"Ennoble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all Jews into "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." Their activity cannot be paralleled in the whole range of the world's history. They were not priests, but popular educators and popular teachers. They were animated by the desire to instil into every soul a deeply religious consciousness, to ennoble every heart by moral aspirations, to indoctrinate every individual with an unequivocal theory of life, to inspire every member of the nation with lofty ideals. Their work did not fail to leave its traces. Slowly but ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... turn to her prose. There she shows strength of character and goodness of heart. One aim, never lost sight of, is perceptible through all, and gives unity to the whole; this is a fervent desire to ennoble human life; consequently her works will long have influence, and continue ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... Academy of Design, she studied "in silent reverential awe," the marble face of Harriet Hosmer's Beatrice Cenci, and declared, "Making that cold marble breathe and pulsate, Harriet Hosmer has done more to ennoble and elevate woman than she could possibly have done by mere words...." Of Rosa Bonheur, the first woman to venture into the field of animal painting, she said, "Her work not only surpasses anything ever done by a woman, but is a bold and successful ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... temporary gains, whether of money or praise, fixing his attention solely upon what is intrinsically interesting and permanent, and finding his happiness in an entire devotion of himself to such pursuits as shall most ennoble human nature. We have not yet seen enough of this in modern times; and never was there a period in society when such examples were likely to do more good than at present. The industry and love of truth which distinguish Sir Joshua's mind are most admirable; but he appears to me to have lived ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the consequence of his brain and nerves; and having thus, by logical analysis, got rid of the spirit of man, their reason and their conscience quite honestly and consistently see no need for, or possibility of, a Spirit of God, to ennoble and enable the human spirit. Why need there be, if the difference between an animal and a man be one of degree alone, and not ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... what he was. The effort to grasp the great truths of revelation imparts freshness and vigor to all the faculties. It expands the mind, sharpens the perceptions, and ripens the judgment. The study of the Bible will ennoble every thought, feeling, and aspiration as no other study can. It gives stability of purpose, patience, courage, and fortitude; it refines the character, and sanctifies the soul. An earnest, reverent study of the Scriptures, ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... his strength than it costs ourselves. But if, in the inscrutable providence of the Almighty, this generation is disappointed in its lofty aspirations for the race, if we have not virtue enough to ennoble our whole people, and make it a nation of sovereigns, we shall at least hold in undying honor those who vindicated the insulted majesty of the Republic, and struck at her assailants so long as a drum-beat summoned them to the field ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Only this, that base and foolish as they are on such lips, it is possible to lift them from the mud, and take them as the utterance of a lofty and calm hope which will not be disappointed, and of a firm and lowly resolve which may ennoble life. Like a great many other sayings, they may fit the mouth either of a sot or of a saint. All depends on what the things are which we are thinking about when we use them. There are things about which it is absurd and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... to sleep in their clothes, see cracks full of bugs on the walls, breathe bad air, walk on a floor that has been spat upon, cook their meals over an oil stove. They seek as far as possible to restrain and ennoble the sexual instinct.... What they want in a woman is not a bed-fellow ... They do not ask for the cleverness which shows itself in continual lying. They want especially, if they are artists, freshness, elegance, humanity, ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... myself, a resolution to tread them under foot. I became sour and cynic from shame, and affected to despise the politeness which I knew not how to practice. This austerity, conformable to my new principles, I must confess, seemed to ennoble itself in my mind; it assumed in my eyes the form of the intrepidity of virtue, and I dare assert it to be upon this noble basis, that it supported itself longer and better than could have been expected from anything so contrary to my nature. ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... which was habitual to him: "it is incredible, if you will; but yet it is true. That is to say, for thirty-three years, ever since my birth, this woman has played a most marvellous and unworthy comedy, to ennoble and enrich her son,—for she has a son,—at ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... grieve to record it, but the silly spirit of mockery within me had so far infected my wits that I cried out in pretended astonishment, "O marvellous fancy that can so ennoble a neighbor's brat!" The which was very false and foolish of me, for I know well enough now, and knew very well then, that love, while it lasts, can ennoble any child, maid, or matron. Lord, the numbers ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... magnify, amplify, augment, expand, develop, increase, extend, swell; dilate, descant, launch out, expatiate; ennoble, broaden. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... original. Monsieur, he was never able to return it at any time, for, once she had got it, the Russian made away with it in some secret manner and refused to give it up. Her price for returning it was his royal father's consent to ennoble her, to receive her at the Mauravanian Court, and so to alter the constitution that it would be possible for her to ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... that the man of intellect revived to ennoble and illumine everything. If, despite his magnificent rendering of them, Delsarte never called legendary fictions in question, let us not refuse him that privilege. In such cases the poetry became his accomplice, ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... should we shun one another, as if we were both of us incapable of decency or self- control? Why must love be always assumed to make us weak and contemptible, as if it were some subtle poison? Why shouldn't it strengthen and ennoble us?" ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... she read,—especially in Tennyson and in every novel, as well as in the few plays she saw. There it was embodied as Woman of Romance,—sublime, divine, mysterious, with a heavenly mission to reform, ennoble, uplift—men, of course,—in a word to make over the world. The idea of it had come down from the darkness of the middle ages,—that smelly and benighted period,—had inflamed all romance, and was now spreading its last miasmatic touch over the close ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... institutions, in the work of undermining and destroying vain credulity and the whole brood of superstitions which are legion in India; they are also a positive and constructive force in the impartation of those principles of morality and teachings of religion which will ennoble life here and hereafter. And in this connection it should not be forgotten that all mission schools—higher and lower—enjoy unlimited opportunity to teach, daily, to all their students God's Word and to apply its principles and its ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... struggled valiantly against a cunning and redoubtable police-agency, the soul of which was Corentin. The King of France approved the charter of the Count of Champagne, by virtue of which, in the family of Cinq-Cygne, a woman might "ennoble and succeed"; therefore the husband of Laurence took the name and the arms of his wife. Although an ardent Royalist she went to seek the Emperor as far as the battlefield of Jena, in 1806, to ask pardon for the two Simeuses ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... administration. We come now to a second need in the modern state if it is to get the best result from the citizens born into it, and that is the need of honours and privileges to reward and enhance services and exceptional personal qualities and so to stir and ennoble that emulation which is, under proper direction, the most useful to the constructive statesman of all human motives. In the United States titles are prohibited by the constitution, in Great Britain they go by prescription. But it is possible to imagine titles ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... things have steadily gone from bad to worse with me, and certainly I shall not pretend to feel any love for suffering in itself. On the contrary, it hurts. It does not ennoble. It rather brutalises, unless it becomes so great that it embraces all things. I was once Engineer in charge at the First Cataract—now I am a blacksmith in a country parish. And that hurts. I am cut off from reading because of my ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... never break the home-silence; they mould the young life and stamp their impress upon it. How important then that all such objects should be chosen, not only as treasures of artistic beauty, but for their power to elevate and ennoble character. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... idea of sacrifice entirely vanished, and atonement became a matter for the personal conscience. It was henceforth an inward sense of sin translating itself into the better life. 'To purify desire, to ennoble the will—this is the essential condition of atonement. Nay, it is atonement' (Joseph, Judaism as Creed and Life, p. 267; cf. supra, p. 45). This, in the opinion of Christian theologians, is ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... spirit pure amid it all; she might sacrifice the base body, and ennoble the soul by the self-sacrifice .... And yet, would not that increase the horror, the agony, the evil of it-to her, at least, most real evil, not to be explained away-and yet the gods required it? Were they just, merciful in that? Was it like them, to torture her, their last ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... in giving you an insight into the character of these boys as a key to their after-life. I know that the child is not always 'father to the man,' and that the insertion of a new and transforming principle into the soul will elevate and ennoble the meanest man. But as a general rule the mainsprings of character develop early, and the man is very much as the child has made him. The sowing then, brings forth a harvest afterwards. They tell us, that two natives of Scotland settled in the ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... ennoble a writer, and therefore are great books characterized by lofty thought, by fine feeling and, as a rule, by a beautiful simplicity of expression. They have another quality, hard to define but easy to understand, a quality which leaves upon us the impression ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... for seventy years, or for seven years, no better than a dog's life? What else but a long dog's life does this make heaven to be? Such an undervaluing of a short but noble life, is consistent with the scheme which blasphemes earth in order to ennoble heaven, and then claims to be preeminently logical. According to the clear evidence of the Bible, the old saints in general were at least as uncertain as I have ever been concerning future life; nay, according to the writer to the Hebrews, "through ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... the judgment on each and every part which he saw written in the young man's face. As he watched, something like hope and exultation began to light up his sullen, heavy features; thought and feeling began to spiritualize and ennoble what but a little before had ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... history woman has been hand in hand with man, has assisted, supported and encouraged him, and now there are women ready to help reform the life of the body politic, and side by side with man work to purify, refine and ennoble the world. Miss Couzins seemed Inspired by her own thoughts and carried the audience along with her in ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... proud all his days of the use to which his animal had been put, and would count it as a treasure for the rest of its life? If you and I will yield our gifts to Him, and lay them upon His altar, be sure of this, that the altar will ennoble and will sanctify all that is laid upon it. All that we have rendered to Him gains fragrance from His touch, and comes back to us tenfold more precious because He has condescended to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... are born into it, and I have tried also to make clear that realization of, and revolt against, the bad management and waste and muddle which result from our present economic system. I want now to point out that Socialism seeks to ennoble the intimate personal life, by checking and discouraging passions that at present run rampant, and by giving wider scope for passions that are now thwarted and subdued. The Socialist declares that life is now needlessly dishonest, base and mean, because our present social organization, ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... surprise with which we see the hero drift sidelong, and practically quite untempted, into every description of misconduct and dishonour. In each, we miss the personal poetry, the enchanted atmosphere, that rainbow work of fancy that clothes what is naked and seems to ennoble what is base; in each, life falls dead like dough, instead of soaring away like a balloon into the colours of the sunset; each is true, each inconceivable; for no man lives in external truth, among salts and acids, but in the warm, phantasmagoric chamber of his brain, with the painted ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... plea To shield this hell-spawn, loathed by all who love The lamb and kiss the Cross. I had not guessed Such obscure creatures crawled upon my path, Had not my son—I know not how misled— Deigned to ennoble with his great regard, A sparkle midst the dust motes. SHE is sacred. What is her tribe to me? Her kith and kin May rot or roast—the Jews of Nordhausen May hang, drown, perish like the Jews of France, But she shall live—Liebhaid von Orb, the Jewess, The Prince, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... catching slaves was regarded as one of the lowest grades of scoundrelism. Now, great pains are taken by our gentlemen of property and standing to ennoble it; and men of eminence in the legal profession are stooping to take the wages of iniquity, and lending themselves to consign to the horrors of American slavery men whom they know to be innocent of crime. Nay, we have seen in New York a committee of gentlemen actually raising ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock
... her. One said: "Here is your lover, your husband, your cherished partner, left by fate below your station, yet whom you may lift to your side! Shall man, alone, crown the humble maiden,—stoop to love, and, loving, ennoble? Be you the queen, and love him by the royal right of womanhood!" But the other sternly whispered: "How shall your fine and delicate fibres be knit into this coarse texture? Ignorance, which years cannot wash away,—low instincts, what do YOU know?—all the servile side of life, which is turned ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... deepened, it had naturally flagged toward the one whose marvelously fair features had first caught his attention and now promised to be links in a chain of causes that might produce effects little anticipated. He had virtually abandoned the project of seeking to ennoble and harmonize these features that suggested new possibilities of beauty to almost every glance, for the reason that he not only believed there was no mind to be awakened, but also because he had been led to think the girl so depraved and selfish at heart that ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... movement is slow and color is dull. We are not tempted to make a vacancy and call it piety; but when man's life is so full that it tempts him daily to self-consciousness and pride, then let him open it wide to the consciousness of God and ennoble it with the full dignity of that humility whose first condition is the presence of God in the soul that He ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... able to go nightly to your rest with a consciousness that you have done more as the mistress of our house than you could have done in that tamer capacity. You will have cares,—and even those will ennoble the world to you, and you to the world. That other life is a poor shrunken death,—rather than life. It is a way of passing her days, which must fall to the lot of many a female who does not achieve the other; ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... women is of more importance. It is of especial interest, in calling attention to the fact that the creator of Pompilia, Balaustion, and the heroine of the "Inn Album"—all central figures, whence radiate the life and spiritual energy of the work they ennoble—had, at this period, created no typical figures of women in any degree corresponding to ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... sweet and noble simplicity of the young chatelaine in giving her orders. If an air of distinction seems hereditary in some families it is surely because the exercise of the duties conferred by the possession of wealth has a natural tendency to ennoble the ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... attention than her loveliness and ladylike conduct will command. Those who are most pleasing will receive the most attention, and those who desire more should aspire to acquire more by cultivating those graces and virtues which ennoble woman, but no lady should lower or distort her own true ideal, or smother and crucify her conscience, in order to please any living man. A good man will admire a good woman, and deceptions cannot long be concealed. Her show of dry goods or glitter of jewels cannot long cover up ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... ridicule upon these men and their leader, but it is not by ridicule that they can be conquered. It is not by contemptuous utterances or by untrue reports that they can be overcome. It is not by belittling them that we can raise ourselves in the eyes of the men of to-day or ennoble ourselves upon the pages of history. It would be conduct more in accordance with the traditions of a great nation if we gave them credit for the virtues they possess and the courage ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... complain of the want of time, if they are not conscious of a want of power, or of desire to ennoble and enjoy it. Perhaps you are a man of genius yourself, gentle reader, and though not absolutely, like Sir Walter, a witch, warlock, or wizard, still a poet—a maker—a creator. Think, then, how many hours on hours you have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various
... princess, judging from your standpoint; but you cannot right them by committing greater ones. Nothing can dignify or ennoble deliberate assassination, or wanton, cruel, secret murder. The nihilists are ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... always. Look at the jerkiness of the conceited man. Look at the quiet fluency of motion in the modest man. Look how anger itself which forgets self, which is unhating and righteous, will elevate the carriage and ennoble the movements. ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... Maupassant is so continuously and profoundly surprising that one becomes overwhelmed by it. It reaches limitation; it seems to deny that man is susceptible to grandeur, or that motives of a superior order can uplift and ennoble the soul, but it does so with a sorrow that is profound. All that portion of the sentimental and moral world which in itself is the ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... granted, and by this our present Charter do give, grant and confirm, the name, style, title, dignity and honour of the same Principality and Earldom, and him, our said most dear Son, the Prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, as has been accustomed, we do ennoble and invest with the said Principality and Earldom, by girting him with a sword, by putting a coronet on his head, and a gold ring on his finger, and, also, by delivering a gold rod into his hand, that he may preside there, and may direct and defend those parts. To hold ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... great and unlimited in its extent; the time has been, when the whole known world was in a manner united in one community: but the sphere of education has always been limited. It is for nations to produce the events, that enchant the imagination, and ennoble the page of history: infancy must always pass away in the unimportance of mirth, and the privacy of retreat. That government however is a theme so much superior to education, is not perhaps so evident, as we may ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... enthrone, signalize, immortalize, deify, exalt to the skies; hand one's name down to posterity. consecrate; dedicate to, devote to; enshrine, inscribe, blazon, lionize, blow the trumpet, crown with laurel. confer honor on, reflect honor on &c. v. ; shed a luster on; redound.to one's honor, ennoble. give honor to, do honor to, pay honor to, render honor to; honor, accredit, pay regard to, dignify, glorify; sing praises to &c. (approve) 931; lock up ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... thoroughly respect. That gives the measure of the man, and determines the quality of his influence. He was the average clubman plus genius and a style. And, if there is any truth in the theory that it is the function of art not to degrade but to ennoble—not to dishearten but to encourage—not to deal with things ugly and paltry and mean but with great things and beautiful and lofty—then, it is argued, his example is one to depreciate and ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... she was recommended by the ambassador as the most worthy object of the royal choice; and Phranza recapitulates and refutes the specious objections that might be raised against the proposal. The majesty of the purple would ennoble an unequal alliance; the bar of affinity might be removed by liberal alms and the dispensation of the church; the disgrace of Turkish nuptials had been repeatedly overlooked; and, though the fair Maria was nearly fifty years of age, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... Florence there are many noble and poor families with whom it would be a charity to form connections. If there were no dower, there would also be no arrogance. Pay no heed should people say you want to ennoble yourself, since it is notorious that we are ancient citizens of Florence, and as noble as ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... family; there they stand in niches like idols, venerated by posterity. When any one of the family dies, the images are brought forth and carried in the funeral procession, and a relative pronounces the oration for the dead. It is these images that ennoble a family that preserves them. The more images there are in a family, the nobler it is. The Romans spoke of those who were "noble by one image" and those who were "noble ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... making or devising. And for the simple reason that they are not sincere. I put aside an educated enthusiast such as Westlake. The proletarian Socialists do not believe what they say, and therefore they are so violent in saying it. They are not themselves of pure and exalted character; they cannot ennoble others. If the movement continue we shall see miserable examples of weakness led astray by popularity, ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... of fable and of dream I sought an eligible theme; But none I found, or found them shared Already by some happier bard, Till settling on the current year I found the far-sought treasure near. A theme for poetry, you see— A theme t' ennoble ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss
... delicate health of her childhood. Her elastic step, her eyes full of sweetness and light, her bloom, at once soft and luxuriant,—all spoke of the vital powers fit to sustain a mind of such exquisite mould, and the emotions of a heart that, once aroused, could ennoble the passions of the South with the purity and devotion of the North. Solitude makes some natures more timid, some more bold. Violante was fearless. When she spoke, her eyes frankly met your own; and she was so ignorant of evil, that as yet she seemed nearly unacquainted ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... impression fill, Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow.] into which he was seduced by the example of his comrades. It is extremely probable, that the poetical fame which in the progress of his career he afterwards acquired, greatly contributed to ennoble the stage, and to bring the player's profession into better repute. Even at a very early age he endeavoured to distinguish himself as a poet in other walks than those of the stage, as is proved by his juvenile poems of Adonis and Lucrece. He ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... things—viz. elevation and purity of heart and mind. You are in the period of life to which fair dreams of the future are natural. It is, as the prophet tells us, for 'the young man' to 'see visions,' and to ennoble his life thereafter by turning them into realities. Generous and noble ideas ought to belong to youth. But you are also in the period when there is a keen joy in mere living, and when some desires, which get weaker as years ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... humble, and the earthly-minded heavenly. It draws all who truly receive it, by a gradual but certain process, into a likeness to Christ, which is the sum of all goodness. In proportion also as the principles of the gospel gain ground in any community, they ennoble it, purify it, and inspire it with the spirit of truth and justice. Very imperfectly is our country pervaded by this good leaven. Yet it is this, small as is its measure, which makes the difference between the state of society here at home and in India or China. Many thousands who do not ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... should cultivate the capacity for effective public speech, in order to present political and social themes with such power as to guide public opinion in the right direction. They must be willing to carry their independent convictions into civil affairs, and help to ennoble the national spirit, and purify public life, and make it expressive of the highest intelligence and the best moral sentiments of the people. Statesmanship is a sacred calling, and the people are ready to uphold and encourage young men who will ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... you—and I shall leave you. (He puts on the brown cloak and hat, picks up his stick and travelling bag.) For if I were to stay, I'd soon grow worse than I am now. The innocent child, whose mission was to ennoble our warped relationship, has been defiled by you in his mother's womb and made an apple of discord and a source of punishment a revenge. Why should I stay here to be ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... rush would be over and we'd have more time for getting what we deserved out of life. But I turned on him with sudden fierceness and declared I wasn't going to be merely an animal. I intended to keep my soul alive, that it was every one's duty, no matter where they were, to ennoble their spirit by keeping in touch with the best that has ever been ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... the world, arose, then the French people were set aflame with a desire to bring, as it were, their gifts of frankincense and myrrh to lay on this altar of liberty, that its censer might never die out, but forever perfume and ennoble the air of the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... barn-yard," this is merely a catch-phrase intended to arouse prejudice and to obscure the facts. The reader may judge for himself whether the eugenic program will degrade mankind to the level of the brutes, or whether it will ennoble it, beautify it, and increase ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... no man. Labor is honorable, because the products of labor feed and clothe the world, and thus conduce to the welfare and happiness of mankind. Coerced labor is better than no labor. Coercion itself does not necessarily degrade man; rather may it ennoble and elevate, when it is exercised to summon the barbarian to the lessons of civilization. Coercion degrades not the man whom it compels to do right; it only exposes that degradation which is the result of doing wrong. ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... came in. The librarian's name was Fritzing; plain Herr Fritzing originally, but gradually by various stages at last arrived at the dignity and sonorousness of Herr Geheimarchivrath Fritzing. The Grand Duke indeed had proposed to ennoble him after he had successfully taught Priscilla English grammar, but Fritzing, whose spirit dwelt among the Greeks, could not be brought to see any desirability in such a step. Priscilla called him Fritzi ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... for his sake, as if she had been a child of my own—but truth is truth;" and as he uttered these words, the big drops stood in his eyes, unfailing witnesses of his sincerity. There is something in the display of real deep feeling, which for the time appears to raise and ennoble those who are under its influence; and as the old man stood before me, I experienced towards him a mingled sentiment of admiration and respect, and I hastily endeavoured to atone for the injustice I ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... happy. This was all she looked for—cared for—lived for. He was her life. What was her money—the dross which mankind yearned after—but for its use to him, but for the power it might exercise amongst men to elevate and ennoble him? What was her palace but a dungeon if it rendered her beloved more miserable than ever, if it added daily to the troubles he had brought there—to the cares which had accumulated on his head ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... humanity it might at first blush seem to be. In the Journey to the Hartz he never lost an opportunity to make a point; in his lyrical confessions he suppressed no impulse to self-revelation; and seldom did his mastery of form fail to ennoble even the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... I couldn't bear to have you think such a thing, especially—well, I'll tell you why some day. But I do wish you had a title. Do they ever ennoble ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... its true sense is supposed to ennoble and dignify a man; and love has shed refinements on innumerable Cymons. But Mr Pecksniff—perhaps because to one of his exalted nature these were mere grossnesses—certainly did not appear to any unusual advantage, now that he was left alone. ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... be hard if no means of earning subsistence were open to her. But the object now sought is not that of relieving such distress. It has a much wider tendency, or at any rate a wider desire. The idea is that women will ennoble themselves by making themselves independent, by working for their own bread instead of eating bread earned by men. It is in that that these new philosophers seem to me to err so greatly. Humanity and chivalry have succeeded, after ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... own bosoms, and consider the generous seeds which are there planted, that might, if rightly cultivated, ennoble their lives, and make their virtue venerable to futurity; how can they, without tears, reflect on the universal degeneracy from that public spirit, which ought to be the first and principal motive of all their actions? In ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... after so long a tax on your patience, to enter on a detailed narration of the conflict which ensued. The hour of trial served only to develop and ennoble the character of Toussaint, who rose, with misfortune, above the allurements of rank and wealth which were offered as the price of his submission; and the very ties of parental love he yielded to ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... chimneys that cut the new blue sky. These singular perfections seemed to increase in Harcourt's mind the exasperating sense of injury inflicted upon him by 'Lige's exposures. With a daughter so incomparably gifted,—a matchless creation that was enough in herself to ennoble that fortune which his own skill and genius had lifted from the muddy tules of Tasajara where this 'Lige had left it,—that SHE should be subjected to this annoyance seemed an infamy that Providence could not allow! What was his mere venial transgression ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... amid the ruins of his army, sustained with heroic firmness the efforts of his enemies. Resolved to fall with arms in his hand, he rushed on the battalions, and carried terror and death into the midst of their ranks. But his valour could only ennoble his fall. Still repulsed, still invulnerable, he relinquished the hope of meeting death or victory. In the night of the 19th of March he returned to Naples: the Queen appeared indignant at seeing him. "Madame," said he to her, "I was not able to find death." He departed ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... thought now, Mr. Gladstone is not the man whom posterity will ennoble with the title of either 'great' ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... some youth replies, 'This is a laborious, troublesome, hopeless occupation, in which there is not reward enough to make it worth my while,' I tell him but 'Attack it: rejoice to see something so near to challenge your mettle, and if you meet the battle boldly so, and ennoble yourself, you will immediately understand how to think of the ennoblement of your people and your country as glorious.' 'Altius tendimus! We move towards a higher!'—The country reads our motto, and is watching what we ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... distinguishing symbol, is undoubtedly an affectation of great simplicity and familiarity of language. They disdain to make use of the common poetical phraseology, or to ennoble their diction by a selection of fine or dignified expressions. There would be too much art in this, for that great love of nature with which they are all of them inspired; and their sentiments, they are determined shall be indebted, for their effect, to nothing but their intrinsic tenderness ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... did, and to level down the higher classes instead of elevating the inferior. Liberty and equality then govern by their negative side, instead of exercising the positive and beneficent influence they should have, to develop all forces to their utmost, to ennoble the mind, to give more elasticity to the soul and greater vigor to thought, to give birth to those varied forms and to that moral energy, which should bring us nearer to final equality in ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... Brackenbury was overcome with respectful admiration; nor was he less sensible to the charm of his conversation or the surprising amenity of his address. Every gesture, every intonation, was not only noble in itself, but seemed to ennoble the fortunate mortal for whom it was intended; and Brackenbury confessed to himself with enthusiasm that this was a sovereign for whom a brave man might thankfully lay down ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... man, of course he could only do what he did under some sort of delusion. And so indeed it is. Yet this very delusion serves, apparently, to ennoble and beautify him, as it takes him and works upon him through his virtues. At heart he is a real patriot, every inch of him. But his patriotism, besides being somewhat hidebound with patrician pride, ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... says Dr. BAKER, of Racine, Wis. "just such knowledge as a suffering world needs, to enlighten, develop, and ennoble the minds ...
— The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses • P. R. Kincaid
... the college using his great learning and his great influence to purify the city, to ennoble its patriotism, to inspire the young men and women who loved as well as admired him to lives of Christian service, always teaching them that education means great responsibility for the ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... was thine errand here? To adorn anguish, and ennoble death, And make infirmity A patient victory, And crown life's baseness with a glorious wreath, That fades not on thy bier, But fits, immortal soul! thy triumph still, In that bright world where thou art ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler
... fighting, and pent in between the Danish frontier and the sea. Here, surrounded by overpowering numbers, without food, without ammunition, he capitulated on the 7th of November, after his courage and resolution had done everything that could ennoble both general and soldiers in the midst of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... the race from that vicious circle in which men had debased the nature of women, and women had given back all the weakness and perversity they had received from men, and to perceive that 'the most effectual way of perfecting the man is to ennoble and exalt the woman.' The organisation of the priesthood, again, was a masterpiece of practical wisdom. Such an order, removed from the fierce or selfish interests of ordinary life by the holy regulation of celibacy, and by the austere discipline of the Church, was indispensable in the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... strength of their sincere love for their native soil and their venerable institutions. The Germans, though poor in gold and silver, showed that they were rich in patriotic ardor, and in all those glorious sentiments which ennoble a great and progressive nation. After twenty years' contention, and infinite sacrifices and humiliations, the different princes of Germany recovered their ancient territorial possessions, and were seated, more firmly than before ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... Guastalla, were also annexed to the kingdom of Italy, as were Kehl, Wesel, Cassel, and Flushing to France. To complete his domestic policy, Napoleon now instituted an hereditary nobility; princes, dukes, counts, barons, and knights of the empire sprung up like mushrooms on every hand, in order to ennoble his newly created empire. Napoleon likewise instituted an imperial university; but his school was rather calculated to train up agents of imperial despotism, than men of learning and enlightened minds. As the sworn enemy of liberty, he declared ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... you to see these three distressed kingdoms lie like a body without a head, so it may also cheer you to consider that the Comforter hath empowered you (and in this nick of time you only) to make these dead and dry bones live. You may by this one act ennoble and eternize yourself more in the hearts and chronicles of these three kingdoms than by all your former victories and the long line of your extraction from the Plantagenets your ancestors ... It is a greater honour to make a king than to be one. Your proper ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... soul did not even give herself the trouble to reform and ennoble his features, she contented herself in annihilating them with her rays; it was, as it were, the nimbus of the old saints not now remaining round the head, but extending over all the features, pale and almost invisible, bathing ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... the havoc raged unchecked through all the churches of Antwerp and the neighboring villages. Hardly a statue or picture escaped destruction. Fortunately, the illustrious artist, whose labors were destined in the next generation to enrich and ennoble the city, Rubens, most profound of colorists, most dramatic—of artists; whose profuse tropical genius seemed to flower the more luxuriantly, as if the destruction wrought by brutal hands were to be compensated by the creative energy of one, divine spirit, had not yet ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... for your real parish work; lest the bustle and amusement of playing at shopkeeper, or penny-collector, once a week, should blind you to your real power—your real treasure, by spending which you become all the richer. What you have to do is to ennoble and purify the WOMANHOOD of these poor women; to make them better daughters, sisters, wives, mothers: and all the clubs in the world will not do that; they are but palliatives of a great evil, which they do ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... I, "I do long for honours, but it is that I may ask her to share and ennoble them." In fine, I loved as other men loved—and I fancied a perfection in her, and vowed an emulation in myself, which it was reserved for Time ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of all I should place Fay Yauger's "Planter's Charm," published in a volume of the same title. With it belongs "The Hired Man on Horseback," by Eugene Manlove Rhodes, a long poem of passionate fidelity to his own decent kind of men, with power to ennoble the reader, and with the form necessary to all beautiful composition. This is the sole and solitary piece of poetry to be found in all the myriads of rhymes classed as "cowboy poetry." I'd want Stanley Vestal's "Fandango," in a volume of the same title. Margaret Bell Houston's "Song from the Traffic," ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... tastes for extravagance and parade, the grave dignity and high breeding of a very ancient but impoverished nobility holding them in some restraint; and, then, THEIR fortunes were still uncertain; the funds were not firm, and even the honorable and worthy Jacques Lafitte, a man to ennoble any calling, was shaking in credit. Had we been brought into the market a twelvemonth later, there is no question that we should have been caught up within a week, by the wife or daughter of some of the operatives at ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... enterprises, great ambitions, political jealousies, where men tend to become mere "slaves of possessions." Doubtless these striving men are full of weakness and sensitiveness even when they rend each other, and are but caught in the coils of circumstance; nevertheless, a serious attempt to ennoble and enrich the content of city life that it may really fill the ample space their ruthless wills have provided, means that we must call upon energies other than theirs. When we count over the resources which are at work "to make order out of casualty, beauty out of confusion, justice, kindliness ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... chiefly sought to make clear the possibility of a positive morality on the basis of nakedness, beauty, and sexual influence, regarded as dynamic forces which, when suppressed, make for corruption and when wisely used serve to inspire and ennoble life. He worked out his thoughts on this matter in MSS., written from about 1870 to his death two years later, which, never having been prepared for publication, remain in a fragmentary state and have not been published. I quote a few brief characteristic passages: "Is not," ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... form in it a happy union. It is this that explains how taste can conciliate respect for the understanding with the material element, and with the rational principle the favor and the sympathy of the senses, how it can ennoble the perceptions of the senses so as to make ideas of them, and, in a certain measure, transform the physical world itself into ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... circulate among the primitive Christians those feelings of respect and affection for women, which, by elevating them to their proper rank in society, must necessarily purify the public morals, meliorate individual character, and ennoble the intercourse of life. Admitted to an equal participation of the privileges of God's house, where every minor distinction is annihilated by the predominance of a diffusive charity, and feeling that their present joys and future destinies were blended with those of the "holy ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... with occasion Course, I have finished my —of true love never did run smooth Course of empire Courtesy, I am the very pink of Counterfeit presentment Coward, thou slave —upon instinct Cowards die many times —, what can ennoble Crabtree, and old iron rang Creator, remember thy Creature not too bright Credulity, ye who listen with Crime, within thee, undivulged —, it was worse than a Critics, not trust in Critical, nothing if not Criticising elves Cross, sparkling, ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... sensibilities, alive to the finest shades of moral differences; one of unparalleled dignity and grandeur of aims—aims pursued from youth to age, without wavering, under the most difficult conditions, pursued to their successful issue; a man whose aim in life it was to advance, and ennoble, and enrich his kind; in whose life-success the race of men are made glad; such a one sending down along with the works, in which the nobility and the deliberate worth and grandeur of his ends are set forth and proved, memorials of himself which exhibit studiously on the surface ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... of their work in a thousand practical forms, and this may be thought sufficient to justify, if not ennoble, their efforts. But they did not work for such issues; their reward was of a totally different kind. In what way different? We love clothes, we love luxuries, we love fine equipages, we love money, and any man who can point to these as the ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... high in the temple of fame, and yet like hundreds of others, he has passed away unhonored, unsung. His name was Ralph Watts, a sturdy Virginian, with a heart surpassing all which has been said of Virginia's sons, in those qualities, which ennoble the man; and possessing a courage indomitable, and a frame calculated in every way to fulfil whatever his daring spirit suggested. Such was Ralph Watts. I had only been in the town a few days, when Ralph and I contracted an intimacy which ended only ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... the newspapers and romances, and in visiting the theatres. It is not strange to us to see our philosopher in the tavern, in the theatre, and at the ball. It is not strange in our eyes to learn that those artists who sweeten and ennoble our souls have passed their lives in drunkenness, cards, and women, if not ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... fortune. Fame and honors shall be heaped upon us. Do you imagine that I have been wasting the last three years of my life? do you believe that the ambition which was the subject of your illusive aim at college is dead? No! look here, Carl and Krantz, this day week will see me famous, and ennoble my family till it vies even with the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... critics, commentators, and compilers, they seem to have been highly successful. It is true that Alexandria never sent forth works with the high tone of philosophy, the lofty moral aim and the pure taste which mark the writings of Greece in its best ages, and which ennoble the mind and mend the heart; but it was the school to which the world long looked for knowledge in all those sciences which help the body and improve the arts of life, and which are sometimes called useful knowledge. Though great and ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... better things, if from particular inclination, or from the taste of the time and place he lives in, or from necessity, or from failure in the highest attempts, he is obliged to descend lower; he will bring into the lower sphere of art a grandeur of composition and character that will raise and ennoble his works ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... more than a simple expedient. The whole nation had their eyes upon them. An unlimited confidence in their integrity, and the universal veneration for their persons, which closely bordered on idolatry, would ennoble the cause which they might make their own and ruin that which they should abandon. Their share in the administration of the state, though it were nothing more than nominal, kept the opposite party in check; while they attended the senate violent measures were avoided ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... detecting the money-changer and driving him out of the temple, took him for a sentimental and chivalrous lover, and, helped by its only half-discarded doctrine of celibacy, gave virginity a heavenly value to ennoble its commercial pretensions. In short, Mammon, always mighty, put the Church in his pocket, where he keeps it to this day, in spite of the occasional saints and martyrs who contrive from time to time to get their heads and souls free to ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... worth and destiny. For it is not to be supposed that play with all its virtue, its nourish and exercise of nascent powers, and its happy emancipation into broader and richer living can adequately motivate and permanently ennoble the energies of youth. Until some vocational interest dawns, education is received rather than sought and will-power is latent or but intermittently exercised. Play has a great orbit, but every true parent and educator seeks to know the axis of ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... an extraordinary and factitious degree of heroism; and arrayed in all the glorious "pomp and circumstance of war," this turbulent quality has even been able to eclipse many of those quiet but invaluable virtues which silently ennoble the human character and swell the tide ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... to which you are dedicated is not an easy one; let us not suppose it. It is a noble life, and every one who strives to live it is doing something to ennoble his society; but it is not an easy life. It is never so represented to us in the Bible. There is a sense no doubt in which our Lord invites us to see how easy is His yoke compared with the yoke of sin—but He Himself calls upon every believer to take up his cross ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... ennoble art by summoning to its aid the highest conceptions of literature; but in doing so he seems to me to imply that art needed such conceptions for its justification, that the pure artist mind, careless of these ideas, and only careful to make for itself a beautiful vision of things, ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... were good and great. 210 Go! if your ancient but ignoble blood Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood, Go! and pretend your family is young; Nor own, your fathers have been fools so long. What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? Alas! not all the ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... struggles, had come to look upon himself as a grown-up member of society. Now the masters treated him with familiarity, the boys took liberties which compelled him to repay them in kind. And this educational institution, which was to ennoble him and make him fit to take his place in the community, what did it teach him? How did it ennoble him? The compendiums, one and all, were written under the control of the upper classes, for the sole purpose of forcing the lower classes to look up to their betters. ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... proclaimed there. The name of Jesus had never been heard in that wild north-land, and so as none of the blessedness of religion had entered into the hearts of the people, so none of its sweet, losing, elevating influences had begun to ennoble and bless their lives and improve their habits. So he pondered over what he witnessed and heard, and was thankful when the day's hunting was over, and Memotas would talk to him as they sat there on their robes around the fire, often for hours at a time. From him he learned how ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... the future mission of the moving picture will be along educational and moral lines tending to uplift and ennoble our boys and girls so that they may develop into a manhood and womanhood worthy the history and best ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... they were drawn, that they seem to be but the Material Crasis (if I may so speak) of their Concretes. Thus the Oyles of Cinnamon, Cloves, Nutmegs and other spices, seem to be but the United Aromatick parts that did ennoble those Bodies. And 'tis a known thing, that Oyl of Cinnamon, and oyle of Cloves, (which I have likewise observ'd in the Oyles of several Woods) will sink to the Bottom of Water: whereas those of Nutmegs and divers other Vegetables will ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... sends sorrow to ennoble us, to call out in us pity, sympathy, unselfishness, most surely does He send for that end such a sorrow as this, which touches in all alike every source of pity, of sympathy, of unselfishness at once. Surely He meant to bow our hearts as ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... Erroll—a husbandman who stayed the flight of his countrymen in the battle of Luncarty and won the victory over the Danes by the help of the yoke of his oxen—exhausted with the fray uttered the exclamation "Hoch heigh!" The grateful king about to ennoble the victorious ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... of the Egyptians our information is very scant; but we learn from the monuments depicting the number and variety of their instruments that they had advanced from childish practice to orchestration and harmony. According to Plato, "In their possession are songs having the power to exalt and ennoble mankind." The harp is undoubtedly ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... to Berlin and had a long interview with Mariette, who was ripe for revolution: her lover had been killed and her husband had not. Mariette was not of the type that sorrow and loss ennoble. She was still a handsome woman, particularly in her uniform, but the pink and white cheeks that once had covered her harsh bones were sunken and sallow. Her mouth was like a narrow bar of iron. Her eyes were half closed as if to hide the cold and deadly flame that never flickered; ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... frank and generous women will excite love they do not reciprocate, but, in nine cases out of ten, the woman has, half consciously, done much to excite. In this case, she shall not be held guiltless, either as to the unhappiness or injury of the lover. Pure love, inspired by a worthy object, must ennoble and bless, whether mutual or not; but that which is excited by coquettish attraction of any grade of refinement, must cause bitterness and doubt, as to the reality of human goodness, so soon as the flush of passion is over. ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... continued, enthusiastically; "and, if I mistake not, the Agamemnon will be an epoch in your life. You will find that all these studies will serve to ennoble your art, and you will be able to put mind into your work, and not merely form and colour. Do you know, I feel so well that I believe I shall not only live to finish Andrea del Sarto, but also to ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... all measures which by social adaptation can ennoble our human egoism, reduce it to its indispensable and just measure, and maintain it in proper equilibrium, by the aid of an active altruism; that is to say, by social habits of self-sacrifice for the benefit of the community. We shall then obtain a paradise on earth, no ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... die with ignominy," spoke the Admiral when the herald had come and gone. "Death cannot wear a form so base that he, nobly dying, will not ennoble." ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... himself, at last! But on this he seldom allowed his mind to dwell,—except when quite alone,—in the deep silences of night;—when he gave his soul up to the secret sweetness which had begun to purify and ennoble his innermost nature,—when he saw visioned before him a face,—warm with the passion of a love so grand and unselfish that it drew near to a likeness of the Divine;—a love that asked nothing, and gave everything, with the beneficent glory of the ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... was very little in Tom's life which tended to ennoble him. It is true there was a service for soldiers every Sunday morning in one of the big buildings in the town, and while Tom, lover of music as he had always been, was somewhat influenced by the singing of the men, and while the hymns reminded ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... recorded on his tablets or books, so also each thing is ever present before him. The decisive contrast is between God and the creature. In designating the latter as "foreknown" by God, the primary idea is not to ennoble the creature, but rather to bring to light the wisdom and power of God. The ennobling of created things by attributing to them a pre-existence is ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... this soil, Not without care and kindly sepulture. For why? he hated those who hated us, And, with all duties blamelessly performed Unto the sacred ritual of his sires, He met such end as gains our city's grace,— With auspices that do ennoble death. Such words I have in charge to speak of him: But of his brother Polynices, this— Be he cast out unburied, for the dogs To rend and tear: for he presumed to waste The land of the Cadmeans, had not Heaven— Some god of those who aid our fatherland— ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... powers of the two sexes, and the consequent style of education suitable to each. Happily, the truth on this subject may be fully spoken, without obliging me to exalt the father at the expense of the mother, or ennoble man by denying the essential equality of woman. It is among the things settled by experience, that, equal or not equal in talents, woman, the moment she escapes from the despotism of brute force, and is suffered to unfold and exercise her powers in her own legitimate sphere, shares ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... She would have preferred to live in one place the year around, to beautify and to ennoble that place; to be buried from it as she had been married into it, and to leave upon it the stamp of her character, incessant industry and good taste; to fill it gradually with the things she loved best or admired most, and to be always ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... is not one brought about by the opponents of religion, by materialistic doctrines, but is owing to the development of the religious sentiment itself. Instead of tending to an abrogation of that sentiment, it may be expected to ennoble its emotional manifestations and elevate ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... you how more than occasionally the mention of Pindar slipped into my pen. I have frequently, and even yesterday, wished that some attempt were made to ennoble our horse-races, particularly at Newmarket, by associating better arts with the courses; as, by contributing for odes, the best of which should be rewarded by medals. Our nobility would find their vanity gratified; ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... Her arms assumed the well-known beseeching attitude, the serpent bracelet glittering fiercely in the sun. Her voice changed, became softer. "Yet they are my people!" she continued, "and the last of our race. Ennoble them, great Gods! quicken their hearts and spare them!" Looking outward with the rapt look of a prophetess in whom, though torn with tempests of fanaticism and of passion, human and superhuman, no thought was mean, no sentiment ignoble, she poured out this her prayer; not for mercy!—her Gods ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... to all the sentiments which ennoble our nature. I arrived at Laurvig, and found myself in the midst of a group of lawyers of different descriptions. My head turned round, my heart grew sick, as I regarded visages deformed by vice, and listened to accounts of chicanery that was continually embroiling the ignorant. These locusts will ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... to conceal or disguise the forms of the body, and exhibit mental emotion; but both use it to enhance the life, either of the body or soul; Donatello and Michael Angelo, no less than the sculptors of Gothic chivalry, ennoble armor in the same way; but base sculptors carve drapery and armor for the sake of their folds and picturesqueness only, and forget the body beneath. The rule is so stern, that all delight in mere incidental beauty, which painting ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... expression, and individuality that ennoble your face are a sealed book to all but me. Mine is the power which transforms you into the most lovable of men, and that is why I would keep your mental gifts also for myself. To others they should be as meaningless as ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... celestial influence on the brave. If life were but to draw this dusty breath That doth our wits enslave, And with the crowd to hurry to and fro, Seeking we know not what, and finding death, These did unwisely; but if living be, As some are born to know, The power to ennoble, and inspire In other souls our brave desire For fruit, not leaves, of Time's immortal tree, These truly live, our thought's essential fire, And to the ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... their intellectual nature can be reduced has been not less conspicuously evinced. Ferdinand, like the rest of his race, was passionately fond of field sports, and cared for nothing else. His queen had all the vices of the house of Austria, with little to mitigate, and nothing to ennoble them—provided she could have her pleasures, and the king his sports, they cared not in what manner the revenue was raised or administered. Of course a system of favouritism existed at court, and the vilest and most impudent corruption prevailed in ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... disguise the forms of the body, and exhibit mental emotion: but both use it to enhance the life, either of the body or soul; Donatello and Michael Angelo, no less than the sculptors of Gothic chivalry, ennoble armour in the same way; but base sculptors carve drapery and armour for the sake of their folds and picturesqueness only, and forget the body beneath. The rule is so stern that all delight in mere incidental beauty, which painting ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... three centuries seems of yesterday, so full is it of those delicate critical distinctions which are sometimes supposed peculiar to modern writers. The piece has for its title La Deffense et Illustration de la langue Francoyse; and its problem is how to illustrate or ennoble the French language, to give it lustre. We are accustomed to speak of the varied critical and creative movement of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as the Renaissance, and because we have a single name for it we may ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... stimulate the most indolent to exertion: 'Whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.' And it holds forth to him an example so glorious, that it would ennoble even angels to imitate it: 'Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who made himself of no reputation, and took upon him ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... no ducal coronet to ennoble it! His name needs no title to illustrate it. The "princely Hereward!" "If all the men of his race resembled him, they well deserved this popular soubriquet. And whether this gentleman calls himself Mr. Scott or Lord Arondelle, I shall think of ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... disposition. I have had, and have still, many times the greatest difficulty to control it; but with God's help I shall succeed! My Elise, we will improve ever. On the children's account, in order to make them happy, we will endeavour to ennoble our own nature." ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... one of that happy body of men who not only see what is perceived by the mass of their fellows, but are enabled to look through those chains of action which, when comprehended, serve to rationalize and ennoble all that the senses of man, aided by the instruments which he has devised, tell us ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... of me—call me Prince. At the same time I would have thee know that on my eighth day I was carried into a temple and registered a son of a son of Jerusalem. The title I give thee for my designation did not ennoble me. The birthright of a circumcised heritor under the covenant with Israel is superior to every purely ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... the spirit in him is entire and as good as the world, which entitle the poet to speak with authority, and make him an object of interest, and his every phrase and syllable significant, are in Hafiz, and abundantly fortify and ennoble his tone. ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... mighty passion from the substratum of sexual life, has, under the repressing influence of centuries of habits and customs, taken on an entirely new, supersensual, ethereal character, so that to a lover every thought of naturalia seems indelicate and improper." "I feel it deeply that love must ennoble, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... with the Nominalists, the Realists had a good deal of reason. General ideas are essences. They are our gods: they round and ennoble the most partial and sordid way of living. Our proclivity to details cannot quite degrade our life and divest it of poetry. The day-laborer is reckoned as standing at the foot of the social scale, yet he is saturated with the laws of the world. His measures are the ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... unselfish, have great power with their own sex, and almost unbounded influence over men. Your power, therefore, is subtle, penetrating, and reaches the inner life, the very warp and woof of character. If a beautiful statue can ennoble and refine, a beautiful woman can accomplish infinitely more. She can be a constant inspiration, a suggestion of the perfect life beyond and an earnest of it. All power brings responsibility, even that which a man achieves or buys; but surely, if one receives Heaven's most exquisite ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... A woman who has a lofty soul, fine taste, gentle wit, a generously warm heart, and who lives a simple life, has not a chance of being the fashion. Ergo: A woman of fashion and a man in power are analogous; but there is this difference: the qualities by which a man raises himself above others ennoble him and are a glory to him; whereas the qualities by which a woman gains power for a day are hideous vices; she belies her nature to hide her character, and to live the militant life of the world she must have iron strength ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... narrow notions of what is right and just into the law of justice, and to insist that God shall adopt that as His law; to measure off something with our own little tape-line, and call it God's love of justice. Continually we seek to ennoble our own ignoble love of revenge and retaliation, by misnaming ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... enchantresses, and clothed them with tragic dignity. Let no man venture to lay hand on Shakespeare's works thinking to improve anything essential: he will be sure to punish himself. The bad is radically odious, and to endeavor in any manner to ennoble it, is to violate the laws of propriety. Hence, in my opinion, Dante, and even Tasso, have been much more successful in their portraiture ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... She resolved to ennoble her conduct from that moment of her life onwards. She would exercise kind patronage towards Swithin without once indulging herself with his company. Inexpressibly dear to her deserted heart he was becoming, but for the future he should at least be hidden from ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... Smirk as happy as Wild desired to be, what must then be our reader's confusion! We will, therefore, draw a curtain over this scene, from that philogyny which is in us, and proceed to matters which, instead of dishonouring the human species, will greatly raise and ennoble it. ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... soul; enter with me into Valencia;...this is the inheritance which I have won for you. While they were thus rejoicing the Bishop Don Hieronymo came with the procession. Dona Ximena brought good relicks and other sacred things, which she gave to ennoble the new Church of Valencia. In this guise they entered the city. Who can tell the rejoicings that were made that day, throwing at the board, and killing bulls! My Cid led them to the Alcazar, and took them up upon the highest tower thereof, and there they looked around and beheld ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... the vanity, weakness, and folly generally, of which he had at first believed her capable, but who, by prayer and effort, daily achieved victories over herself. In addition, she had manifested the most beautiful and God-like trait that can ennoble human character—the desire to save and sweeten others' lives. To have been lectured and talked to on the subject of religion in any conventional way by one outside of his sympathies would have been as repulsive as useless, but Annie had the tact to make ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... poet. His genius, devoted to the people, yet forbade him to descend to the language of the people, even to flatter them. All his passions were noble as his words, and he adored the Revolution as a sublime philosophy destined to ennoble the nation without immolating on its altars other victims than prejudices and tyranny. He had doctrines, and no hatreds; the thirst of glory, and not of ambition,—nay, power itself, was in his eyes, too real, too vulgar a thing for him to aim at, and he disdained ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... in something, and strive to retain our admiration for all that would ennoble, and our interest in all that would enrich and beautify ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... affection is a motive which would, if any motive could, remove some of the taint of meanness with which pious lying, like every other kind of lying, tends to infect character. The motive may no doubt ennoble the act, though the act remains in the category of forbidden things. But the motive of these complaisant assents and false affirmations, taken at their very best, is still comparatively a poor motive. No real elevation ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... not ask what is impossible. There are sacrifices which a man can never accept from the woman he loves—which humiliate him as they ennoble her. I should blush before your nobility; it would bow me into the dust. Leonore de Simonie must not leave the pure, proud sphere in which she lives; she must remain what she is, the ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... recognised standard of generosity and of justice. Their deeds became the theme of the poets, who sought to embellish their virtues and extenuate their offences. Thus, certain models, not indeed wholly pure or excellent, but bright with many of those qualities which ennoble a national character, were set before the emulation of the aspiring and the young:—and the traditional fame of a Hercules or a Theseus assisted to inspire the souls of those who, ages afterward, broke the Mede at Marathon, and arrested the Persian might ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
