"Diminish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... barberry bushes, as in the gorse, when grown in dry, gravelly situations, we see many leaves and twigs modified into thorns to diminish the loss of water through evaporation by exposing too much leaf surface to the sun and air. That such spines protect the plants which bear them from the ravages of grazing cattle is, of course, an additional motive for their presence. ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... of finding his social value underrated. Three-fourths of the mental ingenuity displayed, of the social falsehoods scattered broadcast ever since the world began by people whose importance they have served only to diminish, have been aimed at inferiors. And Swann, who behaved quite simply and was at his ease when with a duchess, would tremble^ for fear of being despised, and would instantly begin to pose, were he to meet ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... vaulted."[91] Piers were used in this building, the columns being merely ornamental; but the interior of St. Paul's is in many respects essentially different from its Roman model. In the Temple of Peace three arches cover the enormous length of over 250 feet, and seriously diminish the apparent size; in St. Paul's their span is less than half of this. Indeed, in this respect Wren adopted a via media between the Roman and the Anglo-Norman and Pointed. Old St. Paul's, for instance, contained twice as many ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... water? The dumb beasts can teach us some valuable lessons in eating and drinking. Nature mixes our gastric juice or pepsin and acids in just the right proportion to digest our food, and keep it at exactly the right temperature. If we dilute it, or lower its temperature by ice water, we diminish its solvent or digestive power, and dyspepsia is the ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... and feverish symptom of the deadly weakness of the body politic. It was merely superficial; and under it was a fixed and impenetrable gloom. The desertions from the army were assuming fearful proportions, that no legislation or executive rigor could diminish; supplies of bare food were becoming frightfully scarce, and even the wealthiest began to be pinched for necessaries of life; and over all brooded the dread cloud of a speedy ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... to leave the island to its fate. This was an adroit stab at the republicans of the Assembly; for, should the evacuation be secured, it was believed that either the radicals in Corsica would rise, overpower, and destroy the friends of France, call in English help, and diminish the number of democratic departments by one, or that Genoa would immediately step in and reassert her sovereignty. The moderates of St. Florent were not to be thus duped; sharp and angry discussions arose among both citizens and troops as to the obedience due to such orders, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... suggest that the straightness of the lines in which the trees are planted on Boston Common, and the rapidly increasing thickness of their foliage, destroy in the summer season the effect of breadth and liberty, hide both the immediate and the distant landscape, stifle the breeze, and diminish the attractiveness of the spot? Fewer trees, scattered in clumps and paying little regard to paths, would vastly improve the effect. The colonnades of the malls furnish all the shade desirable in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... fantasia, performed by the colonial militia, all drunk, who fired their pistols off under my nose and blackened my face with powder. General Marey, commanding at Medeah, owned the Romance vintage in Burgundy, and gave us some to drink at dinner, which did not diminish the general cordiality. Ah, well! a glass of good French wine, drunk far from home and the dissensions of the mother country, among comrades ready to give their lives for her at any moment, is a ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... co-operation to Don Ignacio Pesqueira, Governor of Sonora, saying: "If your excellency will put a few hundred men into the field on the first day of next June, and keep them in hot pursuit of the Apaches of Sonora, say for sixty or ninety days, we will either exterminate the Indians or so diminish their numbers that they will cease their murdering and robbing propensities and ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... Avenue, the Mansard-roofs look down upon me with their dormer- windows, and welcome me back to the American community. There are fences about all the houses, inclosing ampler and ampler dooryards; the children, which had swarmed in the thriftless and unenlightened purlieus of Dublin, diminish in number and finally disappear; the chickens have vanished; and I hear—I hear the pensive music of the horse-car bells, which in some alien land, I am sure, would be as pathetic to me as the Ranz des Vaches to the ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... and no change will touch the everlasting distinctions between right and wrong, or diminish the obligation to choose the right and ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... possibility restore the strength of the Ottoman empire, so a Sultan of Turkey cannot be the spiritual leader of millions who are not in any way under his control. I see no reason to suppose that the transfer of the Caliph to Mecca would in any way weaken the faith of Moslems or diminish their zeal. Mohammedans in India and in Russia show no more inclination to abandon their faith than those who reside at Constantinople under the shadow of the Caliph; on the contrary, there is more unbelief in Constantinople than there. What ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... of the American government had changed; that it was formerly to invite and encourage British seamen to enter their service, but that at present it was to give encouragement to their own seamen; and he was in hopes that the effect of these internal legislative measures would be to diminish the necessity of resorting to the right of search." Mr. Adams, in reply, said, "that his lordship had once before made a similar observation, and that he felt it his duty to take notice of it. Being under a perfect conviction that it was erroneous, he was compelled ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... peculiar softness and clearness of this light with its almost unvarying intensity, have brought it into great favour with the work people. And its being free from the inconvenience and danger, resulting from sparks and frequent snuffing of candles, is a circumstance of material importance, as tending to diminish the hazard of fire, to which cotton mills are ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... through unfathom'd snows their devious track, Heave the vast spars, the ribbed granites crack, Rush into day, in foamy torrents shine, And swell the imperial Danube or the Rhine.— Or feed the murmuring TIBER, as he laves 120 His realms inglorious with diminish'd waves, Hears his lorn Forum sound with Eunuch-strains, Sees dancing slaves insult his martial plains; Parts with chill stream the dim religious bower, Time-mouldered bastion, and dismantled tower; 125 By alter'd fanes and nameless villas ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... East Beirut. Awn had defied the legitimate government and established a separate ministate within East Beirut after being appointed acting Prime Minister by outgoing President Gemayel in 1988. Awn and his supporters feared Ta'if would diminish Christian power in Lebanon and increase the influence of Syria. Awn was granted amnesty and allowed to travel in France in August 199l. Since the removal of Awn, the Lebanese Government has made substantial progress in strengthening ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... me for this purpos (as in the beginning I did protest) that the errors of Authors concerning an vnknowen land, and the affected vanitie also of some men might be disclosed, for I am not desirous to diminish any mans good name: but because I consecrated these my labours to trueth and to my countrey, I could not chuse but shew, that those things which hitherto haue bene reported by many concerning our Island deserue very litle credite: ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... matter for great controversies, and has been finally condemned on the statement of the Cardinal of Chatillon, who declared that then there would be no such thing as sin, which would considerably diminish the revenues of the Church. But Sister Petronille lived imbued with this feeling, without knowing the danger of it. After Lent, and the fasts of the great jubilee, for the first time for eight months she had need to go to the little ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... in an unknown solution of iron, 50.5 c.c. of the permanganate solution were used up, he could state with confidence that it contained a little more than 0.5 gram of iron. With a larger experience the confidence would increase, and with practice the experimental error will diminish. ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... of selecting beauties there had been no end, I shall, in the same general manner, mention that which seems to deserve censure; for what Englishman can take delight in transcribing passages, which, if they lessen the reputation of Milton, diminish, in some degree, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... that he had struck. We immediately ceased firing, and as our boats had escaped damage, one was lowered, and McAllister and I went on board to take possession. We had certainly contrived in a short hour considerably to spoil the beauty of the French schooner, and dreadfully to diminish the number of her crew. Her brave captain and most of his officers were wounded, and six men were killed and ten wounded. Her captain received us on the quarter-deck, where he stood ready to deliver his ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... Corps, would have so occupied A. P. Hill's division that our movement into Sharpsburg could not have been checked, and, assisted by the advance of Sumner and Franklin on the right, would apparently have made certain the complete rout of Lee. As troops are put in reserve, not to diminish the army, but to be used in a pinch, I am convinced that McClellan's refusal to use them on the left was the result of his rooted belief, through all the day after Sedgwick's defeat, that Lee was overwhelmingly superior in force, and was preparing to ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... common-place though it be, I mention this circumstance attending my introduction to college, because it formed the first cause which tended to diminish my faith in the institution to which I was attached. I soon grew to regard my university training as a sort of necessary evil, to be patiently submitted to. I read for no honours, and joined no particular set of men. I studied the literature of France, Italy, and ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... probable than that certain primitive egg-laying mammals should have carried the eggs as long as possible in the uterus. The embryo under these conditions would be better nourished by a secretion of the uterine glands than by a very large amount of yolk. The yolk would diminish and the egg decrease in size, and thus the marsupial mode of development would have resulted. And, given the marsupial mode of development and an embryo possessing an allantois, it is almost a physiological necessity that in ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... itself, it has no means and even no reason to measure Time, but a feeling which lasted only half the number of days, for example, would no longer be the same feeling for it. It is true that when we give this feeling a certain name, when we treat it as a thing, we believe that we can diminish its duration by half, for example, and also halve the duration of all the rest of our history. It seems that it would still be the same life only on a reduced scale. But we forget that states of consciousness are processes and not things; ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... and name; her Grace not doubting that she is the king's true and legitimate daughter and heir procreate in good and lawful matrimony; [and] further adding, that unless she were advertised from his Highness by his writing that his Grace was so minded to diminish her estate, name, and dignity, which she trusteth his Highness will never do, she would not ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... know of any road which, under the best of circumstances, seems as long as the last stretch before Tuxtla Gutierrez. This we had noticed on our earlier journey, when we were mounted on horseback. Present conditions were not likely to diminish the impression. At last, at 11:30 in the morning of March 12, we reached the capital city of the State of Chiapas, and were taken by our carretero to the little old Hotel Mexico, kept by Paco, where we met a hearty welcome and, for several ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... All around his castle gibbets were erected; and the hangman, Tristan, his only true friend, went about the country every day, and returned at night with fresh victims, in order, by their execution, to diminish the fears of the tyrant, who from time to time would walk in an apartment which was only separated from the torture-room by a thin partition. There he listened to the groans and shrieks of the wretches on the rack, and found ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... fixedly at the captain, shrugged his shoulders, and responded, "It is impossible! The frigate is a fast sailer; she could not diminish her speed to attend on your vessel—you ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... them critically, I ought to say that opposites though they be, each does not so much supplement the other's difficiencies as augment the other's eccentricities. Thus they often stimulate each other's aggressiveness, and at the same time diminish ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... length yielded, and the two friends left Salamanca together. Travelling by the public conveyances, they reached Valladolid, and subsequently the town of Soria, whence they had still nearly twenty leagues of high-road to Tudela. The path across the mountains being considerably shorter, and in order to diminish the risk of being seen by persons who might inform the count of his arrival, Luis resolved to complete the journey on foot; and after two short days' march, the young men reached the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... mind can express it. Where they seem to be contradictory or absurd, it is merely that the mystery is paradoxical. I believe that the story of the Fall and of the Redemption is a complete symbol, that to add to it or to subtract from it or to alter it is to diminish its truth; if it seems incredible at this point or that, then simply I admit my own mental defect. And I believe in our Church, Scrope, as the embodied truth of religion, the divine instrument in human affairs. I believe in the security of its tradition, ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... reduced state of the salted provisions, it became necessary (such had often been the preamble of an order) to diminish the ration of that article weekly to each person, and half the beef and half the pork was stopped at once. In some measure to make this great deduction lighter, three pints of peas were added. This circumstance ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... present, the numerator in the foregoing expression is much increased, and it is obvious that in order to restore the equilibrium state, the concentration of the other component, hydrogen or oxygen as the case may be, must diminish. In the case of slightly dissociated substances, therefore, even a relatively small excess of one component is sufficient to set back the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... see that the facts I have stated diminish or increase the probability of the Amir's complicity. As the American filibusters sympathise with the Cuban insurgents; as the Jameson raiders supported the outlanders of the Transvaal, so also the soldiers ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... and fro before the fireplace. "Ah, well! The years bring me an ever-deepening sadness, an ever-increasing sense of our impotence to diminish, the infinite sorrow of ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... cut off her chances to sell. It is her property. I would not cloud it. I will join my regiment soon. If the war ends and I live to return, I will arrange with you. I have no power to do this, now, as my wife would have to join in the sale. I will not ask her to diminish the value of the tract. I leave no lien on this property. My wife and child have it free from ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... increase, by indignant denunciations, the obloquy which heroes and conquerors have so often brought upon themselves, in the estimation of mankind, by their ambition, their tyranny, or their desperate and reckless crimes. In fact, it seems desirable to diminish, rather than to increase, the spirit of censoriousness which often leads men so harshly to condemn the errors and sins of others, committed in circumstances of temptation to which they themselves were never ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... and with teeth firmly set, the English-woman gazed fixedly at the great sun-ball, as it descended toward the sea. Soon its rim touched the waters, just in rear of a ship which had appeared on the horizon, until, by degrees, it was swallowed up by the ocean. We watched it plunge, diminish, and finally disappear. ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... the position changed the whole basis and tactics of the Foreign Minister's proceedings. He had to obtain the supplies of grain asked for from Germany and thus to diminish political pressure on that country; but at the same time he had to persuade the Soviet delegates to continue negotiations, and finally to arrive at a settlement of peace under the most acceptable conditions possible ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... apparently existed between Emily and Captain Garland seemed rather to increase than to diminish after the little adventure we recorded in the last chapter. It appeared that Miss Sherwood had taken Darcy at his word, and resolved not to think any the more kindly of him for his conduct on that occasion. The captain was plainly in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... of this rule to the practical affairs of to-day, would diminish the number of our machine politicians by about four fifths. We are loaded down, almost to the breaking point, with politicians who do not understand politics, and who advocate measures which are not for the public good, because the public good is not the end for which they strive. But the ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... relative weights was aided by music.[99] Lombard found, when investigating the normal variations in the knee-jerk, that involuntary reflex processes are always reinforced by music; a military band playing a lively march caused the knee-jerk to increase at the loud passages and to diminish at the soft passages, while remaining always ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Adrianople (1829). Nicholas restored all his conquests in Europe, but held some provinces in Asia which gave him control of the eastern shore of the Euxine. Greece was liberated, and Servia became virtually independent of the Sultan. Thus the result of the contest was greatly to diminish the strength and influence of Turkey, and correspondingly to increase the ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... a series of restless dotted notes for the strings ff which diminish and retard to an entrance of the first theme, piu lento, for the pianoforte; the two phrases of which are interrupted by a passage, somewhat modified, from the introduction. Some preludial measures, expanding the material presented, bring us at B[283] to a premonitory statement ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... aught less vast Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout Black horror scream'd, and all her goblin rout From the more with'ring scene diminish'd pass'd. ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... Never trivial, never vulgar, never feeble, never stilted, never diffuse, Lockhart is one of the very best recent specimens of that class of writers of all work, which since Dryden's time has continually increased, is increasing, and does not seem likely to diminish. The growth may or may not be matter for regret; probably none of the more capable members of the class itself feels any particular desire to magnify his office. But if the office is to exist, let it at least be the object of those who hold it to perform its duties with that hatred of commonplace ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... tapestries well wrought; of needlework, rich colours of stained glass falling upon old monuments, and of fine work not scamped." To emphasize the preoccupation of Morris with the very handiwork, rather than with the mystic secrets, of beauty is not necessarily to diminish his name. He was essentially a man for whom the visible world existed, and in the manner in which he wore himself out in his efforts to reshape the visible world he proved himself one of the great men of ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... Dutch troops. Their number at first amounted to 30,000, but sickness made great-havoc among them. From sixty to eighty perished daily in the hospitals. When the garrison evacuated Hamburg in May 1814 it was reduced to about 15,000 men. In the month of December provisions began to diminish, and there was no possibility of renewing the supply. The poor were first of all made to leave the town, and afterwards all persons who were not usefully employed. It is no exaggeration to estimate at 50,000 the number of persons who were thus exiled. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... gazing at the coke fire behind the bars of the grate. He closed them in pain and, under his closed eyes, he saw negroes leaping before him in an obscene and bloody riot. While he sought to remember from what book of travel, read in boyhood, these blacks emerged, he saw them diminish, resolve themselves into imperceptible specks, and disappear into a red Africa, which little by little came to represent the wound seen by the light of a match on the night ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... the road in a way to make me think of Apollo's chariot and the horses of Phaeton; but we lengthened not a rod the stretch betwixt us and our followers, though we nullified their efforts to diminish it. We could make out, more by sight than by hearing—for we kept looking back, our heads thrust out at either side—that the pursuing post-boys continued bawling vehemently at ours. What they said, was drowned by the clatter ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... at the top, this result being produced by the spreading of the sheet of water as it was precipitated from the dizzy height above. The breadth of this one is about twenty feet at the bottom, and its depth about fourteen feet. But its depth and span gradually diminish from the bottom to the top, and the rock is worn as smooth as if chiselled by the hand of an artist. Moss and small plants have sprung out from the little soil that has accumulated in the crevices, but not enough to conceal the rock from observation. It would ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... worse for getting into Debt: which is one reason why I have scarce ever lent money to any one. I should not have lent it to you unless I had confidence in you: and I speak to you plainly now in order that my confidence may not diminish by your forgetting one farthing ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... a coat of red fireproof paint. It was true that its complexion was rather high, that it was inclined to be top-heavy, and that in the long run the other dolls suffered considerably by enforced association with this unyielding and implacable head and shoulders, but this did not diminish Mary's joy over her restored first-born. Even its utter absence of features was no defect in a family where features were as evanescent as in hers, and the most ordinary student of evolution could see that the "Amplach" ninepins were in legitimate succession to the globular-headed ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... most inclines To satire, praise, or humorous lines, To elegies in mournful tone, Or prologue sent from hand unknown. Then, rising with Aurora's light, The Muse invoked, sit down to write; Blot out, correct, insert, refine, Enlarge, diminish, interline; Be mindful, when invention fails, To scratch your head, and bite your nails. Your poem finish'd, next your care Is needful to transcribe it fair. In modern wit all printed trash is Set off with ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... simple and positive, we encounter expressions of approval more often than of disapproval. With the Romans, on the other hand, the contrary holds good; and the more corrupted poetry and rhetoric become, the more will censure grow and praise diminish." ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... only accomplish this result by wrinkling. An analogous action may be seen where an apple or a potato becomes dried; in this case the hard outer rind is forced to wrinkle, because, losing no water, it does not diminish in its extent, and can only accommodate itself to the interior by a wrinkling process. In one case it is water which escapes, in the other heat; but in both contraction of the part which suffers the loss leads to the folding of the ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... however, the power of Glafira did not diminish; all receipts and expenditures were settled, as before, by her. A Valet, who had been brought from abroad, a native of Alsace, tried to compete with her, and lost his place, in spite of the protection which his master generally afforded him. In all that related to house-keeping, and ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... future, in which, for all we knew, we could have no part either, with such an envious despair? The thought was unreasonable enough, but it was there. But it was possible, by thus boldly and tranquilly confronting the problem, to diminish the pressure of the shadow. A man could throw himself, could he not, in utter confidence before the feet of God, claiming nothing, demanding nothing but the sense of perfect acquiescence in His Will and Deed? The ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... would be incalculable. I pointed out to him that I quoted this phrase from an expression of the views of the German Government. I feared that it would be expected in St. Petersburg that the Serbian reply would diminish the tension, and now, when Russia found that there was increased tension, the situation would become increasingly serious. Already the effect on Europe was one of anxiety. I pointed out [as an instance of this] that our fleet was to have dispersed to-day, but we had felt ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... of Lesser Andelys; and, at the same time, erected upon the brow of the rock that overhung the river, a castle of the greatest possible strength, without, however, reflecting how far these works were likely to affect the rights, or to diminish the revenues, of the see of Rouen, to whom the ground belonged. But Walter, who then wore the archiepiscopal mitre, was by no means of a character patiently to submit to an invasion of his privileges. He complained ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... the physician is bound to consider the next female he attends in labor, unless some weeks at least have elapsed, as in danger of being infected by him, and it is his duty to take every precaution to diminish her ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... with its entangling branches rose gradually from the panther, who, feeling the encumbering weight diminish, quickly crawled from beneath. Tarzan let the tree fall back to earth, and the two beasts turned to look upon ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... head of the democracy. Clisthenes was, however, rather the statesman of a party than the legislator for a people—it was his object permanently to break up the power of the great proprietors, not as enemies of the commonwealth, but as rivals to his faction. The surest way to diminish the influence of property in elections is so to alter the constituencies as to remove the electors from the immediate control of individual proprietors. Under the old Ionic and hereditary divisions of four tribes, many ancient associations and ties between the poorer and the nobler ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... inequalities existed, they served rather to heighten than diminish the interest of the occasion, giving rise to one of the severest contests of mind with mind that has yet come to ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... will neither be absorbed by water, nor diminish common air, it may be convenient to put part of the materials into a cup, supported by a stand, and the other part into a small glass vessel, placed on the edge of it, as at f, fig. 1. Then having, by ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... when it is flying over the rails at ninety miles an hour, but if it slows down very suddenly to a ten-mile gait your attention will be drawn to it very decidedly. You may forget that you are listening to music as you dine, but let the orchestra either increase or diminish its tempo in a very marked degree and your attention will ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... Blackwood's is really a gin-palace. Landor.—All this I have both said and printed, and the last sentence you have just read from my satire is preceded by one that you have not read. An exposure of the impudence and falsehood of Blackwood's Magazine is not likely to injure its character, or diminish the number of its subscribers; and in this sentence you have the secret of my desire to become a contributor to Blackwood. I want a popular vehicle to convey my censures to the world, especially ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... get back to the House. You overdid it yesterday. Lie down somewhere. G'bye.' And he got into his stride again. Jim watched his figure diminish, until at last it was a shapeless dot of white against the brown surface. Then he lay down ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... some of those Territories ought to be developed as rapidly as possible. Every step in that direction would have a tendency to improve the revenues of the government and diminish the burdens of the people. It is worthy of your serious consideration whether some extraordinary measures to promote that end cannot be adopted. The means which suggests itself as most likely to be ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... produce about 25 per cent, because the possibility of personal management of every hen and every detail would grow proportionately smaller, and it was this personal touch which counted. Next, the sovereign advantages of grass range and table scraps must diminish with each additional hen; and if she had paid herself an adequate salary the profit would have been wiped out. Last, and perhaps the most important to her, she was absolutely tied to the farm. She could not be away one week ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... motionless before its entrance. At length he ordered one of his gillies to acquaint the wondrous inmate that Ewan Macpherson wished to hold some converse with him. Forward came the venerable man; and his appearance, in the dimming twilight, had no tendency to diminish the strange delirium of superstitious feelings which had absorbed the whole mind of the bewildered chief. The sage bent one searching glance upon his visitor; and, seeming to have penetrated the state of his mind, advanced into more ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... Perhaps, however, the most extraordinary phenomenon of this strange land, is the sudden change of temperature which takes place over the whole desert. The heat at noon is oppressive—from 96 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit; and this continues till four P.M., when it begins to diminish. From ten A.M. till about sunset, there is a strong westerly wind, blowing from the sea towards the Cordilleras. It is always fierce, but sometimes so powerful, that it is impossible to advance against it. When the sun is down, the wind likewise subsides, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... concerning the pamphlet seems rather to increase than diminish, but Senor Gutierrez has many devoted friends, and the place of his retreat is secure. There is little doubt that he will be forced to fly ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... top of it are placed rugs and cushions. Each saddle is built for four passengers, sitting dos-a-dos, back to back, two on a side, and a little shelf hangs down to support their feet. In order to diminish the climb the elephant kneels down in the road. A naked heathen brings a ladder, rests it against the side of the beast and the passengers climb up and take their seats in the saddle. Another naked heathen, who sits straddle the animal's neck, looks around at the ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... question more specifically, the manager recognized the advertising value of a reputation for having good conditions of employment. He had discovered no tendency for general profits to diminish or for the rate of increase to be retarded more than temporarily. In the absence of definite facts to the contrary he considered it safe to assume that as soon as the business should become adjusted to the ...
— Higher Education and Business Standards • Willard Eugene Hotchkiss
... then become hereditary, in some cases only when propagated by buds, in other cases by seed. These cases have been produced suddenly by accident in early growth, but it is part of law of growth that when any organ is not used it tends to diminish (duck's wing{170}?) muscles of dog's ears, rabbits, muscles wither, arteries grow up. When eye born defective, optic nerve (Tuco Tuco) is atrophied. As every part whether useful or not (diseases, double flowers) tends to be transmitted ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... intolerable than death, amid the horrors of slavery? I ask whether you could witness all this, without the most poignant grief? This is no picture of the fancy. It is a sober reality. The only difference is, the men thus treated are black. But in my view, this does not diminish the horrors of such cruel deeds. Can it be expected then, that the citizens of this state, or indeed of any other, would witness all this, without instituting the severest scrutiny into the legality of the proceedings? More ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... so; but whether in practical cases increase of mass without reference to strength or load will, upon the whole, increase or diminish deflection, will depend very much upon the magnitude of the mass relatively with the magnitude of the deflecting pressure, and the rapidity with which that pressure is applied and removed. Thus if a force or weight be very suddenly applied to the middle of a ponderous beam, and be as suddenly withdrawn, ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... the part of Leverrier, designed to test its suggested identity with Lexell's comet of 1770. The result was decisive against the hypothesis of Valz, the divergences between the orbits of the two bodies being found to increase instead of to diminish, as the history of the new-comer was traced backward into the previous century.[263] Faye's comet pursues the most nearly circular path of any similar known object; even at its nearest approach to the sun it remains farther off than Mars when he is most ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... continue to flourish even under the Socialistic regime. If all cowkeepers were salaried officials of the Socialist State or municipality, they might nevertheless mix water with the milk to obtain milk for their own consumption and that of their families, and to diminish the labour of milking. Adulteration may be abolished by efficient supervision and well-devised ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... railway carriage be left us in, a contraption not ill-suited to Africa—nor yet so comfortable as to diminish the sensation of travel ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... point to be remembered, as tending to lessen our regret, that it is possible Turner might have felt the necessity of compelling himself sometimes to dwell on the most familiar and prosaic scenery, in order to prevent his becoming so much accustomed to that of a higher class as to diminish his enthusiasm in its presence. Into this probability I shall have occasion to examine at greater ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... being able to count, in case of need, on the full support of the Government of Vienna, it is probable that Germany will have to support Vienna herself. In the case of a European war she would have to make head against her enemies on two frontiers, the Russian and the French, and diminish perhaps her own forces to aid the Austrian army. In these conditions they do not find it surprising that the German Empire should have felt it necessary to increase the number of its Army Corps. They add at the Foreign Office that the Government ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... nothing wrong in your heart, or your head: on the contrary I think I see sense in the one, and sentiments in the other. This persuasion is the only motive of my present affection; which will either increase or diminish, according to your merit or demerit. If you have the knowledge, the honor, and probity, which you may have, the marks and warmth of my affection shall amply reward them; but if you have them not, my aversion and indignation will rise in the same proportion; and, in that case, remember, that ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... considerably in quality, as indicated by greater or less complexity of the convolutions, quantity of grey matter, and perhaps unknown peculiarities of organization; but this difference of quality seems merely to increase or diminish the influence of quantity, not to neutralize it. Thus, all the most eminent modern writers see an intimate connection between the diminished size of the brain in the lower races of mankind, and their intellectual inferiority. ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... these and similar laws of nature can not be drawn from experience, inasmuch as they are, on the contrary, assumed in the interpretation of experience. Our inability to "add to or diminish the quantity of matter in the world," is a truth which "neither is nor can be derived from experience; for the experiments which we make to verify it presuppose its truth.... When men began to use the balance in chemical analysis, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... that Christine was wicked; for were not these little romances little lies? Sophie's imagination was limited. As the years went on Christine finally got possession of the medallion, and held it against all opposition. Somehow, with it on this morning, she felt diminish the social distance between ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... itself for a time, it will die out, or the general spirit of Christianity will naturally drive it out. The spirit of caste is not exorcised in that way. So long as it is perpetuated by marriage affinity, the source of the whole evil, and by habits of eating together on caste lines, it will not diminish very much or cease to torment the Church. A century of such waiting, in some missions that I have known, finds the evil not much diminished. It is only in those missions where it is attacked and constantly denounced and its terrible evils ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... least modified mammals, the total number of the teeth is very generally forty-four, while in the horse the usual number is forty, and, in the absence of the canines, it may be reduced to thirty-six; the incisor teeth are devoid of the fold seen in those of the horse; the grinders regularly diminish in size from the middle of the series to its front end; while their crowns are short, early attain their full length, and exhibit simple ridges or tubercles, in place of the complex ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... are four hundred and fifty Spanish religious in Filipinas, and seven hundred Filipino secular priests, or thereabouts. More than three per cent of the Spaniards die annually; so that, in order that their present number may not diminish, it is necessary for fifteen to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... of that," Ronder said. "We have our immortality—a tiny flame, but I believe that it never dies. Beauty comes from it and dwells in it. We increase it or diminish it as we live." ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... was fought in Spain, and as victoriously as the battle of our army. We saw Opposition gradually throw away its arms, and gradually diminish in the popular view, until its existence was scarcely visible. Successive changes varied the cabinet, but none shook its stability. Successive ministers sank into the grave, but the ministry stood. The spirit of the nation, justly proud of its triumphs, disdained to listen to the whispers of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... repeated trials, that there was a greater reduction in weight in the young from a father paired with his daughter, than from a mother with her son. I may add that Mr. Eyton, of Eyton, the well-known ornithologist, who is a large breeder of Grey Dorkings, informs me that they certainly diminish in size, and become less prolific, unless a cross with another strain is occasionally obtained. So it is with Malays, according to Mr. Hewitt, as ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... youth alone; it has lost much of the warmth and keenness of youthful feeling, and probably might fail in expressing that openness, and gaiety, and enthusiasm, which time has so great a tendency to diminish. But these qualities are not often required in the parts which Talma has to perform in the French plays; and if his countenance has lost some of the perfections of earlier years, it has, on the other hand, gained much from the seriousness and dignity of age. If, for instance, he does not ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... astral plane need have little fear of encountering the very unpleasant creatures described under this head, for, as before stated, they are even now extremely rare, and as time goes on their number will happily steadily diminish. In any case their manifestations are usually restricted to the immediate neighbourhood of their physical bodies, as might be supposed ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... and roots, betook himself to leaves of trees as his food. Then renouncing leaves, he took to water only as his subsistence. After that he passed many years by subsisting upon air alone. All the while, his strength did not diminish. This seemed exceedingly marvellous. Devoted to virtue and engaged in the practice of the severest austerities, after a long time he acquired spiritual vision. He then reflected, saying unto himself, 'If, being gratified with anybody, I give him wealth, my speech would ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... could not cheer us much. We were in peril ourselves; we were yet more concerned for the peril of Captain Amber, of whose fortunes and whose whereabouts we knew absolutely nothing. If he failed to meet a ship he was to return to Early Island. What might not be his fate? To diminish in some degree the chance of this catastrophe, we resolved to erect some signal on the highest point of Fair Island, in the hope that it would have the result of attracting his attention and leading him to suppose ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 9), which is free to move sidewise, but is prevented from turning, by suitable lugs. This packing is a close running fit on the hubs of the wheel and is provided with grooves (plainly shown in Fig. 9) which break up and diminish the leakage of steam around each hub from one stage to the next lower. Each diaphragm, with the exception of the top one, carries the expanding nozzles ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... the planets will emerge one by one, in order to give it a name and a form that our imagination may understand. And as man's vision grows clearer, as he shows less desire for image and symbol, so will the number of these names, the number of these forms, tend to diminish. He will slowly arrive at the stage when there shall be one only that he will proclaim, or reserve; when it shall be revealed to him that this last form, this last name, is truly no more than the last image of a power whose throne was always within him. Then will the gods that had gone forth ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... did not diminish with age; he kept on being as barbarous and brutal as when he was young. His barbarity did not prevent his being very fine and polite, because he was under the conviction that his life was a well-nigh ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... obviously unfit to become parents seems necessary. Great as would be the initial expense, the rapid reduction in the number of idiots, epileptics, etc, would in a generation or two counterbalance it and greatly diminish the problem. It is estimated that there are some three hundred thousand feeble- minded persons in the United States, only twenty thousand of whom are segregated in institutions, the rest being free to propagate-which they do with notorious rapidity. ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... influence: for it doth appear, that, at the time when he did pretend, in conformity to the treaty of Chunar aforesaid, to remove the Company's servants, "civil and military, from the court and service of the Vizier," he did assert that he thereby did "diminish his own influence, as well as that of his colleagues, by narrowing the line of patronage"; which proves that the offices, pensions, and other emoluments aforesaid, in Oude, were of his patronage, as his patronage could not be diminished by taking away the said offices, &c., ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke |
