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Durable   Listen
adjective
Durable  adj.  Able to endure or continue in a particular condition; lasting; not perishable or changeable; not wearing out or decaying soon; enduring; as, durable cloth; durable happiness. "Riches and honor are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness." "An interest which from its object and grounds must be so durable."
Synonyms: Lasting; permanent; enduring; firm; stable; continuing; constant; persistent. See Lasting.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Durable" Quotes from Famous Books



... have built is durable as brass, And loftier than the Pyramids which mock the years that pass. Nor blizzard can destroy it, nor furious rain corrode— Remember, I'm the bard that built the ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams

... white corpuscle in the fascia not taken up as a nutrient, it attaches itself to the fascia with all its uterine powers during the time of measles or other eruptive diseases, and soon takes form and is a vital and durable being whose name is tubercle; in form a sphere, and place of foetal life is a cell in the fascia of life giving power to all forms of flesh. Thus all tubercles are unappropriated substances whom mother fascia has clothed and ordered in camp for treatment ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still

... and condition of life. He had a constant flow of animal spirits, much miscellaneous information, an excellent memory, a great enjoyment of fun and humour, a refined taste and perfect good breeding. But his more solid merit was the thorough goodness of his heart, and the strong and durable nature of his friendships and early attachments. To the friends of his youth he was bound to the last moment of his life with unremitting kindness and never-cooling affection; no greater connections or more ambitious interests cancelled those early ties, and though he was not ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... of the screen may be covered with silk of the colour of the crochet, as more durable ...
— The Ladies' Work-Book - Containing Instructions In Knitting, Crochet, Point-Lace, etc. • Unknown

... worthy of the heroes whom we design to honour. This is as it should be. Burke and Wills achieved a splendid exploit: their lives were the forfeit of their daring; and we owe it to their reputation, as well as to our own character, to preserve a durable record of their great achievement, and to signalize to after-ages our admiration of its simple grandeur, and our gratitude to the brave men who accomplished it. A time will come when a belt of settlements will connect the shores of Port Phillip with those of the Gulf of Carpentaria; ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills

... best, because it is more durable than beauty: for virtue holds good with some women long, and many a day after ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar

... the Manilla rope has in the American fishery almost entirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-lines; for, though not so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic; and I will add (since there is an aesthetics in all things), is much more handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp. Hemp is a dusky, dark fellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as a golden-haired Circassian ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... incongruity between the "loud" color of the wall paper, bought because it was fashionable, and the quiet hues of the rug, which was a gift from some artistic friend. It sees that, although the furniture is covered with durable and costly materials, their color "swears" at that of the curtains and wood-work. In short, the room has been jumbled together at various periods, without any plan or sense ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell

... are more dependable than others, just as there are some more simple of adjustment than others. Some are cheap and less durable; others are expensive and last for years. There are some which for a quarter of a century have stood the test of certainty in Holland, France, England and the United States among the wealthier classes, as the falling birth rate among these classes indicates. ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger

... narra—as an aromatic tree, of which there are two varieties, male and female. The wood of the male tree is pinkish, while that of the female tree is inclined to white. They both grow to a great size and are used for work requiring large timber. The wood has good durable qualities and is very impervious to water, for which reason it was largely used as supports for the houses. Water in which pieces of the wood were placed, or the water that stood in vessels made of this wood, had a medicinal value in dropsy and other diseases. ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... wanting to vindicate their correctness and illustrate them, it is supplied by the glorious achievements of the Alexandrian school, which acted in physical science as Aristotle had acted in natural history, laying a basis solidly in observation and experiment, and accomplishing a like durable and brilliant result. ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... remains of which De la Prime says, “infinite millions of roots and bodies of trees have been found, of 30 yards length and above, and have been sold to make masts and keels for ships . . . as black as ebony, and very durable.” {118a} Then, as the city took the last element of its name from its woods (coeds), so the people who dwelt around were called Coitani, or woodmen {118b}; corresponding to the name given to the dwellers in the fens, Gir-vii, or ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... seeds sieves in all sizes from No. 2 to No. 40 are needed. The sizes represent various finenesses of mesh. All above No. 8 should be of brass wire, because brass is considerably more durable and less likely to rust than iron. The cloths upon which the herbs are spread should be as large as the floor upon which the threshing is to be done except when the floor is without cracks, but it is more convenient to use cloths always, because they facilitate handling ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains

... plainness of manner and of dress is more engaging than that glare of paint and airs and apparel which may dazzle the eye but reaches not the affections. Terence is a modest and bashful beauty, to whom we grant every thing, because he assumes nothing, and whose purity and nature make a durable though not a violent ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... at his newly set up booth. Hung about it were durable goods and trinkets from a dozen cities. There were articles even from far-off Telon, in the Konassan gulf. ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole

... with pleasure; glut not thy sense with palative delights; nor revenge the contempt of temperance by the penalty of satiety. Were there an age of delight or any pleasure durable, who would not honour Volupia? but the race of delight is short, and pleasures have mutable faces. The pleasures of one age are not pleasures in another, and their lives fall short of our own. Even in our sensual days the strength of delight is in its seldomness or rarity, and sting in its ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... in the hall, and if we have little more than a vestibule, tiling is quite satisfactory. It is durable and can be easily cleaned. But if the hall be of the medium or generous size, parquetry will be found more approvable if the expense can be afforded. The designs are richer without being so glaring as many of the tile effects, and the wood seems to have ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... resistance. . . . At no time were the prisons fuller; the number of political prisoners was estimated at 12,000 . . . The failure of his plans soured and distracted him.' It was, in fact, wholly 'beyond his power to consolidate a tolerably durable political constitution.'—To the disquiet caused by constant attempts against Cromwell's life, Ranke adds the death of his favourite daughter, Lady Claypole, whose last words of agony 'were of the right of the king, the blood that had been ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... only at a late period. Clovis, barbarian though he was, became imbued with it. He endeavoured to mould his subjects, Franks, Gallo-Romans, and Visigoths, so as to form a State, and in spite of the disasters that followed, his efforts were not without some durable results. ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... face be nought, in my opinion, the more view it the worse. Bid her wear the multitude of her deformities under a mask, till my leisure will serve to devise some durable and ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... powdered red rocks. With a shoe hammer, last, pegs (instead of nails) and a standard pattern slave cobblers fashioned shoes from the hides of their master's cattle. They were no models of beauty, but strong, durable shoes designed for ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... This offer was made on the presumption that some commercial or substantial gain would accrue to other nations from the destruction of the Republic; but Mr. Lincoln believed with confidence that "foreign governments would not in the end fail to perceive that one strong nation promises more durable peace, and a more extensive, valuable, and reliable commerce, than can the same nation broken into hostile fragments," and for this reason he believed that the rebel leaders had received from abroad "less patronage and encouragement than they ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... a durable peace, I think, has absorbed every administration since the end of World War II. It has required us to seek a limitation of arms races not only among the superpowers, but among the smaller nations as well. We have joined ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... interrogatively. "We carry a very complete stock of information here." He waved a hand at the formidable rows of half-calf and circuit bindings in his bookcase. "What particular shade, model, or style may I show you? Something seasonable and yet durable? Here is a very attractive and well-bound ten-pound creation covering most of the common or garden varieties of contract, including breach of promise to marry. Nice summer ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... sense is the crown of all faculties. Exercised vigilantly, it leads to progress and prosperity, therefore, says he "enthusiasm is as brittle as crystal, but common sense is durable ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi

... affect us. This state finds exactly all that it desires in the presence or the near hope of outward objects; the mind lives in its daily pursuits, and companions, and amusements. What impressions have been once produced are soon worn away; and in a soil so shallow nothing makes a durable impression: everything can, as it were, scratch upon its surface, while nothing can strike ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... simplify the manufacturing of planes; second to render them more durable; third to retain a uniform mouth; fourth to obviate their clogging; and fifth the retention of the essential part of the plane when the stock ...
— Woodworking Tools 1600-1900 • Peter C. Welsh

... of the declaration of the Senate in favor of the empire, Cambaceres had said to Lebrun, "All is over! the monarchy is re- established! But I have a presentiment that what they are now constructing will not be durable. We made war upon Europe to give it republics, which should be daughters of the French Republic; now we shall make it to give Europe monarchs, sons or brothers of ours; and France, exhausted, will finally ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... Our true wealth is God. No man that possesses Him, by love, and trust, and conformity of will and effort to His discerned will, is poor, whatever else he has, whatever else he lacks. And no man who has lost this one durable treasure, the loving communion with, and possession of, God, in mind and heart and will and effort, but is a pauper whatever else he possesses. Wherever a man has sold himself to his own will, and has made himself and his own inclinations and misread ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... constraint. I respected her nervousness and soon began to talk of things not so personal to us. Again, my mistake of treating her as if she were marked "Fragile. Handle with care." I know now that she, like all women, had the plain, tough, durable human fibre under that exterior of delicacy and fragility, and that my overconsideration caused her to exaggerate to herself her own preposterous notions of her superior fineness. We walked for an hour, talking—with less constraint and ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... noone, and eue in age and eke in eld Dangerous disdaine full pleasantly perswading Easie to gripe but combrous to weld. For slender bottome hard and heauy lading Gay for a while, but little while durable Suspicious, incertaine, irreuocable, O since thou art by triall not to trust Wisedome it is, and it is also iust To sound the stemme before the tree be feld That is, since death will driue us all to dust To leaue thy loue ere ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham

... or three paths known only to the Indians. In the centre of the swamp there were three or four acres of dry land, a few feet higher than the surrounding morass. Here Philip had erected his houses, five hundred in number, and had built them of materials far more solid and durable than the Indians were accustomed to use, so that they were quite bullet-proof. They were all surrounded by a high palisade. In this strong encampment, in friendly alliance with the Narragansets, Philip and ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... one is more the master of loving than he is of not loving. I feel the truth of all these maxims; I do homage to them with regret, as soon as, with a knowledge of the cause, I consider that you reject what is excellent and accept the worse; you renounce a solid happiness, durable pleasures, and yield to depraved tastes and pure caprices; but I can see that all my reflections will not reform you. I am beginning to fear that I am wearying you with morals, and to tell you the truth, it is very ridiculous in me to preach constancy ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... the Daily Spy of this city, and at the suggestion of several distinguished individuals who wished to see them in a more durable form for reading and preservation, I have concluded to present them to the public, in the ...
— Reminiscences of the Military Life and Sufferings of Col. Timothy Bigelow, Commander of the Fifteenth Regiment of the Massachusetts Line in the Continental Army, during the War of the Revolution • Charles Hersey

... years ago, for neither was the metal of which they are constructed produced, nor had the method of propulsion or even the propulsive power been developed. Inventors had to wait till science had given us in abundance a metal less than a quarter the weight of iron, but as strong and durable, and this was not until some fifty years ago when a process was discovered for producing cheaply the beautiful metal calcium. But calcium would have been little use alone. Aluminium, which is now so plentiful, had to be ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius

... during the whole period of the doctor's visit. What, thought Mrs. Gresham to herself,—what if she had set these two friends at variance with each other, instead of binding them together in the closest and most durable friendship! But still she had an idea that, as she had begun to play this game, she must play it out. She felt conscious that what she had done must do evil, unless she could so carry it on as to make it result in good. Indeed, unless she ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... this world was not, and Chaos wild Reigned where these Heavens now roll, where Earth now rests Upon her center poised; when on a day (For time, though in eternity, applied To motion, measures all things durable By present, past, and future,) on such day As Heaven's great year brings forth, the empyreal host Of Angels by imperial summons called, Innumerable before the Almighty's throne Forthwith, from all the ends of Heaven, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... twilight when Red Perris climbed to the clearing in which the cabin stood. Ordinarily he would have set about preparing supper before the coming of the dark, but now he watered and saddled his cowpony, a durable little buckskin, and with a touch of the spurs sent him at a pitching gallop down ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... end is silent and invisible. Let us endeavour to see things as they are, and then enquire whether we ought to complain. Whether to see life as it is, will give us much consolation, I know not; but the consolation which is drawn from truth, if any there be, is solid and durable; that which may be derived from errour must be, like its original, fallacious and fugitive. I am, dear, dear ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... done. Architecturally it is a curiosity, seeing that though it presents a stately and substantial front neither stone nor brick enters into its composition. It is made entirely of shingle mixed with mortar, the whole forming a concrete substance as durable as granite. The first pebble of the new hotel was laid quite a respectable number of years ago, the ceremony furnishing an almost dangerous flux of excitement to the mariners at the capstan. It has grown up slowly, as ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy

... equipages, or in the etiquette of society may be tolerated without injury to the national advancement. Such fashions are transitory, springing suddenly into notice and as rapidly passing into oblivion. With architecture it is different: here follies are wrought into durable form. We see an ultra Queen Anne house of to-day, and its quaintness and odd conceits attract our fancy. We put up with its manifest incongruities and inconveniences, and for a time all goes well. But when we tire of four-by-four-inch fenestration, glazed with rough cathedral-glass, the lines ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... manner alike unexpected and painful to him. He came there as a Scotchman, proud to assist at a festival in honour of one of those eminent men who, in giving an imperishable fame to the poetry of Scotland, obtained for their country triumphs far more noble, far more durable, than even those which his gallant friend, who had lately addressed them, or than any other statesman or warrior, could achieve; for when the contests of individuals, and even of nations, for power had passed away, and were heard of no more, the verses of Burns and Walter ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various

... of Technology, Peter Schwamb, professor of machine design, put together in 1885 a set of printed notes on the kinematics of mechanisms, based on Reuleaux's and Rankine's works. Out of these notes grew one of the most durable of American textbooks, first published in 1904.[112] In the first edition of this work, acceleration was mentioned only once in passing (on p. 4). Velocities in linkages were determined by orthogonal components transferred ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson

... the opposite page represents the article above mentioned, and shows the effectiveness of this magnificent and durable lace. In actual size the scarf is about a yard and one-half long and one-half yard wide, and is made of a heavy Battenburg braid, having a fancy edge (See Nos. 5 or 7, on page 20) and cord, rings and buttons. The main part of the design is outlined with the ...
— The Art of Modern Lace Making • The Butterick Publishing Co.

... therein to be visited, which every pilgrim to "Dickens-Land" must recognize. At Chatham,—"my boyhood's home," as he affectionately calls it,—many of the earlier years of Charles Dickens (probably from his fourth to his eleventh) were passed; here it was "that the most durable of his earlier impressions were received; and the associations around him when he died were those which at the outset of his life had affected him ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... led to execution when one appeared to weep bitterly, and his reply to interrogatories was that he bewailed the dwellings of the aristocracy thereabouts, for henceforth there would be no one to supply them with durable tiles. Thereupon his companion burst out laughing, because, said he, it had just occurred to him that he would not know where to place his hat after his head had been taken off. These mildly humorous remarks obtained for both of them ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax

... are to be traced to the fact that a commutator so built up is durable and keeps a clean surface. Of course, the use of paper as an insulator for telephone wires is well known, but its success in this direction depends less upon its insulating properties than upon the fact that it can be arranged in such ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... they'd been everywhere for a few decades of thousands of years. Only the technology changes. Man's cave is stainless steel and synthetic plastic; the cave's man is swinging a better axe, and his hide is protected from the weather by stuff far more durable than his awn skin. But he's the same man with the same hackles; they just rise for a few more thousand reasons than ...
— History Repeats • George Oliver Smith

... had been familiar with Imperial luxury, which was undoubtedly prodigious, while its productions, though not durable in kind, had nevertheless cost enormous sums, he stood dazzled, dumfounded, in this drawing-room with three windows looking out on a garden like fairyland, one of those gardens that are created in a month with a made soil and transplanted ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... is impractical to affix a notice to the copies directly or by means of a durable label, a notice is acceptable if it appears on a tag or durable label attached to the copy so that it will remain with it as it passes ...
— Supplementary Copyright Statutes • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.

... bright with beds of flowers. Entering he will discern the rugged features of frontier life softened in a hundred ways by the hand of woman. The steel is just as hard and more serviceable after it is polished, and the oak-wood as strong and durable when it is trimmed and smoothed. The children of the frontier are as hardy and as manly though the gentle voice of woman schools their rugged ways and her kind hand leads them through the paths of refinement and moulds them in the ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... children into direct contact with these characters in the intermediate grades, not by short and sketchy stories, but by full life pictures of these men and their surroundings? We have not been wholly lacking in literary artists who have worked up a part of these materials into a more durable and acceptable form for our schools. We need to make an abundant use of this and other history for our boys and girls, not by devoting a year in the upper grades to a barren outline of American annals, but by a proper distribution of these and other similar rich ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry

... descend in this perilous journey to the deep bowels of the earth, leaving the Weights and Measures stranded in the upper air. This descent among the hidden riches of a lower world, this visit to the provocations of evils not yet dug out from their durable confinement, was the keystone, as it were, of the whole mission. Let Neverbend descend alone, alone inspect the wonders of that dirty deep, and Tudor might then talk and write as he pleased. In such case all the world of the two public offices in Question, and of some others ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... Cap and Spout. Safe, practical and simple. Nothing to get out of order, most substantial and durable on the market. Will last a lifetime, gives real service ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various

... of the authentic history of Melrose and the popular tales connected with it. He pointed out many pieces of beautiful sculpture in obscure corners which would have escaped our notice. The Abbey has been built of a pale red stone; that part which was first erected of a very durable kind, the sculptured flowers and leaves and other minute ornaments being as perfect in many places as when first wrought. The ruin is of considerable extent, but unfortunately it is almost surrounded ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth

... of horrors certainly furnishes a very durable show. I don't think I was ever more successfully or ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... did fall down, as the result of an unusually high tide in 1091. As the historian of London Bridge has said, "a magnificent bridge is a durable expression of an ideal in art, whether it be a simple arch across an humble brook, or a mighty structure across a ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun

... for the privilege of a great life. May I not be satisfied to rest with idle hands in youth and make age regretful because I have lived a useless life: but with a clear eye and an exalted mind may I choose the "durable satisfactions" that may be ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz

... not seen any," answered Arthur. "If there are none, the bark of the bread-fruit tree will answer nearly as well: the cloth made from it is as strong and durable, though not ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... refused to be agitated. But the work was telling at last on his constitution, and he departed on his last campaign with confessed unwillingness. The future was clouded with uncertainty. A few more years of life might enable him to introduce into the shattered frame of the Commonwealth some durable elements. His death in the existing confusion might be as fatal as Alexander's. That some one person not liable to removal under the annual wave of electoral agitation must preside over the army and the administration, had been evident in lucid moments even to Cicero. ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... Kodaks are covered with fine leather, and the trimmings are handsomely finished and lacquered. They are elegant, artistic, and durable. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 31, June 10, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... not the necessities of everyday life constitute a sort of invisible regulator of existence, it would scarcely be possible for democracies to last. Still, though the wishes of crowds are frenzied they are not durable. Crowds are as incapable of willing as of thinking for any ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon

... "Such things happen," he said. "The human body is really quite durable; now and then comes the lucky happenstance when the fearful accident does no more than raise a slight bruise. I've read the story of the man whose parachute did not open and who lived to return it to the factory in person, according to the old joke. But now, Mr. Cornell, ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith

... massive stone buildings, which are used for work shops, storage, etc., officers' quarters, both durable and comfortable, and many other buildings. The former residence of Col. George Davenport, (the House in which he as killed for money many years ago) built in 1831, of solid hewed timber, and afterwards weather-boarded, still ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk

... difficulties, and good fortune and great energy are needed to hold them, and one of the greatest and most real helps would be that he who has acquired them should go and reside there. This would make his position more secure and durable, as it has made that of the Turk in Greece, who, notwithstanding all the other measures taken by him for holding that state, if he had not settled there, would not have been able to keep it. Because, if one is on the spot, ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli

... firm resolution of Italy, to continue to fight courageously with all her might, and at any sacrifice, until her most sacred national aspirations are fulfilled alongside with such general conditions of independence, safety and mutual respect between nations as can alone form the basis of a durable peace, and represent the very "raison d'etre" of the contract that binds ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... not planted in sufficient quantities to make it an article of commerce. Only 950 nuts were exported last year. Of pulu 421,227 pounds were shipped; this is a soft fuzz taken from the crown of a species of fern; it is used to stuff bedding, and is as warm, though not as durable, as feathers. Also 32,161 pounds of "fungus," a kind of toad-stool which grows on decaying wood, and is used in China as an article ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... only extend to the young and the inexperienced; for I am very certain, that women are capable of as faithful and as durable friendship as any of the other sex. They can enter not only into all the enthusiastic tenderness, but into all the solid fidelity of attachment. And if we cannot oppose instances of equal weight with those of Nysus and Euryalus, Theseus and Pirithous, ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More

... imperceptibly and almost disregarded, into the immense mass of historical facts. Time, in its progress, diminishes the probability as well as the interest of such an event, as it gradually wears away the most durable monuments. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... privilege so dear, but it may be extorted from subjects by good usage, and by keeping them alwayes up in their good humour. I will not say what one prince may compass within his own time, or what a second, though surely much may be done; but it is enough if a great and durable design be accomplish'd in the third life; and supposing an hereditary succession of any three taking up still where the other left, and dealing still in that fair and tender way of management, it is impossible but that, even without reach or intention upon the prince's part, all should ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... XVIII., but had ruled without trouble, and even with some increase of popularity, it was to M. de Villele, above all others, that they were indebted for these advantages. He had accomplished two difficult achievements, which might have been called great had they been more durable: he had disciplined the old royalist party, and from a section of the court, and a class which had never been really active except in revolutionary contests, he had established during six years a steady ministerial support; he had restrained his party and his power within ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... international law. Admirably adapted as these are to the conservation and regular working of a political system, they are, nevertheless, however wise, essentially artificial, and hence are ill adapted to a transition state,—to a period in which order is evolving out of chaos, where the result is durable exactly in proportion to the freedom with which the natural forces are allowed to act, and to reach their own equilibrium without extraneous interference. Nor are such periods confined to the early days of mere lawlessness. They recur whenever a crisis is reached in the career of ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan

... doffed, saying, "O beloved of my heart, in very sooth the gift is after the measure of the giver." So he accepted this from her and gave it back to her and kissed her on the mouth and cheeks and eyes. When this was ended and done, for naught is durable save the Living, the Eternal, Provider of the peacock and the owl,[FN438] Nur al-Din rose from the seance and stood upon his feet, because the darkness was now fallen and the stars shone out; whereupon quoth the damsel ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... swallows came. They had, on their long journey, seen more durable characters engraven on rocks, and on the walls of the temples in Hindostan, mighty deeds of great kings, immortal names, so old that no one now could read or speak them. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... 13th, I began to wear a watch from Bennet's, 65 Cheapside, London. W. C. Bennet warrants it as the best watch which they can produce. If it prove as good and as durable as he prophesies, J——- will find it a perfect time-keeper long after his father has done with Time. If I had not thought of his wearing it hereafter, I should have been content with a ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... easily and rapidly he could produce a picture, said, "I paint very slowly." Ease, and speed of execution, seldom produces work of any permanent value or delicacy. It is the time which is spent in laborious production for which we are repaid by the durable character of the result. And this makes Perikles's work all the more wonderful, because it was built in a short time, and yet has lasted for ages. In beauty each of them at once appeared venerable as soon as it was built; but even at the present day the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... genuine heartiness. There, work implies no weariness, and the pipe is a happy adaptation of Neapolitan "far-niente." Thence comes the peaceful sentiment in Art (its most essential condition), patience, and the element which renders its creations durable, namely, conscience. Indeed, the Flemish character lies in the two words, patience and conscience; words which seem at first to exclude the richness of poetic light and shade, and to make the manners and ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac

... It is a beautiful combination of solidity and lightness. It is perfectly balanced upon its axis. It retains its form under every variety of temperature. Time affects it less than most other works of art. It is as durable ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... most eminent Masons were of Opinion, that Stones of the largest Scantlings were there to be found, or nowhere. An Enquiry was made after all the good Stone that England afforded. Next to Portland, Rock-abbey Stone, and some others in Yorkshire seemed the best and most durable; but large Stone for the Paul's Works was not easily to be had even there. For these Reasons the Surveyor concluded upon Portland-stone, and also to use two Orders, and by that Means to keep the just Proportions of his Cornices; otherwise he must have fallen short of the Height of the Fabrick.... ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock

... my tap is not genuine it is naught, and no man should give himself the trouble to drink it. I do not even say that I would be port if I could; knowing that port (by which I would imply much stronger, deeper, richer, and more durable liquor than my vineyard can furnish) is not relished by all palates, or suitable to all heads. We will assume then, dear brother, that you and I are tolerably modest people; and, ourselves being thus out of the question, proceed ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... appearances, and give them such an union with each other, as I have found by experience to be suitable to their particular natures and circumstances. Here then I am naturally led to regard the world, as something real and durable, and as preserving its existence, even when it is no longer present to ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... Hail to the Osiris N! Thine individuality is permanent. Thy body is durable. Thy mummy doth germinate. Thou art not repulsed from heaven, (neither from) earth. Thy face is illuminated near the Sun. Thy soul liveth near to Ammon. Thy body is rejuvenated near to Osiris. Thou dost breathe forever ...
— Egyptian Literature

... Pierce and Knepp, and which I did also, God knows, promise for Deb. too, but I have the confidence to deny it to the perjury of myself. So, before it was late, there was, beyond my hopes as well as desert, a durable peace; and so to supper, and pretty kind words, and to bed, and there je did hazer con eile to her content, and so with some rest spent the night in bed, being most absolutely resolved, if ever I can master this bout, never ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... all the splendour of a court, and the amusements of a crowded city. Upon it were thousands of spectators, who had come to witness the royal exhibitions, and the first durable bond of amity between two rival nations. Some crowded to behold the tourneyings of the knights with sword, spear, and battle-axe; others to witness the representation of plays, written "expressly for the occasion;" while a third party were delighted with the grotesque figures ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... rises with a straight stem to an enormous height, and the fruit, about the size of a small apple, is full of rich and juicy pulp, and is very good. The timber, also, is hard, fine-grained, and durable,—particularly adapted for such works as are exposed to the weather. But its most remarkable peculiarity is the rich vegetable milk which flows in abundance from it when the bark is cut. This milk is so like to that of ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne

... power. The revolution has been marked throughout by a rapid succession of new depositaries of public authority, each supplanting his predecessor; what grounds have we as yet to believe that this new usurpation, more odious and more undisguised than all that preceded it, will be more durable? Is it that we rely on the particular provisions contained in the code of the pretended constitution, which was proclaimed as accepted by the French people, as soon as the garrison of Paris declared their determination to exterminate all its enemies, and before any of ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... his neighbor shoes made from the hide of a beast that has died of disease, as if of a beast that had been slaughtered in the shambles, for two reasons: first, because he imposes on him (for the skin of a beast that dies of itself is not so durable as the hide of a slaughtered animal); second, because there is danger (for the beast that died of itself might have been stung by a serpent, and the poison remaining in the leather might prove fatal to the wearer of shoes made of that leather). A man ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... he wishes to build a race of supermen," Bentley answered. "His reason for the brain transference is therefore plain. An anthropoid ape has a body which is several times as hardy, durable and mighty as that of even the strongest man, but the ape has not the brain of a civilized man. A specialized man, one with a highly developed brain, generally has a very weak body. He's constantly put to the necessity of taking exercise to keep ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks

... mats, bags, and hats. Unless specially prepared, the soft plant tissue between the harder leaf fibers becomes dry and dirty and breaks in time; hence the ordinary pandan bag or mat can not be considered a durable article. However, when treated to a boiling process or when rolled, as explained for sabutan and the pandan of Majayjay, the leaves yield straw which is stronger and more durable than most palm or sedge straw used ...
— Philippine Mats - Philippine Craftsman Reprint Series No. 1 • Hugo H. Miller

... especially about the rudder, this intention was laid aside, and the old method of sheathing and fitting pursued, as being the most secure; for although it is usual to make the rudder-bands of the same composition, it is not, however, so durable as iron, nor would it, I am well assured, last out such a voyage as ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... himself past recovery, disposed himself to die like a good Mussulman. In his last moments he forgot not his son Bedreddin, but called for him, and said, My son, you see this world is transitory; there is nothing durable but that to which I shall speedily go. You must therefore from henceforth begin to fit yourself for this change, as I have done; you must prepare for it without murmuring, so as to have no trouble of conscience for not acting the part of a really honest man. As for your religion, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... the ship, protected by flexible, transparent suits. Their bodies were short, and squat, four-limbed and evidently powerful. They, like insects, were equipped with a thick, durable exoskeleton, horny, brownish coating that covered arms and legs and head. Their eyes projected slightly, protected by horny protruding walls—eyes that were capable of movement in every direction—and there were three of them, set ...
— The Last Evolution • John Wood Campbell

... Pontianus, my step-son, wishing to gratify me,[22] procured some ebony tablets from that excellent lady Capitolina and brought them to his shop, exhorting him to make what I had ordered out of this rarer and more durable material: such a gift, he said, would be most gratifying to me. Our artist did as Pontianus suggested, as far as the size of the ebony tablets permitted. By careful dove-tailing of minute portions of the tablets he succeeded in making a ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... plants to be carryed thither the winter after your planting, as shall the very next summer following yeeld you some fruite, and the yeere next following, as much as shall suffice a towne as bigge as Calice, and that shortly after shall be able to yeeld you great store of strong durable good sider to drinke, and these trees shall be able to encrease you within lesse then seuen yeeres as many trees presently to beare, as may suffice the people of diuers parishes, which at the first setling may stand you in great stead, if the soile ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... the individual and the plurality: self-restraint, choice of aims, consistent and thorough-paced subordination of the lesser interest to the greater; above all, what sums up asceticism as an efficacious means towards happiness, preference of the spiritual, the unconditional, the durable, instead of the temporal, ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... book, for instance, as the Life of the Duke of Newcastle, by his Duchess—no casket is rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, to honour and keep ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... together with a dictionary of nearly 10,000 Synonyms and other valuable information which space will not admit of mention. The book is printed from new plates, on a superior quality of paper and bound in substantial and durable ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis

... forget their weeping; And the young heavens, forgetful after rain; And evening hush, broken by homing wings; And Song's nobility and Wisdom holy, That live, we dead. I would think of a thousand things, Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly, One after one, like tasting a sweet food. I have need to ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... men; he acquires honorable wisdom, and he prospers. Give, O Maruts, to our lords strength glorious, invincible in battle, brilliant, wealth-acquiring, praiseworthy, known to all men. Let us foster our kith and kin during a hundred winters. Will you then, O Maruts, grant unto us wealth, durable, rich in men, defying all onslaughts?—wealth a hundred and a thousand-fold, always increasing?—May he who is rich in ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... mounted sun to dissipate their delicate white beauty, evanescent as it looks. The chill and the impenetrability of heart, kept by circumstances within him, such frost might typify—that pure, fragile-seeming, yet durable passion, that snow-foam of the waterfall. True it was that this fantastic fancy had the power to draw him to his Welsh patrimony earlier than worldly ambition would have warranted. But his after conduct—his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... by accident at last that he hit upon the secret of how to make India-rubber durable. He was talking one day to several visitors, and in his ardor making rapid gestures, when a piece of rubber which he was holding in his hand accidentally hit against a hot stove. To his amazement, instead of melting, the gum ...
— The Junior Classics • Various



Words linked to "Durable" :   long-lived, undestroyable, durability, durable press, long-lasting, durable goods, serviceable, indestructible, perdurable, long, long-wearing, imperishable



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