"Nil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... decline of life, when health and spirits fail, have a kind of claim to that sort of tranquillity. But a young man should be ambitious to shine, and excel; alert, active, and indefatigable in the means of doing it; and, like Caesar, 'Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum.' You seem to want that 'vivida vis animi,' which spurs and excites most young men to please, to shine, to excel. Without the desire and the pains necessary to be considerable, depend upon it, you never can be so; as, without ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... his lack-lustre eyes rested but a moment on the schooner in the bay. He had not been long enough away from the world to be other than faintly interested in the arrival, and his recollections of the night before were nil. ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... salsis infausta Valachria terris, Oceanus tumidis quam vagus ambit aquis. Nulla ubi vox avium, pelagi strepit undique murmur, Coelum etiam larga desuper urget aqua. Flat Boreas, dubiusque Notus, flat frigidus Eurus, Felices Zephyri nil ubi juris habent. Proque tuis ubi carminibus, Philomena canora, Turpis in obscoena rana ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... complete must comprise, in addition to imaginative works, all these branches of intellectual activity. Comprising all these branches, it cannot avoid comprising works of which the purely literary interest is almost nil. ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... that right for love Upon a cros, our soules for to beye, First starf, and roos, and sit in hevene a-bove; For he nil falsen no wight, dar I seye, That wol his herte al hoolly on him leye. And sin he best to love is, and most meke, What nedeth feyned loves for ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... more formidable, the situation differs materially, and to the disadvantage of the girl. If she makes an overture, it is an invitation to disaster; her hope of lawful marriage by such means is almost nil. In consequence, the prudent and decent girl avoids such overtures, and they must be made by third parties or by the man himself. This is the explanation of the fact that a Frenchman, say, is habitually enterprising in amour, and hence bold and often offensive, whereas an American is what is ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... the national love of a lord is less subservience than a form of self-love; putting a gold-lace hat on one's image, as it were, to bow to it. I see, too, the admirable wisdom of our system:—could there be a finer balance of power than in a community where men intellectually nil, have lawful vantage and a gold-lace hat on? How soothing it is to intellect—that noble rebel, as the Pilgrim has it—to stand, and bow, and know itself superior! This exquisite compensation maintains the balance: whereas that period anticipated by the Pilgrim, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... brutality calling for vengeance in one direction and a man firing at his back from the other, Winslow's aversion to bloodshed became nil; and, aiming cool, he began firing at the ...
— In the Clutch of the War-God • Milo Hastings
... many steps, without spying eyes to track and denounce him. Her own helplessness struck her with the terrible sense of utter disappointment. The possibility of being the slightest use to her husband had become almost NIL, and her only hope rested in being allowed to share his fate, whatever it might ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... warfare had gone on. Not for nothing had he said "crocodiles" to those orchestral scramblings in the bass of an imperially inspired oratorio; and Schafs-Kleider, receiving certain mysterious grants in aid (for its own funds were nil), had started to sink shafts at a lower level on the outskirts of the town; and after many failures had secured at one point a trickle of water which tasted suspiciously like the real article, and was declared by interested experts to be chemically ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... Clinton," replied the other, with a shrug, "de mortuis nil nisi bonum; but as touching beauty, in what sense do you ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Mark; J.Gueffier had the "Amateur Divin" as his sign, and an allegorical interpretation of the device, "Fert tacitus, vivit, vincit divinus amator," as a Mark; Guillaume Julian, or Julien, had "Amitie" as his sign, and a personification of this (Typus Amiciti) as his Mark, with the motto "Nil Deus hac nobis majus concessit in usus"; Abel L'Angelier (and his widow after his death) adopted the sacrifice of Abel as the subject of his Sign and Mark, with the motto "Sacrum pinque dabo nec macrum sacrificabo"; and the motto of both the first and the second Michel Sonnius was "Si Deus pro ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... what you do, miracles or fruitless deeds, You're a man, man, man, if you do them with a will; And no matter how you loaf, cursing wealth or mumbling creeds, You are nothing but a noise, and its weight is nil. ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... Quidquid latet apparebit Nil inultum remanebit: Item, Rex tremendae majestatis Qui salvandos salvas gratis ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... for the elevator, Curtis fathomed Marcelle's stock of information as to the addresses of neighboring ministers of the Protestant Episcopal Church. It was nil. He appealed to the attendant when the elevator came up, but that worthy thoughtfully tickled his scalp under his cap, and suggested a consultation with the taxi-driver. Indeed, to further the quest, he went with them to the door, and, while Lady Hermione and Marcelle seated themselves in ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... No. Used in reply to a question, particularly one asked using the '-P' convention. Most hackers assume this derives simply from LISP terminology for 'false' (see also {T}), but NIL as a negative reply was well-established among radio hams decades before the advent of LISP. The historical connection between early hackerdom and the ham radio world was strong enough that this may have been ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... impression for the lateral sinus, as it is technically called, is nearly horizontal, and the cerebral chamber invariably overlaps or projects behind the cerebellar chamber. In the Howler Monkey or 'Mycetes' (see Fig. 16), the line passes obliquely upwards and backwards, and the cerebral overlap is almost nil; while in the Lemurs, as in the lower mammals, the line is much more inclined in the same direction, and the cerebellar chamber projects considerably ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley
... splendid hues that in that vest obtain! Go, view the rainbow and recount the glories of the sight And number all the radiances that in its glow unite, And then, when they are counted, with pride be it confessed They're nil beside the splendor of the ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... and sickening with the fumes of chloroform. They fairly sent my head a-reeling, but their effect upon the burglar seemed to have been nil. ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... got it off their chests. At any rate, next day Gordon was plotting a rag on an enormous scale with Archie Fletcher; and in a House game assisted in the severe routing of Rogers' house by seventy-eight points to nil. It takes a good deal to upset a boy of fifteen for very long. And the long evenings were ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... science radium, or radium chloride, is a minute salt crystal, so rare and costly to obtain that it may be counted as about three thousand times the price of gold in the market. But of the action of PURE radium, the knowledge of ordinary scientific students is nil. They know that an infinitely small spark of radium salt will emit heat and light continuously without any combustion or change in its own structure. And I would here quote a passage from a lecture delivered by one of our prominent scientists ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... about cultivating what she calls 'elegant repose.' Poor, dear grandmamma! Her perfect idea of good manners seems to me to be a simple absence—in society, at least—of all emotion and all feeling. I, for one, do not admire the nil admirari system." ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... opus exegi: quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignes, Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas. Cum volet illa dies, quae nil nisi corporis hujus Jus habet, incerti spatium mihi finiat aevi,— Parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis Astra ferar: nomenque erit indelebile nostrum. Quaque patet domitis Romana potentia terris, Ore legar populi; perque omnia saecula fama Si quid ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... aliis formis substantialibus [sc. materialibus] dicendum est non fieri proprie ex nihilo, sed ex potentia praejacentis materiae educi: ideoque in effectione harum formarum nil fieri contra illud axioma, Ex nihilo nihil fit, si recte intelligatur. Haec assertio sumitur ex Aristotele 1. Physicorum per totum et libro 7. Metaphyss. et ex aliis auctoribus, quos statim referam. Et declaratur breviter, nam fieri ex nihilo duo dicit, unum est fieri absolute et simpliciter, ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... alijs nationibus mittatur, vel donetur eisdem. In hyeme, nisi diuites sint, lac iumentinum non habent. Millium cum aqua decoquunt, quod tam tenue faciunt, qud non comedere sed bibere possunt. Et vnus quisque ex eis bibit cyphum vnum vel duos in mane, et nil plus in die manducant. In sero vnicuique parum de carnibus datur, et brodium de carnibus bibunt. In state autem, quia tunc habent satis de lacte iumentino carnes rar manducant, nisi fort donentur eis, aut venatione aliquam bestiam ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... schoolmen," said he. "As the schoolmen labored most intellectually and scientifically—practical result, nil, so these labor harder than other men—result, nil. This is literally 'beating the air.' The ancients imagined tortures particularly trying to nature, that of Sisyphus to wit; everlasting labor embittered by everlasting nihilification. We have made Sisyphism vulgar. Here ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... Western Australia or Queensland, or perhaps buried in the worked-out ground of Tambaroora, Married Man's Creek, or Araluen; and by-and-by the memory of some half-forgotten reef or lead or Last Chance, Nil Desperandum, or Brown Snake claim would take their thoughts far back and away from the dusty patch of sods and struggling sprouts called the crop, or the few discouraged, half-dead slips which comprised ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... white colony—more exactly, 78 out of 250—had not reappeared, but the conditions for its re-appearance were highly favourable. The earth was all water, the vegetation all slime, the air half steam, and the difference between wet and dry bulbs almost nil. Thoroughly dispirited for the first time, I was meditating how to escape, when H. M. Steamship "Torch" steamed into Clarence Cove, and Commander Smith hospitably offered me a passage down south. To hear was to accept. Two days afterwards (July 29, 1863) I bade a temporary ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... "'Nil conscire sibi;' that ought to be enough for a simple man. But it is not enough for me. It cannot be enough for a man who intends to act as an attorney for others. Others must know it as well as I myself. You know it. But can I remain an attorney ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... 24th of July, the Russian Government sought to prevail upon Great Britain to proclaim its complete solidarity with Russia and France, and on the British Ambassador in St. Petersburg pointing out that "direct British interests in Servia were nil, and a war on behalf of that country would never be sanctioned by British public opinion," the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs replied that "we must not forget that the general European question was involved, the Servian question being but a part of the former, and that Great ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... taught, by Day and Night, The Doctrine of the Stagirite, Proving it fixed beyond Dispute, In Ways that none could well refute; For if by Chance 'twas urged that Men O'er-stepped the Limit now and then, He'd show unanswerably still Either that all they did was "Nil," Or else 'twas marked by Indication Of grievous mental Degradation: Nay—he could even trace, they say, That Degradation to ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... the City or elsewhere, but none, as he finally decided, likely to be useful to him at the present moment. For the amount of money that he required was large—larger, indeed, than he cared to verify with any strictness, and the security that he could offer, almost nil. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... quarrelled with him; the "flying waiter" brought glasses and the "stationary waiter" looked through them. Finally, it will be remembered the "stationary waiter" left the room, casting a glance which indicated "let it be understood that all emoluments are mine, and that Nil is the reward of this slave." Still, Dickens wrote the book as a detective story; he wrote it as The Mystery of Edwin Drood. And alone, perhaps, among detective-story writers, he never lived to destroy his mystery. Here alone then among the Dickens novels it is necessary ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... collibus istis, O pueri,' Marsus dicebat et Hernicus olim 180 Vestinusque senex, 'panem quaeramus aratro, Qui satis est mensis: laudant hoc numina ruris, Quorum ope et auxilio gratae post munus aristae Contingunt homini veteris fastidia quercus. Nil vetitum fecisse volet, quem non pudet alto 185 Per glaciem perone tegi, qui summovet Euros Pellibus inversis; peregrina ignotaque nobis Ad scelus atque ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... Frazer, that in totemism, when dissected, there is no religion, just as in the child's drum, when cut open, there is—nothing. Yet, we may reflect, on the battle-field from a drum proceeds a great and glorious sound, inspiring men to noble deeds. Whereas ex nihilo nil fit: from nothing naturally nothing comes. If, however, something does come, it is not from nothing that it comes. Amongst the most primitive savages known to us, men are united to their totems, as Frazer admits, by 'certain intimate ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... were the one to make that very distinction. The scientific world had been working hard on subdivision for years, using what appeared to be common sense. Results worse than nil. Then you come along, and about the first thing you do, after looking the ground over, is to start off in the opposite direction, which subsequently proves to be the only possible way to reach the goal. It seems to me that this is pretty ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... "De mortuis nil nisi bonum," Geoffrey laughed. "No jests about the dead, Alison. But to tell you a secret, he never was alive. He ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... ducentos, ut magnum, versus dictabat, stans pede in uno: cum flueret lutulentus, erat quod tollere velles; garrulus atque piger scribendi ferre laborem, scribendi recte; nam ut multum, nil moror.' ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... quid Medicina viris jurisve peritia prodest, jurisconsultos dubio si jure coercent vincula, nec proprios arcet Medicina bacillos? heu pietas, heu prisca fides! neglectus alumnus Tutorem in vacua tristis desiderat aula: interea Tutor sub judice municipali litigat, et jurat nil se fecisse nefandum, obtestans divos: nec creditur obtestanti. quid referam versos equites iterumque reversos subgraduatorum pellentes agmina ferro, inque pavimentis equitantes undique turmas? proh pudor! o mores, o tempora! forsitan olim exercens operam curvo Moderator aratro ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... circumuoluuntur, atque in rota mouentur; ac frequenter sic submerguntur. Scille enim atque Caribdi merito asi[mi]latur, uelim periculositate perfecta tristique [-teque MSS.] nautis malum ibi subministratur. Ad hoc eurippum ipsi peruenientes, repentino ceperunt in eum delabi cursu; quumque nil preter mortem [Quumque uelut propter mortem R2] sperantes, et quia iam quasi tetris essent abyssi faucibus deuorandi, tunc sanctus Columba prefati pulueris de tumba beati Kerani assumpti aliquid ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... on the farm of Mr. Carew, Deniliquin, in the same State. The seed was sown on well-worked fallow land in which a good amount of the previous year's rainfall had been conserved. The rainfall during the growing period was 322 points, distributed as follows:—May, 210; June, 60; July, 12; August, nil; September, 37; October, 3 points. Under ordinary conditions such a rainfall would mean utter failure of a wheat crop, yet in this case a yield of 14 ...
— Wheat Growing in Australia • Australia Department of External Affairs
... "De Mortuir Nil Nisi Bene!" exclaimed Thugut. "We are under many obligations to these excellent traitors, for they have enabled us to render the Hungarians submissive, just as the traitors who conspired here at Vienna two years ago enabled us to do the same thing to the population of the capital. ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... Nil gratius protervo lib.—Indeed nothing is of more credit or request now than a petulant paper, or scoffing verses; and it is but convenient to the times and manners we live with, to have then the worst writings and studies flourish ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... "Nil autem minus in imperfecto duce, quam festinationem temeritatemque, convenire arbitrabatur. Crebro itaque illa jactabat, [Greek: ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 190, June 18, 1853 • Various
... kind heart will doubtless prompt you to tell me that no clergyman could be safe in his parish if he were to allow the opinion of chance parishioners to prevail against him; and you would probably lay down for my guidance that grand old doctrine "Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa." Presuming that you may do so, I will acknowledge such guidance to be good. If my mind were clear in this matter, I would not budge an inch for any farmer,—no, ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... introspective hostler, who perhaps obeys Sir Philip Sidney's advice, 'Look into your heart and write'? I chanced the other night in a company of the unconventional and illuminated, the 'poster' set in literature and art, wild-eyed and anaemic young women and intensely languid, 'nil admirari' young men, the most advanced products of the studios and of journalism. It was a very interesting conclave. Its declared motto was, 'We don't read, we write.' And the members were on a constant strain to say something brilliant, epigrammatic, original. The person who produced ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... utterly destroy it. The clause stipulates that there must be a majority of all the legal voters; and as there are hundreds who cannot be induced to go to the polls, you can easily see, if this amendment carries, it will make the Act as good as nil. Maltby could not have been elected had it not been for the help he received from the association, and he will do anything to retain their good will; for it is only by their favor he can ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... York critics did everything in their power to push along a project that would have been of great value to this metropolis. It was foredoomed to failure, because it depended upon the iniquity known as "quick returns." De mortuis nil nisi bonum. (I think I ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... the Birchites at having beaten their opponents was unbounded, and when, a short time later, the latter retired with a score against them of one to nil. Jack Vance was seized by a band of applauding comrades, who, with his head about a couple of feet lower than his heels, carried him in triumph across the playground, and staggered half-way up the steep garden path, when Acton happening to tread on a loose pebble brought the whole procession ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... centripetal forces or motions be applied to it, and to the sun. What is the result of such application? Will the planet move nearer the sun, which we are supposing to be perfectly at rest, or will it be urged further away? The effect is nil! for the simple reason, that when we set in motion the centripetal force of Gravitation, at exactly the same time we set in motion an exactly opposite force which is the exact complement and counterpart of the other, so that they exactly counterbalance each other, and Mercury under the ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... Parisian; "it knows neither father nor mother, the commandments of God, nor those of the Church, neither laws divine or human: their member knows no doctrine, understands no heresies, and cannot be blamed; it is innocent of all, and always on the laugh; its understanding is nil; and for this reason do I hold it ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... he added, "should now become your motto: "Inveni portum. Spes et fortuna valete; Nil mihi vobiscum est: ludite ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... value, as animals of transport, is almost nothing. Again, on the other hand, if we load them with an excessive weight, they will soon come to a standstill; and in this case, as in the first, their value as beasts of transport is almost nil. What then, is that moderate load by which we shall obtain the largest amount of "useful effect"? this is a problem which many of the ablest engineers and philosophers have endeavoured to solve; and the ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... venit. He was, however, so polite as to wave his privilege of nil mihi rescribus, and wrote from ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... Cottage—this time accompanied by the modest Muriel—to offer them in person. "It will be so delightful to have a chatelaine at Heronsmere at last," she had gushed. Presumably, recognising that her daughter's chance of acquiring the coveted position was now reduced, to nil, she had decided—with the promptness of a good general—to accept the fact and adapt her tactics to the altered situation. With mathematical foresight she argued that when Coventry was married Heronsmere would ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... which the German raiding party on this occasion belonged. Nor was it true that the enemy was not fought with. Some parties which attacked Brown's front were, under the able example of that officer, driven off with Lewis guns, and D Company, whose loss in prisoners was nil, also maintained its front intact. Casualties were inflicted on the enemy, but these mostly regained their own lines or were carried back by stretcher parties. Our loss in killed that night amounted to some twenty. The story of this raid I ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... nil," said the rhyme, "when kings will," but though nobles and people submitted in the lifetime of Ferdinand, the storm broke out again on his death in October, 1383. During the last ten years the Queen had practically governed, and the kingdom seemed to be sinking back into a province of ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... that the parish where he was asked to go was considered a "bad" parish compared with his own. Each parish {164} was thus considered as a sort of freehold, with a family cupboard bound to provide for nil its children. ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... the working classes by the upper, such attempts at it as we yet have seen, may be considered nil. The upper must learn to know more of the lower, and to make the lower know more of them—a frankness of which we honestly believe they will never have to repent. Moreover, they must read Burns a little more, and cavaliers and Jacobites a little less. As it ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... all, Ivan soon discovered that, in winter, regimental duties were practically nil. Half the privates of his regiment had been dismissed to their native villages. The rest, though nominally in barracks, and paraded once or twice a month (very badly), were wont to eke out their half-pay (supposed to be whole, but actually shared with two lofty administrators whose names were ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... look at the man who had throned himself in every heart. Not one of that immense crowd doubted the final triumph of his country in her arduous conflict, for everyone saw, or thought he saw, in Washington, her guardian angel, commissioned by Heaven to insure her that triumph. 'Nil desperandum' was ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... Men's Mutual Improvement and Discussion Society (in a loft): the whole forming a back lane. No audacious hand had plucked down the vane from the central cupola of the stables, but it had grown rusty and stuck at N-Nil: while the score or two of pigeons that remained true to their ancestral traditions and the place, had collected in a row on the roof-ridge of the only outhouse retained by the Dolphin, where all the inside pigeons tried to push the outside pigeon off. This I accepted as emblematical of the struggle ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... which are excessively variable. The local lesions may be confined to a small portion of the animal's body and the constitutional phenomena be nil. The appearance and gravity of the local lesions may be so unlike, from difference of location, that they seem to belong to a separate disease, and complications may ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... was no doubt as to his mechanical ability. He took to a car like a young duck to water. He talked motor, thought motor, and would have accepted—I won't say with enthusiasm, for Alfred's motto was 'Nil admirari'—but without hesitation, an offer to drive in the greatest race in the world. He could drive really well, too; as for belief in himself, after six months' apprenticeship in a garage he was prepared to vivisect a six-cylinder engine ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... of Archimedes, erst of Sicily, And of D'Israeli ... forti nil difficile, Is likewise mine. Pygmalion was a fool Who should have ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... a daughter of Nil the Lame? I thought your face was familiar! Why, I had my ears pulled by him many and ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... Ferdinand de Lesseps, when en route to Paris, kindly took charge of some cases of specimens for analysis. But the poorest stuff had been supplied to him by M. Marie; and the results, of which I never heard, were probably nil. The samples brought to England, by order of his Highness the Khediv, were carefully assayed. The largest collection was submitted to Dr. John Percy, F.R.S. Smaller items were sent to the well-known houses, Messrs. Johnston and Matthey, of Hatton Garden, and Messrs. Edgar Jackson and Co., Associates ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... and the simplicity or complexity of mental processes depend on the character of the external situation which the mind has to manipulate. If the activities are simple, the mind is simple, and if the activities were nil, the mind would be nil. The mind is nothing but a means of manipulating the outside world. Number, time, and space conceptions and systems become more complex and accurate, not as the human mind grows in capacity, but as activities become more varied and call for ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... been in similar difficulties. The detailed information regarding the roads, trails and villages of the north country which filtered down as far as the English officers who controlled the various field operations of the Expedition turned out to be nil or erroneous. Thereby hang many tales which will be told over and over wherever veterans of that campaign ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... an exuberance of exhilaration begotten of multifold good-byes effected to a spirituous accompaniment, was not so firm in his saddle as he might have been; but on the hardened heads of the other two the effect of such farewells had been nil. They were just getting clear of the town when they became aware of a panting, puffing native striving to ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... the principle, De mortuis nil, nisi bone 'em!" suggested Miss Hurribattle, with such perfect gravity that neither Miss Prowley nor the clergyman suspected the jocular atrocity that was hidden ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... offer you in a perfectly friendly spirit) you will carefully consider the consequences which such a voyage might produce, and, frankly speaking, I consider that your chance of bringing it to a successful termination is Nil. ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... felt his pulse for the last time, he cried out suddenly, "I have made a statement of my affairs, the liabilities are numerous—the assets nil; but I rely on the ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... mors est, ad nos neque pertinet hilum, Quandoquidem natura animi mortalis habetur: Et, velut ante acto nil tempore sensimus aegri, Ad confligendum venientibus undique Poenis; Omnia cum belli trepido concussa tumultu, Horrida, contremuere sub altis aetheris auris; In dubioque fuit sub utrorum regna cadendum Omnibus humanis esset, terraque, marique: Sic, ubi non erimus, cum corporis ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... outbreak of the war our communications with America are slow and irregular. In the beginning they were nil. From the end of July to the middle of August we received neither letters, telegrams, nor papers. I suppose it was the same with you concerning direct news from us. Our adversaries had the field all for themselves and they seem to have made ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... duration of the treatment varying with the number of strictures, the tightness, and the extent of the fibrous tissue-changes in the esophageal wall. Mortality from the endoscopic procedure is almost nil, and if gastrostomy is done early in the tightly stenosed cases, ultimate cure may be confidently expected with careful ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... "De mortuis nil nisi bonum." When For me this end has come and I am dead, And the little voluble, chattering daws of men Peck at me curiously, let it then be said By some one brave enough to speak the truth: Here lies a great soul killed by cruel wrong. Down all the balmy days of his ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... boy's invalid mother. The old lady, owing to her great age, was also virtually an invalid; so that both she and her daughter scarcely ever left their room, and hence their influence upon young Ernst's education and training was practically nil. His uncle, however, after an abortive attempt to follow the law, had settled down to a quiet vegetative sort of existence, which he regulated strictly according to fixed rules and methodical procedure; and these he imposed more ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... the spine and disable all but the monsters of the class. At the same time, although the first blow may daze a snake, it is some time before the final effect takes place, and the creature will wriggle about for some time after having been struck, while its energy is practically nil—that is to say, it merely lives ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... think, of some of our best modern writers. They are marvellously FIT and terribly little NASCITUR. It is why I can never concede the highest palm in her craft to G. Eliot. Her writing is glorious—Imagination limited—Dramatism—nil! ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... the bizarre about every thing I saw—but then the world is made up of all kinds of persons, with all modes of thought, and all sorts of conventional customs. I had travelled, too, so much, as to be quite an adept at the nil admirari; so I took my seat very coolly at the right hand of my host, and, having an excellent appetite, did justice to the good cheer set ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... percentage of caffein constantly decreases with the increase in color. If the roast be carried almost to the point of carbonization, as in the case of the "Italian roast," the caffein content will be almost nil. This is not a suitable coffee for one desiring an almost caffein-free drink, for the empyreumatic products produced by this excessive roasting will be more toxic by far than the caffein itself ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... miniature work, and then to hide it at the bottom of a hole to put one's finger in, looking like a mere spot in the middle of a great white panel; to accumulate so much patient and delicate workmanship on almost imperceptible accessories, and all to produce an effect which is absolutely nil, an effect of the ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... and use it when I find it convenient, I do not suppose that those who projected and made the line allowed me to enter into their thoughts; the debt of my gratitude is divided among so many that the amount due from each one is practically nil. ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... fact of the matter is, Mr. Rattar, that, as you yourself said, the direct evidence is practically nil, and one is forced to go a good deal by one's judgment of the people suspected ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... police and the justices. To be afraid of the magistracy, it is sufficient to be afraid, there is no need to be guilty. Ursus had no desire for contact with sheriffs, provosts, bailiffs, and coroners. His eagerness to make their acquaintance amounted to nil. His curiosity to see the magistrates was about as great as the hare's to ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... times, when the troopers would trek across the Delta to the Barrage du Nil, a pleasant spot where the Nile divides into its delta streams and canals. Here they would bivouac for the night beneath shady plantations of lebbak trees in beautiful gardens. In the daytime they swam their horses in the river. A jolly form of amusement there was the ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... Pyrrhic victory, Parthian dart, and Homeric laughter; quos deus vult and nil de mortuis; Sturm und Drang; masterly inactivity, unctuous rectitude, mute inglorious Miltons, and damned good-natured friends; the sword of Damocles, the thin edge of the wedge, the long arm of coincidence, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... a perfect gas naturally becomes much greater as the solution becomes more diluted. It then imitates gas in some other properties; the internal work of the variation of volume is nil, and the specific heat is only a function of the temperature. A solution which is diluted by a reversible method is cooled like a gas which ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... Russia and France. France would fulfill the treaty obligations with Russia, besides supporting Russia in diplomatic negotiations. Sir George said, that personally he did not expect any declaration of this kind from Great Britain. Direct British interests were nil in Serbia, British public opinion would not permit Great Britain to enter war on her behalf. M. Sazonof replied that the general European question was involved, and Great Britain could not afford to efface herself from the problems ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... while very hot and rub the tip on some flux or dip it into soldering acid. Then rub the tip of the iron on a stick of solder or rub the solder on the iron. If the solder melts off the stick without coating the end of the iron, allow a few drops to fall on a piece of tin plate, then nil the end of the iron on the tin plate with considerable force. Alternately rub the iron on the solder and dip into flux until the tip has a coating of bright solder for about half an inch from the end. If the iron ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly
... for that purpose—it was hard, we repeat, when hostilities did at last break out in America, that his energies should have been so cramped by the passive attitude of his superior. Remembering, however, the maxim, de mortuis nil nisi bonum, the editor has refrained from transcribing aught reflecting on the memory of that superior when he could do so consistently with truth, although he feels acutely that the death of Sir Isaac Brock—hastened as ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... air, and having sternly (not to say with indignation) looked on at the flying waiter while he set the clean glasses round, directed a valedictory glance towards Mr. Grewgious, conveying: 'Let it be clearly understood between us that the reward is mine, and that Nil is the claim of this slave,' and pushed the flying waiter before him out of ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... sum: humani nil a me alienum puto. [I am a man: and I count nothing human foreign ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... had learnt wisdom by experience, and we succeeded with care in thawing it out. We waited till we were all in our bags, and then we had one. I was greatly disappointed; it was not half so good as I had thought. But I am glad I tried it, as I shall never do so again. The effect was nil; I felt nothing, either in ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... call you hence away? Why make you breach betwixt my soul and me? Ye traitorous floods, why nil your floats delay Until my latest moans discoursed be? For though ye salt sea-gods withhold the rain Of all your floats and gentle winds be still, While I have wept such tears as might restrain The rage of tides and winds against their will. Ah shall I love your sight, bright shining ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... their enemies were at, that I could not resist the desire to make a little sortie. You must feel, dear Maud, that our motive was your safety—the safety, I mean, of my mother, and Beulah, and nil of you together—and you ought to be the ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... and restoring order in the launch we found that the casualties were nil, and proceeded to compare notes. Brown, it appeared, had joined the Naval Division, been to Antwerp, Gallipoli and France, and then been transferred for gunnery duties to the rivers of Mesopotamia, and was now Lieut. R.N.V.R. ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... Misere discedere quaerens, Ire modo ocyus, interdum consistere: in aurem Dicere nescio quid puero: cum sudor ad imos Manaret talos. O te, Bollane, cerebri Felicem: aiebam tacitus! Cum quidlibet ille Garriret, vicos, urbem laudaret; ut illi Nil respondebam: Misere cupis, inquit abire. Jamdudum video: sed nil agis: usque tenebo: Persequar: hinc quo nunc iter est tibi? Nil opus est te Circumagi: quemdam volo visere, non tibi notum: Trans Tiberim longe ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... I,—with all my heart. I wish you knew; I wish you knew. I would that all the world knew. But we shall live through it, no doubt. And if we do not, what matter. 'Nil conscire sibi,—nulla pallescere culpa.' That is all that is necessary to a man. I have done nothing of which I repent;—nothing that I would not do again; nothing of which I am ashamed to speak as far as the judgment of other men is concerned. Go, now. They ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... cepta fideliter edam. Prosperum et foelix scelus, virtus vocatur Tibi res antiquas laudis et artis Inuidiam placare paras uirtute relicta. Iliacos intra muros peccatur et extra Homo sum humanj a me nil alienum puto. The grace of God is woorth a fayre Black will take no other hue Vnum augurium optimum tueri patria. Exigua res est ipsa justitia Dat veniam coruis uexat censura columbas. Homo hominj deus Semper virgines furiae; Cowrting a furye Di danarj ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence
... result would, after all, have been nil, had not the following few remarks been made one ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... igitur mors est ad nos neque pertinet hilum, quandoquidem natura animi mortalis habetur. et velut anteacto nil tempore sensimus aegri, ad confligendum venientibus undique Poenis, omnia cum belli trepido concussa tumultu horrida contremuere sub altis aetheris oris, in dubioque fuere utrorum ad regna cadendum omnibus humanis esset terraque marique, ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... formation differe de celle qu'on observe au pied des monts Pyrenees, du cote de la France, ou le sol de plusieurs contrees est compose des debris que les rivieres y ont deposes[6]; une partie de l'Egypte, selon Herodote, a ete pareillement formee des matieres que le Nil y a apportees; Aristotle la nomme l'ouvrage du fleuve: c'est pourquoi les Ethiopiens se vantoient que l'Egypte leur etoit redevable de son origine. Les habitans de Pyrenees pourroient dire la meme chose de presque toutes les contrees ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... sing, if marrd husb can shro 1st flr suite, beaut furn, pri bth rm, sth asp, telephne, mo 'bus psses dr, ex cellar kept. Mrs. Bland, "Nil Desperandum," Muswell Hill, N. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... improve, And their riders develope more skill; And it's oh! for the records of yesterday! To-morrow they'll all be nil! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... Aragazzi, and the monument has therefore been ascribed to them both. But recent research has established that, though preparatory orders were given in that year, a fresh contract was made two years later, and that Donatello's share in the work was nil. Michelozzo alone got payment up to 1436 or thereabouts, when the tomb was completed. Donatello's influence would, perhaps, have been visible in the design, but unhappily we can no longer even judge of this, ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... of all these systems in their later developments, is their cosmopolitanism. Homo sum, nil humani a me alienum puto, 'I am a man; nothing appertaining to humanity do I deem alien from myself,' this was the true keynote of whatever was vital in any of them. And the reason of this is not far to seek. ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... evidence of miracles. Their intellectual or moral value is simply nil. The greatest miracle could not really convince a man of what his reason condemned; and if a prophet could turn water into wine, it would not necessarily follow that all he said was true. In fact, truth does not require ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... Convention repealed its ordinance nullifying the Tariff, and agreed to the collection of the duties now imposed. It followed this concession by another ordinance nullifying the Force Bill. The practical effect of this was nil, for there was no longer anything to enforce. It was none the less important. It meant that South Carolina declined to abandon the weapon of Nullification. Indeed, it might plausibly be urged that that weapon had justified itself by success. It had been ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... vitality, deaden his instincts, derange moral action, cause hope to die within his infant breast almost as soon as it was born." Every pauper was to them an obnoxious charge to be reduced to a MINIMUM or NIL. The Baby's constitution alone ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... qui natu maximus hres Corpore, progressus cm pubertatis ad annos Esset, res gessit multas iuueniliter audax, Asciscens comites quo spar sibi iunxerat tas, Nil tamen iniust commisit, nil tamen vnquam Extra virtutis normam, sapientibus ...
— Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9) - Henrie IV • Raphael Holinshed
... Shakespear. In six Volumes. Carefully Revised and Corrected by the former Editions, and Adornd with Sculptures designed and executed by the best hands.—Nil ortum tale.—Hor. Oxford: Printed at the ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg
... levamen Cladibus, si res caderent eadem Qua mora surgunt; sed humant repentes Alta ruinae. Nil diu felix stetit; inquieta Urbium currunt hominumq; Fata: Totq; vix horis jacuere, surgunt Regna quot annis. Casibus longum dedit ille tempus, Qui diem regnis satis eruendis Dixit: elato populos habent mo- ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski
... anger had wholly left her, but her fear remained. A terrible sense of responsibility was upon her, and she was utterly at a loss as to how to cope with it. Her influence over this man she believed to be absolutely nil. She had not the faintest notion how to deal with him. Lady Carfax would have known, she reflected, and she wished with all her heart that Lady ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... afficiantur was a law of the twelve tables, and De mortuis nil nisi bonum is an excellent injunction—even if the dead in question be nothing but dead small beer. It is not my design, therefore, to vituperate my deceased friend, Toby Dammit. He was a sad dog, it is true, and a dog's death it was that he died; but he himself was not to blame for his vices. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the first salvos from the German guns were nil. The range finders on the Emden had evidently not calculated properly. The water leaped into white sprays ahead of the Sydney, indicating that the Emden's first fire ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... one would take a pill or a draught - seems likely soon to become the only form of outdoor existence possible for too many inhabitants of the British Isles. But a walk without an object, unless in the most lovely and novel of scenery, is a poor exercise; and as a recreation, utterly nil. I never knew two young lads go out for a "constitutional," who did not, if they were commonplace youths, gossip the whole way about things better left unspoken; or, if they were clever ones, fall on arguing and brainsbeating on politics or metaphysics from the moment they ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... trifle," Freydis replied, "although it is the only magic I can perform in an enclosure of buttered willow wands. Now, then, you see for yourself that I am not going to take orders from you. So the figure you have made, will you or nil you, must limp about in all men's sight, for not more than a few centuries, to be sure, but long enough to prove that I am not going ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... difference between the two sorts of madmen is, that he who is so will he nil he, will be one always, while he who is so of his own accord can leave off being one ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... you of one, Harry, who thinks very ill of me—nay, of two; and they are both in this room. Do you remember how you used to teach me that terribly conceited bit of Latin—Nil conscire sibi? Do you suppose that I can boast that I never grow pale as I think of my own fault? I am thinking of it always, and my heart is ever becoming paler and paler. And as to the treatment of others—I ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... then, Natalya would use cunning—ay, and force, too—she would even kidnap them. Once in their grandmother's hands, the law would see to it that they did not go back to this stranger, this bibulous brute, whose rights over them were nil. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... citron-tinted houses are mirrored in the stream—you may study the Arno in all its ever-changing moods. Seldom is its colour quite the same. The hue of cafe-au-lait in full spate, it shifts at other times between apple-green and jade, between celadon and chrysolite and eau-de-Nil. In the weariness of summer the tints are prone to fade altogether out of the waves. They grow bleached, devitalized; they are spent, withering away like grass that has lain in the sun. [4] Yet with every thunder-storm on yonder hills the ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... out. Believe me, a horrid exhibition. Absolutely let himself go. In other words, the brakes failed, and I had to run him into the bushes. One lamp and one wing broken, otherwise unhurt. To adjusting brakes—materials, nil; labour, three hours at a drink an hour, three pints ale. Oh, rotten, ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... far out on the swift tide. Three sharks were circling lazily. He looked around for a boat, saw none. He swiftly estimated his chances of swimming out after the fat man and towing him in. The chances appeared to be nil. Nevertheless, he began stripping off ...
— Collectivum • Mike Lewis
... your sex, whilst at the same time you could be put to the blush in many things by a school-girl of fifteen. For instance, though I firmly believe that you could at the present moment take a double first at the University, your knowledge of English literature is almost nil, and your history of the weakest. All a woman's ordinary accomplishments, such as drawing, playing, singing, have of necessity been to a great extent neglected, since I was not able to teach them to you myself, and you have had to be guided solely by books and ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... of growth is necessarily from percept, through object image, to verbal image. In certain fields, notably smell, the object image is almost absent and yet the verbal images in that field carry meaning. It is also true that people whose power of getting clear-cut, vivid object images is almost nil seem to be in nowise hampered by that fact in their use of the symbols. Knowing the unreliability of the object image, it would seem very unsafe to use it as the link between percept and symbol. Much better to connect the symbol directly with the experience and ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... toto. denique cum membris conlatis flore fruuntur aetatis, iam cum praesagit gaudia corpus atque in eost Venus ut muliebria conserat arva, adfigunt avide corpus iunguntque salivas oris et inspirant pressantes dentibus ora, nequiquam, quoniam nil inde abradere possunt nec penetrare et ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... scamp Mercury says that we do nothing, and leave all the duties of Olympus to him. Will you believe it, he actually says that our influence on earth is dropping down to nil. ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... republished essays coming out with Chatto and Windus; I wish they would come, that my wife might have the reviews to divert her. Otherwise my news is nil. I am up here in a little chalet, on the borders of a pine-wood, overlooking a great part of the Davos Thai: a beautiful scene at night, with the moon upon the snowy mountains and the lights warmly shining in the village. J. A. Symonds is next door to me, just at the foot of my ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... announced the failure of the Great Northwestern Mining Co. The drive in the market had been principally directed against its securities, and after vainly endeavoring to check the bear raid, it had been compelled to declare itself bankrupt. It was heavily involved, assets nil, stock almost worthless. It was probable that the creditors would not see ten cents on the dollar. Thousands were ruined and Judge Rossmore among them. All the savings of a lifetime—nearly $55,000 were gone. He was practically penniless, at a time when he needed money most. He still owned ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... carried out. I gathered, from what I had seen, that the amount of spirits consumed would produce some comical effects. I was quite disappointed. I wondered also whether the procession down the jetty was to be carried out in the clothes in which they arrived, which were nil. It would have been a quaint experience to have seen a whole naked tribe arriving at quite a respectable English settlement. But, no. Their coverings had been carefully carried by the swimmers on the top of their heads and kept dry. And while they refreshed themselves ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... image of melancholly, Seeks him whome fates [adiudge] to miserie! Heere let me lye! Now am I at the lowest! Qui iacet in terra non habet vnde cadat. In me concumpsit vires fortuna nocendo, Nil superest vt iam possit obesse magis. Yes, Fortune may bereaue me of my crowne— Heere, take it now; let Fortune doe her worst, She shall now rob me of this sable weed. O, no, she enuies none but pleasent things. Such is the folly of despightfull chance, Fortune is blinde and sees not my deserts, ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... a noble and accomplished thing. Pliny would have loved it who said: "Ea est stomachi mei natura ut nil nisi merum atque totum velit," which signifies "such is the character of my taste that it will tolerate nothing but what is absolute and full." ... It is no use grumbling about the Latin. The nature of great disasters calls out for that foundational tongue. They roll ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... season for a party of a hundred and fifty men should produce about two hundred cantars (20,000 lbs.) of ivory, valued at Khartoum at 4,000 pounds. The men being paid in slaves, the wages should be NIL, and there should be a surplus of four or five hundred slaves for the trader's own profit—worth on an average five to six ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... conversation on them was merely waste of time. It was as if a man upon a cliff started a dissertation with another in a boat lying on the sea beneath. Half the excellent arguments would drift away upon the wind, lost, rendered nil by the mere difference of level in the two planes. The two main chains that bound my whole psychological system—self-control and self-respect—were entirely absent in him. He looked at his every good action from the point of utility, at his every bad one from the point of secrecy. He would ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... a virtuous and wise man, that having nothing, he has all. This is just his antipode, who, having all things, yet has nothing. He is a guardian eunuch to his beloved gold: Audivi eos amatores esse maximos sed nil potesse. They are the fondest lovers, but impotent ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... to be wholehearted in defence of his master principle. Homo sum, et humani a me nil alienum puto—so said Terence. The nature-mystic adopts and expands his dictum. He substitutes mundani for humani, and includes in his mundus, as did the Latins, and as did the Greeks in their cosmos, not only the things of earth but ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... of the thymus, we are a good deal at sea. The latest opinion about the results of extirpation even in young and growing animals is that they are nil. Yet there is a certain justification for proclaiming the thymus the gland of childhood, the gland which keeps children childish and sometimes makes children out of grown-ups. There is a quantity of data for that proposition. In the first place, the curve ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... ab Inacho, Nil interest, an pauper, et infima De gente sub divo moreris, Victima nil miserantis Orci."—Hor. Carm., ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... of land surface, climate, flora and fauna, and the same nomadic populations of pastoral or hunting tribes. In them the movement of peoples reaches its culminating point, permanent settlement its nil point. Here the hunting savage makes the widest sweep in pursuit of buffalo or antelope, and pauses least to till a field; here the pastoral nomad follows his systematic wandering in search of pasturage ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... witchery. Intuition strong, logic weak, and the two qualities so balanced as to produce an indefinable charm; will-power large, but docility equal, if a man is clever enough to know how to manage her; knowledge of facts absolutely nil, but she is exquisitely intelligent in spite of it. She has a way of evading, escaping, eluding, and then gives you an intoxicating hint of sudden and complete surrender. She is divinely innocent, but roguishness saves her from insipidity. Her looks? She looks as you would imagine a person ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... quoque bonos mores colendi auctor fuerit periniquum enim videtur esse, ut pudicitiam vir ab uxore exigat, quam ipse non exhibeat. Cf. Seneca, Ep., 94: Scis improbum esse qui ab uxore pudicitiam exigit, ipse alienarum corruptor uxorum. Scis ut illi nil cum adultero, sic nihil tibi esse debere cum pellice. Antoninus Pius gave a husband a bill for adultery against his wife "Provided it is established that by your life you give her an example of fidelity. It would be unjust that a husband should demand ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... waste is marked in proportion to the severity and duration of the febrile phenomena, being slight or (nil) in febricula, and excessive ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... group, fulness of the sinuses and veins of the brain, with effusion of serum into the ventricles and beneath the membranes. In the belladonna group, nil. In the alcohol group, signs of inflammation, congestion of brain and membranes, fluidity of ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... or to cross the Channel and, after dropping bombs on seaside resorts, to wander over the city of London in the hope of spreading destruction there, did little real damage and their net effects, from a military point of view, were practically nil. ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... said, handing the candle to the stranger, "and turn sharp to the right, and then to the left, and you will come to an iron door, which rises and falls like a portcullis. The handle is of no use, but on the ceiling you will see the motto, 'Nil desperandum,' which you must take as counsel offered to yourself. Press the space in the centre of the D, ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... NIL SAPIENTIAE, etc.: (Latin) Nothing is more hateful to wisdom than too great acuteness. C. AUGUSTE DUPIN: clever amateur who solves the mysteries which baffle the police. Most writers of detective stories follow this example ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... generously charged me "nil" for dues. I had letters for France from the highest authorities to pass the Rob Roy as an article entered for the Paris "Exhibition;" and when the douane and police functionaries came in proper state at Boulogne to appraise her ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... acquired by insignificant people, but there is no example of a person so destitute of all talent (excepting that of low intrigue), as was Cardinal Dubois, being thus fortunate. His intellect was of the most ordinary kind; his knowledge the most common-place; his capacity nil; his exterior that of a ferret, of a pedant; his conversation disagreeable, broken, always uncertain; his falsehood written upon his forehead; his habits too measureless to be hidden; his fits of impetuosity resembling fits of madness; his head incapable ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon |
