"Futurity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... became objects of habitual worship as in Egypt: some of them, however, such as the bull and lion, were closely allied to the gods, and birds unconsciously betrayed by their flight or cries the secrets of futurity.* In addition to all these, each family possessed its household gods, to whom its members recited prayers and poured libations night and morning, and whose statues set up over the domestic hearth defended it from the snares of the evil ones.** The State religion, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... used, as I think they may be understood, without irreverence, or any meaning that would be akin to blasphemy, she seemed to me to be more in charity with her Creator. The ways of God to man had become more justified to her; and her outlook as to the futurity of the world was a more hopeful one. Of course optimism had with her to be long-sighted! But she seemed to have become reconciled to the certainty that he who stands on a lofty eminence must needs see long stretches of dusty road across the ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... car-warriors, the two sons of Madri, who on the field of battle career in all directions, shooting incessant showers of shafts on hostile hosts, and who know not what it is to tremble in fight. I believe, O king, that which Futurity hath in store for a particular person cannot be known, since thou, O son of Pandu, who art endowed with all the virtues, hast had to suffer trouble of such unendurable kind. All this, no doubt, O Yudhishthira, thou wilt again make up by help of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... an emblem of purity, My next against knaves a security; My whole is a shame To an Englishman's name And branded will be to futurity." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various
... principles, fear and hope, and that any one who can make these serve his ends may be sure of a rapid fortune. They realized that, whether a man is most swayed by the one or by the other, what he must most depend upon and desire is a knowledge of futurity. So were to be explained the ancient wealth and fame of Delphi, Delos, Clarus, Branchidae; it was at the bidding of the two tyrants aforesaid that men thronged the temples, longed for fore- knowledge, and to attain it sacrificed their hecatombs or dedicated their golden ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... reflection will be sensible that he has given a true representation of human existence, and that he has, at the same time, with a generous benevolence displayed every consolation which our state affords us; not only those arising from the hopes of futurity, but such as may be attained in the immediate progress through life. He has not depressed the soul to despondency and indifference. He has every where inculcated study, labour, and exertion. Nay, he has shewn, in a very odious light, a man ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... there, indeed, any present loss, in such respect for futurity. Every human action gains in honour, in grace, in all true magnificence, by its regard to things that are to come. It is the far sight, the quiet and confident patience, that, above all other attributes, separate man from man, and near him to his Maker; and ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... in its motion, the tree in its growth, the cloud in its course, the mountain in its wearing away. Try always, whenever you look at a form, to see the lines in it which have had power over its past fate and will have power over its futurity. Those are its awful lines; see that you seize on those, whatever else you miss. Thus, the leafage in Fig. 16 (p. 63) grew round the root of a stone pine, on the brow of a crag at Sestri near Genoa, ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... respecting causal sequence, depending on reasoning proper to an outgrown culture. According to this view, with adequate information it would be possible to trace the mental process in virtue of which arise such expectations of futurity, and to discover the methods of their gradual modification and eventual supersession by generalizations founded on experience more accurate and extensive. Yet it is not to be assumed that in each and ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... your mind at rest on that subject, mamma," said Constance, still using her chop-sticks with great complacency;—"it's my opinion that the farmer is not in existence who is blessed with such a conjugal futurity. I think Fleda's strong pastoral tastes are likely to develope themselves ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... class of prophets in those days called by a name which has been translated soothsayers. These soothsayers were able, as was supposed, to look somewhat into futurity—dimly and doubtfully, it is true, but really, by means of certain appearances exhibited by the bodies of the animals offered in sacrifices These soothsayers were consulted on all important occasions; and if the auspices ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... sort of constant limit for the amount of possible variation. How heartily I do wish that all your works were out and complete; so that I could quietly think over them. I fear the Pacific Islands must be far distant in futurity. I fear, indeed, that Forbes is going rather too quickly ahead; but we shall soon see all his grounds, as I hear he is now correcting the press on this subject; he has plenty of people who attack him; I see Falconer never loses a chance, and it is wonderful how well Forbes ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... rested in opinions of some future being, which, ignorantly or coldly believed, begat those perverted conceptions, ceremonies, sayings, which Christians pity or laugh at. Happy are they which live not in that disadvantage of time, when men could say little for futurity, but from reason: whereby the noblest minds fell often upon doubtful deaths, and melancholy dissolutions. With these hopes, Socrates warmed his doubtful spirits against that cold potion; and Cato, before he durst give the fatal stroke, spent part of the night in reading the Immortality of ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... Leicester, though exempt from the general control of superstition, was not in this respect superior to his time, but, on the contrary, was remarkable for the encouragement which he gave to the professors of this pretended science. Indeed, the wish to pry into futurity, so general among the human race, is peculiarly to be found amongst those who trade in state mysteries and the dangerous intrigues and cabals of courts. With heedful precaution to see that it had not been opened, or its locks ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... and be a member of his love, Whom I, with all the office of my heart, Entirely honour: I would not be delay'd. If my offence be of such mortal kind That nor my service past, nor present sorrows, Nor purpos'd merit in futurity, Can ransom me into his love again, But to know so must be my benefit; So shall I clothe me in a forc'd content, And shut myself up in some other course, To ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare
... fond of high life, will turn with disdain from the simplicity of his country fire-side. Such as mistake ribaldry for humour, will find no wit in his harmless conversation; and such as have been taught to deride religion, will laugh at one whose chief stores of comfort are drawn from futurity. ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... in a cave upon the heath, where they, who knew by foresight of his coming, were engaged in preparing their dreadful charms, by which they conjured up infernal spirits to reveal to them futurity. Their horrid ingredients were toads, bats, and serpents, the eye of a newt, and the tongue of a dog, the leg of a lizard, and the wing of the night-owl, the scale of a dragon, the tooth of a wolf, the maw of the ravenous salt-sea shark, the mummy of a witch, the root of the ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... vessells contained every article by which we were to expect to subsist or defend ourselves. however as this the state of mind in which we are, generally gives the colouring to events, when the immagination is suffered to wander into futurity, the picture which now presented itself to me was a most pleasing one. entertaing as I do, the most confident hope of succeading in a voyage which had formed a darling project of mine for the last ten years, I could but esteem this moment of my departure as among the ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... truly reported, is one of those singular coincidences which occasionally appear, differing so widely from ordinary calculation, yet without which irregularities human life would not present to mortals, looking into futurity, the abyss of impenetrable darkness which it is the pleasure of the Creator it should offer to them. Were everything to happen in the ordinary train of events, the future would be subject to the rules ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... supported the charges.] Gould also knew that every year immigration was pouring into the West; that in time its population, agriculture and industries would form a rich field for exploitation. By the well-understood canons of capitalism, this futurity could be capitalized in advance. Moreover, he had in mind other plans by which tens of millions could be ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... intentness which would have won a clearer answer from them had they seen it. A momentary shadow flitted over his face; then came the smile of serenity, as if, in that brief eclipse, he had acknowledged the existence of some hard futurity, and, asking nothing, yet hoping all things, left the issue in God's hand, with that submission which is ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... hints that they were wanderers, invaders, coming from the East, and that with the land they appropriated also the ideas, the inventions, of an earlier negroid race. But whatever they took they added to, they improved on. The idea of futurity, of man's existence beyond the grave, became prominent among them; and in the absence of clearer knowledge we may well take this idea as the groundwork, the starting-point, of all man's later and more ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... said, "that prophetic gloom which dives into futurity, to extract sorrow from days and years to come, and which considers its own unhappy visions as the decrees of Providence. We know nothing of to-morrow: our business is to be ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... better conceived than described. He had entered prison a boy, with all the fresh, elastic buoyancy of youth, he quitted it a man; but, oh, how was that manhood's prime, to which in his visions of futurity he had looked with such bright anticipation as the zenith of his naval fame, now about to pass? as a slave; exposed to increased oppression and indignity on account of his religion, which he had inwardly vowed never ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... Doctor Tytler, the learned translator of the hymns and epigrams of Callimachus, shewing that those persons who are guided by Pallas, or Wisdom, will improve the present time, without being too anxious to pry into futurity. The Greek poet, however, like the Chinese philosopher, ascribed to the possessor of the Lots, the talent of ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... Solon at Athens, contemplating on the port and citadel of Munychia, suddenly exclaimed, "How blind is man to futurity! Could the Athenians foresee what mischief this will do their city, they would even eat it with their own teeth to get rid of it!"—a prediction verified more than two hundred years afterwards! ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... fall from the throne, on which she had so nearly been again seated. Catherine Seyton devoured in secret her own grief, anxious to support the broken spirits of her mistress; and the Abbot, bending his troubled thoughts upon futurity, endeavoured in vain to form some plan which had a shadow of hope. The spirit of young Roland—for he also mingled in the hasty debates held by the companions of the Queen's flight—continued ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... preparations, and in the deep silence became aware of the accelerated beating of her heart. She felt but little reassured by the presence of her kinsman, whose lips moved without a murmur, and whose grave eyes seemed fixed on futurity, meditating the mystery of the next world, and completely oblivious to the realities of the earth ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... Rollin (Ancient History, vol. i. p. 65.), "that the god did not compose the verses of the oracle. He inflamed the Pythia's imagination, and kindled in her soul that living light which unveiled all futurity to her. The words she uttered in the heat of her enthusiam, having neither method nor connection, and coming only by starts, to use that expression [Greek: eggastrimuthos] from the bottom of her stomach, or rather from her belly, were collected {89} with care by ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various
... what would become of the rejoicings of our wedding-day! To undertake the performance of a ceremony of such importance, under these circumstances, would only be mocking Providence, and preparing for ourselves a futurity of misfortune. However, I was too much in love, and too impatient, not to have married under any circumstances, therefore I only endured what I could ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... penetrate the dark veil of futurity, and thereby to avert, if possible, threatened danger, has animated mankind in all ages of the world. Prophetic knowledge was sought by the Greeks at the mouth of oracles, whose predictions were interpreted to the people by priests, specially ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... discord to usurp its reign. We have a magnificent future if we can only preserve the Union as our fathers constructed it. While it lasts there is a great light in the firmament in which all may walk in security, hope, and happiness. It is a light reaching far down the depths of futurity cheering and guiding the steps of our children. It is a light shining to the remotest corner of the earth—raising up the down-trodden and illuminating the homes of the victims of oppression. But let that light be now eclipsed, go out in blood and darkness, and the ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... advent of the last day, were a contradiction to our beliefs. We, whose generations are ordained in this setting part of time, are providentially taken off from such imaginations; and being necessitated to eye the remaining particle of futurity, are naturally constituted into thoughts of the next world, and cannot excusably decline the consideration of that duration, which maketh pyramids pillars of snow, and all ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... vengeance? Was there to be no term to his endurance? Might not he teach this proud, prejudiced manufacturer, with all his virulence and despotic caprices, a memorable lesson? And his daughter, too, this betrothed, after all, of a young noble, with her flush futurity of splendour and enjoyment, was she to hear of him only, if indeed she heard of him at all, as of one toiling or trifling in the humbler positions of existence; and wonder, with a blush, that he ever could have been the hero ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... we anticipate the evils of futurity, my dear friend?" said she. "Let us think only of the present. I am anxious now to know if the storm ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... smoke their pipes, weep bitterly, and, in their sorrow, cut themselves with knives, or pierce themselves with the points of sharp instruments. I could not but reflect that theirs is a sorrow without hope: all is gross darkness with them as to futurity; and they wander through life without the consolatory and cheering influence of that gospel which has brought life and immortality ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... place."—Ib. "Yet, as to the commutableness of these two tenses, which is denied likewise, they [the foregoing examples] are all one [; i.e., exactly equivalent]"—Id. "Both these tenses may represent a futurity, implied by the dependence of the clause."—Id. "Cry, cries, crying, cried, crier, decrial; Shy, shier, shiest, shily, shiness; Fly, flies, flying, flier, high-flier; Sly, slier, sliest, slily, sliness; Spy, spies, spying, spied, espial; Dry, drier, driest, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... addresses and public demonstrations. The settlers, with a manly consistency, despite the threatened scarcity of labor, adhered to their flag and responded with cheers to those who predicted a temporary struggle and a bright futurity. But the agents of the convict department endeavored to rekindle the last embers of jealousy and hate. To the employers they predicted ruin; to the houseowners, desolation and emptiness; to the publicans the reign of puritanism; to ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... rendered the fortunate efforts of her husband tenfold delightful. They mutually exulted in that futurity that should enable them to set the unkind rector at defiance; and Hugh often boasted he would prove, though but a farmer, that the blood in his veins was as warm, and perhaps as pure, as that of any proud parson's in ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... itself sufficiently demonstrative of the radical defect that there is in its polity, and of the necessity for an alteration in it: nevertheless, it may not be altogether inexpedient to dive a little into futurity, and to view through the mirror of the imagination the further results which the experience of the past may convince us that a perseverance in the same course of restriction and disability will infallibly lead to. It requires not the gift of divination to foresee that the manufacturing ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... a Tuscan order of priests, who attempted to predict futurity by observing the beasts offered in sacrifice. They formed their opinions most commonly from inspecting the entrails, but there was no circumstance too trivial to escape their notice, and which they did not believe in some degree portentous. The arusp'ices were most commonly consulted by individuals; ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... a tender sauciness). Poet SHAKSPEARE asserts there are more things in Heaven and earth than the Horatian philosophy. I am not a superstitious—and yet this mechanical demon may have seen correctly through the brick wall of Futurity. Have you not a worshipful adorer who might be described as dark, and to whose native land it is ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... advanced, would probably have shared by that time in the social changes; possibly would themselves form a barrier between the countries to the south and any ambitious prince in St Petersburg. Any direct action of Russia, therefore, flies before us like a rainbow as futurity expands. But in the mean time an indirect action upon India is open to Russia even at present. That action, which she is powerless to carry on for herself, she may originate through Persia. And in that we see the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... of the constitution seemed to promise this republic a happier futurity. The friar Savonarola, who had exercised such influence in the council, evinced at the same time an ardent love of mankind, deep respect for the rights of all, great sensibility, and an elevated mind. Though a zealous reformer of the Church, and in this respect a precursor of Luther, who ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... of all ages have been ready, not without reason, to recognize in signal disasters befalling their enemies the retributive hand of the Almighty himself lifting for a moment the veil of futurity, to disclose a little of the misery that awaits the evil-doer in another world. But, in the present instance, it is a candid historian of different faith who does not hesitate to ascribe to a special interposition of the Deity the excruciating ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... with careworn face, Abstracted eye, and sauntering pace, May pass one such as he, Whose mind heaves with a secret force, That shall be felt along the course Of far Futurity. ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... to me the prospect of paridisic futurity. I shall be active in the promoting the benefit of my country, and rise superior to dirty, narrow, selfish views! recompensed by your approbation, your joys, and sometimes by your tears. Your gentle hand shall reach me the ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland
... abiding-place, we all hasten toward futurity!" said the old preacher. "Strengthen yourself now with meat and drink! The body cannot suffer like the soul. We have accompanied him to His sleeping chamber; his bed was well prepared! I have prayed the evening prayer; ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... in which the curtains of heaven were raised and held aside from futurity to allow me to look into the things which were to come. A feeling of heavenly rapture filled my being, so much so that, like the apostle who was caught up into the third heaven, I did not know whether I was in the body or out of it during my vision. I saw things that ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... admitted therefore of fluctuations of generous feeling—of approbation and of complacency. We were intellectualized also in proportion; we looked backward upon the records of the human race with pride, and, instead of being afraid, we delighted to look forward into futurity. It was imagined that this new-born spirit of resistance, rising from the most sacred feelings of the human heart, would diffuse itself through many countries; and not merely for the distant future, but for ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Ulpius tightened his hold and laughed in triumph. 'What! the servant of the temple is in terror of the high priest, and shrinks from walking in the place of the sacrifice!' he cried. 'Fear not, bondman! The mighty one, who rules over life and death, and time and futurity, deals kindly with the servant of his choice! Onward! onward! to the place of darkness and doom, where I alone am omnipotent, and all others are creatures who tremble and obey! To thy lesson, learner! by sunset the victim ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... the last of the three which I stated. For if it be allowed, as you propose, that my propositions are true, then you consent to the validity of the apostles' testimony respecting a future state, which granted, it makes no difference in what way the apostles come to the knowledge of futurity. When a thing is known, it is known. The means by which it is known add nothing to either side of the argument. If you allow that my argument on this subject is correct, as it seems you do, then ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... who beheld it as spectators, could those who bore a part in the solemnity, have looked into futurity; could they have divined that no other hall would ever again see that virtuous and beneficent king surrounded with that pomp, or received with that reverential homage which was now paid to him as as ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... and did I not differ I would not stand here. Did I expect nothing better from human nature than I see, I should have no heart for the present effort, poor as it may be. I see the signs of a better futurity, and especially signs that the large class by whose toil we all live are rising from the dust; and this faith is my only motive ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... in her hand a card, one of a pack. It was the death-card of superstitious lookers into futurity. Had he selected it because it bore that reputation, or ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Sistine Adam that begins to burn; the woman embodied burst of adoration from his sleep; the twelve great torrents of the Spirit of God that pause above us there, urned in their vessels of clay; the waiting in the shadow of futurity of those through whom the promise and presence of God went down from the Eve to the Mary, each still and fixed, fixed in his expectation, silent, foreseeing, faithful, seated each on his stony throne, the building stones of the word of God, building on and ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... to be great powers or truths, the progress of things, as if from unreasoning elements, not towards final causes, the greatness and littleness of man, his far-reaching aims, his short duration, the curtain hung over his futurity, the disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental anguish, the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race, so fearfully yet exactly described ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... great antiquity, and denotes an oracular influence, by which people obtained an insight into the secrets of futurity. I have taken notice with what reverence men in the first ages repaired to rocks and caverns, as to places of particular sanctity. Here they thought that the Deity would most likely disclose himself either by a voice, or a ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... it in allegorical form. The misty expanse of Futurity is radiated with divergent lines of rigid steel; and along one of these lines, with diminishing carbon and sighing exhaust, you travel at schedule speed. At each junction, you switch right or left, and on you go still, up or down the way of your own choosing. But there is ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... round a star." He further adds that many traditions are told of attempts to climb these heavenly ladders; and, "if a young man has been much favoured with dreams, and the people believe he has the art of looking into futurity, the path is open to the highest honours. The future prophet puts down his dreams in pictographs, and when he has a collection of these, if they prove true in any respect, then this record of his revelations is appealed ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... what would Burgum give to get a name, And snatch his blundering dialect from shame? What would he give to hand his memory down To time's remotest boundary? a crown! Would you ask more, his swelling face looks blue— Futurity he rates at ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... heroic spirit bleeds, And from his nerveless frame indignantly recedes. Yet here, ev'n here, with pleasures long resign'd, Lo! MEMORY bursts the twilight of the mind: Her dear delusions sooth his sinking soul, When the rude scourge presumes its base controul; And o'er Futurity's blank page diffuse The full reflection of her vivid hues. 'Tis but to die, and then, to weep no more, Then will he wake on Congo's distant shore; Beneath his plantain's antient shade, renew The simple transports ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... shore, Far from Ilion's hoary wave, Agamemnon's bridal slave Speaks Futurity no more: Death is busy ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... only an ear-witness of his wonders, but also an ear- witness of his prophecies concerning futurity. For that drought which came, and the great dearth of that year, and the famine and pestilence which followed together, he foretold two years before, saying that he saw a rod which was laid on man, stripes ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... said, for I had really been disturbed by Harriet's remark—"after all, power over one thing gives us power over everything. When you mend socks prospectively—into futurity—Harriet, that is an evidence of ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... plur." The formula for this word, in accordance with our symbolism, would be (F) (E) C d A B (g) (h) (i) (0). It is the plural of the future participle of a compound verb "to sit and cut up"—A B. The elements (g)—which denotes futurity—, (h)—a participial suffix—, and (i)—indicating the animate plural—are grammatical elements which convey nothing when detached. The formula (0) is intended to imply that the finished word conveys, in addition to what is definitely expressed, a further relational idea, that of subjectivity; ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... thick rind of the sacred fruit on which we live. This fantastic kingdom of heaven, this endless pursuit after a city of God, which has constantly preoccupied Christianity during its long career, has been the principle of that great instinct of futurity which has animated all reformers, persistent believers in the Apocalypse, from Joachim of Flora down to the Protestant sectary of our days. This impotent effort to establish a perfect society has been the source of the extraordinary tension which has always made the true ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... drunken and unfaithful husbands; has a secret to make you beloved by your heart's idol; and brings together those long separated." No. 11.—"Madame Widger, clairvoyant and gifted Spanish lady; unveils the mysteries of futurity, love, marriage, absent friends, sickness; prescribes medicines for all diseases; tells lucky numbers, ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... work, the hope of one day giving it to the world scarcely presented itself in the most distant futurity. Europe was still bent to that degree under the yoke of Napoleon, that no independent voice could make itself be heard: on the Continent the press was completely chained, and the most rigorous measures excluded every work printed in England. My mother thought ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... by these gentlemen to relax at all the terrors of futurity. And, no doubt, if all those who have been restrained from evil by fear of eternal punishment were to lose that belief suddenly, the consequences, at first, would be sometimes bad. If you have exerted your whole force in producing fear of ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... of Little Hintock had become aware of the nocturnal experiment about to be tried, and were also sauntering stealthily after the frisky maidens. Miss Melbury had been informed by Marty South during the day of the proposed peep into futurity, and, being only a girl like the rest, she was sufficiently interested to wish to see the issue. The moon was so bright and the night so calm that she had no difficulty in persuading Mrs. Melbury ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... present objects, the next cause of solicitude and inquiry to the mind of man, is to penetrate a little into the secrets of futurity. The same tutelary gods who bestowed their care, and exerted their powers to procure present pleasure and happiness for mankind, were supposed not averse to grant them, in this respect also, a little indulgence. ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... hatched." Oh, you never read his Naufragium, or "Shipwreck," did you? Of course not; for, if you had, I don't think you would have given me credit—or discredit—for entire originality in that speech of mine. That men are cowards in the contemplation of futurity he illustrates by the extraordinary antics of many on board the sinking vessel; that they are fools, by their praying to the sea, and making promises to bits of wood from the true cross, and all manner ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... too much for the calmer pursuits of life; and the minds of the young especially were so absorbed by passing temporal events, as to leave but little time for the contemplation of the deeper and more serious affairs of futurity. However, Coleridge appears in his political opinions to have leaned too much to the side of democracy; but this was so prevalent and so much a fashion, particularly in those filled with enthusiasm, that it seemed a natural consequence in any young man ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... and steady increase of the larger groups, a multitude of smaller groups will become utterly extinct, and leave no modified descendants; and consequently that, of the species living at any one period, extremely few will transmit descendants to a remote futurity. I shall have to return to this subject in the chapter on classification, but I may add that as, according to this view, extremely few of the more ancient species have transmitted descendants to the present day, and, as ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... contemptuous incredulity. Speaking from the religious point of view, the Renaissance was but a resurrection of paganism dying out before the presence of the Christian world, which was troubled and perplexed, but full of life and futurity. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... My insight into futurity, like that of George Fox the quaker, and that of our great and philosophic poet, Lord Byron, is derived from simple presentiment. This is a far less artificial process than those which are employed by some others. Yet my predictions will, I believe, be found more ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... I, "Fate has now done its worst, and Fortune will be weary at last of tormenting a wretch that she can sink no lower! Death has no terrors for me; and, after death—!" But, even in my misery, I scarcely gave a thought to what might happen in futurity. It might occasionally have obtruded itself on my mind, but was quickly dismissed: I had adopted the atheistical creed ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Euripus, as the cases were similar, and urged some with a greater degree of boldness; on which the king desired that they would consider seriously before they adopted a resolution, which, while they were overcautious and provident of futurity, would give them immediate cause of repentance, and then dismissed him. When the Pheraeans were acquainted with the result of this embassy, without the smallest hesitation they determined to endure whatever the fortune of war might ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... her back, so that none of us at the house thought o' draggin' the hole at the foot-log. But Bill Dugan did, an' soon come with the news whar she was at. Then her ma jest had a spasm. I railly believe on my soul she cussed God an' all futurity. She raved till she was black in ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... Dr. Opimian. Civilised. The word requires definition. But looking into futurity, it seems to me that the ultimate tendency of the change is to substitute the worse for the better race; the Negro for the Red Indian. The Red Indian will not work for a master. No ill-usage will make him. Herein he is the noblest specimen of humanity that ever walked ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... that great statesman looked into futurity, little did he think, when he visited the Queen in all her splendour at Trianon, and spoke so warmly of the cordial reception he had met with at Versailles from the Duc and Duchesse de Polignac, that he should have so soon to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... pleasing in these tamperings with the future, even where we are convinced of the fallacy of the prediction. It is singular how willingly the mind will half deceive itself, and with what a degree of awe we will listen to these babblers about futurity. For my part, I cannot feel angry with these poor vagabonds, that seek to deceive us into bright hopes and expectations. I have always been something of a castle-builder, and have found my liveliest pleasures to arise from the illusions which fancy has cast over commonplace ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... in such opportunities he would always seek Lois, entreating her, as of old, to marry him—sometimes pleading his love for her, oftener speaking wildly of his visions and the voices which he heard foretelling a terrible futurity. ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... you, and me, and every one in the wide world. We work blindly, unknowing the favoring or counteracting causes that are constantly going on around us, to facilitate or impede our endeavors. The wish to look into futurity is vain, irrational, almost impious; but what a service would it be to any man if he could but get a sight into Fate's great workshop, and see only that part in which the events are on the anvil that affect our own proceedings. Still, even if we did, we might not understand the machinery after ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... operations of the human mind. They dreaded the mysterious power of spells and incantations, of potent herbs and execrable rites, which could extinguish or recall life, influence the passions of the soul, blast the works of creation, and extort from the reluctant demons the secrets of Futurity. They believed with the wildest inconsistency that the preternatural dominion of the air, of earth, and of hell, was exercised from the vilest motives of malice or gain by some wrinkled hags or itinerant sorcerers who passed their obscure lives in ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... shadows dwelt along its base; rocky fastnesses appeared midway of its elevation; and on either side huge black hills diverged like massy roots from a central trunk. His lively fancy pictured these hills peopled with a majestic and intelligent race of savages; and looking into futurity, he already saw a monstrous cross crowning the dome-like summit. Far different were the sensations of the muleteer, who saw in those awful solitudes only fiery dragons, colossal bears, and breakneck trails. The converts, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... sweet terror, that must confound poor bashful maidens, on such an occasion, when they are surrendered up to a more doubtful happiness, and to half-strange men, whose good faith, and good usage of them, must be less experienced, and is all involved in the dark bosom of futurity, and only to be ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... of Kent (who early informed me that there were no titles in the spititual spheres into which he had entered), to benefit, not a class, a sect, a party, or any particular country, but the whole of the human race, through futurity." "His whole spirit-proceeding with me has been most beautiful," Owen adds, "making his own appointments; and never in one instance has this spirit not been punctual to the minute he had named." But Owen was of a sanguine ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... and would not have to be alone their king; that they had been contriving these things from the very day that they came out of Egypt; that however in no long time they would sorely repent of what they did, which repentance yet could not undo what was thus done for futurity; that they would be sufficiently rebuked for their contempt, and the ungrateful conduct they have used towards me, and towards thy prophetic office. "So I command thee to ordain them such a one as I shall name ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... the possible of moral and intellectual advance towards perfection. Thus we live by hope and faith; thus we are for the most part able to realize what we will, and thus we accomplish the end of our being. The contemplation of futurity inspires humility of soul in ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... ability, he did not question the success of his plans. But how much of the future did he intend these plans to cover? He turned from this troublesome uncertainty and found satisfaction in that state of mind which permits one day to forecast the day which is to follow, and on a futurity stretching further than this he resolutely turned his back. In his work and in his rest at the Press Club, whither he went every afternoon, he found his keenest pleasure. He was also fond of the theater, not to sit with a box party, but to loiter ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... growth of our country was sketched by Mr. Burke, in the course of his speech on conciliation with America, in a passage whose picturesque beauty has made it one of the commonplaces of literature, in which he represents the angel of Lord Bathurst drawing up the curtain of futurity, unfolding the rising glories of England, and pointing out to him America, a little speck scarce visible in the mass of the national interest, yet which was destined before he tasted of death to show itself ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... that something survived after death till one was reborn for the last time, and then entered Nirv[a]na. The part that animates the material complex is to the Buddhist an individuality which depends on the nature of its former complex, home, and is destined to project itself upon futurity till the house which it has built ceases to exist, a home rebuilt no more to be its tabernacle. When a man dies the component parts of his material personality fall apart, and a new complex is formed, of which the individuality is the effect of the karma of the preceding complex. The ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... purity.' He owned, that our being in an unhappy uncertainty as to our salvation, was mysterious; and said, 'Ah! we must wait till we are in another state of being, to have many things explained to us.' Even the powerful mind of Johnson seemed foiled by futurity. ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... is it but a refined species of usury? a hoard lodged beyond all reach of bankruptcy? a store for futurity? exempt from the numerous losses and disappointments of those who mistake the blessing of wealth to consist in its ...
— Brief Reflections relative to the Emigrant French Clergy (1793) • Frances Burney
... of my acquaintance used to endeavour as a girl to stay her failing heart on the thought of Eternity at such moments. It is all in vain; at the urgent moment one cares very little about the stellar motions, or the dim vistas of futurity, and very much indeed about the cut of one's coat, and the appearance of one's collar, and the glances of one's enemies; the doctrines of the Church, and the prospects of ultimate salvation, are things very light in the ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... manners had changed in the Hanoverian half-century, though not as much as they were to change in the fifty years that were still in futurity. Extravagance of attire still persisted, though the extravagance had changed its expression. The gigantic hoops in which ladies had delighted had diminished, had dwindled, and gowns were of a slender seemliness. ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the impersonation of age and wisdom, and wished, as I glanced at the youthful figures talking so earnestly in the distance, but not a murmur of whose voices reached my ear, that she would impart to me her far-reaching vision of futurity. I gazed on the image of the Eternal Father sweeping in majestic flight through the air, bearing the angels on His floating garment as He divides the light from the darkness. I saw Adam, glad with new life, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... virtue; to unravel the mazes of error, or vindicate the pretensions of truth, it must generally excite a poignant regret, that abilities like his should have been dissipated on one generation, which, by a different application, might have charmed and enlightened futurity. ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... since the French troops had penetrated into our colony; and it was even said they purchased supplies with it, from certain of our own people. As we had paid the highest price ever given, for these glimpses into futurity, we thought ourselves entitled to have the pages of the sealed book freely opened ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... find Glasses for the Second Sight, as our Old Women call it. This Second Sight has been often pretended to in Our Regions, and some Famous Old Wives have told us, they can see Death, the Soul, Futurity, and the Neighbourhood of them, in the Countenance: By this wonderful Art, these good People unfold strange Mysteries, as under some Irrecoverable Disease, to foretell Death; under Hypocondriack Melancholy, to presage Trouble of Mind; in pining Youth, to ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... an old log that had long lain on the damp ground, and found a vivacious multitude of unclean and devilish-looking insects scampering to and fro beneath it. Without an infinite faith, there seemed as much prospect of a blessed futurity for those hideous bugs and many-footed worms as for these brethren of our humanity and co-heirs of all our heavenly inheritance. Ah, what a mystery! Slowly, slowly, as after groping at the bottom of a deep, noisome, stagnant pool, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... records, and retains imperishably the important events that have occurred; whose judgment, analyzing the treasures of memory, has discovered many of the sublime and unchanging laws of nature, and has built on them all the arts of life, and through them, piercing far into futurity, sees clearly many of the events that are to come; and whose eyes, and ears, and observing mind at this moment, in every corner of the earth, are watching and recording new phenomena, for the purpose of still better comprehending the magnificence ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... Nor is this all. We shall not only be able to unravel the intricate web of past affairs, but shall also find a clue for the guidance of future statesmen in the art of political prediction. Nay more, this clue 'will open a consolatory prospect into futurity, in which at a remote distance we shall observe the human species seated upon an eminence won by infinite toil, where all the germs are unfolded which nature has implanted within it, and its destination on ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... the Air" is a story of the awful devastation following a conflict between two first-class powers with the resources of the air at their command. It is one of the most brilliant and successful of Mr. Wells's studies in futurity. ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... to hold a steadfast pen was impossible; to disengage my senses from the scene that was passing or approaching; to forbear to grasp at futurity; to suffer so much thought to wander from the purpose which engrossed my fears and my ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... of hysterical exhilaration. I remarked indeed a clumsy swaying of the machine, for which I was unable to account. But my mind was too confused to attend to it, so with a kind of madness growing upon me, I flung myself into futurity. At first I scarce thought of stopping, scarce thought of anything but these new sensations. But presently a fresh series of impressions grew up in my mind—a certain curiosity and therewith a certain dread—until at last they took complete possession of me. What strange developments ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... Besides which, it is a question whether it is not our duty to do that which shall conduce most to the benefit of posterity. The injury, admitting it to be so, can only be inflicted on the present generation, the benefit would be felt to all futurity. I have not, I hope, a disposition for the character of an inhuman man, and certainly have not written thus much without due consideration of the subject, but my own experience tells me we are often obliged to adopt a line of ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... story learn now the beauty of peace. After the titles of the two august sovereigns, the monument proceeds: "These two wise, holy, spiritual, and accomplished princes, foreseeing the changes hidden in the most distant futurity, touched with sentiments of compassion towards their people, and not knowing, in their beneficent protection, any difference between their subjects and strangers, have, after mature reflection and by mutual ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... the spirit-depths ringing Richly your melody swells, Sweet reminiscences bringing, Joyous-toned memory-bells!— Youth's beautiful bowers, Her dew-spangled flowers, The pictures which Hope of futurity drew,— Love's rapturous vision Of regions Elysian, In glowing perspective ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... thought futurity denies, Unconscious bears, Bellerophon, like thee His own indictment, he condemns himself. Who reads his bosom reads immortal life, Or nature there, imposing on her sons, Has written fables; man ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... Enters with her, veiled about; Sunbeams, hiding in her hair, Please themselves with silken wear; Shadows point to what shall be In the dim futurity. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various |
