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Forcible   Listen
adjective
Forcible  adj.  
1.
Possessing force; characterized by force, efficiency, or energy; powerful; efficacious; impressive; influential. "How forcible are right words!" "Sweet smells are most forcible in dry substances, when broken." "But I have reasons strong and forcible." "That punishment which hath been sometimes forcible to bridle sin." "He is at once elegant and sublime, forcible and ornamented."
2.
Violent; impetuous. "Like mingled streams, more forcible when joined."
3.
Using force against opposition or resistance; obtained by compulsion; effected by force; as, forcible entry or abduction. "In embraces of King James... forcible and unjust."
Forcible entry and detainer (Law), the entering upon and taking and withholding of land and tenements by actual force and violence, and with a strong hand, to the hindrance of the person having the right to enter.
Synonyms: Violent; powerful; strong; energetic; mighty; potent; weighty; impressive; cogent; influential.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Forcible" Quotes from Famous Books



... from every limb of his well-knit frame. In spite of his near approach to three-score-and-ten, he was erect and brisk, and, although he always carried a stick, it was more for the purpose of emphasising his forcible arguments than as a support for ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith

... without contact. The alphabet was repeated, and the following letters were rapped: 'A bad circle—want of harmony.' At the letter f, the table tilted three times, and at the letters a, r, gave several forcible horizontal movements, tilting at ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett

... first violent attack of this disorder, strove to overcome it by forcible exertions. He frequently walked to Birmingham and back again, and tried many other expedients, but all in vain. His expression concerning it to me was 'I did not then know how to manage it.' His distress became so intolerable, that he applied to Dr. Swinfen, physician in Lichfield, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... spoke in a very forcible and interesting manner of the aims of Abbot Academy, its wish to emphasize the home as well as the school. In a second article upon the institution it is hoped his remarks will be given in detail in connection with a more extended consideration of the aim to which he referred. Mr. Hartwell, ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various

... comparatively early law (Recopilacion de leyes, lib. vi, tit. i, ley xv), prohibits the forcible removal of the natives for expeditions of conquest from one island to another. It is as follows: "We order that the Indians in the Filipinas Islands be not taken from one island to another forcibly in order to make incursions, and against their will, unless ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... don't expect to get into any trouble;" the tone was kind, and he spoke with a half smile, but the keenly observant eyes of the boy detected a shade on Jack's face. However, all conversation was suddenly checked by the entrance of Mike, who, in a manner more forcible than ceremonious, dispossessed Bull-dog of his chair and pipe. The little waif soon took his departure, but it was some time before the cloud ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... other hand, was not only dressed from head to foot in severe black without an ornament; her head and face belonged also to the same impression, as of some strong and forcible study in black and white. The attitude was rigidly erect; the very dark eyes, under the snowy and abundant hair, had a trick of absent staring; in certain aspects the whole figure had a tragic, nay, formidable dignity, from which one expected, and sometimes got, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... This forcible resentment of and resistance to the strong will of another is a cause of great nervous suffering, the greater as the expression of such feeling is repressed. Severe illness may easily be ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call

... revealed itself to me in that little interview,—the quick perception, the wholly frank, unconventional manner, the sweet motherliness, the cordial interest in even a stranger, the fervent piety which could not bear delay in duty, and even the quaint, original, forcible thought and way of expressing it, "There'll be more of us here to pray ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... to hear exalted; lucky in having had a guided girlhood, a thick-curtained prudence; and in having stock in the moral funds, shares in the sentimental tramways. Wherever the world laid its hoards or ran its lines, she was found, and forcible enough to be eminent; though at fixed hours of the day, even as she washed her hands, she abjured worldliness: a performance that cleansed her. If she did not make morality appear loveable to the objects of her dislike, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... The mass of uneducated men could not now in England be told "go to, choose your rulers;" they would go wild; their imaginations would fancy unreal dangers, and the attempt at election would issue in some forcible usurpation. The incalculable advantage of august institutions in a free state is, that they prevent this collapse. The excitement of choosing our rulers is prevented by the apparent existence of an unchosen ruler. The ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... felt,—when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... the act of disarming a body of Texan troops under the command of Major Snively by an officer in the service of the United States, acting under the orders of our Government, and the forcible entry into the custom-house at Bryarlys Landing, on Red River, by certain citizens of the United States, and taking away therefrom the goods seized by the collector of the customs as forfeited under the laws of Texas, have been adjusted ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... novelist of his time,' and that the Monmouth produces an impression which is more moral because more kindly and humane than the impression left by the Steyne, while in its way it is every whit as vivid and as convincing. Yet another excellence, and a great one, is his mastery of apt and forcible dialogue. The talk of Mr. Henry James's personages is charmingly equable and appropriate, but it is also trivial and tame; the talk in Anthony Trollope is surprisingly natural and abundant, but it is also commonplace and immemorable; ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... disappear like magic. I have seen "cured" (and have "cured") such patients, affected with paralysis, deafness, dumbness, blindness, etc., with reasoning, electricity, bitter tonics, fake electrodes, hypnotism, and in one case by a forcible slap upon a prominent and naked part of the body. Hysteria has been the basis of many a saint's reputation and likewise has aided ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... fealty for his new earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury. Attended by a hundred armed knights, he rode towards the border. Edward was at Berwick, and Thomas declined to proffer his homage outside the kingdom. On Edward refusing to cross the Tweed, Thomas declared that he would take forcible possession of his lands. Civil war was only avoided by Edward giving way. The king met Thomas on English soil at Haggerston, four miles from Berwick. There the earl performed homage, and exchanged the kiss of peace with his king, but he would not even salute the upstart Earl of Cornwall, who injudiciously ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... (or what is the same thing, forcible resistance of the laws,) a government must be so bad, as to fail manifestly of its just end, that is, to promote the happiness of the people. If it does promote that general happiness, it answers the just end of government—it is a good government, and ought ...
— The Religious Duty of Obedience to Law • Ichabod S. Spencer

... approach set the dogs barking furiously, but discovering us, they rushed forward with such forcible demonstrations of delight that poor little Jack, who, as it was, could scarcely manage his barrow, was fairly upset, penguins and all. This was too much for his patience, and it was absurd to see how he started up and cuffed them soundly for their ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... writer of prose is nowhere seen to a better advantage than in Dr. Blyden's "Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race." Here we find the Negro in command of the best English style. Whatever may be said of his opinions, his mastery of a forcible, spirited, nervous expression reminds one of Macauly and Addison. Probably the best book from the standpoint of scientific, historical investigation is the work of Dr. DuBois on "The Suppression of ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... the separation from the object of his flame I have not inquired; but if forcible objurgations in the vulgar tongue have any inner significance, I gather that Lady Kynnersley has not employed an ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... character to force into germination whatever seeds of hereditary superstition lay latent in my bosom. I had been reading these books without his knowledge, and thus he was often at a loss to account for the forcible impressions which had been made ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... literary value apart from the interest of the events which they describe, and the diverting but forcible {330} personality which they unconsciously display. They are the rough-hewn records of a busy man of action, whose sword was mightier than his pen. As Smith returned to England after two years in Virginia, and did not permanently cast in his lot with the settlement of which he had been for a ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... been suddenly transformed from a house of hope to a house of sorrow, a house of woe. The pastor of the church was the Rev. Frederick A. Noble. He was one of the most eloquent and learned divines in the city—fearless, forcible and aggressive—the Henry Ward Beecher of the Northwest. President Lincoln ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore

... expect and would get a balanced and polished oration. For that end he had been born, and inheritance and opportunity and inclination had worked together for that end's perfection. While Lincoln had wrested from a scanty schooling a command of English clear and forcible always, but, he feared, rough-hewn, lacking, he feared, in finish and in breadth—of what use was it for such a one to try to fashion a speech fit to take a place by the side of Everett's silver sentences? He sighed. ...
— The Perfect Tribute • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... flow of language and a wonderful gift of metaphor and simile—more forcible than elegant—and this might be rather trying in a wife under ordinary circumstances. But as the hero is generally sentenced to ten years' penal servitude on his wedding-morn, he escapes for a period from a danger that might well ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome

... Christian truth over the pagan myths shrank even there from naming the name of my God lest it should not meet the sympathies of some readers, or lest it should offend the delicacies of other readers, or lest, generally, it should be unfit for the purposes of poetry in what more forcible manner than by that act (I appeal to Philip against Philip) can I controvert my own poem, or secure to myself and my argument a logical and unanswerable shame? If Christ's name is improperly spoken in that poem, then indeed is Schiller ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... was strong enough to need no better. I was always planning some great gesture, putting the whole world into one scale of the balance and my soul into the other, and imagining that the whole world somehow kicked the beam. More than thirty years have passed and I have seen no forcible young man of letters brave the metropolis without some like stimulant; and all, after two or three, or twelve or fifteen years, according to obstinacy, have understood that we achieve, if we do achieve, in little diligent sedentary stitches as ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats

... informed him that they had waited at the same spot as before, but nothing had come, until at length Hoel Grall arrived with instructions from the "monsieur" to go on board. Whereupon further French profanity, followed by unintelligible orders, freely interlarded with embellishments of a forcible tenor. ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman

... labouring classes, exhausted and depleted by the war-that peace which the Russian workers and peasants, after having struck down the Tsarist monarchy, have not ceased to demand categorically-immediate peace without annexations (that is to say, without conquest of foreign territory, without forcible annexation of ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

... portentously beautiful, with that unnatural flower,—and they talked together; and Septimius looked on her weird beauty, and often said to himself, "This, too, will pass away; she is not capable of what I am; she is a woman. It must be a manly and courageous and forcible spirit, vastly rich in all three particulars, that has strength enough to live! Ah, is it surely so? There is such a dark sympathy between us, she knows me so well, she touches my inmost so at unawares, that ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... intentions presaged worse. For instance, one morning my uncle was sounding my convictions—he was ever sounding other people's convictions—"touching the divine right of kings." Thinking to give strength to contempt for that doctrine, I applied to it one forcible word I had oft heard used by gentlemen of the cloth. Had I shot a gun across the table, the effect could not have been worse. The serving maid fell all of a heap against the pantry door. Old Tibbie yelped out with laughter, and then nigh ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... first violent attack of this disorder, strove to overcome it by forcible exertions[194]. He frequently walked to Birmingham and back again[195], and tried many other expedients, but all in vain. His expression concerning it to me was 'I did not then know how to manage it.' His distress became so intolerable, that he applied to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... 1776, all the troops in Charleston were ordered to rendezvous without the gates of the city, to hear, as we were told, "Some great news." Soon as we were paraded, governor Rutledge ascended a stage, and in the forcible manner of a Demosthenes, informed, that Congress had dissolved all relation with England, by an open Declaration ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... held him, Socrates was perpetually secured from the feeble villany of these three associates, till Aristophanes joining them, broke down by wit the barrier that protected him. In the comedy of the Clouds he threw the venerable old man into such forcible ridicule as overset all the respect of the mob for his character, and all their gratitude for his services, and they no longer paid the least reverence to the philosopher whom for fifty years Athens had regarded as a being of a superior order. This accomplished, the conspirators stood forth ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... rum was responsible for the invasion of Belgium; but at least one can say that the political philosophy which justifies forcible annexation of territory is taught to-day in fewer universities than were teaching it up to 1914. Poets are apt to have the ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... state of repose he took his station winter and summer by the stove, looking through the window at the old tower of Lobenicht; not that he could be said properly to see it, but the tower rested upon his eye,—obscurely, or but half revealed to his consciousness. No words seemed forcible enough to express his sense of the gratification which he derived from this old tower, when seen under these circumstances of twilight and quiet reverie. The sequel, indeed, showed how important it was to his comfort; for at length some poplars in a neighboring garden shot up to such a ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... on the origin of the belief in spiritual agencies; on the prevalence of licentiousness among savages; on the primitive barbarism of civilised nations; on traces of the custom of the forcible capture of wives; ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... and president of Princeton College, Jonathan Edwards, in his famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," put in forcible and picturesque language the religious and legal view of punishment ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow

... to appease their clients, who are impatiently waiting to hear the result of their various applications. Forcible ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various

... man-of-pleasure who abandons himself to the frenzy of vice. He invented for himself, partly from instinct, partly from method, a compromise between his contradictory tendencies, which he formulated in a fashion slightly pedantic, when he said that his sole aim was to "intellectualize the forcible sensations;" in clearer terms, he dreamed of meeting with, in human life, the greatest number of impressions it could give and to think of them ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... its protection a person who is but little deserving of it. I hope to show this very plainly. The Marseilles Company which we defend is quite en regle, in every respect, and what M. Levy is aiming at against it is simply a forcible spoliation by means of an intrigue hatched by the principal members of the Tunis Government, [Footnote: It is quite possible that this was true, but it was merely an assertion based on the one-sided declaration of the Marseilles Company ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... he laid the case also before Mr. Crystal, the junior whom he had already retained in the cause—a man whose lucid understanding was not ill indicated by his name. Though his manner in court was not particularly forcible or attractive, he was an invaluable acquisition in an important cause. To law he had for some twenty years applied himself with unwearying energy; and he consequently became a ready, accurate, and thorough lawyer, equal to all the ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... This is forcible reasoning, but which the Bishops could fairly leave for the King to answer;—the contract tacit or expressed, being between him and the anti-Prelatic Presbytero-Episcopalian party, to which neither ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... not in the spirit of mere selfish ambition, but with a deep sense of the responsibilities attached to it, which he portrayed in earnest and forcible words at ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... Grandmamma's body was in the house I was oppressed with the fear of death, for the corpse served as a forcible and disagreeable reminder that I too must die some day—a feeling which people often mistake for grief. I had no sincere regret for Grandmamma, nor, I think, had any one else, since, although the house was full of sympathising callers, nobody seemed ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy

... meantersay, Pip," Joe now observed in a manner that was at once expressive of forcible argumentation, strict confidence, and great politeness, "as I hup and married your sister, and I were at the time what you might call (if you was anyways ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... A forcible argument for librarians taking an interest in reading for schools is that both parents and teachers often neglect to see that the young get only proper books to read. The children are themselves quite ignorant what to ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... Spoliation Bill, after considerable discussion, passed the Senate on Friday, January 24th. The bill provides for the payment of claims based on the detention of vessels in the port of Bordeaux, the forcible capture and detention of American citizens, and depredations on American commerce in the West Indies, to the amount ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... opened the letter-box in his door and found a bundle of papers relating to a law case which he was asked to take up. The interruption was too much. He flung the papers on the table with remarks more forcible than complimentary concerning the person who had distracted his attention at such an inopportune moment. In 1863 he was made a professor at Cambridge, where, no longer troubled with the intricacies of land tenure, he published one investigation after ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... received, and hoping that the many wonders in the economy of the honey bee will not only excite a wider interest in its culture, but will lead those who observe them, to adore the wisdom of Him who gave them such admirable instincts. I cannot refrain from quoting here, the forcible remarks of an English clergyman, who appears to be a very great ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... stillness, the man from the nineteenth century saw the closing scene of the great revolt, the forcible establishment of his rule. With a quality of startling discovery it came to him that this was his world, and not that other he had left behind; that this was no spectacle to culminate and cease; that in this world lay whatever life was still before him, ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... very forcible language to make Mademoiselle Therese face present terror rather than await the future; but, when the horse really did slow down to a walk, and the two girls had reached the ground in safety, she made a mighty effort, and ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie

... as composer and musician are a fact so evident and certain, his recent orchestral compositions as well as his works for voice and piano furnish such forcible proofs of it, that I consider it superfluous to add to this evidence and to ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated

... is an endeavor to hold the home and the welfare of children from slipping over the cliff by a knowledge which will bring courage to combat the destructive tendencies. Is not one of the distinctive features of our age a forcible overcoming of the natural trend of things? If a river is by natural law wearing away its bank in a place we wish to keep, do we sit down and moan and say it is sad, but we cannot help it? No, that attitude belonged to the Middle Ages. We say, Hold fast, we cannot have that; and we cement the sides ...
— Euthenics, the science of controllable environment • Ellen H. Richards

... democracy; for if the right of government depends on the consent of the governed, the primary right of the governed must be to abrogate that government whenever they choose to do so. Hawthorne was simply a consistent democrat; but time has proved the fallacy of Douglas's statement, and that a forcible restoration of the Union was entirely compatible with friendliness and mutal good-will between the different sections of the country,—after slavery, which was the real obstacle to this, had been eliminated. If ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns

... The forcible capture and imprisonment of Ware, Martin and Strachan, the three negroes taken from the Chesapeake, and who were recognized by the United States authorities as citizens of the republic, was sounded as the key-note and rallying cry of the war; the outrage served greatly ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... his pen; and, in the evenings of one week produced the Rasselas, for which he received one hundred pounds, and was presented by the purchasers with twenty-five more on its reaching a second edition. Rasselas is a noble monument of the genius of its author. Reflections so profound, and so forcible a draught of some of the great outlines of the human intellect and passions, are to be found in few writers of any age or country. The mind is seldom presented with any thing so marvellous as the character of the philosopher, who has persuaded ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... forfeit the property, if, in fact, it be his, and if it be not, shall restore it, and along with it its value in money. And by the said constitutions it is also declared that this provision relates not only to movables (of which alone robbery can be committed), but also to forcible entries on land and houses, so as to deter men from all violent seizing upon property whatsoever under the cloak of ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian

... revenue officers, for alleged violations of the revenue laws, to seize the sloop Liberty, owned by Hancock, which they did on a Friday, near the hour of sunset, as the men were going home from their day's work. And as though the people contemplated forcible resistance to the law, and would refuse to respect the arrest, the sloop, after the broad arrow was put upon her, contrary to the advice of the Collector, was moved, with vulgar and rough words by the officers, from the wharf where she lay, and moored under the guns of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... with a contemptuous smile, "judges that the lady has been somewhat too long under your careful but somewhat forcible protection already. I beg leave to give you notice, Sir John Fenwick, that I am fully authorized by the Duke of Gaveston, Lady Laura's father, by a writing under his own hand, to seek for and deliver her from those who have taken her away. I know you have been too wise and prudent to suffer yourself ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... which banishes Christ from the Mystic Supper. If they name the Gospel, we meet them promptly. On our side are the words, this is my body, this is my blood. This language seemed to Luther himself so forcible, that for all his strong desire to turn Zwinglian, thinking by that means to make it most awkward for the Pope, nevertheless he was caught and fast bound by this most open context, and gave in to it (Luther, epistol. ad Argent.), and confessed Christ ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion

... now stood up and made a short but very proper discourse on this text: "Not all they who say, Lord, Lord! shall enter the kingdom of heaven." His language was particularly plain, though forcible; his arguments were no less plain, convincing, and earnest, but contained nothing that was particularly striking. I do not think the sermon lasted more than ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz

... these things are foolish, and superfluous, and vain to the servants of God. But equanimity is strong, and forcible; and of great power, and sitteth in great enlargement; is cheerful, rejoicing in peace; and glorifying God at all ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... metaphysics. It is not more true in the former, that a large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one, and that its subsequent momentum is commensurate with this difficulty, than it is, in the latter, that intellects of the vaster capacity, while more forcible, more constant, and more eventful in their movements than those of inferior grade, are yet the less readily moved, and more embarrassed, and full of hesitation in the first few steps of their progress. Again: have you ever noticed which of the street signs, over the shop doors, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various

... continued the philosopher, serenely, "by any forcible diminution of the existing populace: unfortunately, the vulgar prejudices in favor of life are so strong, owing to the miserable preponderance of the Egoistic over the Altruistic instincts, that such an expedient would be unadvisable. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... persons to the waters of affection, but you cannot make them drink; and the more you see of them the less they are likely to agree with you. Not once, nor twice, but fifty times, in a life experience that is becoming protracted, I have seen this forcible bringing together of incongruous elements, and the result has been always unfortunate. I say 'forcible,' because it has been rarely voluntary; now and then a strong, though, I venture to think, a mistaken sense of duty may lead a man ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... This forcible expulsion of the Archbishop was an act of political folly, as being tantamount to a declaration that he was too good a man to countenance the designs of those who had usurped an unjust dominion over his flock. Had the promises of Chili been carried out in their integrity, both the Archbishop ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... shall not, my lady," he rejoined, unable in his anger to maintain the semblance of respect he had hitherto preserved, and endeavouring to obtain forcible possession of ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... supported the second, but far less justifiable view, by arguments taken from the Laws and the Canons, so forcible that, while all were amazed, all were uncertain whether greater praise should be given to the ornateness of the words or to the efficacy ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton

... pedestal down there in the piazza, where they will run the risk of being injured. I would much rather have you fix them in one of my apartments, where they will be preserved with the respect due to their singular artistic qualities." I opposed this plan with many forcible arguments; but when I saw that she was determined I should not place them on the pedestal where they now stand, I waited till next day, and went to the palace about twenty-two o'clock. Ascertaining that the Duke ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... Germany, we shall find how curiously his mind has been limited in the matter. The German differs from other patriots in the inability to understand patriotism. Other European peoples pity the Poles or the Welsh for their violated borders; but Germans pity only themselves. They might take forcible possession of the Severn or the Danube, of the Thames or the Tiber, of the Garry or the Garonne—and they would still be singing sadly about how fast and true stands the watch on Rhine; and what a shame it would be if any one took their own little river away from them. That is what I mean by not ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton

... righteousness of the cause is not sufficient to sanction the profligacy of the means, and the want of order and subordination among the troops may bring ruin and disgrace upon the best-concerted plans." But we cannot describe the character and conduct of this renowned commander in more forcible language than that of Fray Antonio Agapida, excepting that the pious father places in the foreground of his virtues his hatred of the Moors. "The count de Tendilla," says he, "was a mirror of Christian ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... separately weighty and forcible, but collectively insurmountable, we think prove conclusively that the form of servitude among the Israelites was not chattel slavery, and that there is no sanction or authority for it in the Mosaic ...
— Is Slavery Sanctioned by the Bible? • Isaac Allen

... creditors, all of them officers of the army, by giving them orders upon several of the large estates. This method was too slow for these military gentlemen. In a short time every officer had become the Farmer,[108] or rather the Tyrant, of the villages abandoned to him. Forcible executions quickly reimbursed him to an extent greater than his claim, but the country suffered. The ill-used inhabitants left it, and the land remained uncultivated. This might have been repaired. The good order established by Suja-ud-daula ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill

... age could be a model of style; the restraining taste of that age was feebler and more mistaken than that of any other equally great age. Shakespeare's mind so teemed with creation that he required the most just, most forcible, most constant restraint from without. He most needed to be guided of poets, and he was the least and worst guided. As a whole no one can call his works finished models of the pure style, or of any style. But he has many passages of the ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... by hiding half the Face when they converse with her, pass for Whites, and make good their Titles. The first are dreadfully maligned by the Blacks, who are unhappily the more numerous, lay old Claims to her Lands, and are ever watching for an Opportunity to make a Riot, and take forcible Possession. 'Till now they were too much favoured by her Sister, which checked the Industry ...
— The True Life of Betty Ireland • Anonymous

... and damp. Looking up I made out in the dim dawn a small but persistent stream pouring down upon me. I had had the upper berth pushed up so as to get the air! Again the train came to an unscheduled stop. By this time assorted heads were emerging from behind the curtains, and from each came forcible protests against the weather. There was nothing to be done but to sit with my feet tucked up and my arms around my knees, occupying thus the smallest possible space for one of my proportions, and wait developments. Ten minutes later, after much shouting ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... out from men the light of the sun, and keeping back the refreshing rain. The gradual conversion of these natural phenomena into a good and a malignant power, ever struggling for the mastery, is a forcible illustration of the way in which myths are ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... that being a Frenchman, and passing through Liege, he could not leave that city without paying a visit to a lady whose beauty and misfortunes were so celebrated. Her vanity was flattered by the compliment. Desgrais saw, to use a vulgar but forcible expression, "that he had got on the blind side of her;" and he adroitly continued to pour out the language of love and admiration till the deluded marchioness was thrown completely off her guard. She agreed, without much solicitation, to meet him outside the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... it down, or raze it to the ground. I know no more.' 'Strong, sir?' said Mr Meagles to the Frenchman; it being another of his habits to address individuals of all nations in idiomatic English, with a perfect conviction that they were bound to understand it somehow. 'Rather forcible in our fair friend, you'll agree with me, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... and the youths and men stand in disorder, some binding their mantles, some mounting their horses. The frieze is noteworthy for its expression of physical and intellectual beauty which marked the highest conceptions of Greek art, and for the studied mingling of forcible action and gracious repose. The larger part of this frieze has been preserved and is to be seen ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... was made without difficulty, for our hymen took place the same evening, but no sooner was the operation completed than the poor lamb fled away in hot haste, which made me suspect that her father had used rather forcible persuasion with her. I would not have allowed this had I been aware ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... Nearer and nearer came the great English man-o'-war; and, as she came within range, a puff of smoke burst from her bow-port, and a ball skipped along the water before Perry's unarmed convoy, conveying a forcible invitation to heave to. Perry at once made signal to his convoy to pay no regard to the Englishman; and, setting the American flag, the two ships continued on their way. But at this moment the breeze died away, and all three ships lay becalmed within ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... but if we see that a man carries it too far, we pity the object of it, and are taught to moderate that passion.' My record upon this occasion does great injustice to Johnson's expression, which was so forcible and brilliant, that Mr. Cradock whispered me, 'O that his words were ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... believed that there was just one word fit to express the idea or shade of meaning she wished to convey, and she never admitted a substitute, sometimes waiting days until the right word came. Her expressions are therefore well fitted and forcible. Though the predominant key is a serious one, there is nevertheless considerable humor in Charlotte Bronte's work. In 'Shirley' especially we find many happy scenes, and much wit in repartee. And yet, with all these merits, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... When at night-time the savages came to the ships with fresh food, they asked higher prices and would take only daggers and knives in pay. Only by firing its great guns could the {203} Discovery prevent forcible theft by the savages offering provisions; and in the scuffle of pursuit after one thief, Pareea—a chief most friendly to the whites—was knocked down by a white man's oar. "I am afraid," remarked Cook, "these people will compel me to use violent measures." As if to ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... of the financial world, the T. B. C. Company's capital having evaporated in the course of two years, the company went into liquidation—forced, I believe, not voluntary. There was nothing forcible in the process, however. It was slow; and while the liquidation—in London and Amsterdam—pursued its languid course, Axel Heyst, styled in the prospectus "manager in the tropics," remained at his post on Samburan, the No. ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... proposed to drive balloons through the air by the forcible expulsion of the hot air in the envelope from the rear of the balloon. An opening was made about half-way up the envelope, through which the hot air was to escape, buoyancy being maintained by a pan of combustibles in the car. Unfortunately, this ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... works were losing their better fame, that of being understood by all their countrymen, Ascham boldly avowed the design of setting an example, in his own words, TO SPEAK AS THE COMMON PEOPLE, TO THINK AS WISE MEN. His pristine English is still forcible without pedantry, and still beautiful without ornament.[15] The illustrious BACON condescended to follow this new example in the most popular of his works. This change in our literature was like a revelation; these men taught us our ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... of persuasion, as, for example, thumb-screws, racks, wheels, scorpions, water-dropping for the head, bags of snakes, tweezers, and steel-pointed beds, it being apparent that our agony for the slave cannot be satisfied except by his liberation, or by the forcible subjection to us of all who oppose it. And we do hereby request all the friends of freedom now travelling in despotic countries to make inquiry as to the most approved methods of persuading the mind by appeals to it through ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... of expostulation was taken up by Mr. Stanley in person. Her father's ideas of expostulation were a little harsh and forcible, and over the claret-colored table-cloth and under the gas chandelier, with his hat and umbrella between them like the mace in Parliament, he and his daughter contrived to have a violent quarrel. She had intended to be quietly dignified, ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... I cannot pick out one part as better than the rest. It is all so well balanced. But it is impossible not to be struck with your extent of knowledge in geology, botany, and zoology. The extracts which you give from Hooker seem to me EXCELLENTLY chosen, and most forcible. I am so much pleased in what you say also about Lyell. In fact I am in a fit of enthusiasm, and had better write no ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... contrary, that since the 18th of March the great majority of journals have exhibited proofs of a proud and courageous independence. Each day, without allowing themselves to be intimidated, either by menaces of forcible suppression or threats of arrest, they have fearlessly told the members of the Commune their opinion without concealment or circumlocution. The French press has undoubtedly committed many offences during ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... is occupied, and bound to be occupied, not so much in making stories true as in making them typical; not so much in capturing the lineaments of each fact, as in marshalling all of them towards a common end. For the welter of impressions, all forcible but all discreet, which life presents, it substitutes a certain artificial series of impressions, all indeed most feebly represented, but all aiming at the same effect, all eloquent of the same idea, all chiming ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "They are forcible ones I must admit," said Miss Emmerson, smiling affectionately on her niece; "but now for the other ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper

... a distant noise of barking and growling, which the traveller had for some time heard, became extremely loud and furious, and made the knight suppose that the hermit, alarmed by his threat of making forcible entry, had called the dogs who made this clamour to aid him in his defence, out of some inner recess in which they had been kennelled. Incensed at this preparation on the hermit's part for making good his inhospitable purpose, the knight ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... told them to go away and settle the matter. It seems that the girl had no particular wishes as to whom she should marry. At last the friends arranged matters satisfactorily and the girl was abducted, if one can call an elopement an abduction. However, in the eyes of the Turks it was a forcible abduction, and the fact that the girl was related to the most influential Turk in the town did not improve matters. The Beg had demanded the restitution of the girl at once and punishment of the offenders. ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... for injuries suffered under Cromwell and from Scottish Presbyterians; but it was one of those topics upon which a hot-headed persecutor would naturally dwell, though De Foe gives him rather more forcible language than he would be likely to possess. It is only towards the end that the ironical purpose crops out in what we should have thought an unmistakable manner. Few writers would have preserved their incognito so long. The caricature would have been too palpable, and invited ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... 'O bull amongst men, self-choice hath been ordained for the marriage of Kshatriyas. But that is doubtful (in its consequences), O Partha, as we do not know this girl's temper and disposition. In the case of Kshatriyas that are brave, a forcible abduction for purposes of marriage is applauded, as the learned have said. Therefore O Arjuna, carry away this my beautiful sister by force, for who knows what she may do at a self-choice.' Then Krishna and Arjuna, having thus settled as to what ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... door with wind-tossed garments, all in vain. She dropped her wood to use both hands. The door would sometimes stick when lightly closed, and thinking this to be the case, she threw her weight against it in a forcible attempt to burst it open. Hannah jumped away and darted through the ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness

... contrasted this with the sordid love of gain which not only shrank from these sacrifices in person, but grudged the pittance necessary to alleviate them, while it made the trifling amount it had already contributed, an excuse for making no further donations, and closed with this forcible denunciation: "And you, merchants and rich men of Milwaukie, living at your ease, dressed in your broad-cloth, knowing little and caring less for the sufferings of these soldiers from hunger and thirst, from cold and nakedness, from sickness and wounds, from pain and death, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... system introduced by the victorious Othmans among the conquered nations was not as oppressive as is generally believed. The Turks, unlike the Germanic nations, the Huns and Normans, did not take forcible possession of private property and divide it among their conquering hordes. From those who acknowledged themselves subject to their rule, the Turks exacted tribute, but protected their liberties and political institutions. The conquerors introduced their laws into the country, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... jargon. It is the crisp, emphatic and powerful discourse of a man of the world, who is incomparably better informed than the mass of his congeners. Mr Browning is the readiest, the blithest, and the most forcible of talkers. Like the Monsignore in Lothair he can 'sparkle with anecdote and blaze with repartee,' and when he deals in criticism the edge of his sword is mercilessly whetted against pretension and vanity. The inflection of his voice, the flash of ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... answered smiling, "I mean old Colin. In 1792, when we had a club in the church, everybody could preach; but Colin spoke best of all. He had a magnificent voice, and said many forcible and true things, and the people came from far and near, from Saverne and Saarburg, and even still farther away to hear him; women and girls, 'citoyennes' as they called them then, filled the choir galleries and the pews. ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... ascendency of a nature so much more energetic and forcible than his own. In his helpless condition he was grateful ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... am," and I gave a forcible thrust into her glowing and well-moistened sheath. But, though she certainly was greatly excited, she suddenly turned round and unseated me, and drew away from me, refusing to take it again. As she was quite naked, the movements of her beauteous form were most graceful and enchanting, and one ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... to that passage in the Eunuchus of Terence where Thraso asks if Thais was obliged to him for the present he had sent her, and Gnatho replies, that she had expressed her obligation in the most forcible terms. T. Magnas vero agere gratias Thais mihi? G. Ingentes. ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... of November, 1861, an outrage was perpetrated by an armed vessel of the United States, in the forcible detention, on the high-seas, of a British mail steamer, making one of her regular trips from one British port to another, and the seizure, on that unarmed vessel, of our Commissioners, Mason and Slidell, who with their secretaries were bound for Europe on diplomatic service. The ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... Liverpool or Manchester. The indulgences of these occasions were usually followed by a period of reaction, when he was urgent for the suppression of nudity in the local Art Gallery and a harsh and forcible elevation of the superficial morals of the valley. And he spoke of the ladies who ministered to the delights of his jolly-dog period, when he spoke of them at all, by the unprintable feminine equivalent. My aunt he treated with a kindly contempt and considerable financial generosity, but his ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... the means at its disposal the importation of war material to Great Britain and her allies, and she takes it for granted that neutral Governments, which so far have taken no steps against the traffic in arms with Germany's enemies, will not oppose forcible suppression ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... these forfeitures for the security of the lives of its members; it inflicts them for the security of their property, the great essential of civilization; it inflicts them also for the protection of its political institutions, the forcible attempt to overturn which, has always been justly regarded as the greatest crime; and who has questioned its right so to inflict? "Man can not have property in man"—a phrase as full of meaning as, "who slays fat oxen should himself be fat." Certainly he may, if the laws ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... stretched thoroughly but carefully so that the muscle will be able to close the opening and the bowel contents will not pass at any time unhindered. There are two methods of stretching the muscle—forcible or gradual. The forcible method is generally done by inserting the two thumbs into the anus and stretching the muscle thoroughly in every direction until there is no resistance. (Dilators are made for this purpose, but unless they are very carefully used they ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... said above, the all-dominating institution of slavery and status acted resistlessly to discountenance exertion directed to other than naively predatory ends. It was still possible to find some habitual employment for the inclination to action in the way of forcible aggression or repression directed against hostile groups or against the subject classes within the group; and this sewed to relieve the pressure and draw off the energy of the leisure class without a resort to actually useful, or even ostensibly useful employments. The practice of ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... time, and the same robust proportion was observed in his other strings. The Violoncello upon which he played was by Forster, and would bear much heavier stringing than an Italian instrument; and, again, he was a most forcible player, and his power of fingering quite exceptional. Dragonetti, the famous Double-Bass player, and coadjutor of Lindley, possessed similar powers, and used similar strings as regards size. Their system of stringing was adopted indiscriminately. Instruments whether weakly or strongly ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... has also issued a proclamation, in which he says that he cannot find words sufficiently forcible to express his disapproval of your illegal and criminal conduct; he calls upon the army not to be seduced by your example, and orders you, and all with you, to be ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... a special admonitory sermon might well be preached to us dissolute Germans, in warning for our excesses and drunkenness. But where would be forthcoming a sermon forcible enough to restrain the shameful sottishness and the drink devil among us? The evil of overindulgence has, alas, swept in upon us like a torrent, overwhelming as a flood all classes. It daily spreads further and further throughout ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... summoned to a durbar some Native officers who had displayed a very proper feeling of loyalty by arresting several fanatics who had tried to tamper with the soldiery, and he liberally rewarded them, pointing out at the same time in forcible language the disgrace to a soldier of being faithless to his salt. But while doing everything in his power to keep the Natives loyal, and with a certain amount of success, he did not neglect to take every ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... "fallen woman." He injures her instinctive feeling of the sanctity of her body, an instinct which even in the case of a small child can be passionately profound. Only when every infringement of sanctity (forcible caressing is as bad as a blow) evokes an energetic, instinctive repulsion, is the nature of the child proud and pure. Children who strike back when they are punished have the ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key

... hypothesis, it would have been for Neal's interest had he remained shaking his head there and getting miserable until the day of judgment. He consequently declined giving the third shake, for he thought that plain conversation was, after all, more significant and forcible than the most eloquent nod, ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various

... compel &c. 744. Adj. powerful, puissant; potential; capable, able; equal to, up to; cogent, valid; efficient, productive; effective, effectual, efficacious, adequate, competent; multipotent[obs3], plenipotent[obs3], omnipotent; almighty. forcible &c. adj. (energetic) 171; influential &c. 175; productive &c. 168. Adv. powerfully &c. adj.; by virtue of, by dint of. Phr. a toute force[Fr]; <gr/dos moi pou sto kai kino ten gen/gr>[Sp][Grk][Grk][Grk][Grk][Grk]; eripuit coelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... displays of muscular eccentricity were gone through by the exhibitor, much to the satisfaction of the applauding crowd. As to Walter, somehow or other the whole thing seemed full of emptiness. Why was it so? Surely because, to use the forcible language of Chalmers, "the expulsive power of a superior affection" had begun to make such exhibitions distasteful to him. However, he had not much time for reflection. The acrobat was now coming to his performances on the rope. Hitherto his exertions and feats had been attended simply ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson

... as addressed by one Goddess to another: but I assure the English reader that in this passage especially I have greatly softened down the expression of the original; a literal translation of which, however forcible, would shock even the least fastidious critic. It must, indeed, be admitted that the mode in which "the white-armed Goddess" proceeds to execute her threat is hardly more dignified than the language, in which ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... the country. It was a forcible means of telling the world that we Americans—135,000,000 of us— are united in our determination to fight this total war with our total will and our ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt

... judgment in the case of Swift and Kelly—a written judgment and at great length. I thought it remarkably well done, embracing all the points of the case, and laying down the law and the reasons for reversing the decree of the court below in a very forcible and perspicuous manner. He must have written this judgment with great rapidity, for it was only on Tuesday afternoon that it was settled to be given on Thursday, all of which is a proof of his admirable talents. His conduct on the last day of the hearing and this judgment in some degree made up for ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... of speech is a change from the usual form of expression for the purpose of producing a greater effect. These changes may be effective either because they are more pleasing to us or because they are more forcible, or for both reasons. ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... impressibility, and his keen perception. He received the gifts of the passing hour so happily that to produce pure and lasting poetry it was enough for him to utter in natural words something of the fulness of his heart. He says on every occasion exactly what he wanted to say, in clear, forcible, spontaneous ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... be something which all can understand, about something which interests everybody. I think, that, if any experienced lecturer gives you a different account from this, it will probably be one of those eloquent or forcible speakers who hold an audience by the charm of their manner, whatever they talk about,—even when they don't talk ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... rulers. For the foreign governments insisted that the treaties negotiated with the old government should be accepted in full by the new. It was soon as evident to the new rulers as it had been to the old that direct and forcible resistance to the foreigners was futile. Not by might were they to be overcome. Westerners had, however, supplied the ideals whereby national, political unity was to be secured. Mill's famous work on "Representative Government" was early translated, and read by all the thinking men ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... practically as close a rendering as is desirable" (p. 178). Tell the truth, man, and shame the Devil! I assert and am ready to support that the "Villon version" is incomparably superior to Lane's not only in its simple, pure and forcible English, but also in its literal and absolute correctness, being almost wholly free from the blunders and inaccuracies which everywhere disfigure Torrens, and which are rarely absent from Lane. I also repeat that wherever ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... those of St. Luke, on the ground that "in those eight are these four, and in these four are those eight;" with sundry remarks on the mystical value of the number eight, with which I need not trouble the reader. With St. Ambrose, however, this puerile systematization is quite subordinate to a very forcible and truthful exposition of the real nature of the Christian life. But the classification he employs furnishes ground for farther subtleties to future divines; and in a MS. of the thirteenth century ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... there was a lurking good-humour in his countenance, and a twinkle in his eye, which immediately prepossessed you, and in a few minutes you forgot that he was not well-favoured. Mr Small was very fond of an argument and a joke, and he had such a forcible way of maintaining his argument when he happened to be near you, that, as Emma had told our hero, few people after a time ventured to contradict him. This mode of argument was nothing more than digging the hard knuckles of his large hand into the ribs of ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... despondence, however, has given way to emotions of a nobler and more exalted nature. What can be more magnificent than the vision which opens before him to display the triumph of justice and the final glory of his cause? And it may be added, what can be more forcible or emphatic than the language in ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... feelings of the mind, or denoting those ordinary modes of thought which result from the social habits of mankind, or from the evils that tend to interrupt them." This assertion might have been put in more forcible terms had it occurred to the author to include not only words expressive of thought and feelings, but even some signifying natural objects, though doubtless most of these are expressed by aboriginal ...
— A Manual of the Malay language - With an Introductory Sketch of the Sanskrit Element in Malay • William Edward Maxwell

... rise to all these wars was the opinion he entertained that both his honour and interest were concerned in revenging the murder of his uncle, and maintaining the state of affairs he had established. Immediately after his return from Apollonia, he formed the design of taking forcible and unexpected measures against Brutus and Cassius; but they having foreseen the danger and made their escape, he resolved to proceed against them by an appeal to the laws in their absence, and impeach them for the murder. In the mean time, those whose ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... acquired for the Virginians, the appellation of the Long Knives,[18] the fatal certainty, with which Bowman's men and the inhabitants of the various settlements in Kentucky, then aimed their shots, might have added to that title, the forcible epithet of sharp-shooters. They were as skilful and successful, too, in the practice of those arts, by which one is enabled to steal unaware upon his enemy, as the Natives themselves; and were equally as sure to execute the purposes, for which those arts were put in requisition, as these ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... who seeming to have wandred both into the Dominions of Silence and of Night, began to have some tender for his own Safety, and would willingly have groped his Way back again; when he heard a Voice, as from a Person whose Breath had been stopp'd by some forcible Oppression, and just then, by a violent Effort, was broke through the Restraint.—'Yet—Yet—(again reply'd the Voice, still struggling for Air,) 'Forbear—and I'll forgive what's past—I have done nothing yet that needs a Pardon, (says ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve

... impression upon her mind. She only considered it, in fact, with reference to its possible effect upon the mind of John Markham, who she soon learned was avoiding the social scene, as had been his custom, before she had made forcible entry into his studio last year and had dragged him forth into the company of ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... seemed deeply interested in her evidence—said he knew she was relating the truth, and, in testimony of it, brought a letter of young Drummond's from his desk, wherein that young gentleman, after protesting his innocence in the most forcible terms, confessed having been with such a woman in such a house, after leaving the company of his friends; and that, on going home, Sir Thomas's servant had let him in, in the dark, and from these circumstances he found it impossible to prove an alibi. He begged of his relative, if ever an opportunity ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... that province in conjunction with a French force. He was directed by the committee for foreign affairs to communicate with Lafayette on the subject; but instead of this, he wrote a long letter to congress, urging, in a forcible manner, the impolicy of the measure; and, in consequence of his representations, the plan proposed by congress for the emancipation of Canada, in co-operation with an army from France, was deferred "until circumstances rendered the co-operation of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... here was a situation of unlimited possibilities; the horses and outfit needed; a long detour to reach Magdalena unobserved; the rescue of a strange girl who would no doubt be self-willed and determined to ride on the stage—the rescue forcible, if necessary; the fight and the inevitable pursuit; the flight into the forest, and the safe delivery of the ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... explained who we were, and the horsemen, turning round, accompanied us. The rest of our party coming up, we collected in the outer circle of the vast multitude who were listening to the preacher. He was, we found, an enthusiastic Protestant—Herman Modet by name. He was setting forth, in clear and forcible language, the great truths of Christianity, as opposed to the false teaching of Rome. He showed how the one must, when received, elevate and ennoble the human mind; while the other was calculated in every way to lower and debase it. He then, ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... an American enthusiast for extreme eugenistic views, has also set down in print his ideas as to the lines on which our lives are to be run under a scientific domination, and these are to be dealt with in another article.[20] His scheme entails a forcible visit, not, it may be supposed, to the Altar, but to the Registry Office, for all persons held to be fit to perpetuate the race, and forcible restraint, whether by imprisonment or by sterilisation, ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle

... deeply offended him. He was hardly good at anything except taking offense, and he looked on the estate as his nearly as much as his father's. True the father had not spoken so kindly as he might, but had he known his son, he would often have spoken severely. From the habit of seeking clear and forcible expression in writing, he had got into a way of using stronger vocal utterances than was necessary, and what would have been but a blow from another, was a stab from him. But the feelings of Cornelius in no case deserved consideration—they were so selfish. And now he ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... planes, the large structure of the head and the essentials of likeness are rendered in a very satisfying and convincing way. His colour, however, if losing the inclination to the rather dull grey-greenness which had prevailed before 1785, remained somewhat cold and wanting in quality, and the more forcible tints introduced in the draperies were frequently lacking in modulation and were not quite in harmony with the prevailing tone. Something of this deficiency in fusion is also noticeable in his flesh tints, the carnations of the complexions being somewhat detached owing to defective gradation ...
— Raeburn • James L. Caw

... Maya scale we have one of the best and most extended examples of vigesimal numeration ever developed by any race. To show in a more striking and forcible manner the perfect regularity of the system, the following tabulation is made of the various Maya units, which will correspond to the "10 units make one ten, 10 tens make one hundred, 10 hundreds make one thousand," ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant

... Bunyan must feel continually reminded of his ardent attachment to his Saviour, and his intense love to the souls of sinners. He was as delicate in his expressions as any writer of his age, who addressed the openly vicious and profane—calling things by their most forcible and popular appellations. A wilful untruth is, with him, 'a lie.' To show the wickedness and extreme folly of swearing, he gives the words and imprecations then commonly in use; but which, happily for us, we never hear, except among the most degraded classes ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... me keep a secret, I do not think she would mind; for mamma has a good deal"—of confidence in her children, she would have added, but checked herself with the thought that Lena enjoyed no such blessing, and that she was presenting too forcible a contrast between her own lot and that of her little friend, and she hastily substituted, "a great deal of good sense for her children. But, Lena dear, you do not know how well my mamma keeps a secret, and how she can ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews

... merely literary meditations, conceived by the greatest of dramatists, on infirmities incident to all human nature, and only attempted after the cue had been given by rival sonnetteers. At any rate, their energetic lines are often adapted from the less forcible and less coherent utterances of contemporary poets, and the themes are common to almost all Elizabethan collections of sonnets. {152} Shakespeare's noble sonnet on the ravages of lust (cxxix.), for example, ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... story, opening at a fashionable Long Island resort, where a stately Englishwoman employs a forcible New England housekeeper to serve in her interesting home. How types so widely apart react on each other's lives, all to ultimate good, makes a story both humorous and ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... was known and admired all over the State as the writer of the fiery editorials in the "Carolinian," a paper published in Columbia during the days just preceding Secession, and noted for its ardent State Rights sentiment. These eloquent, forcible, and fearless discussions of the questions of the day by young Gaillard was a potent factor in shaping the course of public sentiment and rousing the people to duty and action, from the Mountains to the Sea. Through the columns of this paper, then the leading one in the State, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert



Words linked to "Forcible" :   physical, force



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