"Elevate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will find that to gain such perfect control of thought is enormously more difficult than he supposes, but when he attains it it cannot but be in every way most beneficial to him, and as he grows more and more able to elevate and concentrate his thought, he may gradually find that new worlds are opening before his sight. As a preliminary training towards the satisfactory achievement of such meditation, he will find it desirable to make a practice of concentration in the affairs of daily life—even in the smallest ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... so free from ostentation as the Otaheiteans, and whose manners are so simple and natural, the strictness with which the punctilios of rank are observed is surprising. I know not if any action, however meritorious, can elevate a man above the class in which he was born unless he were to acquire sufficient power to confer dignity on himself. If any woman of the inferior classes has a child by an Earee it is not suffered to live. Perhaps the offspring of Teppahoo and Tetteehowdeeah were destined ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... panted for the tempests of the great external world as earnestly as the conqueror who had so long ridden upon the whirlwind of human affairs sighed for a haven of repose. None of his predecessors had been more despotic, more belligerent, more disposed to elevate and strengthen the temporal power of Rome. In the inquisition he saw the grand machine by which this purpose could be accomplished, and yet found himself for a period the antagonist of Philip. The single circumstance would ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... best, as a well-known writer(29) expresses it in reference to another subject, we should have lived in "a silent and drab-coloured creation." We are prepared by the power that made us for feelings and emotions; and, unless these come to diversify and elevate our existence, we should waste our days in melancholy, and scarcely be able to sustain ourselves. The affection we entertain for those towards whom our partiality and kindness are excited, is the life of our life. It is to this we are indebted for all our refinement, and, in the noblest sense ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... similar effect. The greatest epic poets and satirists have always transcended rules to follow "Nature's light"; Pope, over-topping them all, has "still corrected Nature as she stray'd" (pp. 19, 21). But perhaps Harte's most successful attempt to elevate The Dunciad comes in section two of his poem. Unlike Dryden, in whose Discourse the account of the "progress" of satire is confined almost exclusively to a few Roman writers, Harte begins his account of its progress with Homer and ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... something in those endless and gigantic wildernesses which seems to elevate the soul, and to give to it, as well as to the body, an increase of strength and energy. There reign, in countless multitudes, the wild horse and the bison; the wolf, the bear, and the snake; and, above all, the trapper, surpassing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... standards in the business and professional world can be raised only as certain men, with the spirit and courage of the ancient prophets, make their own personal interests and popularity subservient to the rigorous demands of justice. It is the law of life that he who would elevate the standards of his associates and thus lead men to the fullest realization of the divine ideals must ordinarily do it in the face of opposition, ignominy, and seeming failure. It is this quiet, heroic self-sacrifice—the heroism ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... art is this essential condition—teaching. The aim of art is neither gain nor glory; the true aim of art is to teach, to elevate gradually the spirit of humanity; in a word, to serve in the highest sense—'dienen' as Wagner says by the mouth of the repentant Kundry, in the third ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... They won it bravely; they enjoyed it generously and kindly. No lover ever delighted more to cherish and adorn a mistress, to heighten and illustrate her charms, and to vindicate and defend her against all the world than did the Moors to embellish, enrich, elevate, and defend their beloved Spain. Everywhere I meet traces of their sagacity, courage, urbanity, high poetical feeling, and elegant taste. The noblest institutions in this part of Spain, the best inventions for comfortable and agreeable ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... or late, cannot of course benefit and elevate society until the present mischievous and archaic Divorce Laws are simplified and reformed in accordance with modern sociology and ethics. Unhappy and unsuitable marriages necessarily foster immorality and promote disease, ...
— Safe Marriage - A Return to Sanity • Ettie A. Rout
... barest heath and sky have lovelinesses infinitely beyond the most gorgeous of such phantasmagoric idealization of her beauties; and the most wretched condition of humanity struggling for existence contains elements of worth and future development inappreciable by the philanthropy that would elevate them ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... "Better elevate it some," he said, in the tone of one giving disinterested advice. "The light ain't none too good. I wouldn't want it ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... charmingly spread out before me! I never love to pray in a chamber; it seems to me that the walls and all the little workmanship of man interposed between God and myself: I love to contemplate Him in his works, which elevate my soul, and raise my thoughts to Him. My prayers were pure, I can affirm it, and therefore worthy to be heard:—I asked for myself and her from whom my thoughts were never divided, only an innocent and quiet life, exempt from vice, sorrow and want; I prayed that we ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... aim to elevate the standard of education in your schools, and remember that the mother and the teacher are the makers of those who are to rule ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... cabbage; but now that he is himself the clothier, the joke is pointless and absurd. Tailors, however, can afford to laugh, as well as other people, at their conventional double—or rather ninth, for at least in our own day they have wrought very hard to elevate their calling into a science. The period of lace and frippery of all kinds has passed away, and this is the era of simple form, in which sartorial genius has only cloth to work upon as severely plain as the statuary's marble. It is true, we ourselves do not understand the 'anatomical ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... able to find it among their other superficial discoveries. Nothing can be less like the ordinary cravings of avarice than the feeling that is thus engendered; and I am certain that the general tendency of such an influence is to elevate the feelings of him ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... sphere in which they are accustomed to move—it is not as if the bird had intruded itself into the water, or the wild animal into the haunts of man. Annihilation is not the immediate result. People may do no more than elevate their eyebrows in astonishment, laugh sarcastically, lift up their hands in protest. And yet so well defined is the sphere of social activity that he who departs from it is doomed. Born and bred in this environment, the individual ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... Caesar's; and I say, render to God the things that are God's. Republican of America, I recall you to the love of the people, to the love of equality. You trample on the people to kiss the hands of a queen; I would throw down a queen to elevate a people. I do not disturb you in your adoration; leave me in peace at my work. You say to me, die, for you have offended the object of my worship; and I say to you, who combat mine, live, for I feel myself so strong in my principles, ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... If we are conscious of our situation, and glow with zeal to fill our place as becomes our station and ourselves, we ought to auspicate all our public proceedings on America with the old warning of the Church, Sursum corda! We ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the Bolshevist coup d'etat took place at Saratov. I was witness to these facts myself. Saratov is a big university and intellectual center, possessing a great number of schools, libraries, and divers associations designed to elevate the intellectual standard of the population. The Zemstvo of Saratov was one of the best in Russia. The peasant population of this province, among whom the revolutionary Socialist propaganda was carried ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... meet a boy riding on a donkey, and ask him the postaya distance to Erzingan; the youth looks frightened half out of his. senses, but manages to retain sufficient presence of mind to elevate one finger, by which I understand him to mean that it is one hour, or about four miles. Accordingly I pedal perseveringly ahead, hoping to reach the city before dusk, at the same time feeling rather surprised at finding it so near, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... historical information with which the book abounds gives evidence of deep research and patient study, and imparts a permanent interest to the volume, which will elevate it to a position of authority and importance enjoyed by few of ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... what cannot be done without Him. He will give the motive to resist, which is lacking in the majority of cases. He will give the power to resist, which is lacking in all cases. He will put a new life and spirit into our nature which will strengthen and transform our feeble wills, will elevate and glorify our earthward trailing affections, will make us love that which He loves, and aspire to that which He is, until we become, in the change from glory to glory, reflections of the image of the Lord. As habit and as dominant power within us, nothing ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... production through its insistence on the importance and dignity of manual labour.[1] As we showed above, one of the principal achievements of Christianity in the social sphere was to elevate labour from a degrading to an honourable occupation. The example of Christ Himself and the Apostles must have made a deep impression on the early Christians; but no less important was the living example to be seen in the monasteries. The part played by the ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... every personal accomplishment and every mental acquisition has its transient and its permanent side. So far as we cultivate them to enrich and to ennoble our natures, to enlarge and to elevate our understandings, to become wiser, better, and more useful to our fellow-beings, we are cultivating our Characters,—the spiritual essence of our being; but these very same acquisitions, when sought from motives wholly selfish and worldly, are not ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... report, shout, love, hate, like, scream, loathe, approve, fear, obey, refine, hop, elevate, skip, disapprove. ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... appropriate, relevant. Still let them give sage counsel, back the good, Attemper wrath, and cool impetuous blood, Praise the spare meal that pleases but not sates, Justice, and law, and peace with unbarred gates, Conceal all secrets, and the gods implore To crush the proud and elevate the poor. ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... gentleman in a bright crimson coat with long tails, vividly red breeches, and a cocked hat, who was standing with his back to the fire, and had apparently just entered, for besides retaining his cocked hat on his head, he carried in his hand a high stick, such as gentlemen of his profession usually elevate in a sloping position over ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... of a race, stripped and stranded so completely as these freedmen were in 1865, that has shown such marvelous progress in a quarter of a century. They have responded wonderfully to every effort made to elevate them, and have shown in themselves such versatility and vigor of intellect as give high ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various
... because all angels were once men, and this own clings to the angels from their birth. It is only put aside, and so far as it is put aside the angels receive love and wisdom, that is, the Lord, in themselves. Any one, if he will only elevate his understanding a little, can see that the Lord can dwell in angels, only in what is His, that is, in what is His very own, which is love and wisdom, and not at all in the selfhood of angels, which is evil. ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... anything that remains to be perfected; to be perfectly spiritualized, and yet to retain its contact with every part of its subject.... Lest I should talk foolishly on this subject, I will dismiss it, only begging you not to forget how your letters cheer, rejoice, elevate, renovate me." ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... present times. The immediate result of these new opportunities, I regret to say, has been to make us more jealous of the genius of others, than conscious of the limitations of our own; and to make us rather desire to enlarge our wealth by the sale of art, than to elevate our enjoyments by ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... people to come into his cabin, where Mr. Ingelo prayed with them, and returned praises to the Lord for this deliverance: an occasion sufficient to elevate his spirit, and, meeting with his affections and abilities, tended the more to the setting forth His glory, whose name they had so much cause more than others ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... most part, behave towards one who is in a lower rank (not employed in her service) when she speaks to her. This may be because differences of rank are much more precarious with women than with us, and consequently more quickly change their line of conduct and elevate them, or because while a hundred things must be weighed in our case, there is only one to be weighed in theirs, namely, with which man they have found favour; and again, because of the one-sided nature ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... towards us that exceeded largely anything that is required by the terms or the spirit of a political alliance,—the solitary Orlans King, the shadowy Republic of '48, and the imperial government, all have endeavored to do something to elevate France, to win for her new glories, and to regain for her her old position. The expedition into Spain, in 1823, ostensibly made in the interest of Absolutism, was really undertaken for the purpose of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... merry, joyous party, and no one seemed in higher spirits than Captain Wentworth. She felt that he had every thing to elevate him which general attention and deference, and especially the attention of all the young women, could do. The Miss Hayters, the females of the family of cousins already mentioned, were apparently admitted to the honour of being in ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... near to the crown, but there seemed no reason for choosing one more than another. One party wished to name the head of the House of the Litany, in Med, the King's city, who was the chief administrator of justice. Another, more democratic than these, wished to elevate to the throne a man from whose family we had won knowledge of both perpetual ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... Stearns' administration the small building originally occupied by the school was outgrown; and Divinity Hall was built on land east of the town, donated by Professor Frederic Huidekoper, and first occupied in 1861. In 1857 began a movement to elevate, the standard of admission to the school, in order that its work might be of a more advanced character. To meet the needs of those not able to accept this higher standard, a preparatory department was established in 1858, which was ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... varied than theirs, theirs is the only method by which this subject-matter can be interpreted. England has done one thing; it has invented and established Public Opinion, which is an attempt to organise the ignorance of the community, and to elevate it to the dignity of physical force. But Wisdom has always been hidden from it. Considered as an instrument of thought, the English mind is coarse and undeveloped. The only thing that can purify it is the growth of the ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... were glad to get him as a contributor to their columns. A great change had come over the community with reference to their beliefs. Christian believers were united as never before in the feeling that, after all, their common object was to elevate the moral and religious standard of humanity. But within the special compartments of the great Christian fold the marks of division have pronounced themselves in the most unmistakable manner. As an example we may take the lines of cleavage which have shown themselves in the ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... has been a resident of Chicago. Her husband is now editor of the New Covenant, a paper published in Chicago, Illinois, in advocacy of Universalist sentiments, and, at the same time, of those measures of reform, which tend to elevate and purify erring and sinful human nature. Of this paper Mrs. ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... internal fires be yet spreading, and the continents expanding instead of contracting? And may there not be an inequality in this process, so as necessarily to immerse in one direction nearly as much as to elevate in another? One fact is certain, the elements are scattering the materials of the land along its Oceanic coasts, which of itself must produce a very minute effect in disturbing the hydrostatic balance; but a more efficient agent ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... another." It is not surprising to learn that a prince who was so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of civilization should have caused the Chinese classics to be translated into the Kin language. Of all the Kin rulers he was the most intellectual and the most anxious to elevate the standard of his people, who were far ruder than the ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... the favor to fix his attention upon the real question at issue. What I say—what then I said to Lady Carbery—is this: that, by failing to notice as a differential feature of Christianity this involution of a doctrinal part, we elevate Paganism to a dignity which it never dreamed of. Thus, for instance, in the Eleusinian mysteries, what was the main business transacted? I, for my part, in harmony with my universal theory on this subject,—namely, that there could be no doctrinal truth delivered in a Pagan religion,— ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... can only be hinted at in this chapter. Of Islamism, Bishop Boyd Carpenter testifies that it "has been, and still is, a great power in the world. There is much in it that is calculated to purify and elevate mankind at a certain stage of history. It has the power of redeeming the slaves of a degraded polytheism from their low groveling conception of God to conceptions which are higher; it has set an example of sobriety to the world and has shielded its followers ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... that he was left quite free to choose his own expressions; and as he has acknowledged his shame and compunction for the act, I trust that none of you will be tempted to elevate him into a hero, for a folly which he himself so much regrets. This affair—as I should wish all bad deeds to be after they have once been punished—will now be ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... rather apparent than real. He had indeed laboured with a wonderful show of success to reduce the world under her laws; but he had done so by relaxing her laws to suit the temper of the world. Instead of toiling to elevate human nature to the noble standard fixed by divine precept and example, he had lowered the standard till it was beneath the average level of human nature. He gloried in multitudes of converts who had been baptized in the remote regions of the East: but it was reported that from ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... employ a hundred thousand men for twenty years, equal to two millions of men for one year, must have been fearfully tormenting. It has been calculated that the steam engines of England worked by thirty-six thousand men, would raise the same quantity of stones from the quarry, and elevate them to the same height as the great pyramid, in the short space of eighteen hours. It was recorded on the pyramid, that the onions, radishes, and garlic, which the labourers consumed, cost sixteen hundred talents of silver, which is equivalent ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... picked up. Nevertheless, a few of the scats studied may have been those of foxes. Judging from the contents of scats that were certainly from foxes, the effect of inadvertent inclusion of fox scats would be to elevate the percentage of scats containing berries (but not more than five percentage points). Each scat was broken up and the percentage of scats containing each of the following items was noted (figures are to the nearest per ...
— Mammals of Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado • Sydney Anderson
... agency by which he is evolved is of itself subversive of all these higher properties; the struggle for existence is essentially selfish, and, therefore, degrading. Even in the lower animals, it is a false assumption that its tendency is to elevate; for animals, when driven to the utmost verge of the struggle for life, become depauperated and degraded. The dog which spends its life in snarling contention with its fellow curs for insufficient food, will not be ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... accompanied too with some circumstances, which still further augment the absurdity and ridicule. Your sport only elevates for a few days, those whom fortune has thrown down, and whom she too, in sport, may really elevate forever above you. But this nation gravely exalts those, whom nature has subjected to them, and whose inferiority and infirmities are absolutely incurable. The women, though without virtue, are their masters ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... officers of ability were doing all they could with an undisciplined army, while the rank and file were eager to drive the foe out of Boston. A leader like Washington was needed to organize and manipulate this rough mass of material. A chief like him, too, was indispensable to elevate their moral condition; for drunkenness, revelry, lewdness, profanity, gambling, not to mention other ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... me. I will give you a good time; I will give you all the Venice you want, and most of the Paris. I, Walt, I call to you. I am all on deck! Come and loafe with me! Let me tote you around by your elbow and show you things. You listen to my ophicleide! Home! Home, I celebrate. I elevate my fog-whistle, inspir'd by the thought of home. Come in!—take a front seat; the jostle of the crowd not minding; there is room enough for all of you. This is my exhibition—it is the greatest show on earth—there is no charge for admission. All you have to pay me is ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... beware of him who jests at everything! Such men disparage by some ludicrous association all objects which are presented to their thoughts, and thereby render themselves incapable of any emotion which can either elevate or soften them, they bring upon their moral being an influence more withering than the blast of the desert. A countenance, if it be wrinkled either with smiles or with frowns, is to be shunned; the furrows which the latter ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... with his shield, the soldier levelled his musket and shot the injured husband dead. Ah! sadness of it! The unbridled passions of men of the new race already foreshadowed the death of the old race, even while the good priests were seeking to elevate and to Christianize them. This attack and consequent disturbance delayed still longer the founding of ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... is this silence to be permanent, or are you going to begin shortly to amuse, elevate, and instruct? Something's happened to you, Jimmy. There was a time when you were a bright little chap, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. Where be your gibes now; your gambols, your songs, ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... This is not wholly due to the change in the standard. The war with China, the increase in the army and navy, and the absorption of laborers in Formosa, the new country of Japan, have combined with the higher standard of value, to elevate wages. All facts are of primary excellence in the formation ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... modified by circumstance. Should the comet strike the earth obliquely, it would glance off, and the consequences would be partial. If the point of collision were on a continent of the globe, mountains would be hurled from their bases, and new ones would elevate their ridges towards the clouds. Were the place of meeting on either of the great oceans, some regions would be deserted, and others would be inundated by the waters of the sea. These dreadful consequences would ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... marine, just the same as we had been before, but there didn't seem to be the difference between us that there had been. Her words, her spirits, everything about her, in fact, seemed to act on me, to elevate me, to fill my soul with noble sentiments, to make another man of me. Standing there beside her, I felt myself her equal. In life or death I would not be ashamed to say, 'Here I am, ready to stand by you, ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... investigation by the amiable Beattie, and other less eloquent and not more profound inaugurators of common sense on the throne of philosophy; a fruitless attempt, were it only that it is the two-fold function of philosophy to reconcile reason with common sense, and to elevate common sense ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... such, however, as was performed by the slave, but skilled labor—labor where the hand is guided by an intellect, quickened by the agency of class-room and laboratory for the task assigned; labor, such as will reflect credit upon and elevate a gentleman. For there is no honest work a gentleman may not do. Work elevates a man. It perpetuates the manhood he inherited, which was built up by labor and thought in the flesh and blood of his ancestors. The necessity for labor, ...
— A Broader Mission for Liberal Education • John Henry Worst
... but scattered leaves, giving a clear space for the birds to play and exhibit their plumes. On one of these trees a dozen or twenty full-plumaged male birds assemble together, raise up their wings, stretch out their necks, and elevate their exquisite plumes, keeping them in a continual vibration. Between whiles they fly across from branch to branch in great excitement, so that the whole tree is filled with waving plumes in every ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... chair of state 'Neath the dais is gently elevate,— But his smile bespeaks no lordly pride: Sweet Edith sits by her loved sire's side, And five hundred guests, some free, some thrall, Sit by the tables along the wide hall, Each with his platter, and stout drink-horn,— They count on ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... attained to a good old age. To speak in the spirit of the ancient religion, it seems that a beneficent Providence wished in this individual to evince to the human race the dignity and blessedness of its lot, by endowing him with every divine gift, with all that can adorn and elevate the mind and the heart, and crowning him with every imaginable blessing of this life. Descended from rich and honourable parents, and born a free citizen of the most enlightened state of Greece;—there were birth, necessary condition, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... man an imperceptible place in the material world, she assigns him, on the other hand, a vast share in the intellectual world. The writings which, supported by the invincible deductions of science, thus elevate man in his own eyes, will find grateful readers in ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... and a taste for introducing impossible people to irreproachable cookery. Like most men who combine three thousand a year with an uncertain digestion, Lucas was a Socialist, and he argued that you cannot hope to elevate the masses until you have brought plovers' eggs into their lives and taught them to appreciate the difference between coupe Jacques and Macedoine de fruits. His friends pointed out that it was a doubtful kindness to initiate a boy from behind a drapery counter ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... few Petrarchan antitheses. In the very large number of compositions which are devoted to love, this one idea predominates: that physical beauty is a direct beam sent from the eternal source of all reality, in order to elevate the lover's soul and lead him on the upward path toward heaven. Carnal passion he regards with the aversion of an ascetic. It is impossible to say for certain to whom these mystical love-poems were addressed. ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... before) and addresses should be made, setting forth the great advantage of a free library to every family. Its value to educate the people, to furnish entertainment that will go far to supplant idleness and intemperance, to help on the work of the public schools, and to elevate the taste, improve the morals, quicken the intellect and employ the leisure hours of all, ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... of loyalty to one's calling has led to the glossing over of certain evils which could have been cured much earlier if they had been made public. It is all very well to be generous and courteous toward one's competitors but the finest courtesy in any business consists of doing whatever tends to elevate the standard ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... conceived that this intellectual advance would have far-reaching effects on the condition of mankind. The first title he had proposed to give to his Discourse on Method was "The Project of a Universal Science which can elevate our Nature to its highest degree of Perfection." He regarded moral and material improvement as depending ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... he was for many years "very scantily supplied." It was not till 1812, indeed, that the Admiralty, shocked by the discovery that he had practically nothing to elevate his mind but daily association with the quarter-deck, began to pour into the fleet copious supplies of literature for his use. Thereafter the sailor could beguile his leisure with such books as the Old Chaplains Farewell Letter, Wilson's Maxims, The Whole Duty of Man, Seeker's ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... continued he; "oh! if I ever rejoiced and felt pride in my sovereign rank it is that, thanks to this rank, I can elevate you as much as you have heretofore been abased. Do you hear, my darling child—my beloved daughter? for it is ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... to remain where he was and perform his consular duties, to appoint him his secretary, and to elevate the United States in the opinion of the Opekians above all ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... public-houses, kept respectively by Liardet and Lingham. Both were respectable people in their way, but the first was also a character. Of good family connection, he had enjoyed a life of endless adventure, which, however, had never seemed any more to elevate him by fortune than to depress him by its reverse. He was a kind of roving Garibaldi, minus, indeed, the hero's war-paint and the Italian unity, but with all his frankness and indomitable resource. Having a family of active young ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... surpass. The coloring and decorations of her rooms would not be more rich, varied, or in better taste, than the diversity, and yet harmony of the people she would bring together by her adroit selections. She had studied society, and for it she lived, not to make it better, not to elevate its character, and tone down its extravagances, but simply to shine in it, to ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... are, stulti nesciunt, ipsi sentiunt: they feel, fools perceive not, as I shall prove elsewhere, and their wealth is brittle, like children's rattles: they come and go, there is no certainty in them: those whom they elevate, they do as suddenly depress, and leave in a vale of misery. The middle sort of men are as so many asses to bear burdens; or if they be free, and live at ease, they spend themselves, and consume their bodies and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Representatives from the Plymouth district. The gentleman who threw out this tentative proposition remarked that in his opinion the acceptance of this position by an ex-President "instead of degrading the individual would elevate the representative character." Mr. Adams replied, that he "had in that respect no scruple whatever. No person could be degraded by serving the people as a Representative in Congress. Nor in my opinion would an ex-President ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... swept away. Broken by it, I too may be; bow to it, I never will. The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause which we deem to be just. It shall not deter me. If I ever feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country deserted by all the world beside, and I, standing up boldly and alone, hurling defiance at her victorious ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... to us in the old Sutras? Instead of depending, as they now do, on Chinese translations, not always accurate, of degraded and degrading Mahayana tracts, why should they not have Japanese translations of the best portions of Buddha's real doctrine, which would elevate their character, and give them a religion of which they need not be ashamed? There are Chinese translations of some of the better portions of the Sacred Writings of Buddhism. They exist in Japan too, as may be seen in that magnificent collection of ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... industry, busied about things which had no apparent concern with the world outside the walls of that well-known house, but which, at a later period of his life, he, with an unrivalled eloquence, taught his countrymen to appreciate as foremost among those living influences which but satisfy and elevate the noblest instincts of our nature. What sort of intercourse passed between the father and the boy may be gathered from an incident or two which he narrated as having impressed themselves permanently on the memory of his youth. He once asked his father what he thought was the oldest of all things. ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... ought to do, you can look for a crop that will make your heart glad to see and gather it. You cannot, in reason and nature expect it sooner. If your ground has been prepared in the Fall, so much the better, and if thrown into ridges, so as to elevate the ground somewhat, where the row is to be, they may be planted in the Fall. The advantages of Fall planting are as follows: The ground will generally work better, as we have better weather in the Fall; ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... that the prevailing winds of the whole continent embraced within the limits of the United States are uniformly from the west, still, over this eastern division, counter-winds of a lower character disturb, modify, and elevate the course of this great westerly current, giving rise to the exceeding variability of the surface winds, which, as is well known, may blow within the brief space of twenty-four hours from all directions of the compass, at almost any time and ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... and a deep feeling. Like the women of old Rome who agitated the republic by the impulses of their hearts, or who exalted or depressed the empire with their love, she sought to mingle her feelings with her politics, and desired that the elevation of her genius should elevate him she loved. Her sex precluded her from that open action which public position, the tribune, or the army only accord to men in public governments; and thus she compulsorily remained unseen in the events she guided. To be the hidden destiny of some great man, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... purchased titles of honour in almost all parts of the world, though money could not give principles of honour, they must come by birth and blood; that, however, titles sometimes assist to elevate the soul and to infuse generous principles into the mind, and especially where there was a good foundation laid in the persons; that he hoped we should neither of us misbehave if we came to it; and that as we knew how to wear a title without ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... one of these so well architected minsters, and there, irrorating myself with fair lustral water, I mumble off little parcels of some missic precation of our sacrificuls, and, submurmurating my horary precules, I elevate and absterge my anime from its nocturnal inquinations. I revere the Olympicols. I latrially venere the supernal Astripotent. I dilige and redame my proxims. I observe the decalogical precepts, and, according to the facultatule of my vires, I do not discede from them one late unguicule. Nevertheless, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... dexterous art; Concealing from their eyes the bitter truth; Lending convenient colour to their rage; And, lavish, above all, of wretches' blood. At length, to Baal, whom she had introduced, By Athaliah was a temple reared. Jerusalem did weep to see herself Profaned: The alarmed band of Levi's race Did elevate to heaven appalling cries. Giving example to the timid Jews. Deserter from their law, myself approved The enterprise, and merited by that Baal's priesthood: and I made myself withal A terror to my rival; I put on The turban—walked his equal. Ne'ertheless I must avow, that in that ...
— Athaliah • J. Donkersley
... viper we both cherished; even by one of those recreants to whom you owe your exaltation. With double perfidy, you overthrew the King by attributing to him the crimes of his favourites, and then converted them into state-engines, first to elevate you to greatness, and afterwards to convey away the offscourings of the dignity you had soiled. My King was open to conviction. He knew the fidelity of his soldier, and purposed to make him ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... it altogether, if it could be done."—Kames, El. of Crit., i, 36. "Such a sentiment from a man expiring of his wounds, is truly heroic, and must elevate the mind to the greatest height that can be done by a single expression."—Ib., i, 204. "Successive images making thus deeper and deeper impressions, must elevate more than any single image can do."—Ib., i, 205. "Besides ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... enemies sharply reproach her alike for not having a fitting object in her political intrigues, and for being unmindful of her own interests. But they appear not to be aware that, in thinking to overwhelm her memory by such accusation, they rather elevate it, and they are assiduous to cover her faults and misconduct—faults which, after all, are centred in one alone. In short, some writers cast the greater part of the blame the young Duchess's conduct merits upon her husband, who, according ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... so much in the true home are infinitely weaker in the town than in the country. In a London home there is nothing to fascinate the eye. The contemplation of the mews and the chimney-pots through the back-windows of the nursery will not elevate even the most impressible child. There is no mystery, no dreamland, no Enchanted Palace, no Bluebeard's Chamber, in a stucco mansion built by Cubitt, or a palace of terra-cotta on the Cadogan estate. There can be no traditions of the past, no inspiring memories of virtuous ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... the Kearsarge being deliberate, precise, and almost from the commencement productive of death, destruction, and dismay. The Kearsarge gunners had been cautioned against firing without direct aim, advised to elevate or depress the guns with deliberation, and though subjected to an incessant storm of shot and shell, proceeded calmly to their duty, and faithfully complied with the instructions. The effect upon the enemy was readily perceived; ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne
... conduct have at all times a tendency to promote the comfort, and elevate the character of the poor. How often have we seen them thus blessed; the ragged family comfortably clothed, the hungry fed, and the inmates of a dirty miserable cottage or hovel become a pattern of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... sleepers. Big, bloated, with a coarse, ruffianly face, Jack lay back with his mouth open, anything but a sleeping beauty. Julius had never thought much of his appearance, but now that he had himself begun to cherish some faint aspirations to elevate himself above his present condition, he looked upon his associates with different eyes, and it struck him forcibly that his guardian had ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... rapidly in his studies, to the ardent pursuit of which he was urged by every generous motive that could fire a human bosom—affection for his mother, whose condition he was anxious to elevate; gratitude to his patron, whose great kindness he wished to justify, and admiration for Clara, whose esteem he was ambitious ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... layers, which will be of varying thickness about a spot, will account for all the shades of darkness seen in the penumbra. Ascending currents from the solar surface will elevate certain regions, and may increase the solar activity near by, and will thus give rise to faculae, which HERSCHEL shows to be elevated above the general surface. It will not be necessary to give a further account of this theory. The data in the possession ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... acknowledged him a warrior-chief as well as a prophet, and collected around him a large body of retainers. It has been thought by some that Makana was a "noble" savage, and that although he imposed on the credulity of his countrymen, his aim was to raise himself to sovereign power in order to elevate the Kafir race nearer to a level ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... accept the superintendency of the military academy at West Point? I advise it. Your rank and history will elevate it and solve all trouble. Admiral Porter's example at Annapolis is suggested as precedent. The President, Secretary Taft, and I are unanimous on the wisdom and propriety of it. Advise me of your decision as early as you can—certainly this week. You will ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... enjoyment in the beautiful growing things of the woods and fields, and in the ceaseless changes going on among them. Almost unconsciously they gain through all these a wisdom which is better than book lore, a discipline of heart and mind and temper which tends to soften and elevate the whole nature, leaving them less open to the temptations incident to youth and ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... by those who master it as an organ of expression, to convey deep emotion under perfect control, than which nothing is more moving, nothing better calculated to refine the mind, nothing more certain to elevate ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... the confession that he loved her; and it was not until reason demanded of his sincerity why he felt a pang on seeing Mary's purse in the hands of Mr. Lascelles, that with a glowing cheek he owned to himself that he was jealous: that although he had not presumed to elevate one wish towards the possession of Miss Beaufort, yet when Lascelles flaunted her name on his tongue, he found how deep would be the wound in his peace should she ever give her hand to another ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... enormous underlying energy which spent itself in labour, "ohne Hast, aber auch ohne Rast." He found the conventional atmosphere of Cambridge uncongenial, and with a friend he established the Round Hill school at Northampton, Mass. This was the first serious effort made in the United States to elevate secondary education to the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... of books. The wit of the clouted shoe is there without its coarseness: there is a prodigality of humour without licentiousness, a pathos ever natural and manly, a social joy akin sometimes to sadness, a melancholy not unallied to mirth, and a sublime morality which seeks to elevate and soothe. To a love of man he added an affection for the flowers of the valley, the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the field: he perceived the tie of social sympathy which united animated with unanimated nature, and in many of his finest poems ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... are far above our comprehension. It is called supernatural, because it comes from God alone; for no man ever can bestow faith upon himself. Here, then, the light of faith and the Light of glory resemble each other, inasmuch as they both come immediately from God, and elevate man above himself. But they vastly differ in intensity; for by faith we see God imperfectly and unsatisfactorily, whereas by the Light of glory we see God as he is in himself. Faith, therefore, is as the first faint blush of the morning, while the Light of glory is ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... flourishing a sword in a drawing-room: it will lose the case. Where the weakest are to be convinced speech must stoop: a full consideration of the velleities and uncertainties, a little bombast to elevate the feelings without committing the judgment, some vague effusion of sentiment, an inapposite blandness, a meaningless rodomontade—these are the by-ways to be travelled by the style that is a willing slave to its audience. The like is true of those documents—petitions, ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... necessarily require the influences of civilised life to make an honourable, upright man, any more than it needs the influences of savage life to make a thorough scoundrel. Of course the tendency of civilisation is to elevate, of savagery to debase, nevertheless it is certain that as we occasionally see blackguards in the highest ranks, so we sometimes find men and women with exalted conceptions of right and wrong in ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... son of Geoffroy, who wrested Denmark from the Pagans, and reigned the first Christian king of that country. In his education nothing was neglected to elevate him to the standard of a perfect knight, and render him accomplished in all the arts necessary to make ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... pure intuition, while it proclaims energetically the autonomy of art and of the aesthetic activity, is at the same time averse to all aestheticism, that is, to every attempt at lowering the life of thought, in order to elevate that of fancy. The origin of aestheticism is the same as that of mysticism. Both proceed from a rebellion against the predominance of the abstract sciences and against the undue abuse of the principle of causation in metaphysic. When ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... frontiers—and making their name respected in the remotest parts of the earth! Consider the extent of its territory, its increasing and happy population, its advance in arts, which render life agreeable, and the sciences which elevate the mind! See education spreading the lights of religion, morality, and general information into every cottage in this wide extent of our Territories and States! Behold it as the asylum where the wretched ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... Berwick was the nominal Commander-in-Chief, his youth, and the distractions incident to youth, left the more mature and popular Sarsfield the possession of real power, both civil and military. Every fortunate accident had combined to elevate that gallant cavalry officer into the position of ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... Court. The partisans of the Bakufu supported the project, but the friends of the Imperial family denounced it strenuously. Nothing moved the Emperor, however. His Majesty appears to have thought that to bestow the princess' hand on a subject and to elevate her elder brother to the throne would surely be productive of serious mischief, since the husband of the princess, supported by the Bakufu, would prove an ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... death of her brothers, and thus united once more the power and possessions of his name. He was himself a young man, but of full age, no longer a boy, and he would seem to have combined with much of the steady determination to aggrandise and elevate his race which was characteristic of the Douglases, and their indifference to commonplace laws and other people's rights, an impulsiveness of character, and temptation towards ostentation and display, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... application of her talents she was influenced by another incentive. A loose ribaldry tainted the songs and ballads which circulated among the peasantry, and she was convinced that the diffusion of a more wholesome minstrelsy would essentially elevate the moral tone of the community. Thus, while still young, she commenced to purify the older melodies, and to compose new songs, which were ultimately destined to occupy an ample share of the national heart. The occasion of an agricultural dinner in the neighbourhood afforded her a fitting ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... disdainful spirit, the common failing of the nobility. He was at first, therefore, astonished at so extraordinary an application, expressed surprise at Marius's views, and advised him, as if in friendship, "not to indulge such unreasonable expectations, or elevate his thoughts above his station; that all things were not to be coveted by all men; that his present condition ought to satisfy him; and, finally, that he should be cautious of asking from the Roman people ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... spiritual tone to embrace Christianity, he nevertheless lived a disciple of paganism. His feelings rather than his reason led him to defend national creeds. His philosophy and the Christian, which seemed to be aspirations after the same end, being designed to elevate the spirit above the world of sense, were really radically opposed. Understanding therefore the power of the Christian religion, he felt the necessity for supplanting it; and hoped to do so by spiritualizing the old creeds, which he ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... enables us to reconstruct with sufficient correctness certain sacred legends and to recover part of the theology of the mysteries. Unlike Greek art, the religious art at the close of paganism did not seek, or sought only incidentally, to elevate the soul through the contemplation of an ideal of divine beauty. True to the traditions of the ancient Orient, it tried to edify and to instruct at the same time.[22] It told the history of the gods and the ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... been able to maintain his ground at Fribourg, had he not been at this juncture reinforced by the body of troops under the command of the hereditary prince of Brunswick. As for Daun, the advantages he had gained did not elevate his mind above the usual maxims of his cautious discretion. Instead of attacking the king of Prussia, respectable and formidable even in adversity, he quietly occupied the strong camp at Pirna, where he might be at hand to succour Dresden in case it ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... NONCHALANCE. It instructed its students ever to appear inattentive in the society of men, and heartless when they conversed with women. It taught them not to understand a man if he were witty; to misunderstand him if he were eloquent; to yawn or stare if he chanced to elevate his voice, or presumed to ruffle the placidity of the social calm by addressing his fellow-creatures with teeth unparted. Excellence was never to be recognised, but only disparaged with a look: an ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... least that his labours must in some way terminate here. But raise your eyes, and behold a second flight of stairs still higher, on which again Piranesi is perceived, but this time standing on the very brink of the abyss. Again elevate your eye, and a still more aerial flight of stairs is beheld, and again is poor Piranesi busy on his aspiring labours; and so on, until the unfinished stairs and Piranesi both are lost in the upper gloom of the hall. With the same power of endless ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... always bitterly against a man who is imposed upon the electors," replied the examining-judge, "but when it happens that the good people of Arcis have to elevate one of their own equals to the Chamber, envy and jealousy are ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... what more need I desire To stir, to soothe, or elevate? What nobler marvels than the mind May in life's daily prospect find, May find ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... or empire, or nationality. The ruder sort of men—that is, men at ONE stage of rudeness—will sacrifice all they hope for, all they have, THEMSELVES, for what is called an idea—for some attraction which seems to transcend reality, which aspires to elevate men by an interest higher, deeper, wider than that of ordinary life. But this order of men are uninterested in the plain, palpable ends of government; they do not prize them; they do not in the least comprehend how ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... the country. He had, after many misgivings, consented to appear in "vaudeville." The financial inducement was large, and he soothed his artistic conscience with the argument that his music would tend to elevate the vaudeville rather than that the vaudeville would tend to degrade him. It was at the Orpheus Theatre in San Francisco, and it was his first appearance. He played one or two selections, and being tremendously applauded, and correspondingly ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... elevate history in France from the jejune and trifling details of genealogy, courts, wars, and negotiations, in which it had hitherto, in his country, been involved, to the more general contemplation of arts and philosophy, and the progress of human affairs; and, in some respects, he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... oriental despotism the spirit of British freedom; who never forgot that the end of government is the happiness of the governed; who abolished cruel bites; who effaced humiliating distinctions; who gave liberty to the expression of public opinion; whose constant study it was to elevate the intellectual and moral character of the nations committed to his charge; THIS MONUMENT was erected by men who, differing in race, in manners, in language, and in religion, cherish with equal veneration and gratitude the memory ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... memorial of that foot-to-foot feud. It is of perennial use, as the tendencies against which it is directed are constant in human nature. Men are ever apt to confound form and substance, to crave material embodiments of spiritual realities, to elevate outward means into the place of the inward and real, to which all the outward is but subsidiary. In every period of strife between the two great opponents, this letter has been the stronghold of those who fight for the spiritual conception ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... And the most ignorant man in a little place like Marshmallows, one like you with leisure ought to know and understand, and have some good influence upon: he is your brother whom you are bound to care for and elevate—I do not mean socially, but really, in himself—if it be possible. You ought at least to get into some simple human relation with him, as you would with the youngest and most ignorant of your brothers and sisters born of the same father and mother; approaching him, not with pompous ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald |
