"Parable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... important discovery was made by a certain curious and refined observer, that seamen have a custom when they meet a Whale to fling him out an empty Tub, by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands upon the Ship. This parable was immediately mythologised; the Whale was interpreted to be Hobbes's "Leviathan," which tosses and plays with all other schemes of religion and government, whereof a great many are hollow, and dry, and ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... in Martin Rosewarne one Sunday, in his fifteenth year, as he sat beside his father in the family pew and listened to a dull sermon on the Parable of the Talents. He was a just child, and he could not understand the crime of that servant who had hidden his talent in a napkin. In fault he must be, for ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... remember, to warn us against attempting too close an analysis of character. He used to say that the consciousness of a man, the intuitive instinct which impelled him, his attack upon experience, was a thing almost independent both of his circumstances and of his reason. He used to take his parable from the weaving of a tapestry, and say that a box full of thread and a loom made up a very small part of the process. It was the inventive instinct of the craftsman, the faculty ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... poems—the Beleaguered City, for example—may be definitely divided into two parts; in the first, a story is told or a natural phenomenon described; in the second, the spiritual application of the parable is formally set forth. This method became with him almost a trick of style, and his readers learn to look for the hoec fabula docet at the end as a matter of course. As for the prevailing optimism in Longfellow's view of life—of which ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... the Parable of the Talents, Matt. xxv. 14-30, and continuing, impressively asked: "What are you doing with your talent, Samoa? Your three talents, Savaii, Upolu, and Tutuila? Have you buried it in a napkin? Not Upolu at least. You have rather given it out ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... beneath which the man lay, Chrysostom, the thrush, took up his parable, and preached his morning sermon; and if it had been set to words, they might have ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... the fable are closely akin to allegory. A parable is a brief narrative of real or imaginary incidents for the purpose of inculcating some moral or religious truth. It has been described as "an earthly story with a heavenly meaning." A considerable part of Christ's teaching was ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... parable of Lazarus and the rich man we may well bring home to ourselves. The North is that rich man. How he is clothed in purple and fine linen, and fares sumptuously! Yonder, yonder, at a little distance, is the gate where lies ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... was preaching, accused him of uncharitableness, for saying, It was very hard for most to be saved; saying, by that, he went about to exclude most of his congregation; but he confuted him and put him to silence with the parable of the stony ground and other texts out of the 13th of Matthew, in our Saviour's sermon out of a ship, all his method being to keep close to the Scriptures; and what he found not warranted there, himself would not warrant nor determine, unless in such cases as were plain, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the sixth book, 'are so unaccustomed to speak in images.' And this use of examples or images, though truly Socratic in origin, is enlarged by the genius of Plato into the form of an allegory or parable, which embodies in the concrete what has been already described, or is about to be described, in the abstract. Thus the figure of the cave in Book VII is a recapitulation of the divisions of knowledge in Book VI. The composite ...
— The Republic • Plato
... in a parable, you have seen, I doubt not, a gallant and his mistress together. So long as she is being wooed by him, she can command; he sighs and yearns and runs on errands—in short, she rules him. But when they are wedded—ah me! It is she—if he turns out a brute, ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... won't-you-please-like-me sort of way with her, and Mary Beck felt it more than ever as she returned to her rocking-chair and jogged on again, but she could not bend from her high sense of disapproval immediately. "What do you think the unjust steward parable means, then?" she asked, not exactly returning to the fray, but with an injured manner. "It is in the Sunday-school lesson to-morrow, and I can't understand it a bit,—I ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... you I am not angry. I am merely a little sorry for human nature. I could have sworn Woods was honest. But rogues all, rogues all, Kathleen! Money rules us in the end; and now the parable is fulfilled, and Love the prodigal returns to make merry over the calf of gold. Confess," Mr. Kennaston queried, with a smile, "is it not strange an all-wise Creator should have been at pains to fashion this brave world about us for little men and women ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... uncertainties and whimsies of chance that make life in the whole so confusing to the vision. It was my fortune to see, in the valley of Atuona on Hiva-oa, a series of incidents which were at the time a whirl of unbelievable merriment, yet which slowly clarified themselves into a parable, while I sat later considering them on the leaf-shaded paepae of the House of ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... without any sign of blossoms, the flowers being small and hidden in the little buttons which first shoot out from the points of the sterns, and around which the outer and firm part of the fig grows. The leaves come out so late in the season that our Saviour said, 'Now learn a parable of the fig tree; when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh[17].' Did not our Lord say something else about a ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... in the United States, was expressed symbolically some years ago in Zangwill's dramatic parable of The Melting Pot. William Jennings Bryan has given oratorical expression to the faith in the beneficent outcome of the process: "Great has been the Greek, the Latin, the Slav, the Celt, the Teuton, and the Saxon; but greater than any of these is the American, who ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... memorial assures us, that he went to his devotions with his hands and feet tied; either to signify, that he was desirous to do nothing, but by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, or to give himself the same usage which was given to the man in the parable of the gospel; "who dared to appear in the wedding-room, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... satire was too direct to be misunderstood, even when it mocked English policy with ironical praise for doing exactly what it failed to do. More was a wit and a philosopher, but at the same time so practical and earnest that Erasmus tells of a burgomaster at Antwerp who fastened upon the parable of Utopia with such goodwill that he learnt it by heart. And in 1517 Erasmus advised a correspondent to send for Utopia, if he had not yet read it, and if he wished to see the true source ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... to have learnt this as a matter of good breeding, but she might have learnt it of a certain parable, which she could say from beginning to end, that she should "sit not ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Church. Where now the Church being established, and the white Horse whereof I spake before, hauing made his conqueste, the Lawe and Prophets are thought sufficient to serue vs, or make vs inexcusable, (M28) as Christ saith in his parable of ...
— Daemonologie. • King James I
... tradition, and is given to us in the Jehovistic narrative. Many critics have questioned the historical existence of Melchizedek, and believed that the passage in which he is mentioned is merely a kind of parable intended to show the head of the race paying tithe of the spoil to the priest of the supreme God residing at Jerusalem; the information, however, furnished by the Tel- el-Amarna tablets about the ancient city of Jerusalem and the character ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Proverbs unto this day, who have hymned the praise of diligence and docility, the scorn of sloth. Yet not one sage of the bountiful bunch has ever ventured to denounce the twin vices of industry and obedience. True, there is the story of blind Samson at the mill; perhaps a parable. ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... and sent a centurion who cut Ofella down. The people brought the centurion to him, demanding justice. [Sidenote: Sulla's parables.] Sulla told them the man had done what he ordered, and then spoke a grim parable to them. A rustic, he said, was so bitten by lice that twice he took off his coat and shook it. But as they went on biting him he burnt it. And so those who had twice been humbled had better not provoke ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... curious increase of interest and fellow-feeling he watched the distant figure mounting to its airy perch. And as he did so a yet further similitude and parable flashed through his mind. For the man's presence at that dizzy height he knew that the Board of Public Works was responsible: as a single item in the general expenditure the weathercock of the Palace of Legislature had had voted to it a new coat of gilt, ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... James Whitcomb Riley See'n Things Eugene Field The Duel Eugene Field Holy Thursday William Blake A Story for a Child Bayard Taylor The Spider and the Fly Mary Howitt The Captain's Daughter James Thomas Fields The Nightingale and the Glow-Worm William Cowper Sir Lark and King Sun: A Parable George Macdonald The Courtship, Merry Marriage, and Picnic Dinner of Cock Robin and Jenny Wren Unknown The Babes in the Wood Unknown God's Judgment on a Wicked Bishop Robert Southey The Pied Piper of Hamelin ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... little speeches, and mother smiling at her so tenderly. I feel nice things, too, but I can't say them to order; my lips seem all tight and horrid, as if they wouldn't move. I felt like the elder brother in the parable, because I really have denied myself, and been bored fearfully sometimes these last weeks doing fancy-work with mother, and driving about shut up in a horrid, close carriage, while Vere has been gadding about and enjoying herself; and then the moment she comes home I am nowhere ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... great truth as readily as you or I. To do so, he would have to unlearn in these few minutes all that he had ever learned regarding this false creation; with you and I, mother, it would be easier; we only believed, and belief is never absolute conviction, and can more readily be changed. I read a parable to-day that I think will explain what I mean. Jesus said, 'you cannot add any more to a cask already full.' So it is with father; his mind is filled so full of the present idea of God and this material ...
— The Pastor's Son • William W. Walter
... was a LYING spirit that was to inspire the emissaries of Baal, and advise the attack. And if God's prophet intimated disaster—which actually occurred—where was there deception? When it is said that God told the lying spirit to go and deceive Ahab, this is the mere drapery of the parable, and must be held as denoting sufferance, and not authoritative command. When the literal meaning of a passage leads to absurdity, we are required, to seek for its spirit or other explanation. Christ said, "Give to him that asketh of thee; and from ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... Judgment was making this oration to the town of Mansoul, it was observed by some that Diabolus trembled; but he proceeded in his parable and said, 'O thou woful town of Mansoul, wilt thou not yet set open thy gate to receive us, the deputies of thy King, and those that would rejoice to see thee live? Can thine heart endure, or can ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... Solicker's well of English undefiled; and another hour passed pleasantly enough, except that Alf's bullocks preyed on my mind, and I wanted them to prey on Yoongoolee instead. I therefore modestly opened my mouth in parable, recounting some half-dozen noteworthy reminiscences, as they occurred to my imagination, and always slightly or scornfully referring to the magnanimous and indomitable hero of my yarn as 'one ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Dale, there's lots of us that are ready to take up our share of the duties the Creator designed for us. We are standing waiting like the people in the parable that nobody had hired. The trouble is you won't let us, you men won't. We've got to wait for you to give us our rights. All our willingness doesn't amount to anything ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... me; and looking at the grave, eager faces, I agreed. He was getting in his work with Bill, too; though perhaps Bill did not know it. I remember one night, when the others had gone, The Pilot was reading to us the Parable of the Talents, Bill was particularly interested in the servant who failed in ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... had the sense to have gone back to Hull, and have gone home, I had been happy, and my father, as in our blessed Saviour's parable, had even killed the fatted calf for me; for hearing the ship I went away in was cast away in Yarmouth Roads, it was a great while before he had any assurances ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... weakness in the sentimental ones, will clear away; and it will be seen that only in the problem play is there any real drama, because drama is no mere setting up of the camera to nature: it is the presentation in parable of the conflict between Man's will and his environment: in a word, of problem. The vapidness of such drama as the pseudo-operatic plays contain lies in the fact that in them animal passion, sentimentally diluted, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... will be disappointed, and will probably teach them affectation. Surely it is much better to let their natural affections have time to expand. If we tear the rosebud open we spoil the flower." Belinda smiled at this parable of the rosebud, which, she said, might be applied to men and women, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... itself. The Moslem crescent, the Christian cross, have only a similar significance, a bringing near to the eye of what exists in reality only for the mind and heart. A symbol, however, is an arbitrary fiction, and stands to the idea as a metaphor does to the thing itself. In literature the parable of the mustard seed to which the kingdom of heaven was likened, exemplifies symbolical or metaphorical method; but the tale of the court of Arthur's knights, ideal method; between them, and sharing something of both, lies allegorical method. Idolatry is the religion of ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... and thankful. I preached to them extempore, as one can preach to no other congregation, from the lesson, "JESUS gone to be the guest of a man that is a sinner," the consequences that would result in us from His vouchsafing to tabernacle among us, and, as displayed in the Parable of the Pounds, the use of God's gifts of health, influence, means; then, specifying the use of God's highest gifts of children to be trained to His glory, quoting 1 Samuel i. 27, 28, "lent to the Lord," ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The parable of the talents illustrates and enforces one of nature's sternest laws: "To him that hath shall be given; from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath." Scientists call this law ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... DEAR MOTHER,—I give my father up. I give him a parable: that the Waverley novels are better reading for every day than the tragic Life. And he takes it back-side foremost, and shakes his head, and is gloomier than ever. Tell him that I give him up. I don't want ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... best express his personal feeling about the Empire in a parable. It was like the sea round whose shores its network of city-states was strung. The Mediterranean seems at first sight a poor substitute for the rivers that have given their waters to make it. Those were living waters, whether they ran muddy or clear; the sea seems just salt ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... humour, from the ludicrous anecdote with comically mixed morals to the profound parable with grimly ironic conclusion, takes the measure of the ethical nature of the man. It can best be illustrated, I think, by a comparison of his anecdote of the theft of the green water-melon and the classic fable of 'The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg'. Mark stole a water-melon out of a farmer's ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... discourse, To receive training in wise conduct, In uprightness, justice, and rectitude, To impart discretion to the inexperienced, To the young knowledge and insight; That the wise man may hear and add to his learning, And the man of intelligence gain education, To understand a proverb and a parable, The words ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... her tale, Cornudet smiled the benignant and approving smile of an apostle—as a priest might on hearing a devout person praise the Almighty; democrats with long beards having the monopoly of patriotism as the men of the cassock possess that of religion. He then took up the parable in a didactic tone with the phraseology culled from the notices posted each day on the walls, and finished up with a flourish of eloquence in which he scathingly alluded to "that blackguard of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... killed. The same day, Mr. Whitefield preached at Mr. Gee's church. In the evening he preached at Dr. Sewall's church. On Saturday I went to hear him in the Commons; there were about eight thousand hearers. He expounded the parable of the prodigal son in a very moving manner. Many melted into tears. On the 4th of October, being on my return to New-Jersey, I arrived at Fairfield, where I remained two days ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... noted the time. Yet Mrs. Thalassa insisted she had played only one game after half-past eight on the night of the murder. If he dared accept such a computation of time an unimagined possibility in the case stood revealed. But—a demented woman. "A parable in the mouth of a fool." Perhaps it was because she was a fool that he had stumbled on this revelation. She lacked the ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... 'Argument' was between two men, herds, I think; each counting up the virtues of his own province, Connaught or Munster. An old man gave a long poem, a recital of Bible history; but the judges rang their bell when he had got to the parable of the Prodigal Son, and was telling how 'the poor foolish boy went away from his home and from his father to some far country'; and he left the platform saying indignantly: 'You might have left me time to bring him ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... The parable of "the prodigal son" is rightly called "the pearl of parables," and our Master's greatest utterance may well be called "the diamond sermon." No purer and more exalted teachings ever fell upon human ears than those contained ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... an allegory, a fable; a parable. Most allegories are long. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is a very ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... "Valentine" and "Indiana": in "Spiridion" it is greater, I think, than ever; and for those who are not afraid of the matter of the novel, the manner will be found most delightful. The author's intention, I presume, is to describe, in a parable, her notions of the downfall of the Catholic church; and, indeed, of the whole Christian scheme: she places her hero in a monastery in Italy, where, among the characters about him, and the events which occur, the particular tenets of Madame Dudevant's ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... variations. One says that the girl's hair was yellow, another that it was of the glossiest black. What foundation for the legend may really have existed need not here be questioned. Let us rather use the mythus as a parable of the ecstatic devotion which prompted the men of that age to discover a form of unimaginable beauty in the tomb ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... something in the root of the hedge, you wouldn't want to scour the road in a high-speed automobile. And still less would you want to get a bird's-eye view in an aeroplane. That parable about fits my case. I have been in the clouds and I've been scorching on the pikes, but what I was wanting was in the ditch all the time, and I naturally missed it ... I had the wrong stunt, Major. I was too high up ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... you, Mrs. North," said I, "for your clear and correct statement of my position. And now I will take up Mr. North's parable about the horses, and apply it justly. Let hay and grass be exceedingly scarce, and I had rather take my chance with an owner and be a horse, in a stable, and at work, than a horse roaming in search of food, chased away everywhere. The ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... the wonder of this world. And this made her feel as if she had been nearer to heaven at her birth than she would be at her death. She knew nothing of the defilements of life. Her purity of mind was very perfect; but, taking a parable from Nature, she applied it imaginatively to Man, and she saw him covered with dust because of his journey through ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... spoke a parable to them—of a house and a father and his children. The children would not do what their father told them, and therefore began to keep out of his sight. After a while they began to say to each other that he must have gone out, it was so long since they had seen him—only ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... in gentle, agreeable people, and, in conclusion, she tells us: "We believe that the mission of art is a mission of sentiment and of love, and that the novel of to-day ought to take the place of the parable and the apologue of more primitive times." The object of the artist, she tells us, "is to make people appreciate what he presents to them." With that end in view, he has a right to embellish his subjects a little. ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... fragmentary word, the rumors strange and contradictory, yielded only confusion and mental unrest. But this brief biography exhibits to us His entire career, sets each eager listener down beside Christ while He unrolls each glowing parable, each glorious precept, each call to inspiration and the higher life. Thus books acquaint us with the best men in ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... des Pingouins" he returns, in a parable, to his epoch. For this book is the history of France "from the earliest time to the present day," seen in the mirror of the writer's ironical temperament. It is very good. It is inimitable. It is sheer genius. One cannot reasonably find fault with its amazing finesse. But then one is so damnably ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... of reputation and circumstances.—A man may be held in very high esteem by the world, and yet may be a very miserable creature so far as his character is concerned. The rich man of the parable was well off and probably much thought of, but God called him a fool. Here is a man who is greatly esteemed by the public; he is regarded in every way as admirable. Follow him home, and you find him in his family a mean and sordid soul. There you have the real man. We cannot always judge a man ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... introduce him to the congregation, with a view to his becoming an assistant pastor, but before it took place, he again appeared before the public as an author. The second production of his pen is a solemn and most searching work, founded upon the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, under the title of A Few Sighs from Hell, or the Groans of a Damned Soul; by that poor and contemptible Servant of Jesus Christ, John Bunyan, 1658. His humility led him to seek the patronage of his pastor; and Mr. Gifford, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the traces of this mystical symbolism in the writings of our New England transcendentalists. One is often reminded of Novalis' blue flower in such a poem as Emerson's "Forerunners," or Lowell's "Footpath," or Whittier's "Vanishers," or in Thoreau's little parable about the horse, the hound, and the dove which he had long ago lost and is still seeking. And again one is reminded of Tieck when Thoreau says: "I had seen the red election birds brought from their recesses on my comrades' strings and fancied that their plumage ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... word in Balaam's mouth, and said, Return unto Balak, and thus thou shalt speak. And he returned unto him, and, lo, he stood by his burnt offering, he, and all the princes of Moab. And he took up his parable, and said: ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... to let you have your own way—an' then, right off, you fly in a rage an' git abusive. I'm gittin' weary o' bein' ordered off your dirty little scow an' then bein' invited back agin. One o' these bright days, when you start pulling for the fiftieth time the modern parable o' the Prodigal Son an' the Fatted Calf, I'm goin' to walk out o' the cast for keeps. Now, if I was you an' valued the services of a good navigatin' officer an' a good engineer, I'd just take a little run along the waterfront an' cool off. Somethin' tells me that if you stick around here argyin' ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... Solomon, that stumbling-block of criticism and pill of faith, a recent writer regards as a parable in the form of a drama, in which the bride is considered as representing true religion, the royal lover as the Jewish people, and the younger sister as the Gospel dispensation. But it is evidently conceived in a very different spirit from the Book of Job or the Psalms of David, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... the position of Admiral Cervera's fleet, though in this dangerous sort of work the individual palm must be given to Lieutenant A. S. Rowan of the army, whose energy and initiative in overcoming obstacles are immortalized in Elbert Hubbard's "Message to Garcia," the best American parable of efficient service since ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... must be ascribed the rich endowments of the intellect, the irradiation of genius, the imagination of the poet, the sagacity of the politician, the wisdom (as Scripture calls it), which now rears and decorates the Temple, now manifests itself in proverb or in parable. The old saws of nations, the majestic precepts of philosophy, the luminous maxims of law, the oracles of individual wisdom, the traditionary rules of truth, justice, and religion, even though imbedded in the corruption, or alloyed with the pride, of the world, betoken His original agency, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... some objector rises up, and says, "What then, shall this man be accepted of God, like him who has been moral and orderly all his days, or like the first person you mentioned?" We shall now answer this objection by proceeding with the parable. ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... procured their release. Such a man could not fail to be followed with blessings and gratitude; but these he sought to direct to the Giver of all Good. "My talent," said he to a friend, "is the meanest of all talents—a little sordid dust; but as the man in the parable who had but one talent was held accountable, I also am accountable for the talent that I possess, humble as it is, to the great Lord of all." On one occasion the case of a poor orphan boy was submitted to him, whose parents, both dying young, had left him destitute, on which Mr. ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... to-day, and others even mightier in evil. A Messalina and a Poppae do not survive individually, for such as these are not human in the strictest sense, in that they lack what is called a soul which is a property common to humanity. The parable of the woman of Corinth who seduced Menippus, a disciple of Apollonius, is misunderstood. We have come to regard all mortal bodies as the tenements of immortal souls. This is true of men but is not always true of women. Such women are not strictly mortal: they are feminine ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... many years ago a strange parable of what I mean. I was walking through a quiet countryside with a curious, fanciful, interesting boy, and we came to a little church off the track in a tiny churchyard full of high-seeded grasses. On the wall of ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... convinced like a parable, and a very famous story in the Bible will illustrate the great truth, which is the first lesson that a primitive people learns, that unless the judge can be separated from the sovereign, and be strictly limited in the performance of his functions by a recognized ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... in the throes of commercial speculation, and he stared, heedless of the jibe. So Johnny Coe took up his sapient parable. ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... the mind, and turn it from its proper object, whenever it relaxes its vigilance in watching against them. Felt a little strength, just at the close, to remind Friends of the necessity of a steady perseverance, by a recapitulation of the parable of the unjust judge, showing how men ought always to ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... disciples was a Zealot; in this book the disciple is shown speaking and acting as we know Zealots spoke and acted. The story of the rich young ruler has been placed early in Jesus' ministry to show that he would not accept every man who wanted to be his disciple. The parable of the Good Samaritan has also been placed in the early period as an example of the informal way in which Jesus taught. That you may know what is from the Bible and what is added to make a complete story, ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith
... gospel that I have brought to you this day, and which you so scornfully reject. And now I tell you in the name of the Lord, some day you will receive this gospel—but not until you have paid for it, and paid for it dearly. Like the merchantman in the parable, all that you have will you pay for this Pearl of Great Price! ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... many Biblical texts that can be quoted in support of this statement, our Lord's beautiful parable of the vine and its branches is especially striking. Cfr. John XV, 4 sq.: "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... Pythagorean, so far as beans are concerned, whether they mean porridge or voting, and exchanged them for rice; but, perchance, as some must work in fields if only for the sake of tropes and expression, to serve a parable-maker one day. It was on the whole a rare amusement, which, continued too long, might have become a dissipation. Though I gave them no manure, and did not hoe them all once, I hoed them unusualy well as far as I went, and was paid for it in the end, "there being ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... it was not till some time after the doctrines of Christianity had been cast into mythical moulds by the oriental fancy, that it was introduced in its completed form to modern thought. Although expressly repudiated by Jesus of Nazareth himself, and applied in maxim and parable as a universal symbol of intelligence to the religious growth of the individual and race, his followers reverted to the coarser and literal meaning, and ever since teach to a greater or less extent the chiliastic or millennial ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... either sweet or sowre. However, I shall not dismiss you without some Limits, whereby I shall point out to you in some Measure, what wonderful things he saw when in this Condition, but all figuratively, and by way of Parable; not pretending to give a literal Description of that, which is impossible to be known, but by coming thither. Attend therefore with the Ears of thy Heart, and look sharply with the Eyes of thy Understanding, ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... direction was vouchsafed to her and she discovered her design to her sire, the Wazir, who thereupon forbade her, fearing her slaughter. However, she repeated her words to him a second time and a third, but he consented not. Then he cited to her a parable, which should deter her, and she cited to him a parable of import contrary to his, and the debate was prolonged between them and the adducing of instances, till her father saw that he was powerless to turn her from her purpose and she said to him, "There is no help but that I marry the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... God gets His way in the intricacies of a human soul: we shall see no hint in it of the cleansing and filling that is needed in sinful man before he can follow the path of the plant. It shows us some of the Divine principles of the new life rather than a set sequence of experience; above all, the parable gives a lesson that most of us only begin to learn after Pentecost has become a reality to us—the lesson of walking, not after the flesh, but after ...
— Parables of the Christ-life • I. Lilias Trotter
... true, Henry," says my old lord, with a little frown, a thing rare with him. "You have been the elder brother of the parable in the good sense; you must be careful of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I'd keep sayin' over that parable which reads: 'Once there was a Mexican who was shot in the stomach with half a pint of buckshot; and in hell he lifted up his eyes and said, "Father Abraham, send me a drop of water." And Father Abraham says, "Not a drop. Ain't you the man that helped burn up the ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... as she pressed close to the window, to catch the fading light on the page of her Bible, it chanced to be the chapter in St. Luke, which contained the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican; and while she read, a great compunction smote her; a remorseful sense of having scorned as utterly unclean and debased, her suffering ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... our cause, eyther for similitude or dissimilitude, profitable to perswade, garnyshe, and delyght. Examples, some be taken out of hystories, some of tales, some of fayned argum[en]tes, in comedies; and bothe sortes be dilated by parable and comparacion. Comparacion sheweth it equall, lesse, or bygger. Parable is a feete similitude, whych sheweth y^e example that is brought, either like, vnlyke or ctrarye. Lyke as Camillus restored the common wealth ...
— A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes • Richard Sherry
... generally between the first consonant and the succeeding vowel; as in endeavouring to pronounce the word parable, the p is voluntarily repeated again and again, but the remainder of the word does not follow, because the association between it and the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... servant in the parable, the modern laboratory has been given its ten talents. It enjoys a secrecy which is profound, all that wealth can procure, and unrestricted opportunity for ever phase of research. There is no limitation to the torments which it may ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... stare, scarcely seeing, at a flaunt of display of scarlet double-hibiscus blooms. And abruptly all that he was suffering, all that he had just observed, from the night- blooming hedge and the two-by-two love-murmuring humans to the pair like thieves in each other's arms, crystallized into a parable of life enunciated by the day-blooming hibiscus upon which he gazed, now at the end of its day. Bursting into its bloom after the dawn, snow-white, warming to pink under the hours of sun, and quickening to scarlet with the dark from which ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... Hugh's spirit, as he recalled these words; out of which stillness, I presume, grew the little parable which follows; though Hugh, after he had learned far more about the things therein hinted at, could never understand how it was, that he could have put so much more into it, than he seemed to have understood at that period of ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... Colomba, who remained standing close to the kitchen door, the prefect took up his parable, and after a few common-places as to local prejudices, he recalled the fact that the most inveterate enmities generally have their root in some mere misunderstanding. Next, turning to the mayor, he told him that Signor della Rebbia had never believed ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... things, both in Nature and in Art were but transitory reflexions of the real and eternal. 'Alles vergaengliche ist nur ein Gleichnis'—all things transitory are but a parable, an allegory of truth and reality—such are some of the last words of his great Poem; and thus too he regarded his own poetry. 'I have,' he said, 'always regarded all that I have produced as merely symbolic, and I did not much care whether what I made were pots or dishes.' ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... upon Abimelech's head, and all to break his skull,' and that he cried hastily to the young man, his armor-bearer, and said unto him, 'Draw thy sword, and slay me, that men say not of me, A woman slew him.' It is a parable of our present position. Mrs. Stowe has thrown a piece of millstone, sharp and strong, at the skull of the giant abomination of her country; he is reeling in his death pangs, and, in the fury of his despair and shame, is crying, but crying ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... one purpose and one function; they are to awaken the mind and to direct it to the inward Word. The most startling miracle, the most momentous event in the sphere of temporal sequences, the most appealing account of historical occurrences can do nothing more than give in parable-fashion hints and suggestions of the real nature of that God who is eternally present within human spirits, and who is working endlessly to conform all lives to His perfect type and pattern. In the infant period of the race, both among ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... parable, I have married a wife," he says; then, putting his hand kindly on the young fellow's shoulder—"Nancy, you have been wishing that we might meet some one we knew, have not you? Well, here is some one. I suppose ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... to infinity; and yet that abatement would, as regards its extent, have a non plus ultra. Even so there are asymptote figures in geometry where an infinite length makes only a finite progress in breadth. If the parable of the wicked rich man represented the state of a definitely lost soul, the hypothesis which makes these souls so mad and so wicked would be groundless. But the charity towards his brothers attributed to him in the parable does not seem to be consistent with that degree of wickedness which is ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... 'Excellent is this parable that thou hast recited! Indeed, thou art acquainted with truth! Having listened to thy nectarlike speech, I ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... ten thousand talents; and the sins of our fellow-creatures against us are no more than a hundred pence. It is our crucified Lord that says it. Ah! thou knowest it well. 'O thou wicked servant, said the lord in the parable,'I forgave thee all that debt because thou desiredst me; shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So ...
— The Christmas Child • Hesba Stretton
... after many expenses, he is fit for preferment, where shall he have it? he is as far to seek it as he was (after twenty years' standing) at the first day of his coming to the University. For what course shall he take, being now capable and ready? The most parable and easy, and about which many are employed, is to teach a school, turn lecturer or curate, and for that he shall have falconer's wages, ten pound per annum, and his diet, or some small stipend, so long as he can please his patron or the parish; if they approve him not (for usually ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... comprehend that the Atlantic, in this parable, stands for the mighty ocean of ether through which we drift and that the bunch of corks represents the little and obscure planetary system to which we belong. A third-rate sun, with its rag tag and bobtail of insignificant satellites, ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the least; "but I did not walk in it, partly owing to the uncongenial companionship that it involved, especially that of my aunt Mary, who took up so much room herself in the narrow path that she effectually kept me out of it. From my earliest youth, also, I took extreme interest in the parable of the Prodigal, and as soon as it became possible I exemplified it myself. I may even say that I acted the part in a manner that did credit to a beginner; but the wind-up was ruined by the lamentable inability of others, who shall be nameless, to throw themselves into the spirit of the ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... seen a sight more beautiful than a group of hospital savants bending with endless scrupulousness over a little pauper child, concentering upon its frailty the whole human skill and wisdom of ages, so have not I. Here have you the full realisation of a parable diviner than that of the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Beautiful then; with at least surface beauty, like the serpent lachesis mutus; but, like many beautiful things, deadly too, inhuman. And, on the whole, an answer will have to be found. As for me, ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... address. Just at the commencement it had caused an uneasy feeling, when Martens began to speak about the great riches of the deceased. There was some apprehension lest he should make some ill-timed application of the parable of the camel and the needle's eye; but the speaker had just managed to say the right thing. There is nothing which gives the poor so much pleasure, as to hear how little power really belongs to earthly wealth, and how little there is to grudge when it comes to the last. And so this allusion ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... the unwonted effort of fixing his attention. All the rest of the day he lay on the sofa, silent and dozing, till in the evening, when left alone with Johnnie, he only roused himself to ask to have a Bible placed within his reach, and there losing his way in searching for the parable of the strayed sheep, he wandered about in the ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... comfortably situated women was told of the need of the ballot for working women, she held up her finger, showing the wedding ring on it, and said, "I have all the rights I want." The next time that I read the parable of the man who fell among thieves and was succored by the good Samaritan, methought I could see that woman with the wedding ring on her finger, passing ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... and parable, won many followers. She pointed out that the doctrine of