"Profess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of April, 1807. The vessel, which was a mere trader, and which had likewise some connexions at Calais, was to sail for Liverpool in the first instance, and thence, after the accomplishment of some private affairs, was to pass to Calais, and thence home. I do not profess to understand the business of merchants; but I must express my admiration at the ingenuity with which they defy and elude the laws of all countries. I suppose, however, that this is considered as perfectly consistent with mercantile honour. ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... around the narrow limits of their daily life, content to bend their creative instincts on the building and beautifying of home. It is no lax use of the word genius to apply it to such, for unless you profess the modern heresy that genius is but a multiplied talent, a coral-island growth, that earns its right to a new name only when it has lifted its head above the waters of oblivion, you must agree. For 'you saw at once,' said Narcissus, in reference to that poet, 'that his writing was so delightful ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... already too well understood what they were, to be any more subject to be deceived, either by the promises of an Alchymist, or by the predictions of an Astrologer, or by the impostures of a Magician, or by the artifice or brags of those who profess to know ...
— A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason - and the Discovery of Truth in the Sciences • Rene Descartes
... men by the arts which they profess, and in exchange for them, obtain the necessities of life just as we do by means of ...
— Eryxias • An Imitator of Plato
... very glad to get your note about my address. I profess to be a great stoic, you know, but there are some people from whom I am glad to get a pat on the back. Still I am not quite content with that, and I want to know what you think of the argument—whether you agree with what I say about contemporaneity or not, and whether ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... wedding invitations are out the presents begin to pour in. The fashion of gift giving on such an occasion is not as prevalent as at one time; it was overdone, carried beyond the limits of good taste, and of course a reaction was inevitable. Some men profess to share the feeling of the Scandinavian immigrant who was so deeply affronted at the offerings made by his bride's friends—as if he were not able to furnish his home with the necessary articles—that in his Berserker rage he was ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... declared they knew "upon good authority" that he held the mortgage which covered the two connecting houses; that, as the expression is, he "had more money than he knew what to do with." Others, who did not profess to be so scrupulously exact in their determination to tell only a plain, unvarnished tale, delighted in fabulous stories concerning his riches. They said that though the floor of his sitting-room was carpetless, and the bay-window curtainless but for the cobwebs, he could cover ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... were insisted on; but the first council determined that point, at Jerusalem, probably about A.D. 49, in the negative. The organization of the Church, originally modelled upon that of the Synagogue, was changed. In the beginning the creed and the rites were simple; it was only necessary to profess belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, and baptism marked the admission of the convert into the community of the faithful. James, the brother of our Lord, as might, from his relationship, be expected, occupied the position of headship in the Church. The names of the bishops of the church of Jerusalem, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... in its highest forms, has been the expression of faith. We have now people who profess to cultivate art as art for its own sake; but they have hardly produced anything which the world accepts as great, though they have supplied some subjects for Punch. "He that loseth his life shall preserve it." Milton was ready to lose his literary life by sacrificing ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... that outside the Bible the world has never known a more sublime moral philosophy than that of Confucius. It means much, therefore, that every Chinese pupil must know the maxims and principles of the great sage by heart. Moreover, as Confucius did not profess to teach spiritual truth, the missionaries in China are fast coming to realize that it is both unnecessary and foolish to urge the people to abandon Confucianism. The proper policy is to tell the Chinese, "Hold on to all that ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... profess to reveal things supernatural. His teaching is made up of moral and political maxims. He builds on the past, and always inculcates reverence for the fathers and for what has been. There is much wise counsel ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... book—indirectly from God himself—we might justly expect that it would bear to be tried by any standard that man can apply, and vindicate its truth and excellence in the ordeal of human criticism. In our estimate of it we must constantly bear in mind that it does not profess to be successive revelations made at intervals of ages and on various occasions, but a complete production delivered to one man. We ought, therefore, to look for universality, completeness, perfection. We might expect that it would present us with just views of the nature and position of this world ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... may be taken when needed? And is it not needed when its taking helps us and hurts our enemy? But you say the proclamation is unconstitutional. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it cannot be retracted any more than the dead can be brought to life. You profess to think its retraction would help the Union. Why better after the retraction than before the issue? Those in revolt had one hundred days to consider it, and the war, since its issuance, has progressed as ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... which finding itself on this earth has got somehow to make the best of it; is a shareholder in the human asset of self-consciousness which we are called upon to exploit. It would certainly be hard to find a man of what we have called enlightened opinions who would not profess, whatever his private feelings, that it is as great a crime to kill a Hottentot or a Jew as to kill an Englishman. With certain lingering exceptions then we already regard the foreigner as a member ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... present, we must yet once more point out, as we did in the preceding chapter, is this—that wide as is the influence of a non-Christian writer like Mr. Wells, the danger of such teaching is intensified when it is given by those who profess Christianity. Doubtless, Bousset is right when he points to the closer contact between East and West as one of the causes of the growth in our midst of a type of religion in which "the human ego is put on one side and almost reduced to zero." Doubtless, also, he is correct in saying "the adherents ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... I said to her, "God watches over you! While your lips were parting in a smile, you were in greater danger than you have ever known before. But the hand that threatened you will harm no one; I swear by the faith you profess I will not kill either you or myself! I am a fool, a madman, a child who thinks himself a man. God be praised! You are young and beautiful. You live and you will forget me. You will recover from the evil I have done you, if you can forgive me. ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... designs of a higher law even than that of the State, of a higher will even than my own." This mode of baptizing man's sin and calling it God's providence has not altogether lacked the aid of certain Southern clergymen, who ostentatiously profess to preach Christ and Him crucified, and by such arguments, we may fear, crucified by them. Here is Slavery's abhorred riot of vices and crimes, from whose soul-sickening details the human imagination shrinks ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... as though driven to extremity, "It is the very fact of my being a nobleman, that has made these people, Americans as they are, and despisers of titles as they profess to be, seek me with eagerness. The prestige of my title, and the promise of obtaining some privileges respecting Maurice's Maryland estate, are all that I can contribute toward the success of their undertaking. It is true I am a nobleman; but even ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... soap, and what not, here is the only one common to all the newspapers, morning and evening alike. The advertisements are not identical, sir, but they have two points of similarity, or perhaps I should say three. They all profess to furnish a cure for absent-mindedness; they all ask that the applicant's chief hobby shall be stated, and they all bear the same address: Dr. Willoughby, in ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... very injurious example to his indifference. The Abbe-Marquis d'Aigrigny was therefore despatched to him; and he knowing the honorable and elevated character of the non communicant, thought that if he could only bring him to profess by any means (whatever the means might be) the effect would be what was desired. Like a man of intellect, the abbe prized the dogma but cheaply himself. He only spoke of the suitableness of the step, and of the highly ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... sometimes put in such a way as to make action, or at least human action, a dispensable accident in the universe, an ineffective and unsubstantial unreality, while at the same time those who put it thus, profess to see through the illusion and to enjoy moments of insight which recognize its nullity. This way of putting it in my judgement intolerably ...
— Progress and History • Various
... request, met the Rev. Richard Watson, and some others of the Missionary Committee. They wished to consult us respecting the resolutions forwarded to them from your Missionary Committee. They profess that they will not occupy any station where there is a mission, as Grand River, Penetanguishene, etc., except St. Clair. But they declare that as it regards the white population, the agreement with the American Conference ceased when ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... most fun of such matters and profess to despise their consideration are in actual practice the most unreasonable as to their own places at functions. The House of Representatives is supposed to be the embodiment of democracy and contempt for social distinctions, yet of all the people in the ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... what was in the man's blood. She sat trembling at home till she could bear it no longer. She put on her bonnet, and sallied out on the road to Royston, determined to stop the carriage, profess to have business at Royston, and take a seat beside Mr. Fountain. She felt that the very sight of her might prevent David from committing any great rashness or folly. On reaching the high road, she observed a fresh track of narrow wheels, that ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... view of increasing the interest of perusal to the general reader. The remainder of the notes are, like the contents of the volume, of a miscellaneous character: philological, antiquarian, historical. They do not, of course, profess to supply an exhaustive commentary; but are designed to afford elucidations and illustrations of the text that may be intelligible and instructive to the English reader, and possibly to some ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... reformed churches and those of their mind 'in the Presbytery;' we whom you name 'Brownists,' put it in the 'body of the congregation, the multitude called the church:' odiously insinuating against us that we do exclude the elders in the case of government, where, on the contrary, we profess the bishops or elders to be the only ordinary governors in the church, as in all other actions of the church's communion, so also in the censures. Only we may not acknowledge them for lords over God's heritage, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... then, as he does now, that his organization must be all-embracing. In those days also there were "scabs," often called "rats" or "dung." Places under ban were systematically picketed, and warnings like the following were sent out: "We would caution all strangers and others who profess the art of horseshoeing, that if they go to work for any employer under the above prices, they must abide by the consequences." Usually the consequences were a fine imposed by the union, but sometimes they were more severe. Coercion by the union ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... other exercise in which the average student shows such lamentable incapacity. The following remarks on the subject are therefore addressed to persons presumably quite ignorant of the way in which soldering is carried out, and do not profess to be more than of the most ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... pretended to great Zeal, and were great Sticklers for their Religion. This made it evident, that there could be no Religion so strict, no System of Morality so refin'd, nor Theory so well meaning, but some People might pretend to profess and follow it, and yet be loose Livers, ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... state for the benefit of those who profess to see some impropriety in the introduction of real names into a narrative of this kind, that objections precisely similar to theirs were long ago raised, and long ago disposed of, in the case of ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... signed on the 10th February, 1763, formally ceded to England Canada as well as Acadia, with all their dependencies. The French Canadians were allowed full liberty "to profess the worship of their religion according to the rites of the Romish Church, as far as the laws of Great Britain permit." The people had permission to retire from Canada with all their effects within eighteen months ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... example, will despise him under Baptism, and will revile him and reproach him and provoke him,—I will not suffer it in him. If, on the other side, those of the Anabaptist shall be censuring the godly ministers of the nation who profess under that of Independency; or if those that profess under Presbytery shall be reproaching or speaking evil of them, traducing and censuring of them, as I would not be willing to see the day when England shall be in the power of the Presbytery to impose ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... speak of Christian citizenship! It was a sight to make the bosses hug themselves with glee. For Christian citizenship is their nightmare, and nothing is so cheering to them as evidence that those who profess ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... avoid this difficulty Keshub induced Government in 1872 to pass the Native Marriage Act, introducing for the first time the institution of civil marriage into Hindu society. The Act prescribed a form of marriage to be celebrated before the Registrar for persons who did not profess either the Hindu, the Muhammadan, the Parsi, the Sikh, the Jaina or the Buddhist religion, and who were neither Christians nor Jews; and fixed the minimum age for a bridegroom at eighteen and for a bride at fourteen. Only six years later, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... tears, and touch the very hearts of his auditors. And, therefore, I know not what has persuaded some to say, that Cato's style was chiefly like that of Lysias. However, let us leave those to judge of these things, who profess most to distinguish between the several kinds of oratorical style in Latin; whilst we write down some of his memorable sayings; being of the opinion that a man's character appears much more by his words, than, as some think ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... misconstrue it and comment upon it according to their own fancy, and for their own honor and profit. While much that purports to be spiritual has not the Word as source and gives honor to the Spirit at the expense of the Word, the class under consideration profess to magnify the Word; they would be master interpreters of the Scriptures, confident that their explanations are correct and superior. In condemnation of this class, Peter says (1 Pet 4, 11), "If any man speaketh, speaking as it were oracles of God," and not his own word. In other words, ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... that, in 1646, in the preamble to a new liquor law it was declared by the Massachusetts colony that, "Forasmuch as drunkenness is a vice to be abhorred of all nations, especially of those who hold out and profess the Gospel of Christ, and seeing any strict law will not prevail unless the cause be taken away, it is, therefore, ordered by this Court,"—What? Entire prohibition of the sale of intoxicating drinks? No. Only, "That no merchant, ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... The minority profess a willingness to have this measure considered as a local issue rather than a national one, but those who recall the failures to extend the ballot to black men, in the most liberal Northern States, by a popular vote, may be excused if they question ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... that no agreement whatever would be entered into until the South had laid down its arms. The Southerners urged that there was precedent for an agreement in advance of cessation of hostilities in the negotiations between Charles I and the Roundheads. Lincoln's reply was pithy: "I do not profess to be posted in history. On all such matters I turn you over to Seward. All I distinctly recollect about the case of Charles I is that he lost ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... tinkers and brass-founders; a third work in wood, and perform various duties connected with the building trade; but a large proportion are still vagabonds and thieves, who infest the country, and are a nuisance to the honest peasants and labourers. The last-named class profess no religion and obey no law, excepting the criminal law when they are forced. The settled part of the gipsy community belong to the national Church; the women are chaste as against the Roumanians, but their morality is said to be very lax amongst themselves. It is, however, hardly fair to speak ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... I have told you all the truth, and if ye will not believe me, but prefer to think I betrayed those to death I loved so dearly, I cannot help myself; but if there be a God, and a judgment day—as ye all profess to believe—I appeal to that God and that day, knowing that my innocence will then be made clear. That I fought with them who slew the baron I freely admit, and hold myself justified, as ye must, if ye believe my story; but I myself protected ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... to be substituted for the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration, a member of parliament, or holder of an office, was no longer required to renounce transubstantiation, the invocation of saints, or the sacrifice of the mass. But he was still obliged not only to swear allegiance, but to profess himself resolved to maintain the protestant settlement of the crown, to condemn absolutely all papal jurisdiction within the realm, and to disclaim solemnly any intention of subverting the existing Church establishment or weakening the system of protestant government. Moreover, priests were ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... railway were offered in the villages, it would be certain to sell. But it must not be educational in tone, because they dislike to feel that they are being taught, and they are repelled by books which profess to show the reader how to do this or that. Technical books are unsuitable; and as for the goody-goody, it is out of the question. Most of the reading-rooms started in villages by well-meaning persons have failed from the ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... this means, within a short time, there will be no beggar or idle person in England, which will be the glory of England, and the glory of that Gospel which England seems to profess in words. ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... worthy fear of rooting both them out and their family. For no men hate an evil prince more than they that helped to make him such. And none more boastingly weep his ruin than they that procured and practised it. The same path leads to ruin which did to rule when men profess a licence in government. A good king is ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... have sometimes been assured by persons who profess to know that the danger of war has become an illusion.... Well, here is a war which has broken out in spite of all that rulers and diplomatists could do to prevent it, a war in which the Press has had no part, a war which the whole force of the money power ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... and drank heartily, the dawn still in her eyes and cheeks, and masses of yellow hair tumbling down from under her hood on throat and bosom. When she handed back the cap, I could not forbear from saying, "You look charming after your night's rest, and I profess that tear of milk on the tip of your nose becomes you admirably." With the rim of my cap at my lips, I added with mock concern, "Have a care, Mistress Waynflete, or you'll rub off tip as ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... cast behind the back of many, when it should be carried in the hand and heart that we might do it, to the end the gospel which we profess might he glorified in the world. Let then the law be with thee to love it, and do it in the spirit of the gospel, that thou be not unfruitful in thy life. Let the law, I say, be with thee, not as it comes from Moses, but from Christ; for though thou art set ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... met with, when Louis de la Tremoille, the most respected amongst the chiefs of the army, entered the hall. He came by order of the king to affirm to the Parliament that to dismiss the Concordat was to renew the war, and that it must obey on the instant or profess open rebellion. Parliament upheld its decision of July 24, 1517, against the Concordat, at the same time begging La Tremoille to write to the king to persuade him, if he insisted upon registration, to send some person of note or ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... spirit,—with prayer for enlightenment—invariably find that want fully supplied; and making due allowance for the various constitutions of the human mind, they are entirely agreed on all cardinal points regarding the Bible, while its opponents, who profess to be guided by the light of reason alone, differ in every possible way, their theories being almost countless; while they agree only in denying the authority of a book, of the Divine nature of which they ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston
... sleep, and the cancer was extracted, without the woman's manifesting the least terror, or the slightest sense of pain! To the truth of the substance of this account, M. Cloquet, who does not pretend to explain the reason, nor profess to belong, in any way, to the school, simply testifies. He says that he had such a patient, and that she was operated on, virtually, as I have told you. Such a statement, coming from so high a source, induced the Academy, which is certainly not altogether composed of magnetisers, but many ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... I do not say that there ever was or ever can be a nation so utterly blinded and perverted in its moral sense as to acknowledge that which is wrong—seen and known to be wrong—as right; or on the other hand, to profess that which is seen and understood as right, to be wrong. But what I do say is this: that the form and aspect in which different deeds appear, so vary, that there will be for ever a change and alteration in men's opinions, and that which ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... include religious freedom, international development, the Middle East, terrorism, the failing health of Pope JOHN PAUL II, interreligious dialogue and reconciliation, and the application of church doctrine in an era of rapid change and globalization. About 1 billion people worldwide profess the ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... curabant,"—the fewer there are who follow the way to perfection, the harder that way is to find. So all our fellow-men, in the East of London and elsewhere, we must take along with us in the progress towards perfection, [242] if we ourselves really, as we profess, want to be perfect; and we must not let the worship of any fetish, any machinery, such as manufactures or population,—which are not, like perfection, absolute goods in themselves, though we think them ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... Oh, as for your double-meanings, you said the thing, and you jeered at the incapacity of English families to live together, on account of bad temper; and now you are the first to break up our union! I decidedly do not profess to be a perfect Jew, but I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Mrs. Henson cried. "You will ruin me—L10,000! What do you do with all the money? You profess to give it all to charity. But I know better. Much you give away that more may come back from it. But that money you get from a credulous public. And I could expose you, ah, how I could ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... interest; acknowledged no criterion but success; he worshiped no God but ambition; and, with an eastern devotion, he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry. Subsidiary to this, there was no creed that he did not profess, there was no opinion that he did not promulgate: in the hope of a dynasty, he upheld the crescent; for the sake of a divorce, he bowed before the cross; the orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted child of the Republic; and, with ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... court-yard[946], behind Mr. Strahan's house; and there I had a proof of what I had heard him profess, that he talked alike to all. 'Some people tell you that they let themselves down to the capacity of their hearers. I never do that. I speak uniformly, in as intelligible a manner as ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... reason to that which excludes the history of Protestantism, excludes also that of the opposition made to Christianity by heresy, and by rival religions:(11) inasmuch as they repose on authorities, however false, and do not profess to resort to an unassisted study of ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... each arm, his hands a bit convulsively interlocked across him—very much in fact as he had appeared an hour ago in the old tapestry bergere; but as his rigour was all then that of the grinding effort to profess and to give, so it was considerably now for the fear of too hysterically gushing. Somehow too—since his wound was to that extent open—he winced at hearing the author of it branded. He hadn't so much minded ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... enemies in it, amounted to a sort of rage—nay, the very officers who cursed him in their hearts were among the most frantic to cheer him. Who could refuse his meed of admiration to such a victory and such a victor? Not he who writes: a man may profess to be ever so much a philosopher; but he who fought on that day must feel a thrill of pride as ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... the man of whom it is continually said: "Oh, he's a good fellow, but, of course, in politics, he plays politics" It is about as bad for a man to profess, and for those that listen to him by their plaudits to insist upon his professing something which they know he cannot live up to, as it is for him to go below what he ought to do, because if he gets into the habit of lying to himself and to his audience as to what he ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... paleontology profess to teach us far higher things—to disclose the entire succession of living forms upon the surface of the globe; to tell us of a wholly different distribution of climatic conditions in ancient times; to reveal the character of the first of all living ...
— Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life • Thomas H. Huxley
... to his disciples, "The time will come when whosoever killeth you will think he doth God's service;" and he has added, "many will say unto me, in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? then will I profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me ye that work iniquity." What must be your situation in the day of retribution if the system you advocate should in final evidence prove false? of which I have not ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... not done what you profess to believe," he said. "You do not believe it. Will you tell me why you ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... no wish to put you to any trouble," said the officer in command, very quietly, "if you can show that you are what you profess to be. You sail under British colours; and the name on your stern is London Trader. We will soon dismiss you, if you prove that. But appearances are strongly against you. What has brought you here? And why did you run the risk ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... Where will ye find a chief with arm as strong, and heart as dauntless? By his mother's side he is allied to your own lineage. And for the rest, if ye receive him back to his earldom, not only do I, Harold in whom you profess to trust, pledge full oblivion of the past, but I will undertake, in his name, that he shall rule you well for the future, according to the ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... find us? Is it unnecessary to go hunting for us? Is there a place where it is certain that we shall be? It was so with this child Jesus, and it should be so with all of us who profess to be ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of Kurds, and of Turcomans, who wander in the valley of the Orontes; of Bedouin Arabs, who pitch their tents on the banks of the Jordan and along the edge of the desert of Ansarich, worshippers of the sun, the descendants of the servants of the Old Man of the Mountain of Maronites, who profess the Catholic ritual; of Druses, whose creed is doubtful; of all the inhabitants of Mount Lebanon; of Mebualis, Mussulmans of the sect of Ali; of Naplonsins and other tribes who have preserved a state of independence. We shall not be astonished to know that amidst ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... might come off cheaply by a ransom of half your fortune; you smile indignantly well! put common-sense out of the question; take your own view of the matter. You are to undergo an ordeal which Mejnour himself does not profess to describe as a very tempting one. It may, or it may not, succeed; if it does not, you are menaced with the darkest evils; and if it does, you cannot be better off than the dull and joyless mystic whom you have taken for a master. ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sun or the contrary; whether the bodily and mental diseases of men and animals are caused by evil spirits or not; whether there is such an agency as witchcraft or not—all these are purely scientific questions; and to all of them the Canonical Scriptures profess to give true answers. And though nothing is more common than the assumption that these books come into conflict only with the speculative part of modern physical science, no assumption can have ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... performed the ceremony of lustration and clothed himself in hitherto unworn garments on the occasion of his interview with the envoy. It was not in his power, however, to make any definite arrangement as to time. He could only profess his humble determination to obey the Imperial behest, and promise the utmost expedition. But there can be no doubt that the arrival of this envoy decided the question of a march to Kyoto, though some years were destined to elapse before the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... fields to a farmhouse and told one to whom he had been affianced the story of his own salvation, and she yielded her heart to God. The story of the converted household went all through the neighbourhood. In a few weeks two hundred souls stood up in the plain meeting house at Somerville to profess faith in Christ, among them David and Catherine, afterward ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... their own at present. Let them continue to hold on until disunion and tribal jealousies have worked their natural results in the camp of the Mahdi. Nubar should be free to deal with the Soudan in his own way. How he will deal with the Soudan, of course, I cannot profess to say; but I should imagine that he would appoint a Governor-General at Khartoum, with full powers, and furnish him with two millions sterling—a large sum, no doubt, but a sum which had much better be spent now than wasted in a vain attempt to avert the consequences ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... of religion are incomprehensible for even those who inculcate it,—if among those who profess it there is no one who knows precisely what he believes, or who can give an account of either his conduct or belief,—this is not so in regard to the difficulties with which we oppose this religion. These objections are simple, within the comprehension ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... speech Socrates is exhibited as beating the rhetoricians at their own weapons; he 'an unpractised man and they masters of the art.' True to his character, he must, however, profess that the speech which he makes is not his own, for he knows nothing of himself. (Compare Symp.) Regarded as a rhetorical exercise, the superiority of his speech seems to consist chiefly in a better arrangement of the topics; ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... infallibility of the Pope goes. If a man is infallible he can not make a mistake, and I can prove by every man of broadmindedness and intelligence that the Popes of Rome, for centuries past, have made nothing but mistakes, and their mistakes have been not only ruinous to those whom they profess to teach, but their mistakes have had a tendency to paralyze the righteous ambitions of every nation to which their influence has extended. If the claim of Catholicism is true that her Popes are infallible, then we must acknowledge that this great gift was received from God Almighty, and we cannot ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... post-office box is an unexceptionable place to drop a bit of paper into, but a ballot-box terribly dangerous? No cause in the world can keep above water, sustained by such contradictions as these, too feeble and slight to be dignified by the name of fallacies. Some persons profess to think it impossible to reason with a woman, and they certainly show no ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... was the selecting agency—is a familiar idea in geological literature, but, as I said, there are recent writers who profess reserve in regard to it, and it is proper to glance at, or at least ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... origin of modifications; it accepts the obvious fact that congenital variations are inherited, although it leaves the question as to how they are inherited for further examination. Because the doctrine of natural selection does not profess to answer all the questions propounded by scientific inquisitiveness, it must not be supposed that it fails in its immediate purpose of giving a natural explanation of how evolution may be partly ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... really understand why the boys should have to live together," she said with animation; "they do not profess to feel much friendship for each other, and never seek each other out. You yourself, Mrs. Knippel, do not seem to get a very good impression from my children's ways. I do not see why you wish your sons to live with ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... Such persons, besides the suffering they inflict on individuals, are of unspeakable injury to their respective circles or communities, by making their very virtues unlovely, and piety, if they profess it, hateful. On the other hand, there is no truer benefactor to society—if the creation of happiness be the measure of benefit—than the genuine gentleman or gentlewoman, who adds grace to virtue, ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... this philosophical theology, and the one which exhibits most clearly the practical difference between reason and faith, is that, in dealing with theoretical difficulties, it does not appeal to our knowledge, but to our ignorance: it does not profess to offer a definite solution; it only tells us that we might find one if we knew all. It does not profess, for example, to solve the apparent contradiction between God's foreknowledge and man's free will; it does not say, "This is the way in which God foreknows, ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... slight and weak a thing!" I exclaimed. "YOU, who profess to understand the secrets of electricity—you have no better instinctive knowledge of me than that! Do you deem women all alike—all on one common level, fit for nothing but to be the toys or drudges of men? Can you not ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... utterance to such expressions as the following: "Not that we have not a right to breathe the air as freely as anybody else here (in Baltimore), but we are treated worse than aliens among a people whose language we speak, whose religion we profess, and whose blood flows and mingles in our veins.... Homeless in the land of our birth and worse off than strangers in the home of our nativity." During her stay in York she had frequent opportunities of seeing passengers on the Underground Rail ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... line into a scroll or spiral or arabesque, until whatever design there originally was is lost in a riot of decoration. The metaphors exist for their own sake, and are in nowise subordinate to the themes which they profess to illustrate. Take, for ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... false, it is, at any rate, not at present supported by what is commonly regarded as logical proof, even if it be capable of discussion by reason; and hence we consider ourselves at liberty to pass it by, and to turn to those views which profess to rest on a scientific basis only, and therefore admit of being argued to their consequences. And we do this with the less hesitation as it so happens that those persons who are practically conversant with the facts of the case (plainly a considerable advantage) have always thought fit to range ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... which the Countess CASANOVA takes advantage, and extending her right hand, which movement sharply jingles her bracelets, and so, as it were, sounds a bell to call us to attention, cuts in quickly with an emphatic, "Well, I don't profess to understand music as you do. I know what I like"—("Hear! hear!" sotto voce from PULLER, coming up again to the surface, which draws a languidly approving inclination of the head from Miss CASANOVA, and a smile, deprecating the interruption, from Cousin JANE),—"and I must say," continues ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... the collective man of our time need some such friendly warning? Let us first get a hint from what foreigners think of us ultra-modernized Americans. Wandering journalists, of an ethnological turn of mind, who visit these shores, profess to be struck with the slenderness, the apparent lack of toughness, the dyspeptic look, of the American physique. And from such observations it has been seriously argued that the stalwart English race is suffering inevitable degeneracy in this foreign climate. I have ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... contradiction. For removing of this doubt, and for better understanding the prophet's mind, we must observe, that the prophet had to do with divers sorts of men; he had to do with the conjured(7) and manifest enemies of God's people, the Chaldeans or Babylonians; even so, such as profess Christ Jesus have to do with the Turks and Saracens. He had to do with the seed of Abraham, whereof there were three sorts. The ten tribes were all degenerated from the true worshipping of God, and corrupted with idolatry, as this day are our pestilent papists in all realms ...
— The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. • John Welch, Bishop Latimer and John Knox
... End-All of everything! ... as if the Supreme Creative Force called God were incapable of designing any Higher Form of Thinking-Life than their pigmy bodies which strut on two legs and, with two eyes and a small, quickly staggered brain, profess to understand and weigh the whole foundation and plan of ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... reprobated all the destined inhabitants of heaven and hell, unalterably, independently of their choice or action. At the same time, reception of the true faith, and a life conformed to it, are virtually necessary for salvation, because it is decreed that all the elect shall profess and obey the true faith. Their obedient reception of it proves them to be elected. On the other hand, it is foreordained that none of the reprobate shall become disciples and followers of the Prophet. Their ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... temperament, that the Lady Lochleven had adopted uncommonly rigid and severe views of religion, imitating in her ideas of reformed faith the very worst errors of the Catholics, in limiting the benefit of the gospel to those who profess their own speculative tenets. ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... people for their welcome," said the Governor coldly. "I have ever found them full of words. They profess loyalty to the great white father beyond the seas, but they forget his good laws and disobey his officers. I am ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... engineer I did, but as a writer of magazine articles I felt I should profess some ignorance, so I merely said that I knew a little ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... Plea is mistaken, in supposing that the friends of the Platform profess to be the true representatives of the Lutheran Church in the symbolic sense of the term: for have they not reiterated, in a score of publications, for five and twenty years past, that they do not hold all ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... lines, which profess to have been written by a friend of mine at three o'clock in the morning after the dinner of Wednesday last, have been presented to myself with a request that I should forward them to you. I would suggest to the writer of them the ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... 1: It is sometimes curious to observe the language in which the teachers and doctors themselves profess their entire, unlimited, and implicit submission of all their doctrines, even in the most minute particulars, to the judgment and will of the authorities of Rome. Instances are of very frequent occurrence. Thus Joannes de Carthagena, a ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... reformed religion. When she was admitted to the dungeon, she did her utmost to perform the task she had undertaken; but finding her endeavours ineffectual, she said, Dear Wendelinuta, if you will not embrace our faith, at least keep the things which you profess secret within your own bosom, and strive to prolong your life. To which the widow replied, Madam you know not what you say; for with the heart we believe to righteousness, but with the tongue confession is made unto salvation. As she positively refused ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... admire the strength of the political bond? For cities have endured the worst of evils time out of mind; many cities have been shipwrecked, and some are like ships foundering, because their pilots are absolutely ignorant of the science which they profess. ...
— Statesman • Plato
... hands on, she stole and hid. Madame saw all this, but she still pretended not to see: she had not rectitude of soul to confront the child with her vices. When an article disappeared whose value rendered restitution necessary, she would profess to think that Desiree had taken it away in play, and beg her to restore it. Desiree was not to be so cheated: she had learned to bring falsehood to the aid of theft, and would deny having touched the brooch, ring, or scissors. Carrying on the hollow system, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... enlarg'd, His debt of human toil discharg'd, Here COWLEY lies, beneath this shed, To ev'ry worldly interest dead: With decent poverty content; His hours of ease not idly spent; To fortune's goods a foe profess'd, And, hating wealth, by all caress'd. 'Tis sure he's dead; for, lo! how small A spot of earth is now his all! O! wish that earth may lightly lay, And ev'ry care be far away! Bring flow'rs, the short-liv'd roses bring, To life deceased fit offering! And sweets around ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... the broadest sense); others, as no novel at all, but a dramatic sort of confession. The Jesuits have had it put on the Index; the Christian Democrats have accepted it as their gospel: yet Jesuits and Christian Democrats both profess to be Catholics. Such a divergence of opinion proves conclusively that the book possesses unusual power and that it is many-sided. Instead of pitching upon one of these views as right and declaring all the rest to be wrong, it ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... the lecturers whom you allow to address you, lay before you views of the sciences they profess, which are either generally received, or incontrovertible. I come before you at a disadvantage; for I cannot conscientiously tell you anything about architecture but what is at variance with all commonly received views upon ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... is, I do not know anything of Him, but still I profess to worship him. This is false behaviour. How shall I be rescued from such falsehood? This is ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... brought about the downfal of popery in Scotland, for the people in general were so much inflamed, that resolving openly to profess the truth, they bound themselves by promises, and subscriptions of oaths, That before they would be thus abused any longer they would take arms, and resist the papal tyranny, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... charge and accusation against him, that he did, with the variety and power of his discourses and disputatious, withdraw young men from due reverence to the laws and customs of their country, and that he did profess a dangerous and pernicious science, which was to make the worse matter seem the better, and to suppress truth by force ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... art thou, O Shibli Bagarag! Know, then, that among this people there is great reverence for the growing of hair, and he that is hairiest is honoured most, wherefore are barbers creatures of especial abhorrence, and of a surety flourish not. And so it is that I owe my station to the esteem I profess for the cultivation of hair, and to my persecution of the clippers of it. And in this kingdom is no one that beareth such a crop as I, saving one, a clothier, an accursed one!—and may a blight fall upon him for his vanity and his affectation of solemn ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... you and your pastor profess to be anxious for the slaves' conversion to God, and thereby to roll away the ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... history only an ostrich with its head in the sand can profess to believe that there will be no calamities in the future to reduce the population of the earth. And apart from cataclysms of disease or of war, empires have perished by moral catastrophe. A disbelief in God results in selfishness, and in ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... positive and constructive development of our tradition of goodwill to China would involve us in an interference with Chinese domestic affairs injurious to China's welfare, to that free and independent development in which we profess ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... an instant did he hesitate. Taking the two hands of father and mother into his solitary one, he said,—"Father, I have always found you a gentleman; mother, you have shown all the graces of the Christian character which you profess; yet in this you are supporting the most dishonorable sentiment, the most infidel unbelief, with which the age is shamed. You are defying the dictates of justice and the teachings of God. When you ask me to rank myself on your side, I cannot do it. Were my heart ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... I do not profess to know how he saw it. So far as I know, inability to make speeches does not show on a man's face, and Titherington had no other means of judging at that time except the appearance of my face. No one in fact, not even my mother, could have been sure then that ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... most conspicuous note, and to clearness he added singular grace, great skill in phrase-making, great aptitude for beautiful description, perfect naturalness, absolute ease. The very faults which the lovers of a more pompous rhetoric profess to detect in his writing are the easy-going fashions of a man who wrote as he talked. The members of a college which produced Cardinal Newman, Dean Church, and Matthew Arnold are not without some justification when they boast of ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... reserves and modifications, which make it as useless as it is vague and conjectural. I may learn in time to submit to the inevitable; I cannot drug myself with phrases which evaporate as soon as they are exposed to a serious test. You profess to give me the only motives of conduct; and I know that at the first demand to define them honestly—to say precisely what you believe and why you believe it—you will be forced to withdraw, and explain and evade, and at last retire to the safe refuge of a mystery, which might as well be admitted ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... then that I learned of the existence of shrubs, vines, and flowers of which I had never before heard. It is indeed amazing that an ordinarily intelligent man can reach the age of forty-five years without being able to profess truthfully a more or less intimate acquaintance with hydrangeas, fuchsias, taraxacums, syringas, sisymbriums, gilliflowers, kentaphyllons, maydenheer, chrysanthemums, orchids, geraniums, lichens, laburnums, jasmines, heliotropes, gentians, ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... you the ocean is altogether too big. Some profess to admire it on that account, but it is my belief that they do it to be in style. I admit that on a bright, blowy day, when you can sit and watch the shining sails far out on the horizon's rim, it does look right nice, but I account for it ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... be and remain their own masters; that is, to preserve themselves in the rank of Men; and not become as the Brute that is driven to the pasture, and cares not who owns him. It is a common saying among those who profess to be lovers of civil liberty, and give themselves some credit for understanding it,—that, if a Nation be not free, it is mere dust in the balance whether the slavery be bred at home, or comes from abroad; be of their own suffering, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... saying hurts you, but in your hearts you know you deserve every word of it. It is high time you saw yourselves as you are—a disgrace to the religion you profess and to the community you ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... true, profess to find in it a reference to the unfortunate Sicilian Expedition, then in progress, and a prophecy of its failure and the political downfall of Alcibiades. But as a matter of fact, the whole thing seems rather an attempt on the dramatist's part to relieve the overwrought minds of his fellow-citizens, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... profess to discover in my letter I utterly disclaim. Having already discussed at length, in a correspondence with Major-General Forrest, the Fort Pillow massacre, as well as the policy to be pursued in regard to colored troops, I do not regard it necessary to say more on those subjects. As you ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... his two big shoulders, and thrusting him before me, ran with him down the hill, over the sands, and through the applauding village, to the Speak House, where the king was then holding a pow-wow. He had the impudence to pretend he was internally injured by my violence, and to profess serious apprehensions for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of talking when he was not issuing orders under fire, best understood by sailors. I give it you as it stands here printed. I do not profess to understand. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to it!" repeated Lady Verner. "Are you growing capricious, Decima? You generally profess to 'like' ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood |
