"Nullify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was finishing his evidence. Of all the witnesses, he alone could give precise details which would confirm or nullify Fandor's statements. ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... came forward to testify to the falsity of these charges, and the fact that Richard had himself placed Conrad of Montferat upon the throne, and had no possible interest in his death, was alone more than sufficient to nullify the vague rumours brought against him. Richard himself in a few scornful words disposed of this accusation. The accusation that he, Richard of England, would stoop to poison a man whom he could have crushed in an instant, was too absurd ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... issue General Ewing was nominated by the Democratic party, in the hope that he would gain support from a third party committed to inflation. Since then it would appear that the Democratic leaders seek to change the issue. The same old questions about the rights of states to nullify the laws of the United States—the same old policy to belittle and degrade our national government into a mere confederacy of states—are now ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... to accept the gage of battle with this natural foe to liberty, and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... void, by the Supreme Court. An 'honest election bill' was defeated in Congress by James G. Blaine and others. Separate coach laws were declared by the Supreme Court to be constitutional. State Constitutions were revised and so amended as to nullify the amendment of the Federal Constitution, giving the negro the right to vote. More than sixty thousand defenseless negroes were unlawfully slain. Governors would announce publicly that they favored lynching. The Federal Government would get elected ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... right. Those sleeves, rising above the shoulders—as high as the ear in Catherine's costume, you will observe—are unsightly enough to nullify whatever beauty the costume might have in other points; though in her case they only complete the expression of the costume, which is a grim, unnatural stiffness. And the reason of the unsightliness of these sleeves is, that the outline which they present ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... AND AT EASE.—When men are standing at rest or at ease they must be cautioned to avoid assuming any position that will nullify the object of the position of Attention. Standing on one leg, folding arms, allowing shoulders or head to droop forward, must be discountenanced persistently until the men form the habit of resting with feet separated but on the same ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... so forth. It was natural that the suffering Serbs were apt to compare these restrictions with those that were imposed upon the Croats. However, among the intelligentsia an effort—a fairly successful effort—was made to nullify this dividing policy; the Serbo-Croat Coalition was formed, one of the protagonists being Svetozar Pribi[vc]evi['c], that very energetic Serb of Croatia, and in 1906 this party obtained no less than sixty-eight seats, while ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... lofty bo and other trees. There they founded a town, which was called by its Sakya lords, Morya-Nagara." Prof. Max Muller would see in this legend a made-up story for two reasons: (1) A desire on the part of Buddhists to connect their king Asoka, "the beloved of gods," with Buddha, and thus nullify the slanders set up by the Brahmanical opponents of Buddhism to the effect that Asoka and Chandragupta were Sudras; and (2) because this document does not dovetail with his own theories and chronology based on the fanciful stories of the Greek-Megasthenes and others. It was not the ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... one altogether transcending all limits of party and all theories of party-policy. It is a question of national existence; it is a question whether Americans shall govern America, or whether a disappointed clique shall nullify all government now, and render a stable government difficult hereafter; it is a question, not whether we shall have civil war under certain contingencies, but whether we shall prevent it under any. It is idle, and worse than idle, to talk ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... republic, is the most amazing fact of history. It took the Methodist Church forty years to get a membership of 138,000. Mormonism in forty-four years counted 250,000. It seems incredible, nevertheless it is a fact. In this brief space of time it has also been able to nullify our laws, oppose our institutions, openly perpetrate crimes, be represented in Congress, boast of the helplessness of the nation to prevent these things, and give the Church supremacy over the State and the people. Bills introduced in Congress adequate to their overthrow have been year after year ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Overcombe; and it had been to her even a more grievous thing that Bob had acquiesced in his brother's ruling than that John had determined it. At the time of setting out she was sustained by a firm faith that Bob would follow her, and nullify his brother's scheme; but though she waited ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... authorised a tariff for revenue but not a tariff for a protective purpose. Every State, Calhoun declared, must have the Constitutional right to protect itself against an Act of Congress which it deemed unconstitutional. Let such a State, in special Convention, "nullify" the Act of Congress. Let Congress then, unless it compromised the matter, submit its Act to the people in the form of an Amendment to the Constitution. It would then require a three-fourths majority of all the States to pass the obnoxious Act. Last ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... citizen may not elect what laws he will obey, neither may the Executive eject which he will enforce. The duty to obey and to execute embraces the Constitution in its entirety and the whole code of laws enacted under it. The evil example of permitting individuals, corporations, or communities to nullify the laws because they cross some selfish or local interest or prejudices is full of danger, not only to the nation at large, but much more to those who use this pernicious expedient to escape their just obligations or to obtain an unjust advantage over others. They will presently ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... Chamberlain's policy with President Krueger while they made him believe that, as they were fighting against that policy in England, there was no necessity for him to heed their advice. Their attitude in Europe was bound to nullify the effect of the warnings they were sending to Africa. It is astounding to see sedate men contradict themselves in that way. I cannot help wondering at Dr. Clark boasting on the 27th of September that owing to his endeavours Mr. Stead's pamphlet ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... constrain canons and beneficiaries to give acquittances to their farmers. Then, from house to house, with club in hand, they oblige some to hand over money, others to abandon their claims on their debtors, "one to desist from criminal proceedings, another to nullify a decree obtained, a third to reimburse the expenses of a lawsuit gained years before, a father to give his consent to the marriage of his son."—All their grievances are brought to mind, and we all ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... above them through their special telescopes, seeking some hint of the location of the point of departure of that devastating column of light. He could think of no ray that would nullify gravitation—yet that column of light had been the visual manifestation that the thing had ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks
... an image of himself, and, breathing upon it, command it to walk forth a thing of life, and be obeyed? Will he be able to search out a universal antidote to disease? Will he discover the means of supplying the human frame with such recuperative power as will nullify the law that prescribes to all flesh the dilapidation and decay of age, of weakness and of death? Will he search out some secret agency which will hold his body in perpetual youth, defying alike the attritions of age, and the ravages of disease? ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... we have discovered how a man may exercise free judgment without detriment to the supreme power: from the same premises we can no less easily determine what opinions would be seditious. Evidently those which by their very nature nullify the compact by which the right of free action was ceded. For instance, a man who holds that the supreme power has no rights over him, or that promises ought not to be kept, or that every one should live as he pleases, or other doctrines of this ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... pleasure; that whoever is placed over them as commander act as their father not as their executioner, leading them with a gentle hand; for whoever rules them as a friend and associate will be beloved by them, as he who will order them as a superior will subvert and nullify everything; yea, they will excite against him the neighbouring provinces to which they will fly. 'Tis better to rule by love and friendship than ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... wrecked her, and the force on board of her could do nothing, and Christy Passford had brought my own tug to bear against me. Why, the Bellevite actually saved the force on board of the Belle from drowning. A violent gale came up, and that did a great deal to nullify all our efforts. But I think I did my ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... renouncing some good benefice or some high office, simply in order to display this superiority of will over reason. But I am sure at the least that an intelligent man would not do so. He would be presently aware that someone would nullify his sacrifice by pointing out to him that he had simply imitated Heliodorus, Bishop of Larissa. That man (so it is said) held his book on Theagenes and Chariclea dearer than his bishopric; and such a thing may easily happen when a man has resources enabling him ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... the rights of the United States should be equally respected. Both are essential to the preservation of our liberties and the perpetuity of our institutions. But in endeavoring to vindicate the one we should not allow our zeal to nullify or impair ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... from action those only who would have remained no less inert had no such knowledge been theirs. Thought that rises encourages where it disheartens. And to those of a loftier vision, prepared in advance to admire the truth that will nullify all they have done, it seems only natural still to endeavour with all might and main to enhance what yet may be termed the justice, the beauty, the reason of this our earth. They know that to penetrate deeper, to understand, ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... of all humanity. Whereas violence on the part of the individual merely retards the final result for which we are striving. The murder of Estan Medina, for instance, may be the one display of individual violence which will nullify all our efforts toward ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... the President to make removals from office, was seriously questioned at the time, but it was passed as a political necessity,—to meet an unusual and unexpected emergency that seemed to threaten the peace and tranquillity of the country and practically to nullify the fruits of the victory which had been won on the field of battle. The law was repealed or materially modified as soon as President Johnson retired from office. The President also vetoed all the reconstruction bills,—bills conferring suffrage on the colored men in ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... single misspelled word prevented a deserving young man from obtaining a situation as instructor in a New England college. A cinder on the eyeball will conquer a Napoleon. Some little weakness, as lack of courtesy, want of decision, a bad temper, may nullify the ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... in these bodies results in the subordination of active energetic capacities to the worn-out capacities of old men, who, thinking they know best, alter or nullify the plans submitted by their subordinates,—perhaps with the sole aim of making their existence felt; for that seems to me the only influence exercised over the public works of France by the Council-general of the Ponts ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... fell, the sea rose and subsided, the Sybarite trudged on into dull weather. The sky grew overcast; and Lanyard, daily scanning the very heavens for a sign, accepted this for one, and prayed it might hold. Nothing could be more calculated to nullify his efforts than to have the landfall happen on a ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... turgescence in the fleshy envelopes, in the muscular layers which protect and inclose the abdomen, the thorax, the principal vascular trunks, and the bony surfaces, must essentially contribute to weaken, to deaden, to nullify, the effect of the blows. Is it not by means of an analogous state of orgasm, which an over-excited will produces, that boxers and athletes find themselves in a condition to brave, to a certain point, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... 1865 were, as a body, entirely unfitted to exercise the suffrage thrust upon them. A degrading and exasperating struggle was the inevitable result—the whites of the South striving by intimidation and chicanery to nullify the negro vote, the professional politicians from the North battling, with the aid of the United States troops, to render it effectual. Such a state of things was demoralising to both parties, and in process ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... out of this text because it is not in the original. B. Wilson translates the verse in these words: "Do we then nullify law through the FAITH. By no means; but we establish law." The negative use of law is to restrain the evil; and the affirmative is to bring out the good, the spiritual. So, without any interference with the ...
— The Christian Foundation, May, 1880
... that, amongst those many millions which make up the Romish hierarchy, there are not twenty true." We do not pretend to know to what precise extent the canonists of Oxford agree with those of Rome as to the circumstances which nullify orders. We will not, therefore, go so far as Chillingworth. We only say that we see no satisfactory proof of the fact, that the Church of England possesses the apostolical succession. And, after all, if Mr. Gladstone ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... fifty applications filled out and the signatures of his clients attested before a notary public on the very date upon which the desert of Owens river valley would be opened for entry, for to have them dated the day before would nullify them—to arrive with them at the land office the day after would be too late. Bob was obsessed with a suspicion that amounted almost to a conviction that the land ring would endeavor to acquire the desert valley by practically ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... moment when our resolution seems about to become irrevocable—when the fatal iron gates are about to close upon us—that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear reasoning and firm conviction, we snatch at any sophistry that will nullify our long struggles, and bring us the defeat that ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... the great cathedrals of the Isle of France will tend somewhat to nullify the effect which is produced by Notre Dame de Bayeux, although, in point of size and general arrangements, at least, it fulfils its functions perhaps more acceptably than many a more renowned edifice. Its situation, ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... their attitude throughout is one of hostility to this legislation, and that if their relation to the law after it is enacted is to be judged by the attitude towards the Interstate Commerce Law, it will be one of continued effort to destroy its efficiency and nullify its provision." Events have shown that he was right in his predictions, and his idea that the war against monopolies must last until they are deprived of their dominant position in ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... that it was liable to be overwhelmed by superior forces in the great open plains of Leipzig. He would have been wiser to lead it to the mountains of Thuringia and Hesse, which offered good defensive positions, and so nullify some of the numerical advantage of the royal coalition. In addition, the approach of winter and the need to feed their many troops would have soon compelled the enemies to separate, while the French army, its front and its flanks protected by the extreme difficulty of mounting an ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... distribution to the several departments are as clearly expressed in that sacred instrument as the imperfection of human language will allow, and I deem it my first duty not to question its wisdom, add to its provisions, evade its requirements, or nullify ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... meaning of true liberty, and untrained in self-government, followed their instinct of blind submission to direction from above, and fell an easy prey to demagogues. Deprived of participation in framing the laws, the colonists employed their ingenuity in devising means to evade or nullify those which they deemed obnoxious or contrary to their interests, and constant practice soon perfected their perverted activities in this direction, until obstruction and procrastination were erected into a system, against which even royal ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... preferring the English model, and I am not aware that Washington ever expressed a preference for the theory that, because of a written fundamental law, the court should nullify legislation. Nor is it unworthy of remark that all foreigners, after a prolonged and attentive observation of our experiment, have avoided it. Since 1789, every highly civilized Western people have readjusted their institutions at least once, yet not one has in this respect imitated ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... and figures of rhetoric could be used to advantage to impress his hearers. In discussing the claim made by Senator Calhoun of South Carolina that a state could nullify a national ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... undisturbed by being fired at. If, however, the 4 ships of A "flank" or "T" the ships of column B, as shown in Fig. 2, and concentrate on the leader of B, they thereby isolate the other ships, and practically nullify their ability to ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... too easily bought by that indirect corruption which takes the form of subscriptions, charitable donations, gifts of coals and of blankets; and yet, with the present system, these votes may decide the result of an election and completely nullify the votes of ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... of the Jury had unloosed "The Greater Jury," which always now sits upon the smaller. Every means was taken to nullify the value of the "palladium of British liberty." The foreman and the jurors were interviewed, the judge was judged, and by those who were no judges. The Home Secretary (who had done nothing beyond accepting office under the Crown) was vituperated, and sundry provincial ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... impressive, was unusually so that day; his argument, always close-knit and logical, was the very summation of these qualities; his words seemed edged with fire as he argued that the Constitution is supreme, the Union indissoluble, and that no state has, or can have the right to resist or nullify a national law. It was the greatest oration of ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... IX. to the old man, "if you find it necessary to deny the existence of the soul in order to believe in the possibility of your enterprise, will you explain to my why you should doubt what your power does? Thought, which you seek to nullify, is the certainty, the torch which lights your researches. Ha! ha! is not that the motion of a spirit within you, while you deny such motion?" cried the king, pleased with his argument, and looking triumphantly at ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... (Tzuchengyuan) the writer finds this note written in 1910: "The Debates of this body have been remarkable during the very first session. They make it seem clear that the first National Parliament of 1913 will seize control of China and nullify the power of the Throne. Result, revolution—" Though the dating is a little confused, the prophecy ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... moderation or his discoveries, by his scruples or his assertions, by his adherence to truth, or by the curiosity of his speculations, to be persecuted by two opposite parties, even when the accusations of the one necessarily nullify the other; such an author will be fortunate to be permitted to retire out of the circle of the bad passions; but he crushes in silence and voluntary obscurity all future efforts—and thus the nation loses a ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... a man is afflicted do not nullify the sum total of human passion. To our shame be it spoken, a woman is never so much attached to us as when ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... Northern victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, Seward wrote a despatch to Adams, July 11, which has been interpreted as a definite threat of war. In substance Seward wrote that he still felt confident the Government of Great Britain would find a way to nullify the Alexandra decision, but renewed, in case this did not prove true, his assertion of Northern intention to issue letters of marque, adding a phrase about the right to "pursue" Southern vessels even into neutral ports[1019]. But there are two considerations in respect to this despatch that largely ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... humanity alone, of all the tribes of animated beings, has a power been given to nullify this feeling. Beast, bird, and insect, attend to the wants of their offspring, accordingly as those wants require much or little assiduity. But woman, if she will, can drug and stupefy this feeling. She can commit the charge of her child to dependants and servants, and need only to ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... and agencies as necessary instruments of evil and adopt measures to nullify their attractiveness. Eternal vigilance is the price of success, but the quality of the vigilance must be dictated by love, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... Heaven!" she continued with emotion. "I care not what may come out of this Convention, so that this great cause shall go forward to its consummation! And though this Convention by its action shall nullify the National Association of which I am a member, and though it shall tread its heel upon The Revolution, to carry on which I have struggled as never mortal woman or mortal man struggled for any ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... made this important admission however, and enunciated his golden Canon of interpretation, when he hastens to nullify it. His very next words are,—"The meaning of the Canon is only this,—'That we cannot understand Scripture without becoming familiar (!) ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... account for the low calibre of a good many first-rate men's sons, and gives a certain support to the common notion that they are always third-raters. Those sons inherit from their mothers as well as from their fathers, and the bad strain is often sufficient to obscure and nullify the good strain. Mediocrity, as every Mendelian knows, is a dominant character, and extraordinary ability is recessive character. In a marriage between an able man and a commonplace woman, the chances that any given child will resemble ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... we can nullify and break down the conspiracy which would fain limit and narrow the range of Negro talent in this caste-tainted country. It is only thus, we can secure that recognition of genius and scholarship in the republic of ...
— Civilization the Primal Need of the Race - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Paper No. 3 • Alexander Crummell
... ingenious step to nullify Professor Ghoshal's threat to me of failure in philosophy. When the results of the final tests were about to be publicly announced, I asked a classmate to accompany me to ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... and then there was no lack of material, for he had taken care to provide himself with a Riddle who, he really believed, had given an opinion, at some time or other, on every side of every subject that had ever been mooted in Leaplow. He could nullify, or mollify, or qualify, with the best of them; and these, which he termed the three fies, he believed were the great requisites of a Leaplow legislator. He admitted, however, that some show of independence ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... not certain of her age, and think perhaps that she is uncertain herself. She has good reason to forget it, and so have we. Of course she could consult the Bible family record daily, but if she consulted her looking-glass afterward the one impression would always nullify the other. Her hair is silvered, it is true, but that is so clearly a trick of Nature that it makes her look younger rather ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a gladness to think that whatever humanity did, it could not seize hold of the kingdom of death, to nullify that. The sea they turned into a murderous alley and a soiled road of commerce, disputed like the dirty land of a city every inch of it. The air they claimed too, shared it up, parcelled it out to certain owners, they trespassed in the air to fight for it. Everything was gone, walled in, with ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... exhilarants that nullify caution, warning the presence of danger. The boy with his first pay envelope, the lover who has just been accepted, the debutante on the way to her first ball; the impetus that urges us to rush in where angels fear ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... that an extended reference to them here is superfluous. It must always be borne in mind that this document partook of the nature of an "apologia pro vita sua" and that it was directly inspired by Pizarro himself with the purpose of restoring himself to the Emperor's favor. Its main purpose was to nullify whatever charges Pizarro's enemies may have been making to the sovereign. Consequently there are numerous violations of the truth, all of which are, for us, ...
— An Account of the Conquest of Peru • Pedro Sancho
... fatuous and self-deluding hope, 'After us, the millennium.' Those who make no sacrifice to avert the deluge, and those who make none to hasten their millennium, are on the same moral level. And the former have at least the quality of being no worse than their avowed principle, while the latter nullify their pretended hopes by conformities which are only proper either to profound social contentment, or to profound social despair. Nay, they seem to think that there is some merit in this merely speculative hopefulness. They act as if they supposed that to be very sanguine about the ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... forfeiture, my own abdication, but for the abdication of universal suffrage for ten years, by the coming generations, over whom I have no right, over whom you, an usurper, force me to usurp power, which, by the way, be it said in passing, would suffice to nullify that monstrous ballot, if all conceivable nullities were not already piled, heaped and welded upon it. What! is that what you would have me do? You make me vote that all is finished, that nothing remains, that the people is a slave! What! ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... those who crucified Him were not the strong but the weak. Human culture weakens and strives to nullify the struggle for existence and natural selection; hence the rapid advancement of the weak and their predominance over the strong. Imagine that you succeeded in instilling into bees humanitarian ideas in their crude and elementary form. ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... trembled, and though the vibration in it was almost imperceptible, it was sufficient to nullify the ridiculousness of Julian's demeanour as a wearer of sackcloth, and to bring a sudden lump into Rachel's throat. The comical absurdity of his bellicose pride because he had accomplished something which he had sworn to accomplish was extinguished by the ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... all-powerful consul, disposing of armies and of power, a general and a dictator; a council of state destined to be the advanced guard of usurpation; and lastly, a senate of eighty members, whose only function was to nullify the people, and to choose tribunes without authority, and legislators who should remain mute. Life passed from the nation to the government. The constitution of Sieyes served as a pretext for a bad order of things. It is worth notice ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... corner grocer. True enough, Dreiser says specifically that he is more, that the thing he craves is not money but power—power to force lesser men to execute his commands, power to surround himself with beautiful and splendid things, power to amuse himself with women, power to defy and nullify the laws made for the timorous and unimaginative. But the intent of the author never really gets into his picture. His Cowperwood in this first stage is hard, commonplace, unimaginative. In "The ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... sick. He knew it. He knew it was a race between his condition and the completion of the work. He was living in an atmosphere of contending poisons, breathing one to nullify the effects of the other. There were moments when he wondered how long his body could endure the struggle which he knew must go on to the end, whatever that ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... woman of plain and severe exterior, who at once inspired confidence in everyone. The plots of the marquis and Madame de Bouille thus throve with most baneful success; but an accident happened which threatened to nullify them, and, by causing a great disaster, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—1639 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... religious, as a general rule. But other causes exist; speculation anywhere may take crudely scientific rather than crudely religious lines. Especially the belief in ancestral spirits may check or nullify the belief in a remote All Father. We see this among the Zulus, where spirits entirely dominate religion, and the All Father is, at most, the shadow of a name, Unkulunkulu. We may detect the same influence among the northern tribes of Australia, where ancestral spirits dominate thought and society, ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... unconsciously dishonest that she talked to her husband about the fancy she had taken to me. That's what makes it dangerous, this very unconsciousness of their instinctive dishonesty. That is a mitigating circumstance, I admit, but it cannot nullify judgment, only soften it. ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... Like Arthur he will come again, and from Arthur to James IV. of Scotland, from James IV. to the Duke of Monmouth, or the son of Louis XVI., the populace believes and hopes that its darling has not perished. We destroyed the Mahdi's body to nullify such a belief, or to prevent worship at his tomb. In the same way, at Rouen, 'when the Maid was dead, as the English feared that she might be said to have escaped, they bade the executioner rake back the fire somewhat that the bystanders might see her dead.'* An account ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... justice, veracity and a regard to common good may be conspicuous; the claim of each man upon his fellow-man may be generally acknowledged. In communities more advanced, the growth of class distinctions and the inequalities due to the amassing of wealth on the part of individuals may go far to nullify the advantage to the individual of any advance made by the community as a whole. The social bonds which have obtained between members of the same group may be relaxed; the devotion to the common good may be replaced by the selfish ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... family, then must the atonement of the Mediator be restricted to them. There seems no evading this inference. To give the designed objects of the Saviour's atonement a greater extension than the covenant of grace, is to nullify its character as the stipulated condition of the covenant, and to render nugatory and unavailing the consolatory address by which the heart of many an awakened sinner has been soothed. 'Behold the blood ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... Act, resigned their seats, but others were easily found to take their places, whose opinions coincided with those of the majority. The Queen's Tory advisers objected to these strong measures, and attempted to nullify them, by introducing the clause known as the "Sacramental Test," which excludes from public offices all who refused to receive the sacrament according to the forms of the Established Church. As dissenters from that Church had great influence in the Irish ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... the new Stadtholder, Prince William Frederick of Orange-Nassau, having incorporated Belgium as an integral part of the kingdom of the Netherlands, set himself to nullify the French racial traits of his Belgian subjects. A suggestion of future strife on this score could already be found in Van der Palm's memorial on "The Restoration of the Netherlands," ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... notions, never entertained the idea of [pi] recouping him, as they now say. I speak of individual success: of course if a company were formed, especially if it were of unlimited lie-ability, the shares would be taken. No offence; there is nothing but what a pun will either sanctify, justify, or nullify: ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... slopes. On the Atlantic side of the Cordilleras, a vast trough extends through both land-masses from the Arctic Ocean to Patagonia; this has given to migration in each a longitudinal direction and therefore constantly tended to nullify the diversities arising from contrasted zonal conditions. On the Pacific side of North America, there has been an unmistakeable migration southward along the accessible coast from Alaska to the Columbia River, and down the great intermontane valleys of the western highlands from, the ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... the exercise of which he alone finds happiness; till finally, the early education of the Laborer completed and order introduced into his occupations, to labor, with him, is no longer to suffer,—it is to live, to enjoy. But the attractiveness of labor does not nullify the rule, since, on the contrary, it is the fruit of it; and those who, under the pretext that labor should be attractive, reason to the denial of justice and to communism, resemble children who, after having gathered some flowers in the garden, should arrange a flower-bed ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... competition of the workers among themselves is the worst side of the present state of things in its effect upon the worker, the sharpest weapon against the proletariat in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Hence the effort of the workers to nullify this competition by associations, hence the hatred of the bourgeoisie towards these associations, and its triumph in every defeat ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... inside of the Union; secession a remedy outside. He expressed himself as against the theory of nullification, and explained that, so far from being identified with secession, the two are antagonistic principles. Mr. Calhoun's mistake, according to Mr. Davis, was in trying to "nullify" the laws of the Union while continuing a member of it. He intimated that President Jackson would never have attempted to "execute the laws" in South Carolina as he did against the nullifiers in 1832, if the State had seceded, and that therefore his great example could ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... openly. We are not without fear, from our knowledge of the Chinese character, and of their long-established mode of procedure, that every chicane and evasion will be resorted to, in order to neutralize and nullify, as far as possible, the commercial advantages which we have, at the cannon's mouth, extorted from them. A great deal, at all events, will depend on the skill, firmness, and vigilance, of the consuls to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... circumstances, upon some of which we may have dwelt with unkind severity, the reproof will not only affect us by a strong and most unwelcome reaction, but in many instances furnish the transgressor with means of defending himself in what was actually wrong, and thus nullify our testimony, and ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... say that the ponogenic co-efficients might find a more practical and rational application than that of the revelation of "programs"; indeed these co-efficients indicating the production of toxines would appear destined to determine the dose of anti-toxine necessary to nullify the evil effects resulting from each different subject of instruction. In the not far distant future, when these auxiliary sciences of the school and pedagogy shall have made due progress, we shall perhaps ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... There is also the mystery of democracy, or sentiment of the equality before God of all his creatures. This sentiment (which seems in general to have been more widespread in Mohammedan than in Christian lands) tends to nullify man's usual acquisitiveness. Those who have it spurn dignities and honors, privileges and advantages, preferring, as I said in a former lecture, to grovel on the common level before the face of God. It is not exactly the sentiment of ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... by individual members of the speculative class; but if entrusted to any organized body, would involve nothing less than a spiritual despotism. This however is what M. Comte really contemplated, though it would practically nullify that peremptory separation of the spiritual from the temporal power, which he justly deemed essential to a wholesome state of society. Those whom an irresistible public opinion invested with the right to dictate or control the acts of rulers, though without the ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... time we never had the faintest idea of the actual political situation in Russia, and knew nothing of the terrible dissensions and intrigues which were destined to nullify all the magnificent self-sacrifice displayed by the Russian troops, and to ruin every attempt made by these great armies of the East to assist and support the ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... of the collision that might happen when Gwendolen had to meet her uncle and aunt. There was an air of reticence in Gwendolen's haughty, resistant speeches which implied that she had a definite plan in reserve; and her practical ignorance continually exhibited, could not nullify the mother's belief in the effectiveness of that forcible will and daring which had ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... stupid old official duffer has taken it upon himself to be exceedingly sneering and obnoxious to me, and I confess I want to take him down a peg. He hasn't any idea that I know as much about this business as I do—in fact, he thinks it is an absolute secret; yet, if I liked, I could to-morrow nullify all the arrangements by simply publishing what is already in my possession, which action on my part would create a furore in this country, and no less of a furore in Russia. For the sake of amity between ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... lbs. The motor gave out 1 1/2 horse-power, which was sufficient to drive the vessel at a speed of up to 10 feet per second. This was not so good as Haenlein's previous attempt and, after L2,000 had been spent, the Tissandier abandoned their experiments, since a 5-mile breeze was sufficient to nullify the ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... are best furnished, by the American line, whose watertight compartments have no passage through them; no doors to be left open, and consequently no way for water to get from one of them to another in time of collision. If you nullify the peril which collisions threaten you with, you nullify the only very serious peril which attends voyages in the great liners of our day, and makes voyaging safer ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the spiritual and intellectual development of our people—there is none of them which has for aim the unity of economic life. They all leave untouched this problem—how are we to organize society so that people will not be in conflict with each other, will not nullify each other's efforts, but all will conspire together for unity, so that none shall be forgotten or oppressed or left out of our brotherhood? The policy I put forward is incomplete and imperfect, and it must necessarily be so, being mainly the ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... withhold his signature. They started the idea, as a forlorn hope, that although the president might ratify, it still rested with the house of representatives to refuse, if they chose, the pecuniary means to carry the treaty into effect, and thus to nullify it. They, therefore, resolved to use every effort to accomplish their purposes in this way. The elections in the several states were not yet completed, and they felt confident that a majority had already been chosen who were ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... that time was certainly a perplexing one to Sherman. He could not permit Hood to put him, with his superior force, on the defensive, nor even to appear to do so for a moment; and it was not easy for him to consent that his enemy should entirely nullify all his elaborately considered plans for future operations in Georgia. What operations Sherman decided on in that unprecedented ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... to another principle of justice, that those who were counted in the basis of representation should have a voice in the rulers whose election their numbers helped to secure. To be sure, the word "male" thrown in seemed to nullify all applications of the several amendments to one sex, nevertheless the women understood the breadth of the principle, and made their demands for an equal recognition on the ground that they too were counted in the basis ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... perpendicular to the direction of its motion. This brings us to the atom, which may be described as a number of electrons positive and negative in stable equilibrium, this condition being brought about by the mutual repulsion of the like and attraction for the opposite electrification so arranged as to nullify each other. Having thus established the law of the equilibrium of electrons, corpuscles, atoms, and molecules, I found that the same law applies to the equilibrium of our solar system, and, in fact, of the universe, and, by the elimination of either the ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... complete supply in every part of the house, so that there need not be a dark corner anywhere. This I had specially arranged. It is worked by a set of turbines moved by the flowing and ebbing tide, after the manner of the turbines at Niagara. I hope by this means to nullify accident and to have without fail a full supply ready at any time. Come with me and I will explain the system of circuits, and point out to you the taps and the fuses." I could not but notice, as we went with him all over ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... President's message was a practical assurance of immunity from arrest and prosecution for treason. It magnified their grievances, specifically pointed out a contingent right and duty of revolution, acknowledged that mere public sentiment might override and nullify Federal laws, and pointedly bound up Federal authority in narrow legal and Constitutional restrictions. It was blind as a mole to find Federal power, but keen-eyed as a lynx ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... than we realize. We are a nation divided against ourselves; democracy—Jacksonian democracy, at all events, is a flat failure, and we may as well acknowledge it. We have a political system we have outgrown, and which, therefore, we have had to nullify. There are certain needs, certain tendencies of development in nations as well as in individuals,—needs stronger than the state, stronger than the law or constitution. In order to make our resources effective, combinations of capital ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the setting up of the Munitions Ministry, output only began really to sprout in the United States about sixteen months after the start. All, however (as already mentioned in the last chapter), was full of promise when the crash of the Revolution came to nullify what ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... in question in the same color and position may possibly confuse the observer and nullify the purpose for which the ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation
... tyrants and the worst knaves], and have thereby caused all kinds of horrible, abominable, innumerable sins of unchastity [depraved lusts], in which they still wallow. Now, as little as we or they have been given the power to make a woman out of a man or a man out of a woman, or to nullify either sex, so little have they had the power to [sunder and] separate such creatures of God, or to forbid them from living [and cohabiting] honestly in marriage with one another. Therefore we are unwilling to assent to ...
— The Smalcald Articles • Martin Luther
... command, and have a strong contempt for habits of industry. This class, like the nobility of feudal times, are restless, impetuous, eager for excitement, and prompt to settle all questions with the sword. Like the fierce old barons, at the head of their vassals, they are ever ready to resist and nullify the central power of the State, whenever it interferes with their individual interests, or even approaches the strong holds of their prejudices. All history shows, that men possessing hereditary, despotic power, cannot easily be brought to acknowledge ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child |