the Humanist in abolishing world competition hit at the fundamental principle that made for initiative and made ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... but who nevertheless affect the moral and social life of all its people. It needs the spirit and devotion of the Good Samaritan on the part of the people, but it also needs the public health nurse and the social worker who, like the inn-keeper of the parable, can give adequate ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... table, rang for candles, and with Allister by his side and me seated opposite to him, began to find a place from which to read to us. To my yet stronger conviction, he began and read through without a word of remark the parable of the Prodigal Son. When he came to the father's delight at having him back, the robe, and the shoes, and the ring, I could not repress my tears. "If I could only go back," I thought, "and set it all right! but then I've never gone away." It was a foolish thought, instantly followed by ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... many poor attempts at brotherhood, organized in the name of Christianity, especially in our part of the globe, where "they have made the welkin ring with the sorrowful tale of the unfortunate condition of the weak, but, like the rich man in the parable, they liked their Lazarus afar off," and considered their fraternal pretensions satisfied if they sent their dogs to lick his wounds. No, the Brotherhood movement is no such parody. It is practical Christianity which knows no distinction ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... Victoria's; that immediately on my return I should make her a report upon Butaritari; and that if my house should have been again invaded by natives, a man-of-war would be despatched to make reprisals. It was scarce the fact—rather a just and necessary parable of the fact, corrected for latitude; and it certainly told upon the king. He was much affected; he had conceived the notion (he said) that I was a man of some importance, but not dreamed it was as bad as this; and the missionary ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in Christ, "Stand back: for I am whiter than thou," is simply a new and indefensible form of Pharisaism. The church exists to proclaim certain truths, among which the brotherhood of man stands pre-eminent. It is difficult to see with what consistency a Christian minister can preach on the parable of the Good Samaritan if his church refuses to recognize a Christian brother in one of another race because he belongs to another race. There is no reason for an attempt to corral all men of all races in one inclosure; but ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various
... his loss patiently, and to abide God's doom (p.11). She describes to him her blissful state in heaven, where she reigns as a queen (p.12). She explains to him that Mary is the Empress of Heaven, and all others kings and queens (p.13). The parable of the labourers in the vineyard[15] (pp. 15-18) is then rehearsed at length, to prove that "innocents" are admitted to the same privileges as are enjoyed by those who have lived longer upon the earth (p.18). The maiden then speaks to her father of Christ and his one hundred and ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... re-casting of truth. And when I came seriously to consider what it involved, I saw, or seemed to see, that it meant essentially the introduction of Natural Law into the Spiritual World. It was not, I repeat, that new and detailed analogies of Phenomena rose into view—although material for Parable lies unnoticed and unused on the field of recent Science in inexhaustible profusion. But Law has a still grander function to discharge toward Religion than Parable. There is a deeper unity between the two Kingdoms than ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... seen singing so ordinary a melody, lest it should set me down as unmusical for ever. But soon my concern was with the unfortunate young man, for he was, I felt sure, quite ignorant of the habits of such congregations as ours, and would certainly offend our best people. For after that we read the parable of the Prodigal Son and sang, "The Sands of Time are Sinking." Then I forgot even this curious lapse from our Sunday custom, so clearly did the tale now begun by the preacher bring again before my eyes those inhuman sands, that lonely sky, and the ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... a parable. It was a story of a poor man who had one dear little lamb. It grew up in his house, played with his children, and was very precious to him. But one day a traveller came to a rich neighbour, who possessed great flocks and herds, and this neighbour, instead of killing one of his own lambs and setting ...
— Mother Stories from the Old Testament • Anonymous
... the disposal of property. See Gen. xxiv. 22, 23, 53. The condition of Ziba in the house of Mephiboseth, is a case in point. So is Prov. xvii. 2. Distinct traces of this estimation are to be found in the New Testament, Math. xxiv. 45; Luke xii. 42, 44. So in the parable of the talents; the master seems to have set up each of his servants in trade with considerable capital. One of them could not have had less than eight thousand dollars. The parable of the unjust steward is another illustration. Luke xvi. 4, 8. He evidently was entrusted ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... misunderstood— He much preferred to hold his court In streets and places of resort, Because under the heaven's face Words better and freer flow apace; There he gave them the highest lore Out of his holy mouth in store; Wondrously, by parable and example, Made ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... a thing as continuing liaison between small units, the Colonel's listeners never forgot his elementary parable: ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... which has a place apart in English poetry. Death's Jest-Book is perhaps the most morbid poem in our literature. There is not a page without its sad, grotesque, gay, or abhorrent imagery of the tomb. A slave cannot say that a lady is asleep without turning it into a parable ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... repeated in Matarazzo and in Nantiporto with slight variations. One says that the girl's hair was yellow, another that it was of the glossiest black. What foundation for the legend may really have existed need not here be questioned. Let us rather use the mythus as a parable of the ecstatic devotion which prompted the men of that age to discover a form of unimaginable beauty in the tomb ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... in the harbour (except the sick Roman) came on board to both our services, and the women (all) expressed a great desire to have their children admitted into the Church. The Gospel for the Sunday gave me occasion to preach to them and myself on the "Parable of the Lost Sheep;" to myself, to make me ashamed of thinking much of serving or ministering to these two or three in the wilderness; and to them, to make them, and each of them, I trust, more grateful to the good Shepherd who came himself on the same errand on which He sends his ...
— Extracts from a Journal of a Voyage of Visitation in the "Hawk," 1859 • Edward Feild
... 33. A PARABLE is a similitude taken from natural things, to instruct us in the knowledge of spiritual. Examples.—Matt. 13th, ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... commentary by Wordsworth on Godwin's parable by which he illustrates the simplicity of action in what we call the soul. 'When a ball upon a billiard-board is struck,' etc. etc. 'Exactly similar to this . . . are the actions of the human mind' (i. 306-7). Lacy, one of the ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... seeing him jogging up to a house near the smithy on his pony, which was halting, said to him, "Mr. Brown, ye're in the Scripture line the day—'the legs o' the lame are not equal.'" "So is a parable in ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... In his earlier ministry he had been dwelling upon the presence of the divine kingdom in the earth, the practical conditions for membership therein, and the inclusion of Gentile as well as Jew in the gracious provision. Novel were his words. Whoever had heard his discourse on the Mount or the parable of the lost sheep was rich beyond the modern sons of men. But now, in the closing period of his stay with mortals, he was more frequently foretelling the life to come. Like a footworn traveler drawing near the homeland, he was keenly anticipating his return ...
— An Easter Disciple • Arthur Benton Sanford
... condition of greater relative equality. Our Russian friend was accustomed to the patronising kindness of the superior to the inferior, of the master to the servant. It is easy, on an empyrean rock, to be "kind" to the mortals toiling helplessly down below. It costs little, to use Mr. Bellamy's parable, for those securely seated on the top of the coach to subscribe for salve to alleviate the chafed wounds of those who drag it. In America there is less need and less use of this patronising kindness; there is less kindness from class to class simply because ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... parable of the sower. [13:19]When any one hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and takes away the seed sown in his heart. This is he that received seed by the way. [13:20]He that received seed ...
— The New Testament • Various
... prospered," Hogan assented. "My life is a sort of parable of the fatted son and the prodigal calf. They tell me there is greater joy in heaven over the repentance of a sinner than—than—Plague on it! ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... compilation of the second canon, containing Joshua, Judges with Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah with Lamentations, Ezekiel and the twelve minor prophets. It was not completed prior to 300 B.C., because the book of Jonah was not written before. This work may be called a historical parable composed for a didactic purpose, giving a milder, larger view of Jehovah's favor than the orthodox one, that excluded the Gentiles. Ruth, containing an idyllic story with an unfinished genealogy attached, meant to glorify the house of ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson
... hatred of the Jews, and of their recent attempts to kill him. They thought that he ought not to venture back again into the danger, even for the sake of carrying comfort to the sorrowing Bethany household. Jesus answered with a little parable about one's security while walking during the day. The meaning of the parable was that he had not yet reached the end of his day, and therefore could safely continue the work which had been given him to do. Every man doing God's will is immortal till the work is done. Jesus ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... see that your fellow man is wretched, can't you give him quarter? You must have observed, ever since we darkened his door, that with spleen and toryism, this poor gentleman is in the condition of him in the parable, who was possessed of seven devils. Since we have not the power to cast them out, let us not torment him before his time. Besides, this excellent woman his wife; these charming girls his daughters. They love him, no doubt, and therefore, to ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... absolved; he released the barons and prelates of France from the excommunications pronounced against them; and he himself wrote to the king to say that he would behave towards him as the good shepherd in the parable, who leaves ninety and nine sheep to go after one that is lost. Nogaret and the direct authors of the assault at Anagni were alone excepted from this amnesty. The pope reserved for a future occasion the announcement ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... accounted, to defer securing our property and goods, which we know to be in danger. What folly, therefore, what madness must it be, to put off with careless indifference, the concernments of eternity; and to prefer the trifles of this transitory life to heaven, and the favour of God! Let the parable of the rich man, who pleased himself with the thought of having much good laid up for many years, be a warning to you![Luke xii. 16-28.] That very night his soul was required of him. Such persons may now deem themselves wise; but ere long they will ...
— An Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies, Established in New South Wales and Norfolk Island. • Richard Johnson
... antics of the page, while each in his own way implies that the advances of courtesy are a pomp and a deceit. Metaphors of the same kind abound in the work of more modern analytic poets. Here is another parable of a door-keeper, ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... advance the King! It reached me that the lion entered the field wherefore I stood in awe of him and dared not draw near it, since knowing that I cannot cope with the lion, I stand in fear of him." The King understood the parable and rejoined, saying, "O man, the lion trod and trampled not thy land, and it is good for seed so do thou till it and Allah prosper thee in it, for the lion hath done it no hurt." Then he bade give the man and his wife ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... truth which seems to me to underlie this magnificent parable of creation is the truth that this great God has created the universe and that he cares for his people. Gods before had been objects of terror. Gods before had lived lives such as the people themselves would not have respected among their ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... Cato falls into the trap. He takes up his parable, and preaches his sermon, but he does it with a marvellous enthusiasm, so that we cannot understand that the man who wrote it intended to demolish it all in the next few pages. I will translate his last words of Cato's ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... Infinite and flows toward the finite—that is the True, the Good; it is subject to laws, definite in form. Its echo which returns towards the Infinite is Beauty and Joy; which are difficult to touch or grasp, and so make us beside ourselves. This is what I tried to say by way of a parable or a song in The Echo. That the result was not clear is not to be wondered at, for neither was the attempt then ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... of course, is a parable. Likewise, in the new India we are studying, product of new modern influences direct and indirect, two kinds of religious changes impress us. There is, first, the gradual change coming over the whole thought of ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... those lessons of self-helpfulness and self-reliance which are so essential to success in life's struggles. It is fearful to think how many of our young people are drifting without an aim in life, and do not comprehend that they owe mankind their best efforts. We are all familiar with the parable of the slothful servant who buried his talent—all may profit by his example. To those who would succeed, we ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... recall the Saviour's parable of the husbandmen who refused to render to their lord the fruit of the vineyard, who abused his servants and slew his son. They remember, too, the sentence which they themselves pronounced: The lord of the vineyard "will miserably destroy those wicked men." In the sin and punishment ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... student of human character. As a misdirected toe-nail, injured by pressure, sometimes turns round, and, re-entering the flesh, vexes it into a sore, it would seem as if that noble inventive faculty to which we owe the parable and the epic poem, were liable, when constrained by self-love, to similar misdirections; and certainly, when turned inwards upon its possessor, the moral character festers or grows callous ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller |
