MAINSPRING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Mainspring

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Mainspring

noun

The most important spring in a mechanical device (especially a clock or watch); as it uncoils it drives the mechanism.

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Etymology of 'Mainspring'

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"Mainspring" Quotes from Famous Books

... peoples has, in fact and inevitably, led to their leadership in government also, and given them the predominant voice in laying down the lines along which the common life of mankind is to develop. If we are to look for the mainspring of the world's activities, for the place where its new ideas are thought out, its policies framed, its aspirations cast into practical shape, we must not seek it in the forests of Africa or in the interior of ...

— Progress and History • Various

... tenet—'Perfect Love and Fulfilment'? If you have any doubts upon these points, Mr. Mario, hold your hand. It can profit the world nothing to restir the witches' cauldron. Love must always be the mainspring of life and honour its loftiest ideal. Teach men how to live and leave it to Death to reveal the hereafter. Not for the good of mankind do I tremble—God has the world in his charge—but for yourself. We all are granted glimpses of our imperfections, perhaps ...

— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... outward prettiness of butterfly and orchid, or with the mere profusion and variety of life, or with the colossal size of animals and trees. He will want to burrow down and get at the very root and mainspring of this forest life. He will want to reach the very Heart of Nature here manifested in such manifold variety. He will want to arrive at the inner significance of all this variety of life. Then only will ...

— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband

... have been contemptuously called the shop- keepers of the world) the extension and maintenance of their vast empire is the mainspring which keeps the great machine in movement. And one sees tens of thousands of well-born and delicately-bred men cheerfully entering the many branches of public service where the hope of wealth can never come, and retiring on pensions ...

— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... served to show him all that personality may mean. Estelle rejoiced that he should now so swiftly learn what had so long been apparent to her. She always declared an enthusiasm for personality; to her it seemed the force behind everything and the mainspring of all movement. Lack of personality meant stagnation; but granted personality, then advance ...

— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

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