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Active   Listen
adjective
Active  adj.  
1.
Having the power or quality of acting; causing change; communicating action or motion; acting; opposed to passive, that receives; as, certain active principles; the powers of the mind.
2.
Quick in physical movement; of an agile and vigorous body; nimble; as, an active child or animal. "Active and nervous was his gait."
3.
In action; actually proceeding; working; in force; opposed to quiescent, dormant, or extinct; as, active laws; active hostilities; an active volcano.
4.
Given to action; constantly engaged in action; energetic; diligent; busy; opposed to dull, sluggish, indolent, or inert; as, an active man of business; active mind; active zeal.
5.
Requiring or implying action or exertion; opposed to sedentary or to tranquil; as, active employment or service; active scenes.
6.
Given to action rather than contemplation; practical; operative; opposed to speculative or theoretical; as, an active rather than a speculative statesman.
7.
Brisk; lively; as, an active demand for corn.
8.
Implying or producing rapid action; as, an active disease; an active remedy.
9.
(Gram.)
(a)
Applied to a form of the verb; opposed to passive. See Active voice, under Voice.
(b)
Applied to verbs which assert that the subject acts upon or affects something else; transitive.
(c)
Applied to all verbs that express action as distinct from mere existence or state.
Active capital, Active wealth, money, or property that may readily be converted into money.
Synonyms: Agile; alert; brisk; vigorous; nimble; lively; quick; sprightly; prompt; energetic.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Active" Quotes from Famous Books



... letters rests chiefly on the money which he spent in this way, though it must be set to his credit that he procured a pension for Samuel Johnson without stipulating for any return. Among his hired scribes was Smollett, who edited a paper for him called The Briton. The other side, too, was active. In obedience to Frederick's instructions the Prussian ambassadors took part in exciting popular discontent with the government; and were justly reproved by Grenville for their preposterous conduct. Bute was vigorously assailed in print. The publication of The Briton called ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... Helene was full of activity. Peterson I met at the wheel. I heard the bells jangle below. I saw Jean, active as a cat, ready at the mooring-stub, waiting for the line to ease. Then with my own hand I threw on every light of the Belle Helene, so that she blazed, in the power of six thousand candles, search-light and all: so that what had been ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... of the Ocean, and the name fits him well, even though his flock were less like sheep than like a leash of hunting leopards. His theory was that with a pack of small and active pinnaces he could successfully hunt the lumbering Spanish galleons without their being able to hit back. He was, in contradistinction to many preceding English admirals, a cautious fighter at sea, and he says, in a striking passage ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... hideous grotesques in England upon its capital, was within a locked door. Somerset was tempted to ask a servant for permission to open it, till he heard that the inner room was temporarily used for plate, the key being kept by Miss De Stancy, at which he said no more. But afterwards the active housemaid redescended the stone steps; she entered the crypt with a bunch of keys in one hand, and in the other a candle, followed by the young lady whom Somerset had seen ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... side with the rich, fantastic uniform of the Russian, was seen the light and active French chasseur; here was to be seen the Hungarian hussar, whose variegated and tasteful costume contrasted curiously with the dark and simple uniform of the Spaniard, who stood near him, both conversing gayly with an Italian, ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... that of these scoundrels, whose courage consists in plundering and murdering defenceless natives, while the robbers fatten on the spoil. I am most anxious to see whether the English Government will take active notice of the White Nile trade, or whether diplomacy will confine them to simple protest and correspondence, to be silenced by a promise from the Egyptian Government to put a stop to the present atrocities. The Egyptian Government ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... to bodily illness, hastened the preparations for bed, and The Man, feeling helpless as all men do when something active is being done in which they have no part, rose to go, and, with his hand on the latch of the porch door, said in a low voice: "If I might help you in any way, I should be very glad; I do not quite like leaving you alone with this old fellow,—you may ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... improving upon me beyond my wishes; when all was unclouded sunshine, and I possessed my mind in peace, and had only to be thankful to Providence, which had been so gracious to my unworthiness; when I saw my persecutor become my protector, my active enemy no longer my enemy, but creeping with slow, doubtful feet, and speaking to me with awful hesitating doubt of my acceptance; a stamp of an insolent foot now turned into curtseying half-bent knees; threatening hands into supplicating folds; and the eye unpitying ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... to the dim-lighted cottage, with its clay floor and its deal table; to the earnest pair seated with him at the labours that unfold the motions of the stars; and even to the homely, thickset, but active form of Janet, and that peculiar smile of hers with which, after an apparently snappish speech, spoken with her back to the person addressed, she would turn round her honest face half-apologetically, and shine full upon some one or other of the three, whom she honoured with her ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... equivalent terms. In a kind of foretaste of Pentecost, the risen Christ, standing in the midst of his disciples, "breathed on them and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." The verb is not passive, as our English version might lead us to suppose, but has here as generally an active signification, just as in the familiar passage in Revelation: "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Twice in the Epistle to the Galatians the possession of the Holy Ghost is put on the same grounds of active {71} appropriation through ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon

... active perpetrator of the massacre, but, he was mixed up with the atrocities that had been committed, and Livingstone could have nothing to do with him. It was a great trial, for, as the Banian men were impracticable, there was ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... give friendly welcome. The old man got stiffly down from the side-car and limped past the gate with a sigh; but Nora hurried ahead, carrying the big baby, not because he could n't walk, but because he could. The young son had inherited his mother's active disposition, and would run straight away like a spider the minute his feet were set to the ground. Now and then, at the sight of a bird or a flower in the grass, he struggled to get down. "Whisht, now!" Nora would say; "and are n't you ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett

... at this time commanding in Missouri, and was himself stationed at St. Louis; but his active measures against the rebels were going on to the right and to the left. On the left shore of the Mississippi, at Cairo, in Illinois, a fleet of gun- boats was being prepared to go down the river, and on the ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... Barton, in an active practice of more than twenty-five years, I have tested this law; and I tell you, as an honest man, and one who expects to answer for the deeds done in the body at the bar of God, that it never failed me once. I ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman

... but a slight one, a shot in the arm, but not deep; it's almost healed now, but Stahlberg cannot use it in active service for some time yet. You are ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... because the store is large in proportion to the number of the people, that the people must be in comfort; nor because it is small, that they must be in distress. An active and economical race always produces more than it requires, and lives (if it is permitted to do so) in competence on the produce of its daily labour. The quantity of its store, great or small, is therefore in many respects indifferent to it, and cannot be inferred from its ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... continued to detain me with apologies till the boys had got safely away. I have little doubt that this was an instance of that organized system of depredation of which I have before spoken, and that the man who took so active a part at the first, was at the bottom of the business; and, in fact, the tutor and employer of the predatory urchins. His activity in preventing the boy from being taken back to the shop—his anxiety to promote a subscription for the boy,—and, lastly, his threat of personal violence if I interfered ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... wretched to look at, for that's what winter is in Denmark. The forester seldom went out into the wood since his assistant had arrived. He generally sat in his warm room, in his old arm-chair, making up his accounts and thinking of the old days when he was young and active and never bothered whether it was warm or cold. He was also very fond of talking about that time. And, although he had talked about it more than once or twice before, they forgave him, because he was so old, and listened to ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald

... flashes of lightning on a dark, stormy night you might see a mountain range. He seemed to see that a man need not leave his life to chance, but that his will was powerful; he seemed to see that self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion; he seemed to see that the inward life might be as manifold, as varied, as rich with experience, as the life of one who conquered ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... conscience, one that is void of offense. By the Lord's help, I will gladly explain. Conscience is that which causes us to feel bad when we do what we've been taught to be wrong. At first it is very tender and active. Then, no matter how enticing the temptation, the conscience will warn one not to yield. You've heard your conscience speaking to ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum

... private soldier, is a socially inferior being from the officer's point of view. The officer class and the ranker class are east and west, and never the twain shall meet, except in their respective places upon the parade-ground. This does not hold good, to the same extent, upon active service. Hardships and dangers, shared in common, tend to break down artificial barriers. But even then, although there was good-will and friendliness between officers and men, I saw nothing of genuine comradeship. This seemed ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall

... father a distinguished General, and his uncle both served in the Crimea and elsewhere, and many of his near relations joined the army, and were well-known zealous soldiers of their Sovereign. His elder brother fell in the Boer War in the beginning of this century, and he himself saw active service in the Sudan and in South Africa, before he landed in France to take his share in the great World War. On being promoted to the command of his battalion, he joined it at Kamptee in India, and this obliged him to leave his wife and family at home, for young ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie

... the seventeenth century and her courage than that which the experiences of Sarah Bland set forth. She was the wife of John Bland of England, and the daughter-in-law of the well known merchant of the same name, who, as an active member of the Virginia Company of London, developed large plantation interests in Virginia, and a thriving mercantile business. Sarah Bland's only surviving son Giles had come to Virginia about the time of the untimely death of Theodorick Bland, who had managed the Bland interests ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester

... which they did not see—the deaf imagined that they heard—the lame that they walked straight, and the paralytic that they had recovered the use of their limbs. An idea of health made the sick forget for a while their maladies; and imagination, which was not less active in those merely drawn by curiosity than in the sick, gave a false view to the one class, from the desire of seeing, as it operated a false cure on the other from the strong desire of being healed. Such was the power of the Irishman over the mind, and such was the influence of the mind upon ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... seriously ill. The doctor bled me till I fainted, and then said, that he had saved me from a brain-fever. That might be, but he very nearly threw me into a consumption, only that I had a deep chest and a good digestion. Pneumonic expansion and active chyle saved me from an early tomb, yet I was too ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various

... and his services there led to his forming one of the French jury of awards in the London Exhibition of 1862. He was created a member of the Senate in 1860, and continued for some years to take an active part in its discussions. He retired from public life in 1870, but was unceasingly industrious with his pen. He became grand officer of the Legion of Honour in 1861, and during the later years of his life received ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... But, when invok'd to Beauty's aid, I see the enlighten'd soul display'd, That soul so sensibly sedate Amid the storms of froward fate! Thy genius active, strong, and clear, Thy wit sublime, though not severe, The social ardour, void of art, That glows within thy candid heart; My spirits, sense, and strength decay, My resolution dies away, And, every faculty oppress'd, Almighty love ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... been quite active lately for so old A person, and not very strong-appearing. I'm apprehensive, somehow, that my bold, Bad brother gave you trouble in the spearing. And my two friends—I fear, sir, that you ran Quite hard for them, especially ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... water, till it is fully impregnated with the virtue of the water." His British translator, Professor Bradley, does, indeed, give a little note of corroborative testimony. But I would not advise any active farmer, on the authority either of General Xenophon or of Professor Bradley, to transport his surface-soil very largely to the nearest frog-pond, in the hope of finding it transmuted into manure. The absorptive and retentive capacity of soils is, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... affection for Mendouca—who had shown him great kindness—when that individual chose to shake off his allegiance and abjure his country. And now, of course, he dreaded nothing so much as recognition and seizure, for not only was he a deserter, but he had also been guilty of taking an active part in more than one deed of piracy perpetrated by his chief; he therefore implored me to let him keep below out of sight during the presence of the man-o'-war—which clearly meant to speak us— and also to omit all ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... the country government, the principal active person in the administration of affairs, for rank, and for reputation of probity, and of knowledge in the revenues and the laws, was Mahomed Reza Khan, who, besides large landed property, was possessed of offices whose emoluments ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... was Peter Rose, had also the nickname of King Pewee. He was about fourteen years old, square built and active, of great strength for his size, and very proud of the fact that no boy in town cared to attack him. He was not bad-tempered, but he loved to be master, and there were a set of flatterers who followed him, like jackals about ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston

... plant the roadsides that form the entrances to these places. I was delighted, some months ago, to hear that a few gentlemen at Haverhill, in Massachusetts, had banded together for this purpose. Charley, if you live to take an active share in the business of life, try and do something for the place you live in that shall appear after you have gone; make the spot of your residence better, because you have once lived in it. We are too selfish; we do not fulfil our duty to those who are ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various

... 327:24 proclaim the right. But how shall we re- form the man who has more animal than moral courage, and who has not the true idea of good? 327:27 Through human consciousness, convince the mortal of his mistake in seeking material means for gaining hap- piness. Reason is the most active human faculty. Let 327:30 that inform the sentiments and awaken the man's dor- mant sense of moral obligation, and by degrees he will learn the nothingness of the pleasures of human sense 328:1 and the grandeur and bliss of a spiritual sense, which silences the material or corporeal. Then he not ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... on the hard earth which rang under his footsteps, of happy chases on the edges of pools where wild ducks sleep. All the good things that he loved, the good things of existence rushed into memory, penetrated him with fresh desires, awakened all the vigorous appetites of his active, powerful body. ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... their great qualities, their vivacity, invention, vividness of perception, chivalrous valour, and sympathy with tradition. The northern races detested them, and the height of statesmanship was to combine the Latin races into an organised and active alliance against the barbarism which menaced them. There had been for a short time a vacant place next to Endymion, when Baron Sergius, according to his quiet manner, stole into the room and slipped ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... which is one way of attenuating it; we may be told, that all trades, professions, it may be added, all the accidents of the social hierarchy and all forms of intelligence, have their own slang. The merchant who says: "Montpellier not active, Marseilles fine quality," the broker on 'change who says: "Assets at end of current month," the gambler who says: "Tiers et tout, refait de pique," the sheriff of the Norman Isles who says: "The ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... monarch confine himself to words. He acted as he could act so well. Garibaldi was sent to his island, Caprera; but only in order to escape from it at the opportune moment, through the seven vessels by which he was guarded. An order for his arrest was then issued. Active search was made for him at Genoa, at Turin, everywhere except at Florence, where he harangued the people in the most public places, even under the windows of the King's palace. Later, when it was undertaken ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... their spawn at any time. The best time to get the spawn is when the young mushrooms are first appearing. A bed or part of a bed in capital working order is selected and broken up and the cakes of manure thoroughly matted up with the active mycelium are selected for spawning the fresh beds. It is asserted that from this active spawn crops of mushrooms appear in twenty days' less time than ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer

... became clear, however, that the Government had found some justification of its conduct, and that active measures were being adopted for Lord Cochrane's punishment. He was warned by Mr. Brougham that, if he stayed many days longer in England, he would be arrested and so prevented not only from facilitating the construction of the Greek vessels, but even from going to Greece ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... and boiling quite briskly. Presently that was joined by the big talking kettle, which said, addressing itself to Maidwa, "Master, we shall be ready presently;" and then, dancing along, came, from still another, the frisky little kettle, which hopped to their side, and took an active part in the preparations for the evening meal. When all was nearly ready, a delicate voice was heard singing in the last corner of the lodge, and keeping up its dainty carol all the way to the fire-place, the fourth kettle ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews

... Kingston, Tennessee, on the first of April, 1845. His family were the only slaves owned by Jonathan Draper, Baptist minister. In 1869 William joined the army and was stationed at Fort Stockton, Texas. He has lived in Houston since 1870. William is active and ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... marriage her husband retired from active business. He busied himself now with his real estate, with mysterious papers, documents, agents. He was forever poking around the house at hours when a household should be manless, grumbling about the waste where there was none, peering into bread boxes, ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... unnecessary to dwell upon what all will conjecture; superfluous to detail the active steps that were at once taken in Oakley's behalf, with very different success, now that the unknown sergeant had suddenly assumed the character of an English gentleman of honourable name and ample ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... to this call, one rifleman in particular, a fine, broad-shouldered active fellow, with a brown moustache and olive complexion, darts forward to the point indicated. It is Claudet. Others are behind him, and soon more than a hundred men, with their bayonets, are hurling themselves ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet

... separate characters are briefly these. The man's power is active, progressive, defensive. He is eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender. His intellect is for speculation and invention; his energy for adventure, for war, and for conquest wherever ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... o'clock, active preparations were made for the execution, and the soldiery mustered. Reverend padres in long black gowns, with meek countenances, passed the sentinels, intent on spiritual consolation, or the ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... the noncommital response, but this time with closed eyes, for the Master of Arden had passed the point of active interest. ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... together ever since her own coming. Miss Sophia could not make a third in their conversations. But as Alice's strength grew less and she needed more attendance and help, it was plain her friend's being there was a happy thing for both Alice and Ellen. Miss Sophia was active, cheerful, untiring in her affectionate care, always pleasant in manner and temper; a very useful person in a house where one was ailing. Mrs. Vawse was often there too, and to her Ellen clung, whenever ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... physical world. This mode of existence involves inertness. That which is physical does not act, except passively, as it is acted upon. Inertness is inaction. That which is inert, therefore, differs from that which is not inert by defect. The inert wants something of being active. ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... which increases the circulation, or stimulates the secretion is beneficial. House-work, which, in its various forms, brings into use all the muscles of the body, is a wholesome exercise for women. Those who do no house-work seldom substitute for it any other active exercise, and many diseases which are caused by deposits of waste tissues that are not thrown off by ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory

... but exact knowledge of all its processes doubtless would enrich the farmer's vocabulary more than his pocketbook. We are concerned in knowing that lime's field of usefulness is broad in that it is an essential plant food and provides the active means of keeping the feeding ground of plants in sanitary condition. We want to know how it comes about that our soils are deficient in lime, and how we may determine the fact that they are deficient. We wish to know the relative values of the ...
— Right Use of Lime in Soil Improvement • Alva Agee

... Ebben Owens. He had laid his soul bare before his son, the idol of his life, and he waited for the answer to his letter, with as intense an anxiety as does a prisoner for the sentence of the judge. He rose with the dawn as was always his custom, but now, instead of the active supervision of barn or stable or cowshed, which had filled up the early morning hours, his time was spent in roaming over the moor or the lonely shore, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes bent on the ground. Morva watched ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... connection with a thunderstorm. It is made by drops of moisture, like very fine rain, being carried by the strong upward currents of a thunderstorm to altitudes where the air is very cold, there becoming coated with a layer of snow, and becoming heavier, falling through the less active upward currents on the edge of a storm. As these snow-covered frozen raindrops fall through the clouds, they grow bigger, because on their cold snow surfaces the moisture condenses and is frozen to a skin ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler

... report upon the nature of the expected entertainment, a duty that had been deferred until a late hour of the day. Well was it that the confiding prince had not wholly dispensed with that form; for verily the said officer found the colonel, with a dirty scullion for his aide du camp, in active and zealous preparation for his royal visiter; his shirt sleeves tucked up, while he ardently basted the identical and solitary "leg of mutton" as it revolved upon the spit: potatoes were to be seen delicately insinuated into the pan beneath to catch the rich ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various

... have something to do with their having group wars. The egotism of their individual spirits is allowed scant expression, so the egotism of the group is extremely ferocious and active. Is this one of the reasons why ants fight so much? They go in for State Socialism, yes, but they are not internationalists. And ants commit atrocities in and after their battles that are—I ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day

... Bejar, who belonged to one of the first families in Spain, accompanied the emperor, who was on his way to Italy, to the port of embarkation; but the general, soon becoming tired of the frivolities of a court, so little in accordance with the active habits of his past life, set out again for Mexico in 1530, and landed at Villa-Rica. After his arrival he underwent some annoyance caused by the Audienza, which had exercised the power in his absence, and which had instituted law-suits ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... to see a gentleman, as you appear to be, in such intimacy with that rascal, who makes no scruple of disowning all revealed religion. As for crimes, they are human errors, and signify but little; nay, perhaps the worse a man is by nature, the more room there is for grace. The spirit is active, and loves best to inhabit those minds where it may meet with the most work. Whatever your crime be, therefore I would not have you despair, but rather rejoice at it; for perhaps it may be the means of your being called." He ran on for a considerable time ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... that students of Education in other colleges, universities, and normal schools may find suggestions in the material here brought together, and that teachers in active school work may also receive some practical help therefrom, the writer has been encouraged to place the outlines at the disposal of the public. If they shall prove of service to his colleagues and their students elsewhere, his aim and ...
— A Guide to Methods and Observation in History - Studies in High School Observation • Calvin Olin Davis

... lot! Do now what you will, set type in a printing-office, bring up children, bury yourself in deep seclusion, seek obscure and lonely villages, it is all one to me; you cannot escape your destiny; you cannot divest yourself of your noblest feature, that active, strong, and inquiring mind, with which you are endowed; your place in the world has been appointed, and it cannot remain empty. Go where you please, I expect you in Paris, talking philosophy and the doctrines ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... naturally inquisitive. Their minds are active, like their bodies. They must have exercise; why not direct it into paths of usefulness, where their accomplishments could be seen and ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay

... ourselves if we imagined that the belief in witchcraft is even now dead in the mass of the people; on the contrary there is ample evidence to show that it only hibernates under the chilling influence of rationalism, and that it would start into active life if that influence were ever seriously relaxed. The truth seems to be that to this day the peasant remains a pagan and savage at heart; his civilization is merely a thin veneer which the hard knocks of life soon abrade, exposing the solid core of paganism and savagery below. The danger created ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... to put a few bullets into that brute, if this thing keeps up much longer. It's just crazy enough not to be afraid of a man on horseback, besides, it's a good deal more active than usual." Ted's thoughts were keeping time with the swift actions of the brute, which was wheeling and charging like mad, so that it took all his agility and superb horsemanship to keep ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... with six followers, in the house of Peter Cellani, a rich resident of Toulouse. Eleven years of active and public life had passed since the Subprior of Osma had forsaken the quietude of the monastery. He now resumed his life of retirement and subjected himself and his companions to the monastic rules of prayer and penance. But the restless spirit of the man could not long remain ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart

... of active life, but it was as a scholar that he distinguished himself.[4] Belonging to the aristocratic party, he became a friend and supporter of Pompey, and, after holding a naval command under him in the war against the Pirates in B.C. 67, was ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... Active outdoor life had put color in his face and energy into his movements. Mr. Dearborn and his wife were not exacting in their demands, although they found plenty for him to do. The work was all new and pleasant, and Robin was with him everywhere. When he fed the turkeys, when he ...
— Big Brother • Annie Fellows-Johnston

... of the Exhibition of 1851 is said to have been originally due to Mr. F. Whishaw, Secretary of the Society of Arts, as early as 1844, but no active steps were taken until 1849, when the Prince Consort, who was President of the Society, took the matter up very warmly. His speech at one of the ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield

... city; and if I am allowed to do so I will remain. This is my proper place, this is my beat, this is my post as a sentinel, this is my station as a defender of the city. Let others occupy camps and kingdoms, and engage in the conduct of the war; let them show the active hatred of the enemy; we, as we say, and as we have always hitherto done, will, in common with you, defend the city and the affairs of the city. Nor do I shrink from this office; although I see the Roman people shrink from it for me. No one ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... successful, Colonel Tassis, conducted by a treacherous Frisian peasant, having surprised the city which had so, long and so manfully sustained itself against Renneberg during the preceding winter. With this event the active operations under Parma closed for the year. By the end of the autumn, however, he had the satisfaction of numbering, under his command, full sixty thousand well-appointed and disciplined troops, including the large reinforcements ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... present moment the ministries are constituted, the prefect of police has assumed his duties, the public offices are again active, and we invite all citizens to maintain the ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... not alone on youthful prime, Or manhood's active might; Man then is useful to his kind, Supported in his right: But see him on the edge of life, With cares and sorrows worn; Then Age and Want—oh! ill-match'd pair— Shew man was made ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... indefinite sense of faith is fidelity: then fidelity under previous contract or particular moral obligation. In this sense faith is fealty to a rightful superior: faith is the duty of a faithful subject to a rightful governor. Then it is allegiance in active service; fidelity to the liege lord under circumstances, and amid the temptations of usurpation, rebellion, and intestine discord. Next we seek for that rightful superior on our duties to whom all our duties to all other superiors, on our faithfulness ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... sanguinary clash of peoples rendered invaluable services to the Teutons and indirectly inflicted incalculable losses on the civilized nations of the globe. This tremendous power for evil springs from her unique strategic position in Eastern Europe. At any moment during the conflict her active assistance would have won Constantinople and Turkey for the Allies, and if proffered during one of several particularly favourable conjunctures might have speedily ended the war. But so tight was Germany's grip on her that she not only withheld her own aid, but actually threatened to ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... by raiment alone is he warmed;—but by the genial and vernal inmate of the breast, which at once pushes forth and cherishes; by self-support and self-sufficing endeavours; by anticipations, apprehensions, and active remembrances; by elasticity under insult, and firm resistance to injury; by joy, and by love; by pride which his imagination gathers in from afar; by patience, because life wants not promises; by admiration; by gratitude ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... that the murderers should be executed on the spot where their crime was committed, so that the two men implicated were hanged, the one at the end of Redcliffe Gardens, and the other near Stamford Bridge, Chelsea Station. These men were Chelsea pensioners, and must have been active for their years to make such an attempt. The gibbet stood at the end of the present Redcliffe ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... however, permitted to return to his States to contemplate the stagnating effect of the Continental blockade on every branch of trade and industry formerly so active in Holland. Distressed at witnessing evils to which he could apply no remedy, he endeavoured by some prudent remonstrances to avert the utter, ruin with which Holland was threatened. On the 23d of March 1810 he wrote ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... of middle height and spare figure, nearly sixty years old, by constitution rather delicate in health, but wiry and active for his age. A sparse and straggling beard and moustache did not conceal a thin but kindly mouth; his eyes were keen and pleasant; his sharp nose and narrow jaw gave him very much of a clerical air, and this impression was helped by his commonplace ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... have needed all your strength and your energy for your search for your sister, and right sure am I that your father, who was as sensible as he was wise—and the two things do not always go together—would be far better pleased to see you energetic and active in your search for your sister and in preparation for this new life on which we are entering, than in vain regrets for him; therefore, lad, for every reason I thought it better to keep silent upon the subject. It ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty

... life, but the cultivation and direction of life." The school, the mission, the newspaper—these are the agencies that should be used. Japan has thousands of teachers in China and scores of newspapers, but no other nation is adequately active. The present kindly feeling for America guarantees an especially cordial reception for American teachers, ministers, and writers, and those who feel the call to lands other than their own cannot find a more promising ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... and with some confusion. Others became active, one way or the other, and the clamor was great, so that it was easily heard down the street and nearly emptied the ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower

... Joe very well knew that the more difficult part of his task was still before him, for it was one thing for an active boy to work his way over floating ice, and quite another to carry a child and lead a woman upon ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various

... mortgage on the Murray place which Mr. Murray senior had not been able to pay off. Gilbert determined to get rid of it, and his thoughts turned to the west. His father was an active, hale old man, quite capable of managing the farm in Gilbert's absence. Alexander MacNair had gone to the west two years previously and got work on a new railroad. He wrote to Gilbert to come too, promising him plenty of work and ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... the sheen of silk. Down the neck and across the shoulders, his mane, in repose as it was, half bristled and seemed to lift with every movement, as though excess of vigor made each particular hair alive and active. The great breast and heavy forelegs were no more than in proportion with the rest of the body, where the muscles showed in tight rolls underneath the skin. Men felt these muscles and proclaimed them hard as iron, and the odds went down ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... modify them in such ways as suggested by the behavior of the explosives when under test, and, in a short time, returned to the Testing Station with improved products, able to stand the severe tests required. In this way the Testing Station has been a most active agent in increasing the general safety of explosives, and the manufacturers have shown clearly that it never was their desire to offer inferior explosives to the public, but that their failures in the past were due solely to lack of information in regard to the action of explosives under the conditions ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson

... turning participles to adjectives, they sometimes ascribe actions, or active properties, to things to which they do not literally ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... had an attractive eight-year-old granddaughter, of a singularly active and enterprising disposition, who always accompanied him. He called my attention to the fact that she wore a solid-looking gold bracelet around each wrist, a product of the country. In the dry season when the river is low two or three hundred Dayaks and Malays ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... were to say to you to-day: 'You are seeking fortune and influence, my good nephew; you want to rise above the crowd and to play your part in all the great events of your time; you want employment for a keen, active mind, full of resources, and slightly inclined to intrigue; in short, you long to exert in some upper and elegant sphere that force of will and subtlety which at present you are wasting in the silly and useless manipulation of the most barren and tough-skinned animal on earth, to ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... has not only the character of matter, as money made by usury has; but has also somewhat the character of an active cause, in so far as it administers nourishment. Hence the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... likely to be very quiet; so, as Jane recovered her spirits, she determined to crowd into her remaining months at Southampton as much society and amusement as possible. She went to two of the Southampton assemblies—her last recorded appearances as an active ball-goer. ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh

... satisfaction in your work," said Miss Leonora, and left the Rector's wife to consider the matter in rather an agreeable state of mind, for that had been Mrs Morgan's opinion all along. After this last visit the active aunt returned home, going leisurely along George Street, and down Grange Lane, with meditative steps. Miss Leonora, of course, would not for kingdoms have confessed that any new light had come into her mind, or that some very ordinary people ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... periodic disputes with Iran over Helmand water rights; Iran supports clients in country, private Pakistani and Saudi sources also are active; power struggles among various groups for control of Kabul, regional rivalries among emerging warlords, traditional tribal disputes continue; support to Islamic fighters in Tajikistan's civil war; border ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... fighting tooth and nail. I never saw a child of his age so desperately active. He struggled not so much to escape his mother's blows aimed at himself, as to elude the clutches she made at a necktie he wore round his throat, which I at first glance recognised as having formerly ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... of which they had come. Further, no lighter word than "criminal" could characterize such conduct. And yet further, he promised them, in set, sober terms, if anything serious were the outcome, to take an active part in the prosecution of every one of them. At the conclusion of his speech he made a motion to hold the prisoner for the territorial court and to adjourn, but ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... is laid up temporarily for repairs, and Pierrepont has written asking if his father doesn't feel that he is qualified now to relieve him of some of the burden of active management ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... 'every desire of goodness and every work of faith,' as the Revised Version renders the words. Two things, then, we may hope that God will do for us—He will fulfil every yearning after righteousness and purity in our hearts, and will perfect the active energy which faith puts forth in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... present themselves to the sitter—(a) the Symbolic, indicated by the appearance of symbols such as a flag, boat, knife, gold, etc., and (b) Actual Scenes and Personages, in action or otherwise. Persons of a positive type of organization, the more active, excitable, yet decided type, are most likely to perceive symbolically, or allegorically; while those of a passive nature usually receive direct or literal revelations. Both classes will find it necessary to carefully cultivate truthfulness, unselfishness, gratitude for what is shown, and absolute ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi

... convey the idea of a man that speaks with a squeaking voice through his nose, to express a timid and weak fellow, who is always thrashed by the other actors, and always boasts of victory after they are gone."—Tolondron, p. 324. In Italian, Policinello is a little flea, active and biting and skipping; and his mask puce-colour, the nose imitating in shape the flea's proboscis. This grotesque etymology was added by Mrs. Thrale. I cannot decide between "the hen-chicken" of the scholar and "the skipping flea" of the lady, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... The girl's active imagination could well picture the imposing motor which came to the door as a coach-and-four, resplendent with regal trappings. And, cuddled in the wolf-skin robes, flying over the frosty roads which wound through the hills, it ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott

... than 80% of the population. The manufacturing sector has diversified since the mid-1980s. Sugar and wood pulp remain important foreign exchange earners. Mining has declined in importance in recent years with only coal and quarry stone mines remaining active. Surrounded by South Africa, except for a short border with Mozambique, Swaziland is heavily dependent on South Africa from which it receives nine-tenths of its imports and to which it sends more ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... remaining princely courts, or lived quietly on the estates that still remained to them. Such a class, with its moral and economic strength broken, could no longer lead. The Legalists recognized, therefore, only the ruler and next to him, as the really active and responsible man, the chancellor; under these there were to be only the common people, consisting of the richer and poorer peasants; the people's duty was to live and work for the ruler, and to carry out without ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... is a delicate, white, silvery-looking worm, which I have repeatedly found 2 inches in length (a length as great as 5 inches has been reported). It invades the aqueous humor, where its constant active movements make it an object of great interest, and it is frequently exhibited as a "snake in the eye."[1] When present in the eye it causes inflammation and has to be removed through an incision made with the lancet in the upper border of the cornea close to the sclerotic, the point ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... the most active physically. He was a miniature dynamo of a man, throbbing with a restless, inexhaustible tide of energy. Short and wiry, he stared truculently at the universe through wonderfully clear blue eyes, surrounded by a bumper ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... hind-limbs as well as the fore-limbs, both pairs having the bones flattened out and the fingers completely enclosed in the skin, the arm and leg being at the same time greatly shortened. The limbs are thus converted into efficient "flippers," adapting the animal for an active existence in the sea. The different joints of the backbone (vertebrae) also show the same adaptation to an aquatic mode of life, being hollowed out at both ends, like the biconcave vertebrae of Fishes. The spinal column in this way was endowed with the flexibility necessary for ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson

... innocent man might well have been staggered by the circumstantial evidence against him and the high tide of public feeling, in spite of the support that he was receiving. Leland, we learned, had been very active. By prompt work at the time of the young doctor's arrest he had managed to secure the greater part of Dr. Dixon's personal letters, though the prosecutor secured some, the contents of ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... beings have discriminating tastes, and the poor plum tree suffers even more than the peach from their attentions. In some parts of the country it has been entirely given up to their depredations, and farmers will not try to raise this fruit because of these active enemies. The whole almond family are liable to the attacks of insects. Canker-worms of one or of several species often strip them of their leaves; the tent-caterpillars pitch their tents among the branches and carry on their dangerous depredations; the slug-worms, the offspring of ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church

... Girgenti, with the intention of examining the ruins of Agrigentum. This was in 1818, four years before I was born. My father was stopping at Girgenti, with his wife and Paolo, who was then six years old. My father had been very active under the reign of Murat, and had held a high post in his government. This made him suspected ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... picture. He tried all sorts of pictures, taking them from the lives of friends of his, for he knew many different married couples; but he saw them always, walled up in a warm firelit room. When, on the other hand, he began to think of unmarried people, he saw them active in an unlimited world; above all, standing on the same ground as the rest, without shelter or advantage. All the most individual and humane of his friends were bachelors and spinsters; indeed he was surprised to find ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... he would not be content to remain long without employment. He had an active temperament, and would have been happiest when busy, even if he had not known that his mother needed the fruits of ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... internal force sufficient for its protection; and the whole territory of the United States organized by such a classification of its male force, as would give it the benefit of all its young population for active service, and that of a middle and advanced age for stationary defence. But these measures will, I hope, be completed by my successor, who, to the purest principles of republican patriotism, adds a wisdom and foresight second to no ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... five talents, ten talents." What was the reply? "You are now to go and rest for all eternity." Not a bit of it. "Be thou ruler over five cities, over ten cities; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." I know some men who are now retired after a very busy active life of work, and they hate the idleness, they are sick of it. No wonder the conventional Heaven does not appeal to them. Ah, that is not God's Heaven. "They rest from their labours." Yes; but that word "labours" means painful strain. In ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth

... Miss Emma Ferguson was selected teacher. Miss Ferguson, now Mrs. Emma Jones, is still an active teacher. In 1882 Miss Addie Wells taught this school. She was followed by Miss Annie Cozzins. In 1884 W. C. Cabell was in charge. He was succeeded in 1885 by Otho Wells and he by ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... case of the earth, on some of its properties as a portion of the universe, but on which of those properties we know not. Now the moon resembles the earth in being a solid, opaque, nearly spherical substance, appearing to contain, or to have contained, active volcanoes; receiving heat and light from the sun, in about the same quantity as our earth; revolving on its axis; composed of materials which gravitate, and obeying all the various laws resulting from that property. And I think no one will deny that if ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... of us other perils or disasters or calls for energy supply that terrific background to joy; but it is none the less significant that most people who have shared in perilous and violent contests would, in retrospect, choose to omit any part of active and happy lives rather than the wars and revolutions in which they have been present, no matter how terrible the misery, the sickness, the hunger and thirst, the fear and danger, the loss of friends, the overwhelming horror, and ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... these abstract reflections for a fresh and active resentment. This is the fifth or sixth dog that has passed my Spion, harnessed to a small barrow-like cart, and tugging painfully at a burden so ludicrously disproportionate to his size, that it would seem a burlesque, but for the poor dog's sad sincerity. Perhaps ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... other like occasions—to furnish recreation to Her Majesty; and in return for its efforts each received a liberal "reward" in money. Richard Farrant, Master of the Windsor Chapel, was especially active in devising plays for the Queen's entertainment. But having a large family, he was poor in spite of his regular salary and the occasional "rewards" he received for the performances of his Boys at Court; and doubtless he often cast about in his ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... Knight of the Royal Order of the North Star; and in the same year he became Dom-prost, an office next in order to the Bishop's, and was honored with a seat in Parliament. In 1818, he was made Pastor Primarius, and President of the Consistory of Stockholm; and about this time he became an active and useful member of the Royal Musical Academy. In 1824, he was raised to the dignity of Bishop of the Church, and became commander of the Royal Order of the North Star and honorary member of the ...
— The Angel of Death • Johan Olof Wallin

... and never wanted them to be separated from him. So, no matter how tired he was, he always followed them in their daily walks. But as time went on, and Bathala became old and feeble and could no longer keep up with his active son and daughter, he asked them to stay with him at all times; but they were so absorbed in their pleasures, that they paid no heed to their father's wish. One day he became sick, and died suddenly, without leaving any written will as to the disposition of his kingdom. Now ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... moved out into the country around Lonoke County,—on a farm. I farmed there for five years. Then I went to pastoring. I started pastoring one year before I quit making cotton. I entered the ministry in 1892 and continued in the active service until November 1937. I put in forty-five years ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... terraces, pavilions and halls, it likewise contained a good many sufficient to excite admiration. In the main hall outside, were assembled Hsueeh P'an, Chia Chen, Chia Lien, Chia Jung and several close relatives. But Lai Ta had invited as well a number of officials, still in active service, and numerous young men of wealthy families, to keep them company. Among that party figured one Liu Hsiang-lien, whom Hsueeh P'an had met on a previous occasion and kept ever since in constant remembrance. Having besides discovered ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... Bay Company's ship and had had several months of most delightful and exciting adventures in the wild North Land. They were the guests of Mr Ross, a retired official in the Hudson Bay Company, who, when his long term of active service in the fur trade had ended, had preferred remaining in the country rather than returning to any other land. During the many years he had traded with the Indians he had ever been on the most friendly terms with them. He had observed so many noble traits and characteristics in them ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young

... holiday task, and the continued coldness of his parents, no ostensible punishment was meted out to him. Ernest, however, tells me that he looks back upon this as the time when he began to know that he had a cordial and active dislike for both his parents, which I suppose means that he was now beginning to be aware that he ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... course it is a sad thing to us all that this terrible inquiry should be forced upon us;—and more grievous to you than to us, as you must take the active part in it. But this is a manifest duty, and duties are seldom altogether pleasant. All that you say as to yourself,—which I know to be absolutely true,—must at any rate make your conscience clear in the matter. It is not for your sake nor for our sake that ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... curious animals in Siberia, is the Argalis, or mountain sheep. It is remarkable for its enormous horns, curled in a very curious manner. Think not it is like one of our quiet, foolish sheep; there is no animal at once so strong and so active. It is such a climber, that no wolf or bear can follow it to the high places, hanging over awful precipices, where it walks as firmly as you do upon the pavement. Sometimes a hunter finds it among the mountains, and just as he is ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer

... to their subsistence. The growing scarcity of game, the disappearance of the deer and buffalo before the white settlements, were indisputable proofs of his assertions. Says Harrison: "The game which was formerly so abundant, is now so scarce as barely to afford subsistence to the most active hunters. The greater part of each tribe are half the year in a state of starvation, and astonishing as it may seem, these remote savages have felt their full share of the misfortunes which the troubles in Europe have brought upon the greater part of the world. The exclusion ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... this time become very lively and enterprising. There was a deal of "flourishing around in carriages," as Lincoln wrote Miss Owens, and business and politics and society all played an active part in the life of the little town. The meetings of the legislature brought to the new capital a group of young men of unusual talent and ability. There was friendly rivalry between them, and party disputes ran high, but social good-humor prevailed, and the presence of these brilliant young ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay

... memory of the time when his childish individuality began to detach itself from the background of misty and indistinct things. They had liked each other, and their liking and intimacy had increased with the onward moving and change of years. After sixty sane and decently spent active years of life, Lord Dunholm, in either country tweed or evening dress, was a well-built and handsome man; at thirty-three his son ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... that its connection with civil and religious liberty was indissoluble; that every man, woman, and child above fifteen in the island was a martyr to it; that it was occasioned by their rapid mode of despatching their meals, which again was occasioned by the little time which the most active nation in the world could afford to bestow upon such a losing business ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli

... valiant sire, I, too, in youth, Had once a slow tongue and an active hand. But since I have proved the world, I clearly see Words and not deeds ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... anxious parents the expectation that their child will have better health when it has cut all its teeth. The time of teething, too, is in reality one of more than ordinary peril,[9] though why it should be so is not always rightly understood. It is a time of most active development, a time of transition from one mode of being to another, in respect of all those important functions by whose due performance the body ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... two days after, when I was with him. The Doctor began talking about the art of war, and I remember he said, "Military men make a great mystery of their art; but what is the reason that young Princes have always the most brilliant success? Why, because they are active and daring. When Sovereigns command their troops in person what exploits they perform! Clearly, because they are at liberty to run all risks." These observations made a lasting impression on ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... traveler had fallen by the wayside, perhaps at the hands of his fellow-man; for the murder rate, thanks largely to drink and vendettas, is high in Honduras. It might be less if assassins faced the death penalty, instead of being merely shut within prisons from which an active man could soon dig his way to freedom with a pocket-knife, if he did not have the patience to wait a few months until a new revolution brought ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... collapses the people will die. This is the cooled down atomic pile. At the other extreme is complete and violent anarchy. Every man thinking only of himself, killing and destroying anything that gets in his way—the atomic explosion. Midway between the two is a vital, active, producing society. ...
— The K-Factor • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)

... public; and Geoffrey, forgetting the report, did not think over the matter at all. So Mr. Shiner resumed his old position in Geoffrey's brain by mere flux of time. Even Shiner began to believe that Dick existed for Fancy no more,—though that remarkably easy-going man had taken no active steps on his own account ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy

... on in the whimsical, cynical fashion of old ladies when they cease to have any active responsibility in life and become spectators of it. Their remaining enjoyment is the indulgence of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... have without spiritualism. I always believed that nothing was lost in the divine economy; that as matter only decayed to give way to new powers of life, so spirit must only leave the material form it inhabits to be active in a new sphere, or to be merged in the One Infinite Intelligence. But this is merely an analogy—a strong one, but only an analogy, ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... disposition of his race; and though Sam smiled at the extravagance of Mihrab, he looked up towards Heaven, and prayed that Rustem might not prove a tyrant, but be continually active in doing good, ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... indolence. Lazy people dread effort and postpone it. There is a man in my employ who continues to work sometimes after hours. The men tell me that he is actually too lazy to leave off work and put away his tools. But Miss Jeannette seems active and energetic." ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... February. The flag of Louisiana whose lone star and red and yellow stripes still hovered benignly over the Ionic marble porch of the city hall, was a year old. A new general, young and active, was in command of all the city's forces, which again on the great Twenty-second paraded. Feebly, however; see letters to Irby and Mandeville under Brodnax in Tennessee, or to Kincaid's Battery and its commander in Virginia. ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... Brilliant idea! He began in a very modest way, down at Bristol, only aiming at local trade. But his jams were good; the demand grew; he built a factory; profits became considerable. And now, he wants to withdraw from active business, keeping an interest. Wants to find some one who would run and extend the concern—put in a fair capital, and leave him to draw his income quietly. ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing

... the man-ape at an early date became omnivorous in its diet. Its change in structure may well have been the result of a decided change in diet, such as that from fruit to flesh food. Such a radical change as that from vegetable to animal food would certainly demand a more active employment of the arms as agents in capture. Fruits and nuts wait to be pulled; animals must be caught before they can be eaten. The former is an easy matter to an arboreal animal; the latter might prove a difficult one, especially ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris

... course of time entering Harvard College, where his father and grandfather before him had been trained in law and letters. An attack of the measles during his third year at college left him with weakened eyes, and an active outdoor life was prescribed as the only remedy. From boyhood up he had been passionately fond of the sea; small wonder, then, that he now determined to take a long sea voyage. Refusing a berth offered him on a vessel bound for the East Indies, he chose to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... healthy or decaying, are quartered by the small creeper, that leaves no crevice unexplored in its search for minute insects and their eggs. He is assisted by the nuthatch; and in summer the wryneck comes (if he still lives), and deftly picks up the little active ants that are always wildly careering over the boles. The foliage is gleaned by warblers and others; and not even the highest terminal twigs are left unexamined by tits and their fellow-seekers ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson



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