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Cultivate   Listen
verb
Cultivate  v. t.  (past & past part. cultivated; pres. part. cultivating)  
1.
To bestow attention, care, and labor upon, with a view to valuable returns; to till; to fertilize; as, to cultivate soil.
2.
To direct special attention to; to devote time and thought to; to foster; to cherish. "Leisure... to cultivate general literature."
3.
To seek the society of; to court intimacy with. "I ever looked on Lord Keppel as one of the greatest and best men of his age; and I loved and cultivated him accordingly."
4.
To improve by labor, care, or study; to impart culture to; to civilize; to refine. "To cultivate the wild, licentious savage." "The mind of man hath need to be prepared for piety and virtue; it must be cultivated to the end."
5.
To raise or produce by tillage; to care for while growing; as, to cultivate corn or grass.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cultivate" Quotes from Famous Books



... and other tribes parties to the treaty lately concluded with them have, by a deputation to this city, requested permission to retain possession of such lands as they actually cultivate and reside on, for the ensuing year. They have also expressed a desire that the reservations made in their favor should be enlarged, representing that they had entered into the treaty in full confidence that that would be done, preferring a reliance on the justice of the United States ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson

... the stage. If they can have an operator climbing a real telegraph-pole to tap the wire and telegraph the girl he loves that he is dead, so that she can marry his rich rival and go to Europe and cultivate her gift for sculpture, they feel that they ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... given unqualified praise seem to have taken the short and superficial view. It is hardly necessary to launch into descriptions of the creches, country homes or palaces for children, where Montessori methods prevail, where the pupils cultivate their little gardens, model in plasticine, draw and sing and act, and dance their Eurythmic dances barefoot on floors once sacred to the tread of the nobility. I saw a reception and distributing house in Petrograd with ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell

... work which may be noted here, and which are illustrated in Fig. 10. The student is advised, however, to resort to them as little as possible, not only because he is liable to make injudicious use of them, but because it is wiser for him to cultivate the less meretricious possibilities ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis

... presently resumed, "things are rather changed from what they were before. I find more in the way of social opportunities and greater interest shown by the middle-aged. It is no disadvantage to cultivate people who have their own homes; the lunch-rooms round the fountain-square are numerous enough, but not so good as they might be. And I don't know but that an instructor may lose caste by eating among a miscellany of undergraduates. Anyhow, it's no plan ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... speeches make very sickly conversation. Pray let us be friends, if we are to be friends, in a sensible and wholesome way. I have no intention of getting married; and unless you are content to accept that state of things, we had much better not cultivate each ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw

... a young neighbor, Alfred Batchelder, who was fond of foraging by night for plums, grapes, and pears in the orchards of his neighbors. His own family did not raise fruit; they thought it too much trouble to cultivate the trees. But Alfred openly boasted of having the best fruit that the neighborhood afforded. One of Alfred's cronies in these nocturnal raids was a boy, named Harvey Yeatton, who lived at the village, six or seven miles ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... to endeavour to deal with the Catholics in Ireland and the ministers of the Catholic religion upon the same plan which had been mutatis mutandis adopted universally in Germany and almost all over the Continent, and that there was nothing the Church of Rome desired so much as to cultivate a good understanding with us. He then told me a thing that surprised me, and which seemed to be at variance with this supposition—that an application had been made to the Pope very lately (through Seymour) ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... what has come of it at last. Probably it is a chastisement for overweening desires, sir. I should have remembered my position, and kept my wishes within bounds. But, Mr. Goldthorpe, I shall continue to cultivate the garden, sir. I shall put in spring lettuces, and radishes, and mustard and cress. The property is mine till midsummer day. You shall eat a lettuce of my growing, Mr. Goldthorpe; I am bent on that. And how ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... share; But uninhabited, untill'd, unsown, It lies, and breeds the bleating goat alone. For there no vessel with vermilion prore, Or bark of traffic, glides from shore to shore; The rugged race of savages, unskill'd The seas to traverse, or the ships to build, Gaze on the coast, nor cultivate the soil, Unlearn'd in all the industrious art of toil, Yet here all produces and all plants abound, Sprung from the fruitful genius of the ground; Fields waving high with heavy crops are seen, And vines that ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... my career I have been consulted by a great many patients whose nervous systems have been disastrously upset by the practices you describe, by so-called spiritualism, table-turning, and so forth. One man I knew, trying to cultivate himself onto what he called 'a higher plane,' cultivated himself into a lunatic asylum, where he ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... suddenly called to mind that, during the course of his short visit to Shadonake, he had discovered the fact of the college friendship, of which, indeed, Mr. Gisburne had informed him, he now was unaccountably inflamed by a desire to cultivate the acquaintance of the valued companion of his ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... touch might be as due as possible, she had a little headache nearly every day. For the dread of letting slip one movement, or of being too much taken with another, was very real to her; there were so many people who were interesting, so many sympathies of hers and Stephen's which she desired to cultivate, that it was a matter of the utmost import not to cultivate any single one too much. Then, too, the duty of remaining feminine with all this going forward taxed her constitution. She sometimes thought enviously of the splendid ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... last; one I cannot help relating. A constable in Salisbury Cathedral was telling me that eight people dined at the top of the spire of the cathedral, upon which I remarked that they must be very sharp set. But in general I cultivate the reasoning part of my mind more than the imaginative. Do you know Kate * * *. I am so stuffed out with eating turkey for dinner, and another turkey for supper yesterday (turkey in Europe and turkey in Asia), that I can't jog on. It is New Year here. That is, it was New ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold

... we owe to the community is to cultivate the principle of virtue, to lend holy serenity to the mind, and shed around a halo of light and glory to direct the steps of others in virtue, to happiness and greatness. The man who treads only in ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins

... are answered; and father and mother, older brothers and sisters, aunties, teachers, and friends are ready and anxious to explain to you all the curious and interesting things that come under your notice. Indeed, so desirous are they to cultivate your intellectual nature, that they seek to stimulate your appetite for knowledge, by drawing your attention to many things which otherwise you would overlook. At the same time, they point you to the great and all-wise Creator, that you may admire and love him who ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society

... practice rotation of crops, and produce larger crops upon fewer acres. But the universal practice is precisely the reverse; the process of exhaustion is followed year after year; cotton is planted year after year; the seed—which Northern men would cultivate for oil alone, and which exhausts the land ten times faster than the fibre—is mostly wasted; in the words of a Southern paper, 'The seed is left to rot about the gin-house, producing foul odors, and a constant cause of sickness.' The land is cropped until it is literally ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... and pig from Howard Ingraham. All these men but me have left their places that they had cleared and fenced, because they could not pay such rent, and Mr. Crawford has put the places in charge of Mr. Souber, and brought him two males to cultivate the grounds. Mr. Williams states that twice the stockade has been set on fire in the night, and he and his boys have toted ...
— A Letter to Hon. Charles Sumner, with 'Statements' of Outrages upon Freedmen in Georgia • Hamilton Wilcox Pierson

... acting the anchorite. I should like to show you your face in a glass, and you would see how plump and florid-looking you are, as fat and round as a cheese, with eyes like lighted coals; and if it were not for that ugly wrinkle you try to cultivate on your forehead, you would hardly look fifty years old, and you are sixty, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... these things do not result in leading away your heart from spiritual exercises, but cause ye to become ever more devout and more ardent in prayer and more wise to cultivate spiritual thoughts; if ye are at first astonished but nevertheless your heart turns back and is awakened to greater longing for virtue and your love toward God and your neighbor increases more and more, and makes you ever meeker in your own eyes; then ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... imagine how pleased his uncle was to see this taste in his little nephew. Our sea captain was pleased also, and so was his father, and all three of them together, determined that our little boy should have the opportunity and the means to cultivate his taste. ...
— Charley's Museum - A Story for Young People • Unknown

... to themselves and their relatives; whereas, in America, the laws and institutions, as the masses have shaped them, are such as to give the men who do the work a very much larger share of the proceeds of it, so that they can themselves enjoy the comforts and luxuries of life, and can cultivate their minds and educate their children. Thus, in England, you have, on every considerable tract of farming country, villages of laborers, which consist of mere huts, where men live all their lives, without change, almost as beasts of burden; and then, in some ...
— Rollo in London • Jacob Abbott

... was not naturally of a nervous disposition. She had been brought up very largely to rely upon herself, and life had never been sufficiently easy for her to find time in which to cultivate nerves. Her newspaper training had been somewhat strenuous, and had won her a reputation in New York for unusual fearlessness and devotion to duty. Yet this situation was so utterly different, and so entirely unexpected, ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish

... centre of Germany, he could paralyse the nerves of the imperial power, which, without the aid of the League, must soon fall—here, in the neighbourhood of France, he could watch the movements of a suspicious ally; and however important to his secret views it was to cultivate the friendship of the Roman Catholic electors, he saw the necessity of making himself first of all master of their fate, in order to establish, by his magnanimous forbearance, a claim to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... feel for the sound instruction which I had received in early life from my revered pains-taking tutor, for the solid groundwork that he had established, and for the rational mode of tuition which he had from the first adopted. From the moment that he undertook to cultivate and inform the youthful intellect, this became itself an active instrument in the attainment of knowledge—not, as is so often the case, the mere idle depositary of encumbering words. It was little that he required to be gained by rote, for he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... society woman's most necessary accomplishments is the ability to remember names and fit them to the individual to whom they belong. It is an art she should sedulously cultivate. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... I now feel I wish to cultivate. Calm, placid, and serene, thoughtful of my duty, and benevolent to all around me, I wish for no other connection than ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster

... of your suspicions are true; I am not much richer than when you left me; and, what is worse, my omission of an answer to your first letter, will prove that I am not much wiser. But I go on as I formerly did, designing to be some time or other both rich and wise; and yet cultivate neither mind nor fortune. Do you take notice of my example, and learn the danger of delay. When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... do not find they have enough faults, as they increase the number by certain peculiar qualities that they affect to assume, and which they cultivate with so great assiduity that at length they become natural faults, which they ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld

... not to deprive him of Mrs. Lowder's countenance, which, in the long run, she was convinced he would continue to enjoy; and as, by a blessed turn, Aunt Maud had demanded of him no promise that would tie his hands, they should be able to cultivate their destiny in their own way and yet remain loyal. One difficulty alone stood out, which ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... contact with neighbours possessing records, it seems to follow that a nation's greatness may begin at any time, independently of the blueness of its blood, the robustness of its warriors, the beauty of its women; that is, whenever it chooses to keep records, and thus to cultivate itself: for records are nothing more than the means of keeping experiences in stock, instead of having to repeat them every day; they are thus accumulations of national wealth. It by no means follows that because records can be traced back farther in the case of ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... more imposing; and it's no less true. We are also actively engaged in helping the Indian Government to cultivate friendly relations with the tribes at the point ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... Roman Catholic missionary who lives about eight miles out of the town and close to the jungle. The greater part of the inhabitants of Singapore are Chinese, many of whom are very rich, and all the villages about are almost entirely of Chinese, who cultivate pepper and gambir. Some of the English merchants here have splendid country houses. I dined with one to whom I brought an introduction. His house was most elegant, and full of magnificent Chinese and Japanese furniture. We are now at the Mission of ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... government the effective promoter of a wholesome and many-sided national development. He detected the danger to political stability and self-control which would result from the continued growth of the United States as a merely agricultural and trading community, and he saw that it was necessary to cultivate manufacturing industries and technical knowledge and training, because diversified activity and a well-rounded social and economic life brings with ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... mind calls up before us a long list of powers. And the questions arise, Is one mode and line of mental action just as much the goal of man's development as another? Is man to cultivate the appetite for food and sense gratification just as much as the hunger for righteousness? Or is appetite in the mind like digestion in the body, a function, necessary indeed and once dominant, but no longer fitted ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler

... matter of fact it is; for I came here expressly to cultivate a bad temper, and you have helped to confirm me in a good one. . . . Oh, I know what you would say if your politeness allowed: 'Why, if bad temper's my object, did I leave the Liberal Club and ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... its pure and unaltered state, will always for our theatres remain an exotic plant, which we can hardly hope to cultivate with any success, even in the hot-house of learned art and criticism. The Grecian mythology, which furnishes the materials of ancient tragedy, is as foreign to the minds and imaginations of most of the spectators, as its form and manner of representation. But to endeavour to ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... as a rule very ugly. It is true that none of them possess any claims to gracefulness of habit or elegance of foliage, such as are usual in popular plants, and, when not in flower, very few of the Cactuses would answer to our present ideas of beauty with respect to the plants we cultivate. Nevertheless, the stems of many of them (see Frontispiece, Fig. 1) are peculiarly attractive on account of their strange, even fantastic, forms, their spiny clothing, the absence of leaves, except in very few cases, and their singular manner of growth. To the few who care for Cactuses ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson

... he replied, drawing toward him a piece of newspaper upon which rested a mound of coarse shag. "I maintain that the vital principle survives within them. Now, I propose to cultivate these seeds, Mr. Knox. Do you grasp the significance, of ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer

... to be a man for one brief moment. Does a man ever endure such torture? No. He puts on his hat, walks into the hotel office, gives somebody a piece of his mind, and demands the satisfaction of a gentleman. But a woman can go to no office. She must remain up stairs and cultivate patience on hunger and thirst and a general mortification of the senses. "Victory, or destruction to the bell!" I said at last, and pulled the rope with ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various

... he endeavoured first to induce them to cultivate the ground, providing them with seed and dhoora (sorghum), and then to accustom them to the use of money. He bought their ivory and paid for it in coin, so that in a little time he found that the inhabitants, who had held aloof from ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... the exact words of the scientist might have done as well. But if by swearing is meant the use of God's name in vain, there are very few preachers who do not swear more than I do, if by "in vain" is meant without any practical result. I leave Mr. Crafts to cultivate the acquaintance of the unknown lady, knowing as I do, that after they have talked this matter over again they will find that both have ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... attentive and courteous, without being demonstrative, while his wife showed a charming graciousness that was plainly unassumed. Their perfect good-breeding made the young man feel at ease; but though he endeavored to cultivate the husband on several occasions, he made little headway. The man evidently possessed a wide knowledge of current events, a keen understanding of men and things, yet he never opened up. He listened, smiled, spoke rarely, and continued to spend nine-tenths ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... Not know it? Why, it's no more'n ten miles from our village; not that across the ford! Do you cultivate any ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

... of the repast was the appearance of one who had never yet been seated there in Jean's presence; this guest was the hermit who dwelt on the extreme point, against which the Atlantic waves dashed in their fiercest fury. The recluse did not seem to cultivate the duty of abstemiousness, but he maintained silence. Jean could not forbear furtively scanning his appearance, which was indeed remarkable. He would have been of large stature in any country; compared with the natives his proportions were gigantic. ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous

... charmed to meet Miss Westlake, and even more pleased to meet the gentleman who was with her, young Princeman, a brisk paper manufacturer variously quoted at from one to two million. He knew all about young Princeman; in fact, had him upon his mental list as a man presently to meet and cultivate for a specific purpose, and already Mr. Turner's busy mind offset the expenses of this trip with an equal credit, much in the form of "By introduction to H. L. Princeman, Jr. (Princeman and Son Paper Mills, AA 1), whatever it costs." He liked young Princeman at sight, too, and, proceeding directly ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester

... very likely to ask—Why does man till the fields? Why does man fell the forest trees? Why does he cultivate domestic animals? Why does he delve in the earth for minerals? These are all strenuous activities that require the outlay of time, talent and strength. We may say that they are sacrifices that he makes and, apparently, willingly. We have ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall

... Strife is allayed by the new faith. At the opening of the second seal a red horse appears, ridden by one who takes away from the earth Peace,—the second universal power, so that humanity may not neglect, through sloth, to cultivate divine things. The opening of the third seal shows the universal power of Justice, guided by Christianity. The fourth brings the power of Religion which, through Christianity, ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner

... Napoleon's chamber when he paid us a visit, and a neat little room it was. My brother used to occupy the one next to it. The two young men were nearly of the same age: my brother perhaps had the advantage of a year or fifteen months. My mother had recommended him to cultivate the friendship of young Bonaparte; but my brother complained how unpleasant it was to find only cold politeness where he expected affection. This repulsiveness on the part of Napoleon was almost offensive, and must ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... and dodges and ways of thinking such as these that will gradually cultivate in you the ability to "stand and deliver," as they say in the decorative arts. For, speaking now to the amateur (if any such, picture-painter or student, are hesitating on the brink of an art new to ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall

... attributed to literature. There is a familiar passage in which Pericles, the great Athenian, describing the glory of the community of which he was so far-shining a member, says, "We at Athens are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes; we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness." But then remember that after all Athenian society rested on a basis of slavery. Athenian citizens were able to pursue their love of the beautiful, and their simplicity, and to cultivate their minds ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... abridging labor in any one of the various processes through which the raw cotton must pass before the manufactured stockings come to the market to be exchanged for other things; and observe the effects which will follow. If fewer men were required to cultivate the raw cotton, or if fewer sailors were employed in navigating, or shipwrights in constructing, the ship in which it was conveyed to us; if fewer hands were employed in raising the buildings and machinery, or if these, when raised, were ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo

... Massachusetts town meeting, said that it was not merely a place for town government alone, but that it was a place where the people of the town met from scattered and sometimes secluded dwelling- places to cultivate each other's acquaintance, to talk over the news of the day and all matters of public interest; and that it was a sort of farmers' exchange, where they could compare notes on the state of agriculture, and even sometimes swap oxen. Governor Briggs, who had been beaten as a candidate for reelection ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... But he could not possibly have enlightened her, because the first thing he always said to a nurse was: "My dear Nurse SO-AND-SO, pray sit down. People who have much unavoidable standing to do should cultivate the habit of seating themselves ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... remarkable change in the commercial affairs of the country, the cotton crop of the South began to find an increasing demand and appreciate in value, thereby giving an increased value to slave labor. With this change came at once the multiplication of slaves and large returns. To own slaves and cultivate cotton now became the ruling inspiration ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller

... of kings and courts; to understand financial and diplomatic movements; briefly, as far as was then possible, to be an incarnate blue-book. He was to study literature and appreciate art, though he was carefully to avoid the excess which makes the pedant or the virtuoso. He was to cultivate a good style in writing and speaking, and even to learn German. Chesterfield's prophecy of a revolution in France (though, I fancy, a little overpraised) shows at least that he was a serious observer of political phenomena. But besides these solid attainments, ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen

... it be your firm resolve, then, from this day forth, that you will keep these good friends even after you shall be separated, and from this time forth, cultivate precisely these by preference because they are the sons of workingmen. You see, men of the upper classes are the officers, and men of the lower classes are the soldiers of toil; and thus in society as in the army, not only is the soldier no less noble than the officer, since ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis

... is to avoid one-sidedness, either in one direction or the other, and to establish harmony and balance of all qualities in the soul; and this is especially to be kept in mind in regard to one quality which is pre-eminently important to man's development: the feeling of devotion. Those who can cultivate this feeling, or on whom nature herself has bestowed so inestimable a gift, have a good foundation for the powers of supersensible cognition. Those who in childhood and youth have been able to look up to certain persons with feelings of devoted admiration, beholding in them some high ideal, will ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner

... or educated men is the greatest of all considerations, for which reason there is always a tendency for anyone and everyone to wear a long coat and to don huge tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles, such as are affected by the literati, as well as to cultivate the nails of the left hand. As the use of the word esquire has degenerated in this country until not to apply it to all and sundry is considered to be almost a snub, so the habit of wearing long finger-nails in China has descended through ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... to the household expenses, she was now quite relentless in her efforts to wring from Lise an acknowledgment of the nobility of her sister's act, of qualities in Janet that she, Lise, might do well to cultivate. Lise was equally determined to withhold any such acknowledgment; in her face grew that familiar mutinous look that Hannah invariably failed to recognize as a danger signal; and with it another —the sophisticated expression of one who knows life and ridicules ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... which the amount of duty to be remitted would be L387,000 per annum. Later in the session he intended to take the sugar duties into consideration; when he should recommend that England should admit, at a differential duty of ten shillings per cwt., the sugar of those states which do not cultivate that commodity by slave-labour. After considerable discussion, in which several members recommended the reduction or abolition of other taxes, the motion of Mr. Goulburn was agreed to; and the customs duties bill, and other bills founded on his proposition, subsequently passed through both ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... he declared that no carriage could stand on it "short of the bottom." In this bog, singular to say, Mr. Roscoe, the accomplished historian of the Medicis, buried his fortune in the hopeless attempt to cultivate a portion of it which he ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... utmost perfection the machinery already in existence, to encourage invention, to ponder the past with a practical application to the present, to court fatigue, to scorn pleasure, to concentrate the energies on the work in hand, to cultivate quickness of eye and calmness of nerve in the midst of danger, to accelerate movements, to economise blood even at the expense of time, to strive after ubiquity and omniscience in the details of person and place, these were the characteristics of Maurice, and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... creative attempt. Every writer should strive for the greatest possible breadth, for the greater his breadth the more people there are who will be interested in his work. Narrow minds interest a few people, and broad minds interest correspondingly many. The best way to cultivate breadth is to cultivate the use of contrast ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... the bell. With the sudden caprice which her money had enabled her to cultivate, she had taken a ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... I have been too loitering. I know it, and will make such efforts in future to cultivate the sternest brevity as nervous distress will allow. Meantime, as the upshot of my ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... is occupied by a family already. I don't rent the farm, that is, except about half an acre of land for a kitchen garden. That I have prepared to cultivate myself." ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger

... wonder that when the prospect of reward has vanished, the zeal of enterprize should cease; for who would persevere to cultivate the soil which he has, after long labour, discovered to be barren? He who hath pleased himself with anticipated praises, and expected that he should meet in every place with patronage or friendship, will soon remit ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... allowances for food: For the hands, four pecks of meal for the winter, and four and one-half for the summer. For the overseer, the housekeeper, the wagoner, the shepherd, three pecks each. For the slaves, four pounds of bread for the winter, but when they begin to cultivate the vines this is increased to five pounds until the figs are ripe, then ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... published his Ami des hommes ou traite de la population in 1756. He observes that, given the means of subsistence, men will multiply like rats in a barn.[209] The great axiom, he says,[210] is 'la mesure de la subsistance est celle de la population.' Cultivate your fields, and you will raise men. Mirabeau replies to Hume's essay upon the 'Populousness of ancient nations' (1752), of which Wallace's first treatise was a criticism. The problem discussed by Hume and Wallace had been comparatively academical; ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... their dress, their education, their hours, their amusements, their food, their scale of expenditure; determining the qualities to which they principally aspire, the work in which they may engage, and even the form of beauty which they most cultivate. It is happy for a nation when this mighty influence is employed in encouraging habits of life which are beneficial or at least not gravely prejudicial to health. Nor is any form of individual education more really valuable than that which teaches the main conditions of a healthy life and ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... the heart of Ione. It did not content him to love, he desired to be loved. In this hope he had watched the expanding youth of the beautiful Neapolitan; and, knowing the influence that the mind possesses over those who are taught to cultivate the mind, he had contributed willingly to form the genius and enlighten the intellect of Ione, in the hope that she would be thus able to appreciate what he felt would be his best claim to her affection: viz, a character which, however ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... you look for progress or distinction, you know that you must fix your thoughts upon your work, and practise industry, and, above all, that you must cultivate a love of learning, so that your mind lingers over it with some ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival

... door of Natal. They are gradually ousting the English retail trader. You may go to up-country towns, and in whole streets you will see these yellow fellows, sitting there in their muslin dresses, where formerly there were English traders. In places where we want to cultivate the English population, that is a very serious thing. Our yellow friends come under the garb of British subjects from Bombay, and are making nests in the Transvaal and elsewhere by ousting the English retail trader. Sir Frederick Young ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young

... offered him a fitting tribute by founding the Hawthorne Professorship of English Literature in the college where, under the tutelage of the accomplished and appreciative Professor Newman, he was stimulated to cultivate his native gift." ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... might grow to man's estate, And cultivate my opening mind; And not be rich or wise or great, But gentle, ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... weather was hot, the air became dangerously bumpy. Nevertheless the squadron flew in strong winds, and took every opportunity of demonstrating to the troops on the plain that it was worth their while to cultivate relations with the new arm. Towards the end of May there was a big field day, and though the wind was almost a gale, four machines went up, flown by Major Brooke-Popham, Captain Fox, Captain Hamilton, ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh

... thought so. [Pointing to his books.] Read Heine. Cultivate sentiment. [Signing the letter.] Happy? Has it ever occurred to you that Katie is ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco

... impress on you the advisability of endeavouring, by every means in your power, to cultivate friendly relations with the aboriginal inhabitants of the country ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest

... latitude of the good varieties of pecans were to put out ten to twenty acres on some corner of their farm and cultivate the trees properly, they would soon be surprised to find that this small piece of ground would be worth more money than all the rest of their farm, and they would leave not only a valuable estate to ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association

... peace and prosperity that followed the establishment of our republic came the opportunity to cultivate the broader fields of literature. Relieved of the strain of the struggle for civil and religious liberty, the people could satisfy their inclinations toward the beautiful in art and life, and from that time ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various

... blamed for the way in which he trained the voice. I have nothing to say in regard to those who imputed to him physical and barbarous methods of developing it; but it may be true that he endangered it by certain exercises or by failure to cultivate the mechanism. I do not feel myself competent to pronounce upon this technical point, but I can give an exact account of what was done in ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... of the exiles we know what liberal treatment they must have received from Nebuchadrezzar. They were settled by themselves; they were not, as in Egypt of old, hindered from multiplying; they were granted freedom to cultivate and to trade, by which many of them gradually rose to considerable influence among their captors. All this was given to Jeremiah to foresee and to impress upon the first exiles. But it meant that ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... are said to worship those whom we honor, and to cultivate [*In the Latin the same word colere stands for "worship" and "cultivate"] a man's memory or presence: we even speak of cultivating things that are beneath us, thus a farmer (agricola) is one who cultivates the land, and an inhabitant (incola) is one who cultivates the place where he ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... rights,—if you determined to make the landlords give up their taboo, and cease from injustice,—they'd have to yield to you, and then you could exercise your native right of going where you pleased, and cultivate the land in common for the public benefit, instead of leaving it, as now, to be cultivated anyhow, or turned into waste for the ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... so. I'd cut off more potato plants than weeds, maybe. Can't you cultivate your potatoes with a horse cultivator? I see the farmers doing that around Greensboro. It's ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long

... should try it. You should also cultivate less and slow down the growth. If they then take to bearing, you can resume moderate pruning and better cultivation. This is on the assumption that your trees are in too rich or too moist a place. But you should satisfy yourself by inquiry and observation as to whether the same ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson

... Other friends were the Misses Howes, one of whom is now Mrs. Cabot of Boston. Mrs. Foote, who was a daughter of Judge White, was a friend, and I remember some Silsbees who were also her friends. Hawthorne's wife knew how to cultivate her friends and make the most of them far better than either Hawthorne or his sisters did. I have been told that when Hawthorne was a young man, before his marriage, if he had chosen to enter Salem's 'first circle' he would have been ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns

... Mulready, Cope, Horsley, Redgrave, Webster, all of the Royal Academy, Linnell and his three sons, Townsend, and others. These little books were published by Joseph Cundall and have become celebrated through Thackeray's mention of them. They aimed to cultivate the affections, fancy, imagination, and taste of children, they were a distinct contrast to the Peter Parley books. They were new books, new combinations of old materials, and reprints, purified but not weakened. Their literature possessed brightness. The books were printed ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready

... from its prejudices; that it will acknowledge the enormous injustice which it has done to the house of Brandenburg, and that it will bring itself to repair it by a just and honorable arrangement with which his majesty will willingly comply, sincerely wishing to cultivate the friendship and good-fellowship of this illustrious nation, and to live with the republic in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... to be established by the conquerors, a considerable portion of the trade which had formerly flowed to them without let or hindrance from a large section of European Turkey. The government of Greece was equally favorably disposed to this programme; for, in the first place, it was to its interest to cultivate friendly relations with Servia, in view of possible embroilments with Bulgaria; and, in the second place, it had to countercheck the game of those who wanted either to make Saloniki a free city or to incorporate it in a Big Bulgaria, and who were using with some effect the ...
— The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 - Third Edition • Jacob Gould Schurman

... character and habits of the preceding lords of Warlock, which had sunk their respectability in the county as well as curtailed their property, had rendered the surrounding gentry little anxious to cultivate the intimacy of the present proprietor; and the heavy mind and retired manners of Joseph Brandon were not calculated to counterbalance the faults of his forefathers, nor to reinstate the name of Brandon in its ancient popularity ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... come back to us with her. But it so happened that the ensuing summers failed to bring her back. The little girl spent her vacations with girl friends of whose standing her mother approved, or with relatives she thought it wise the child should cultivate. For the time being, Mary Virginia had ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... to secure a piece of land from two to five acres, where the inmates of the home can raise chickens also cultivate flowers, plants, etc., giving them a percentage on their ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts

... him all that lay in their power to give, had these honest, impassive Dutchmen and—women—these broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped English; they had amalgamated for him their virtues, and they had eradicated for him their vices; they had cultivated for him those things of theirs that it were well to cultivate; and they had plucked ruthlessly from the gardens of heredity the weeds and tares that might have grown to check his growth. And, doing this, they had died, one after another, knowing not what they had done—knowing not why ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne

... unsightly hole in the wall, stopped with paper instead of glass, forms the window; the furniture is comprised in a single wooden bench. Whatever the inhabitant requires in the way of provisions he must bring with him; for this he is allowed by the government to cultivate the land. ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... the lid with the forefinger of the hand in which you hold it. You must acquire the bow for a man, with its necessary touch of dignity, and that for a lady, which cannot be too humble, and should still contain the least suspicion of abandon. You must cultivate a manner with women which shall be deprecating and yet audacious. Have ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... many villages refused to supply soldiers when the Soviet authorities were mobilizing an army. In their refusal they stated 'in the spring soldiers will be needed at home in the villages,' not to cultivate the land, but to protect it with arms ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... single-handed, in a worldly business, which seven competitors now relieve him of; no longer engrossed with the mint of gold gains, which a dozen honest rivals now are sharing with him eagerly, the parent has leisure to instruct his children's minds, to take an interest in their pursuits, and to cultivate their best affections. Home is no longer the place perpetually to be driven from; the voices of paternal duty and domestic love are thrillingly raised to lead the tuneful chorus of society; and fathers, as well as mothers, are beginning ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... were anxious to cultivate the friendship of young du Pont, knowing that he could greatly assist them in learning the Indian language, a knowledge of which was essential to the work they hoped to accomplish amidst the forests of Acadia. Inspired by their motto "ad majoram Dei gloriam," they shrank ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... contains some solemn lessons. Life is to be regarded as a seed-time. Every one has his field to sow, to cultivate, and finally, to reap. By our habits, by our intercourse with friends and companions, by exposing ourselves to good or bad influences, we are cultivating the seed for the coming harvest. We cannot see the seed as it grows and develops, but time will ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody



Words linked to "Cultivate" :   work, fix, accommodate, cultivator, agriculture, cultivation, plant, civilize, refine, train, domesticate, civilise, knead, naturalise, grow, naturalize, polish, gear up, fine-tune, husbandry, overcultivate, overcrop, sophisticate, produce, school, plant life, adapt, set up, ready, flora, prepare, down, tame, farm, crop



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