eminence which is so soon to be consecreted with his life's blood. What saw he? What did he? The sources of information are necessarily largely Indian. ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... related to me in a very tender way (through the tax office), and it does not behoove me to say anything which could by any possibility militate against that condition of things. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... banish from their minds any early impressions they may have received inimical to the French, and resolve only to judge them as they find them, as reason must suggest that all prepossessions cherished against any people must powerfully militate against the traveller's happiness during his sojourn amongst them. I fear that I may have been considered rather prolix upon the subject, but besides the motive to which I have already alluded, I always have cherished a most anxious desire to soften as much ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... thousands of years, be so mixed up that no connection could be seen between them. This result was that nothing could be said upon the subject except that, if the catastrophe ever did occur, it must have been many thousand years ago. The fact did not in any way militate against the theory because, in view of the age of the universe, the explosion might as well have occurred hundreds of thousands or even millions of years ago as yesterday. To settle the question, general formulae must be ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... the way. The author of the Periplus of the Red Sea, informs us that, before the discovery of the monsoon, by Hippalus, small vessels had made a coasting voyage from Cana, in Arabia, to the Indies. But these irregular and trifling voyages are deserving of little consideration, and do not militate against the position we have laid down and endeavoured to prove, that in the time of the Ptolemies the commerce of Egypt was confined within the limits of the Red Sea, partly from the want of skill and enterprize, and from the dangers that ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... ideas through the contact of our every day life with those who are not of our own Faith. Willingly or unwillingly we are bound to leave an impression of our belief in the business and social circles into which our life is cast. Our silence and abstention alone often militate against the Church. Let then the purity and spirituality of our lives, the honesty of our commercial relations, the sanctity of our home, bear witness to the sacredness of our religion and to the seriousness of ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... resource, in a way an adventurer, prepared for any hazardous enterprise if he is once convinced that it is in the service of his adopted country. I believe the Queen intends to send him upon some secret mission which, although she may be ignorant of the fact, will militate against your Majesty, ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... little wary of the middle-aged servant; if she is really desirable, she is not apt to be casting about for a position, and besides, she is usually "sot" in her ways. The fact of a girl's looking sullen or morose should not militate against her—she may be only shy or embarrassed. If she is impertinent—maybe her former mistress "talked back," or made too great an equal of her. Anyway, be your own ladylike self and she will probably fall in line. The quiet, steady-looking girl who evinces a willingness ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... representing the elected members of the Council, but as newly-appointed additional members of the official bureaucracy. There will doubtless in time be gradual sorting of politicians into definite groups, but there are two unbridgeable gulfs in the Indian social system which must always militate against the building up of a solid political party system: first, the gulf between Hindu and Moslem, which still yawns as wide as ever, and second, the gulf between the Brahman and the "untouchables" who, by the way, have found ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... easterly winds west of New England do, and as the westerly winds of Sydney during July and August, which are supposed to be equally connected with the table-land of New England and of Bathurst. The westerly winds occurring at the upper Lynd, do not militate against such a supposition, as they might well belong to an upper current ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... secure her the complete prestige necessary to her ambition, while rearranged families are so common and often the results of such trivial causes, that the fact of the man's having a lovely wife and two children living abroad does not militate against him in the least. It all seems ghastly, this living life as if it was a race track, where to reach the social goal is the only thought, no matter how, or over or through what wreckage, or in what company the race is to ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... of emotion in the boy's eyes. He was following every thought passing behind them, measuring those things which might militate against his object. ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... considerations must not be allowed to militate against his being set free to return to Cassel-Nassau at the earliest possible moment. Miss Lambart said that they must. In the end it was decided that a motor-car should be procured from Rowington and that ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... born, the Doctor and the nurse, who knew his views on the subject, held back from the mother for a little the knowledge of the sex. Dame Norman was so weak that the Doctor feared lest anxiety as to how her husband would bear the disappointment, might militate against her. Therefore the Doctor sought the Squire in his study, and went resolutely ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... little more than show that the fact of certain often inherited diseases and developments, whether of youth or old age, being obviously not due to a memory on the part of offspring of like diseases and developments in the parents, does not militate against supposing that embryonic and youthful development generally is ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... these accretions from the original,—from the version, that is, that first appeared as an epic poem. Some are closely bound into the story, so as to be almost integral; some are fairly so; some might be cut out and never missed. Hence the vast bulk and promiscuity of material; which might militate against your finding in it, as a whole, any consistent Soul-symbol. And yet its chief personages seem all real men; they are clearly drawn, with firm lines;—says Mr. Dutt, as clearly as the Trojan and Achaean chiefs of Homer. Yudhishthira ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris |
