Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Obedience   Listen
noun
Obedience  n.  
1.
The act of obeying, or the state of being obedient; compliance with that which is required by authority; subjection to rightful restraint or control. "Government must compel the obedience of individuals."
2.
Words or actions denoting submission to authority; dutifulness.
3.
(Eccl.)
(a)
A following; a body of adherents; as, the Roman Catholic obedience, or the whole body of persons who submit to the authority of the pope.
(b)
A cell (or offshoot of a larger monastery) governed by a prior.
(c)
One of the three monastic vows.
(d)
The written precept of a superior in a religious order or congregation to a subject.
Canonical obedience. See under Canonical.
Passive obedience. See under Passive.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Obedience" Quotes from Famous Books



... light had been seen, and the men went forth in obedience to the signal, the balance of the inhabitants of the village had been aroused, and remained up ever since, waiting to see what ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne

... him nothing," answered Diane, with angry emphasis. "You owe him nothing but obedience as a ranch hand, and that you will have to pay him. For the rest, avoid him as you ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... would not force anie man to be baptised, but onelie shewed by his behauiour, that he fauored those that beleeued more than other, as fellow citizens with him of the heauenlie kingdome: for he learned of them that had instructed him in the faith, that the obedience due to Christ ought not to be inforced, but to come of good will. Moreouer he prouided for Augustine and his fellowes a conuenient place for their habitation within the citie of Canturburie, and further gaue them [Sidenote: Augustine ordeined archbishop of the English nation.] ...
— Chronicles 1 (of 6): The Historie of England 5 (of 8) - The Fift Booke of the Historie of England. • Raphael Holinshed

... Christ doing in the carpenter's shop? Practising. Though perfect, we read that he LEARNED obedience, and grew in wisdom and in favor with God. Do not quarrel, therefore, with your lot in life. Do not complain of its never-ceasing cares, its petty environment, the vexations you have to stand, the small and sordid souls you have to live and work with. Above all, do ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond

... two things you must do, Alfred—either go to school this minute, or I will lock you up in your room, and keep you there until you promise implicit obedience to ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various

... in France there are about ten births to every nine deaths.(127) In no country has the doctrine of Malthus been more attacked than in France, and yet in no other country has there been a more marked obedience to its principles in actual practice. Since the French are practically not at all an emigrating people, population has strictly adapted itself to subsistence. For the relative increase of population in ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... gave instant obedience, and the instant Elfreda was free of the rope, Grace quickly snubbed it about ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower

... to Adam, he A solitary desert trod, Though in the great society Of nature, angels, and of God. If one slight column counterweighs The ocean, 'tis the Maker's law, Who deems obedience better praise Than sacrifice ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... as early as the sixteenth century. This state is governed, or rather misgoverned, by a sultan, and, under him, by rajahs and pangerans,—officials who give to the commands of their nominal superior but a scanty obedience. For two centuries Borneo Proper has been steadily settling into anarchy and barbarism. With a government both feeble and despotic, it was torn by intestine wars, crushed within by oppression and ravaged without by piracy, until commerce and agriculture, the twin ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... also at Jena, and that Hohenlohe and Ruechel were unable to afford us any assistance. I cannot describe to you the dismay produced by this intelligence. Every one thought only of saving himself; there was no longer any obedience, sense of honor, or bravery. The generals were too confused to issue orders, and the soldiers too frightened to ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... into the following reign, but the victory remained with the obstreperous masses. Though at a later period, as the result of general cultural tendencies, the traditional Jewish costume made way in certain sections of Jewry for the European form of dress, it was not in obedience to police measures, but in spite of them. Compulsory assimilation was as little successful now as had been compulsory isolation in the Middle Ages. The medieval rulers had imposed upon the Jews a distinct form of garment and a "yellow badge" ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... fellow, who attached himself to every body in the house. He was on the most friendly terms with Fidelle, often eating sociably with her from the same plate. In summer, when Minnie liked to play on the lawn, Tiney might be seen running here and there in obedience to his young mistress, picking up a ball or stick, and bringing it to her ...
— Minnie's Pet Dog • Madeline Leslie

... that seem to me necessary and expedient I have now, in obedience to the Constitution, recommended ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Chester A. Arthur • Chester A. Arthur

... profoundest unconsciousness. Fearful of awakening her too suddenly, Moor stood motionless, yet full of interest, for this was his first experience of somnambulism, and it was a strange, almost an awful sight, to witness the blind obedience of the body to ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott

... to cut off the financial supplies for the army and navy, but they also sought to inspire all the youth, and particularly the children of the workers, with a spirit of revolt against armies, war, and aggressive patriotism, as well as the spirit of servile obedience, the ignorance, and the brutality that invariably ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... him, and force him to recline upon the ground, with his legs doubled up under his belly. To keep him in this attitude, they extend a piece of canvass over his body, and fix it to the ground by laying heavy weights upon the edge. In this manner he is tutored to obedience, and taught to kneel down at the orders of his master, and receive the burthens which he is destined to transport. In his temper he is gentle and tractable, and his patience in bearing thirst and hunger is superior to that of any animal we are acquainted with. He is driven across the burning desert, ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... Society for fifteen years, and a shepherd of the Indians and Spaniards. Brother Bartolome Calvo was of the same age, attached to the Society in these parts for seven years. He possessed much virtue and died through obedience, a quality for which he ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... bully who would give trouble if he dared. I didn't want to have a fight with him and so I thought it best to take the first opportunity of teaching him the first duty of a soldier,—obedience." ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston

... Don Paolo, touching the great ruby ring with his lips. Then, in obedience to a gesture, the priest sat down upon one of ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... royal highness is too great, and too just a monarch, either to want or to receive the homage of rebellious fugitives. Yet, if some few among the multitude continue stedfast to their first pretensions, 'tis an obedience so lukewarm and languishing, that it merits not the name of passion; their addresses are so faint, and their vows so hollow to their sovereigns, that they seem only to maintain their faith out of a sense of honour: they are ashamed to desist, and yet grow careless to obtain. Like despairing ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... much together. Finch always gave Joel careful obedience, always handled the ship when he was in charge with smooth efficiency. His boat was the best manned and the most successful of the four. But he and Joel were not comradely. Joel instinctively disliked the big man; and Finch's servility disgusted him. The mate was full of smooth ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams

... this unhappy accident, our fate will be little lightened, but, on the contrary, greatly aggravated, by your stirring.—Therefore stand back, Crawford.—Were it my last word, I speak as a King to his officer, and demand obedience.—Stand back, and, if it is required, yield up your sword. I command you to do so, and your oath obliges ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... requirements are less of the intellect than of the heart. It puts God, honor, and mistress above all else, and stipulates that a knight shall serve these three without any reservation. It requires of its secular practitioners the holy virtues of an active piety, a modified chastity, and an unqualified obedience, at all events, to the categorical imperative. The obligation of poverty it omits, for the code arose at a time when the spiritual snobbery of the meek and lowly was not pressing the simile about the camel and the eye of the needle. It leads to charming manners and to delicate amenities. It ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... been glad could General Hooker have shared in the victory which they believed they were about to achieve; but the men of the Union army fought for their country and not for their leaders. So they at once transferred their hopes and their obedience to the new commander. General Meade was well known to the army as a good soldier, the brave general who had, with his single division, dashed upon the rebels at the first Fredericksburgh, and as the leader of a corps which behaved gallantly ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... through the practice of them. As a rule, both parties, masters as well as servants, would like to get rid immediately of all the inconveniences of the former condition and yet continue to enjoy its advantages. The servant, for instance, will now yield no more the specific obedience of former times, but demands still specific mildness from the land-owner, or loaner of capital, his former master. It is inevitable that there should be complaints on both sides.(439) But in the higher stages of economic culture, the relation of paternal protection ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... justice and God's mercy remain without meaning. What would be the sense of the teachings, reproofs, admonitions of Scripture (Timothy iii.) if all happened according to mere and inevitable necessity? To what purpose is obedience praised, if for good and evil works we are equally but tools to God, as the hatchet to the carpenter? And if this were so, it would be dangerous to reveal such a doctrine to the multitude, for morality is dependent on ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... courage—I mean aggressive courage—praised. No soldier could be a fervent Buddhist; no nation of Buddhists could be good soldiers; for not only does Buddhism not inculcate bravery, but it does not inculcate obedience. Each man is the ruler of his life, but the very essence of good fighting is discipline, and discipline, subjection, is unknown to Buddhism. Therefore the inherent courage of the Burmans could have no assistance from their faith in ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding

... is still living as I write, and still unwearied in behalf of his glory. In her he had found that ideal of womankind which he had so much upheld: instant and dauntless obedience to the behest of the one great love. When he died he was even then at work upon a glorification of the sex, and the last sentence that ever flowed from his pen related to a legend of the Buddhists, granting women a right to the saintliness ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes

... the warrior hesitated to employ the method which his enemies would have been only too glad to use against him was in obedience to that strange forbearance in his composition, and which rendered him reluctant to shed blood, unless in legitimate warfare. There was not a particle of doubt that he could have stolen up to the guard and dispatched him before he could make a ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... confused in the reversal of roles—not quite convinced of this new power which, of itself, had seemed to invest her with authority over man. "Yes," she said, "I must send you away." And her heart beat a little faster in her uncertainty as to his obedience—then leaped in triumph as he rose ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... in obedience to orders received, showed Tommy up at once to "Cobbler" Horn's room, handed in at the same time a telegram which had just arrived from Mr. Burton, saying that he and Mrs. Burton might be expected about three o'clock in the afternoon. "Cobbler" Horn placed the pink paper on the little table ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth

... act. "I remember well to have seen," wrote Moncure D. Conway in 1854, "a vast miscellaneous crowd in an American theatre hanging with breathless attention upon every word of this interview, down to the splendid climax when, in obedience to the Duchess's direction to Valence how he should reveal his love to the lady she so little suspects herself to be herself, he kneels—every heart evidently feeling each word as an electric touch, and all giving vent at last to their ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... such points as the following: Whether one's father has an unlimited claim on one's services and obedience, or whether the sick man is to obey his physician? or, in an election of a general, the warlike qualities of the candidates should be ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... England, and one other, commenced it. At the request of either of two nations disputing, both should be called on for the facts, and the judgment given. The powers composing the Court should be bound by united action and force of arms to compel obedience to their mandate. The Court once formed would issue invitations to all other powers to join, that is, to appoint members and delegate them to the said Council. Those kingdoms that did join would realize the advantage that their representatives would form part ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money

... same!" Indeed, the two doctors who differed at this private conversation represented, at the moment, two principles of enormous import in the subsequent history of Europe. In Calvin we have represented that passive obedience, that toleration of injustice and absurdity, that holding back of the hand from political affairs as from something unclean, which lost France, if we are to believe M. Michelet, for the Reformation; a spirit necessarily fatal in the long-run to the existence of any sect that may profess it; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... grandmother, who promised to leave her property to me; but this offer in my favour enraged my mother still more; she declared that I should not remain; and my father had long succumbed to her termagant disposition, and yielded implicit obedience to her authority. It was lamentable to see such a fine soldierlike man afraid even to speak before this woman; but he was completely under her thraldom, ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... account of his diligence and success in preaching and catechizing, and of his humble and edifying life. By this he has attracted a great many people, and even some of the negroes, so that many are sorry for his departure. But considering the fact that he owes filial obedience to his aged parents, it is God's will that he should leave us. We must be resigned, therefore, while we commit him to God and the word of ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor

... in the secretary's eyes increased, but Anselme's reflected none of it. It was a grave thing, he knew by former experience, to arouse His Majesty's Seneschal of Dauphiny from his after-dinner nap; but it was an almost graver thing to fail in obedience to that black-eyed woman below who was ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... telegram your authority to take charge of train on which you are, and demand obedience of all officials and trainmen on road. Please do so, and act in accordance with information wired station agent at ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various

... being interrupted by Miss Miller, a most beautiful little ,girl of ten years old. Miss W- begged her to sing us a French song. She coquetted, but Mrs. Riggs came to us, and said if I wished it I did her grand-daughter great honour, and she insisted upon her obedience. The little girl laughed and complied, and we went into another room to hear her, followed by the Misses Caldwell. She sung in a pretty ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... spoke, Ramon knew that he would do whatever Kie Wicks asked him to do. The habit of obedience to this man was too strong in him. He had been a tool for this unscrupulous rogue for more than ten years. Just why, he could not have told, for Kie Wicks was not a generous master and the Mexican got little ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm

... Quebec, a gloomy stone structure that frowned on the settlement from the heights behind. Here, on bended knee before the governor, the new liegeman swore fealty to his lord the king and promised to render due obedience in all lawful matters. This was one of the things which gave a tinge of chivalry to Canadian feudalism, and helped to make the social life of a distant colony echo faintly the pomp and ceremony of Versailles. The seigneur, ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro

... to wait for His creature; because what He wants is not His creature's fear, but His creature's love; not only his obedience, but his heart; because He wants him not to come back as a trembling slave to his master, but as a son who has found out at last what a father he has still left him, when all beside has played him false. Let ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley

... itself, valuable as it may be for horses of a certain character, is rarely to be seen. Simplicity, indeed, as regards female equestrianism, is now imperatively (and, strange to say, most judiciously) enjoined, by "that same fickle goddess, Fashion," in obedience to whose sovereign behest, a lady's horse, in the olden time, was disguised, as it were, "in cloth of gold ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous

... he screamed, and, wild with fear, he plunged headlong into the cell, upsetting me in his career before I could check him. I sprang back to the door as it was closing. I was too late. Before I could reach it, it had shut with a loud clang in obedience to ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade

... the persons present showed an inclination to dispute the point, but the minister and count urged them to yield obedience to the orders of the governor, and they quickly departed, when the officer, closing the door, put a seal on it, cautioning the people not again to enter, the governor having threatened severely to punish any who might do so. With sad hearts they returned ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston

... about a month before, in obedience to the proclamation which had been set forth for that purpose (and certainly not before it was needed), that, "whosoever had children, wards, etc., in the parts beyond the seas, should send in their names ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... with his beautiful boyish face—"what king in your civilized Europe has the sway of a chief of the East? What link is so strong between mortal and mortal as that between lord and slave? I transport you poor fools from the land of their birth; they preserve here their old habits—obedience and awe. They would wait till they starved in the solitude—wait to hearken and answer my call. And I, who thus rule them, or charm them—I use and despise them. They know that, and yet serve me! Between you and me, my philosopher, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... who had been standing about the deck instantly busied themselves obeying these orders. It was evident from their implicit obedience that Malvoise was ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... more particularly in the twenty-fifth article of this treaty, the other party shall discover there are any of those sorts of goods which are declared prohibited and contraband, and that they are consigned for a port under the obedience of his enemy, it shall not be lawful to break up the hatches of such ship, nor to open any chests, coffers, packs, casks, or other vessels found therein, or to remove the smallest parcels of her goods, whether the said vessel belongs to the subjects of their High Mightinesses ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... State;" and the Marshal hurried me away, the Life-guards carrying me along in their arms, and telling me that none but myself could remedy this evil. I went out in my rochet and camail, dealing out benedictions to the people on my right and left, preaching obedience, exerting all my endeavours to appease the tumult, and telling them the Queen had assured me that, provided they would disperse, she would ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... been said and written. Some recommend indulgence as the surest way to give a child a good disposition, and to lead to the formation of correct habits. Others urge the necessity of restraint and uncompromising obedience, on the part of children, to the commands of their parents. There may be extremes in both. Children should be taught to fear and love their parents, and to respect their wishes. The government of children should ...
— Charles Duran - Or, The Career of a Bad Boy • The Author of The Waldos

... as a freeman, with power of shaping the course of future humanity, and that he should look upon himself less as the subject of a despotic government, in which case it would be his chief merit to depend wholly upon what had been regulated for him, and to render abject obedience. ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... there the other commandos, in obedience to Commando Law, joined us, and we proceeded to elect a Commander-in-Chief. The Commandants present were Steenekamp, of Heilbron; Anthonie Lombaard, of Vrede; C.J. De Villiers, of Harrismith; Hans Nande, of Bethlehem; Marthinus Prinsloo, of Winburg; and C. Nel, of Kroonstad. The result of the ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet

... silk and gold, the richest and freest of all races display their magnificence, with just pride! Thou harbor, thou forest of masts, thou countless fleet of stately galleys, which bind one quarter of the globe to another, inspiring terror, compelling obedience, and gaining boundless treasures by peaceful voyages and with shining blades. Oh! thou Rialto, where gold is stored, as wheat and rye are elsewhere;—ye proud nobles, ye fair dames with luxuriant tresses, whose raven hue pleases ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... order to Ike to wait for me at midday at the room we call the court-house would, I knew, impress him with the necessity of obedience, far more than a second visit to his cabin. The effort which the journey would cost him and the time allowed for reflection would, moreover, punctuate ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... severe one between loyalty to his old friend and devoted obedience to the girl he loved. As all the memories of past friendship came before him, he was inclined to be obdurate. Then, he looked at the golden hair which had brushed his awhile ago, and, as the head straightened up, at the pretty petulant ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... messenger—she did everything I told her, and never so much as ventured on remonstrance or reproach; but she will never forgive me to her dying hour. There is no victory so complete as that which one obtains over a person who is always accustomed to meet with fear and obedience. Aunt Horsingham rules her household with a rod of iron; nobody ever ventures to disagree with her, or so much as to hint an opinion contrary to those which she is known to hold. Such a person is so astonished at resistance as to be incapable of quelling it; the very hardihood of ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... moment the queen opened the door, without seeming moved either at the visit or at the insolence of the visitors, and so lovely and so full of majesty, that each, even Lindsay himself, was silent at her appearance, and, as if in obedience to a higher power, bowed respectfully ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... understand his words, but their tone was sufficient command; besides there was Yussufs pistol, which acted like a magician's wand in ensuring obedience. ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn

... revolutionists missed the force alike of the practical example abroad, and of the theory of the book which they took for gospel at home. How far they were driven to this by the urgent pressure of foreign war, or whether they would have followed the same course without that interference, merely in obedience to the catholic and monarchic absolutism which had sunk so much deeper into French character than people have been willing to admit, we cannot tell. The fact remains that the Jacobins, Rousseau's immediate disciples, at once took up the chain of centralised ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... however, whatever it may be, and in unconscious obedience to it, Traill kept the face of Sally Bishop persistently before him. After she had left him at Knightsbridge, he too descended from the 'bus and walked ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... a SERVILE PRINCIPLE. It leads to practical passive obedience far better than all the doctrines which the pliant accommodation of theology to power has ever produced. It cuts up by the roots, not only all idea of forcible resistance, but even of civil opposition. It disposes men to an abject submission, not by opinion, which may be shaken ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... predominant trait of Bismarck's character that stamps him as a soldier—his unquestioning obedience to monarchical discipline—is so closely bound up with the peculiarly German conceptions of the functions and the Purpose of the State, that it will be better to approach this Part of his nature from the political instead of the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... does not the least know, and only makes you more uncertain the more he pretends to tell), one thing is very evident, they had no peaceable possession of the place, nor for above a hundred years, a constant one on any terms. The Wends were highly disinclined to conversion and obedience: once and again, and still again, they burst up; got temporary hold of Brandenburg, hoping to keep it; and did frightful heterodoxies there. So that to our distressed imagination those poor "Markgraves ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle

... and me! For think, had I painted the whole, Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth: Had I written the same, made verse—still, effect proceeds from cause, Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told; It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws, Painter and poet are ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... and that I wanted him to go down for it to save me the trouble. "It won't take you very long, but it will be a hard trip for me. Go and fetch it to me." Instead of starting off hurriedly, willingly, as he had invariably done before in obedience to my commands, he stood still. His alert, eager ears drooped, but no other move did he make. I repeated the command in my most kindly tones. At this, instead of starting down the mountain for the mitten, he slunk slowly away toward home. It was clear that he did not want to climb down the steep ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... Pharaoh-like, had long and steadily refused to obey the voice of Him who said, between every returning plague, "Let my people go;" and, after long waiting, he sent the avenging scourge of civil strife to compel obedience. The great war of the Rebellion (it should be called the war of retribution), with its stream of human blood, became the Red Sea through which these long-suffering ones, with aching, trembling limbs, with hearts possessed half with fear and ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... of the voluptuous tyrant, of the woman who had been too hard or too weak in the bonds of the flesh? Was it a last great delusion, a last panacea given by the Church to those who had consented to bandage their eyes and crook their knees in childish obedience? Vaguely in her mind there flitted half phrases of the humanitarian, the materialist, the agnostic. It seemed as if their views of the wreck on the bed pressed upon all her consciousness. But, just ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward

... forefathers; but such cases have been, nevertheless, of rare occurrence, partly because much human life has been sacrificed to the manes of sheep or cattle. No orders of the local government can prevent the perpetration of these atrocities. Government Orders have been put forth in formal obedience to injunctions from home, and the policy of the local authorities has not been influenced by less ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... granted that the estate yet unappropriated shall be restored to you, on two conditions, one of which is already fulfilled—your marriage with an English Protestant gentleman, and the other, which doubtless you will fulfil, residence in this country, and obedience to the laws. He told me to inform you that he was not a man to strip the orphan. You will thus have competence, happy, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... light off the starboard-bow. An order was given in a low tone, and with a silence and method learned on board a man-of-war, the boat's crew, followed by their officers, took their places in the cutter, and in obedience to another command the boat was lowered down, kissed the water, the hooks were withdrawn, she was pushed off, the oars fell on either side, and away they glided over the dancing waters in the direction of the ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... cries Miss Ethel, surprised, and perhaps alarmed. Indeed, Clive scarcely knew. He had been chafing all the while he talked with her; smothering anger as he saw the young men round about her; revolting against himself for the very humility of his obedience, and angry at the eagerness and delight with which he had come at ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... church. "The repulsive and ghostly images, paintings, and mechanical contrivances, common in the small towns and villages, are mostly banished from the capital and other large cities," says Hon. John H. Rice, in "Mexico, Our Neighbor," "in obedience to the demands of a more decent civilization. They are used, however, where most practicable (representing the crucifixion and diverse rites and ceremonies of the church), to hold in awe and superstitious thralldom the weak and untutored minds of the degenerated ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... the soil, and nestles to it closely and long, will it take on this beneficent and human look which foreign travelers miss in our landscape; and only where homes are built with fondness and emotion, and in obedience to the social, paternal, and domestic instincts, will they hold the charm and radiate and be warm with the feeling I ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... scanning every movement of those below, too intently interested to talk, yet unable for some time to determine clearly what was impending. Occasionally the sound of a voice reached them, shouting orders in Spanish, and men came and went in obedience to the commands. More guns were brought forth from the bunk-house, and distributed; the single horseman rode swiftly up the valley, and a half-dozen of the fellows lugged a heavy timber up from the corral, and dropped it on the ground in front of the ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish

... halted at last the plain all round was thick with a dull silvery haze which intensified the heat of the sun, whose rays seemed to be passing through a burning-glass, and it was only in obedience to desperate efforts that the tent-cloth was stretched for shelter and the animals watered and fed more sparingly than before. The provisions were spread-out, but no one could eat. Every word and look was about the water and directed at the fast-emptying keg ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... servants, but they were also called upon, civil and military, to assist in the execution of this order; to the meaning of which, the magistrates were required in a particular degree to pay their attention, in compelling a due obedience thereto, by preventing the opening of the licensed public houses during the hours of divine service as well as any irregularity on the day appropriated ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... you may imagine, was not pleased with this change of bridegrooms; but, used to obedience, she acquiesced in everything, and told no one of the bitter tears she nightly shed upon her pillow. She tried to be as cheerful as possible in presence of her parents, and diverted her mind ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various

... may make slavery necessary and just, yet it can never be proved that he who is now suing for his freedom ever stood in any of those relations. He is certainly subject by no law, but that of violence, to his present master; who pretends no claim to his obedience, but that he bought him from a merchant of slaves, whose right to sell him never was examined. It is said that, according to the constitutions of Jamaica, he was legally enslaved; these constitutions are merely positive; and apparently injurious to the rights of mankind, because whoever ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... from among the blanketed forms I thought bitterly of the 'glory' of war. Yet if there was any glory in war this was it. It was here, in this patient suffering and obedience. These men might well glory in their infirmities. This was heroism, the real thing, the spirit rising to incredible heights of patient endurance in the foreseen possible result of positive action for an ideal. The reaction from battle is ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan

... tyrants, this strange contradiction of glory in debasement and debasement in glory (type of the greatness and littleness of man), was not then matured, but was resplendent with virtues which extort esteem,—chastity, poverty, and obedience, devotion to the miserable, a lofty faith which spurned the finite, an unbounded charity amid the wreck of the dissolving world. As I have before said, it was a protest which perhaps the age demanded. The vow of poverty was a rebuke to that ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... In obedience to this hint, the boys, nodding to Nancy, took up their hats, and left the room; the Dodger and his vivacious friend indulging, as they went, in many witticisms at the expense of Mr. Chitling; in whose conduct, it is but justice to say, there was nothing very ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... the command, but now without any of his old consequential airs. Adversity was taming him down, and to his surprise he found himself talking in a very different tone to his men, who yielded a readier obedience than ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... Algie's obedience was instantaneous. With compressed lips Persis watched his vanishing figure, her color ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... on the head. He issued a decree summoning all interpreters of dreams to appear before him on pain of death, and he held out great rewards and distinctions to the one who should succeed in finding the true meaning of his dreams. In obedience to his summons, all the wise men appeared, the magicians and the sacred scribes that were in Mizraim, the city of Egypt, as well as those from Goshen, Raamses, Zoan, and the whole country of Egypt, and with them ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... indeed, any unforeseen circumstance prevented the carrying out of the agreement, and legally obliged him to return to the status of his birth. In return, he undertook all the duties and enjoyed the privileges of his new position; he owed to his adopted parents the same amount of work, obedience, and respect that he would have given to his natural parents; he shared in their condition, whether for good or ill, and he inherited their possessions. Provision was made for him in case of his repudiation ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... was brought up without the fear of God," continued Mrs. Barker, "she had, of course, no notion of obedience to her parents, further than just trying to please them in their presence; she lived in the constant practice of disobeying them, and the governess continually concealed her disobedience from Lady Noble. And what is the consequence? The poor child has lost her life, and Miss Beaumont ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood

... only; the Mexican nomenclature was soon dropped and simple English terms adopted: caravan became train, and majordomo, the person in charge, wagon-master. The latter was supreme. Upon him rested all the responsibility, and to him the teamsters rendered absolute obedience. He was necessarily a man of quick perception, always fertile in expedients in times of emergency, and something of an engineer; for to know how properly to cross a raging stream or a marshy slough with an outfit ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... which that prerogative implies. Mary was the Mother of Jesus. She exercised toward Him all the influence that a prudent mother has over an affectionate child. "Jesus," says the Gospel, "was subject to them"(263)—that is, to Mary and Joseph. We find this obedience of our Lord toward His Mother forcibly exemplified at the marriage feast of Cana. Her wishes are delicately expressed in these words: "They have no wine." He instantly obeys her by changing water into wine, though the time for exercising ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... inordinate love of pleasures, riches and honors, being essential to salvation, is most easily, most surely and most meritoriously achieved by those who, in answer to a Divine call, consecrate and give themselves wholly to God, by the practice of the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience. Those who embrace this angelic profession form the choice portion of the fold of Christ. They rank as His spouses, and, by the holy ambition of their virgin love, console Him for the craven defections or the cold indifference of ...
— Memoir • Fr. Vincent de Paul

... German husband was the commander-in-chief of his household. It was not that benevolent lordship which the man of the house assumes toward his wife and family in other nations. The stern note of command was always evident; that attitude of "attention!" "eyes front!" and unquestioning obedience. ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... Sylla," exclaimed Jim, "we are all ready for you. We have installed you in command, and hereby promise attention and obedience." ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart

... of electric and mechanical powers, our thousands of artificers employed, and all the industry and energy exerted in obedience to my will, nine of our years[1]—more than thirty of yours—were spent in the ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)

... he) I found you had made them good soldiers; and I have made them good men. But, upon this whole matter, it may appear' (concludes the author) 'that the spirit of discipline of war may beget that spirit of discipline which even Solomon describes as the spirit of wisdom and obedience.' Apply this process to the growth and maturity of an armed force in Spain. In making a comparison of the two cases; to the sense of the insults and injuries which, as Spaniards and as human Beings, they have received and have to dread,—and to the sanctity which an honourable resistance has ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... tongue of flesh, Like Peter's when he fell, and thou wilt have To wail for it like Peter. O my son! Are all oaths to be broken then, all promises Made in our agony for help from heaven? Son, there is one who loves thee: and a wife, What matters who, so she be serviceable In all obedience, as mine own hath been: God bless thee, wedded daughter. [Laying his hand on the ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... to you to live is Christ, why do you bring into your life's closest fellowship an alien to Him? Why do you give the supremest place of earthly relationship, pledging life-long loyalty and obedience, to one whose mind is foreign—even 'enmity'—to the law of Christ? Can you follow the course of life he would plan, and still serve Christ? Can two walk together ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock

... not know that she was under suspicion, but that night she spoke on obedience and discipline, taking as her text: "Take heed to the law," and urging the men to obey both moral and military laws so that they might be better men and better soldiers. The Captain reported on her ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill

... She fell back in her chair with a little gasp. She had fainted. Bernadine shrugged his shoulders. The butler and one of the footmen, who during the whole of the conversation had stolidly proceeded with their duties, in obedience to a gesture from their master took her up in their arms and carried her ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... shall have been removed in obedience to the pressing demands of a cash market and high prices, the value of northern Michigan will just begin to be developed. The soil possesses riches of which the heavy growth of timber is the outcropping. ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland

... not an obedience to external forms or observances, but "a bold leap in the dark into the arms of ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler

... political school from his high tory grandmother. From them he would hear of the inalienable rights of the people, and the duty, under certain circumstances, of revolution; from her he would hear of the obligation of loyalty and obedience. The Johnsons would speak of the patriotism, the wisdom, and the services of Franklin; the grandmother of the virtues and accomplishments of Cornwallis. The boy, of course, had to choose between these different sides, and he chose the side of his ...
— A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin - Verplanck • William Cullen Bryant

... months nature hath not moved thee to take the lute and sing thereto, and this is naught save a rare thing and a strange. But all this cometh of strength in the art and thy self-restraint." Then he bade her sing; and she said, "Hearkening and obedience." So she took the lute and tightening its strings to the sticking- point, smote thereon a number of airs, so that she confounded Ishak's wit and for delight he was like to fly. Then she returned to the first mode and sang thereto ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... represented as sitting down at Table with Adam, and eating of the Fruits of Paradise. The Occasion naturally leads him to his Discourse on the Food of Angels. After having thus entered into Conversation with Man upon more indifferent Subjects, he warns him of his Obedience, and makes natural Transition to the History of that fallen Angel, who was employ'd in the Circumvention of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... the mere tyrant by the mad outburst of loyalty which greeted his triumph. On the very day when the crowd around Russell's scaffold were dipping their handkerchiefs in his blood as in the blood of a martyr the University of Oxford solemnly declared that the doctrine of passive obedience even to the worst of rulers was a part of religion. But Charles saw that immense obstacles still lay in the road of a mere tyranny. Ormond and the great Tory party which had rallied to his succour against ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green

... the converse happens when some gentle inspiration coming from intelligence mirrors the opposite fancies, giving rest and sweetness and freedom, and at night, moderation and peace accompanied with prophetic insight, when reason and sense are asleep. For the authors of our being, in obedience to their Father's will and in order to make men as good as they could, gave to the liver the power of divination, which is never active when men are awake or in health; but when they are under the influence of ...
— Timaeus • Plato

... to come to London the day after to-morrow by the midday coach. I believe it was settled you should meet me? At all events Miss Havisham has that impression, and I write in obedience to it. She ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... common soldiers' loyalty to Vitellius was beyond question,[311] while the higher ranks inclined towards Vespasian. Thus we find a succession of outbreaks and penalties; an alternation of insubordination with obedience to discipline; for the troops could be punished though ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... governor-general of Canada had to interpret constitutionalism as something more than mere obedience to public dictation with regard to his councillors. He had to educate these councillors, and the public, into the niceties of British constitutional manners; and he had to create a new vocation for the governor-general, and to exchange dictation for ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison

... from it in extravagance and violence. Poetry in all its severer forms places a restraint upon the poet from which as the mood of art gains upon him he has no desire to escape. Law and limitation, willing obedience to the prescribed conditions, are of the very essence of art. And this is as true of the greatest of the arts as of any other. It is not merely that the poet accepts the bondage of rhymes, or stanzas, ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... of Phrygia. He was the son of Gordius, a poor countryman, who was taken by the people and made king, in obedience to the command of the oracle, which had said that their future king should come in a wagon. While the people were deliberating, Gordius with his wife and son came driving his wagon into the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... such a parade of obedience," he continued, with increasing anger, "I should think it would be better to obey honestly. I never said that I wished you to break with her in ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... to her side. As Betty Vanderpoel was a great success with the Mrs. Weldens and old Dobys of village life, she was also a success among grand old ladies. When she stood before them there was a delicate submission in her air which was suggestive of obedience to the dignity of their years and state. Strongly conservative and rather feudal old persons were much pleased by this. In the present irreverent iconoclasm of modern times, it was most agreeable to talk to a handsome creature who was as beautifully ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... unfit to undertake the management of a wife. Such was the elder sister's belief as to her father's mind. But she could not force upon Clary the necessity of taking any action in the matter. She was not strong enough in her position as elder to demand obedience. Clarissa's communication had been made in confidence; and Patience, though she was unhappy, would not break ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... forsooth, is the supreme wisdom of this passion warranted? Dupery for dupery, what proof is there that dupery through hope is so much worse than dupery through fear? I, for one, can see no proof; and I simply refuse obedience to the scientist's command to imitate his kind of option, in a case where my own stake is important enough to give me the right to choose my own form of risk. If religion be true and the evidence for it be still insufficient, I do not wish, by ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... any one to forego his patriotic sentiments, but I do expect from all of you a sensible submission and absolute obedience to the orders of the General Government. I call upon you to show confidence in that Government, and accord it your co-operation. I address this summons particularly to the functionaries of the State and of the communes who have remained at their posts. The greater ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... doubtfully at him; and he instinctively put his head back, as if it were in danger. "You do not understand, then?" she said. "I will test the genuineness of your stupidity by an appeal to your obedience." ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... mighty vessel? Not the sound of the rushing winds, nor the sight of the foam-crested billows; not the sense of the awful imprisoned force which was wrestling in the depths below me. The ship is made to struggle with the elements, and the giant has been tamed to obedience, and is manacled in bonds which an earthquake would hardly rend asunder. No! It was the sight of the boats hanging along at the sides of the deck,—the boats, always suggesting the fearful possibility that before another ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... Biarritz and return to their home in Compiegne in the rue Saint-Lazare, on the edge of the forest. But, so far from being injured by manual labor, the child constantly grew stronger. In his case spirit had always triumphed over matter, and compelled it to obedience on every occasion. So now he followed his own object with indomitable energy. He took an airplane to pieces before mounting in it, and learned to know ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... rule German children of all classes are treated as children, and taught the elementary virtue of obedience. Das Recht des Kindes is a new cry with some of the new people, but nevertheless Germany is one of the few remaining civilised countries where the elders still have rights and privileges. I heard ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... obedience to his father's directions, or because he had found out that he was watched, kept himself a prisoner, and did not venture beyond the precincts of the garden at the back of the house, where he spent most of ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... was always at her side. She walked by faith and not by sight. She understood the distinction between the constituents of faith and the consequences of faith. Chalmers wisely remarks—that the gratitude, the love, the disposition toward new obedience; these are not the ingredients of faith; they are but the effects of it. Observe what follows by making them the ingredients. By faith we are said to be justified; but if our piety toward God, or our desire to conform ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles

... overestimation spreads over the psychic sphere and manifests itself as a logical blinding (diminished judgment) in the face of the psychic attainments and perfections of the sexual object, as well as a blind obedience to the judgments issuing from the latter. The full faith of love thus becomes an important, if not the primordial ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud

... will ever show itself by its fruits; real conversion, by the life and conversation. Be not deceived; God is not to be mocked with the tongue, if the heart is not right towards Him in love and obedience-(Mason). ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... acknowledge some authority. I'm a good many years older than you girls and I've had more experience and discipline and at present I am taking Mother's place; you'll have to accept my decisions for the time being. If I exact obedience, Rosemary, it isn't because I am a tyrant—I've put in a good many years obeying orders myself and I know that ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence

... our mutual endeavours to increase our affection, cultivate our harmony, promote our happiness, and live in the fear of God, and in obedience to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various

... crimes (committed, of course, in the city) shall be ferreted out, or their authors tracked, usually confides in his own staff to promote these desirable purposes, from the fact of their accountability to him being well defined, whereas the county constable yields no obedience to him. ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie

... way and its horrible veracity, the type of such scenes played by women on whatever rung of the social ladder they are perched, when any interest, no matter what, draws them from their own line of obedience and induces them to grasp at power. In their eyes, as in those of politicians, all means to an end are justifiable. Between Flore Brazier and a duchess, between a duchess and the richest bourgeoise, between a bourgeoise and the most ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... jobs which he would proceed to lose. For about a week he was apprentice to a cobbler. Then he went for a couple of months as "cat" on tio Borrasca's boat; and not even that stern disciplinarian was able to kick any obedience into him. Then he tried his hand at coopering, the steadiest of all trades; but his boss bounced him to the sidewalk in a very few days. Then he joined a stevedore's colla in town; but he never worked unloading the steamers ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... directs the exercise of the vital functions according to desire, and moral consciousness tends to control desire in obedience to higher dictates.[312] The action of living {287} organisms depends upon and subsumes the laws of inorganic matter. Similarly the actions of animal life depend upon and subsume the laws of organic matter. In the same way the actions ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... note of humility is first struck; she is always "servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ." Thence she frequently passes into fervent meditation on some special theme: the exceeding wonder of the Divine Love, the duty of prayer, the nature of obedience. We are lifted above the world into a region of heavenly light and sweetness, when suddenly—a blow from the shoulder!—a startling sense of return to earth. From the contemplation of the beauty of holiness, Catherine ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... heart to feel, and the soul to love to be just and do right, and make obedience to the moral sense the habit of life. This can best be done at the school age, and I tell you that this is the highest education. A boy who can spell all the words in the spelling-book, and bound all the countries ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth

... female, in the lowest state of degradation; where oaths and blasphemy interlarded every sentence; where religion was wholly neglected, and the only honour paid to the Almighty was a clean shirt on a Sunday; where implicit obedience to the will of an officer, was considered of more importance than the observance of the Decalogue; and the Commandments of God were in a manner abrogated by the Articles of War—for the first might be broken with impunity, and even with applause, while the most severe punishment ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... are now mine, and I must let you know, What every wife doth to her husband owe: To be a wife, is to be dedicate, Not to a youthful course, wild and unsteady, But to the soul of virtue, obedience, Studying to please, and never to offend. Wives have two eyes created, not like birds To roam about at pleasure, but for[343] sentinels, To watch their husbands' safety as their own. Two hands; one's to feed him, the other herself: Two feet, and one of them is their husbands'. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... Mrs Shuckleford, had lived long enough in this world to find that human nature is a more powerful law even than parental obedience; she therefore took to heart just so much of her son's discourse as fitted with the one, and overlooked just so much as exacted the latter. In other words, she was ready to believe that Reginald Cruden was a "bad lot," but she was not able ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... cities, therefore, believe these authors rather than a single gloss upon a decree questioned and rejected by those who are skilled in divine law. Wherefore, since a full confession is, not to say, necessary for salvation, but becomes the nerve of Christian discipline and the entire obedience, they must be admonished to conform to the orthodox Church. For, according to the testimony of Jerome, this was the heresy of the Montanist, who were condemned over twelve hundred years ago because they were ashamed to confess their sins. It is not becoming, therefore, to adopt ...
— The Confutatio Pontificia • Anonymous

... sense of tabus or of obligations, could be imposed by any one, and must be obeyed, for disobedience produced disastrous effects. Probably the obligation was framed as an incantation or spell, and the power of the spell being fully believed in, obedience would follow as a matter of course.[887] Examples of such geasa are numerous in Irish literature. Cuchulainn's father-in-law put geasa on him that he should know no rest until he found out the ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch

... injunction, that the royal pair should erect two monasteries by way of penance, one for monks, the other for nuns; as well as that the Duke should found four hospices, each for 100 poor persons. In obedience to this command, William founded the Church of St. Stephen, and Matilda, the ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn

... what real courage is. Good muscles do not always mean true courage. You must learn that it is often far more brave to stand by and not do a thing, knowing all the time you will be called a coward for it, than it is to be daring and defiant, as you were to-day. Obedience in all things, pleasant or unpleasant, is true courage, and that is what you lacked to-day, and so brought misery and pain to many, none of whom you consider as wise or brave ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... essayist has observed that a government to secure obedience must first excite reverence. Some such perception, coinciding with native taste, had moved George Washington to assume the trappings of royalty, in order to surround the new presidential office with impressive dignity. Posterity has, accordingly, ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States, that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... of the lieutenants. "We have no officers. If you do not command us, there is no one else to do it. We promise that our men will follow you and give you every obedience. They have been led by foreigners before, by young Captain Stuart and Major Fergurson and Colonel Shrevington. They know how highly General Rojas thinks of you, and they know that you have ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... united corporations of the cities of Berlin and Cologne determined to send a memorial in writing to your Electoral Highness, to conjure our liege lord not to deal with us as step-children, since we are children of one and the same father, and inferior to the Prussians neither in love nor obedience, but only more visited by misfortune and the calamities of war. But on this account we implored our hereditary Sovereign most graciously to turn his eye upon us, and to come to our aid, since we stood in such great need of his help ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... conception and teaching of sin and repentance. Although God is the Father, He demands filial obedience in the hearts and the minds of His children. Men by following the devices and desires of their own hearts, are not true to their real nature, their Divine pattern. By following their selfish desires they have brought sin, ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine

... merely seeks self- gratification! Observe, too, how the old self-contemplative, self- tormenting spirit, that was unhappiness in those days of growth and heart-searching at the first entrance into the ministry, had passed into humble obedience and trust. Looking back to the correspondence of ten years ago, volumes of progress are implied in the quiet 'Enough ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... upon the spot made proper. In each of these respects his occasional mistakes are plain enough, but the evidence, upon which he has often been thought capable of setting aside sound military considerations causelessly or in obedience to interested pressure, breaks down when the facts of any imputed instance are known. It is manifest that he gained rapidly both in knowledge of the men he dealt with and in the firm kindness with which he treated them. It is remarkable ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... abolishes the requirement of real estate security on license bonds (thus striking a blow at the civil damage act); and makes it a misdemeanor for any person to enter a saloon during the hours when it is supposed to be closed in obedience to the law: ...
— Two Decades - A History of the First Twenty Years' Work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the State of New York • Frances W. Graham and Georgeanna M. Gardenier

... very heavy heart that he started around again in obedience to Mr. Jacobs's angry command; but this time he did manage to cry out, in a very thin and very squeaky voice, the words which he had been ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis

... our good Stettiners are to be known no longer. Were it possible to bewitch a whole people, I would say this witch-devil of Marienfliess had done it. For in all Pomeranian land was it ever heard that the people refused obedience to their Prince as the burgher militia here have dared to ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... I've got something to ask you." She spoke as one expectant of unquestioning obedience: this was her night ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... countenance, sometimes a little anxious but always affectionate, not to say adoring, confused and even agitated him. He was tempted to reply, but, exercising successfully the self-control which was the result rather of his life than of his nature, he said nothing, and, in obedience to the intimation, ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... placed his troops in ambush round the church, and on a signal given they rushed out on his unarmed flock, and by his orders the crowds within and without the church were put to rout by the sword, the soldiers waded up to their knees in blood, and the city and whole country yielded its obedience for the time to bishops who held ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... story of a girl—a little girl—who had a propensity for getting into trouble, because she had not learned the lesson of obedience. She masters this, however, as the story tells, and in doing so she and her brother have a ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox

... driven to falsehood and dissimulation in explaining his conduct; he expresses his repentance, curses himself for his ingratitude, promises well for the future, but seldom or never can be prevailed upon to state candidly that he acted in obedience to the priest. In some instances, however, he admits this, and inveighs bitterly against his interference—but this is only whilst in the presence of his landlord. I think, Colonel, that no clergyman, set apart as he is for the concerns of a better world, should become a ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... The greatness, the holiness, the unwearied goodness, and the omnipresence of their heavenly Father, present to the rational and tender affections of the young, a constantly increasing stimulus to obedience and self-controul;—while the fear of mere physical suffering will be found daily to decrease, and may perhaps in some powerful minds at last altogether disappear. The horse and the dog were intended to be trained in the one way;—but rational and intelligent ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... view of some hundreds of us. It was all done in an instant. There was Dare lying dead, never to stir again. There was Fletcher, our only soldier, with a smoking pistol in his hand, thinking that he had taught the army a lesson in obedience. There was the army all about him, flocking round in a swarm, not looking at it as a military punishment but as a savage murder, for which he deserved to be hanged. Then the Duke hastened up to ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield

... is a most painful occurrence, and must have been originated by some very ignorant persons. How any man possessing the common feelings of humanity, to say nothing of loyalty, could needlessly offer insult to so many men, so cheerfully turning out in obedience to the laws of the country, exceeds belief, if it were not a matter of fact. Too much credit cannot be given to those worthy citizens who used their best efforts to restrain the excitement, and ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... obedience to the duty at hand is the practical conclusion of that high Indian wisdom when illusions are past. Not to retreat into the solitude, not to retire into the inaction, that he has known and prized; to fight at the side of his brothers, in his own rank, in his ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous

... that in their steady character, unshaken by difficulties, in their love of liberty, obedience to law, and support of the public authorities, I see a sure guarantee of the permanence of our republic; and retiring from the charge of their affairs, I carry with me the consolation of a firm persuasion that Heaven has in store ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... of Francia's political system we have already spoken. It had been the policy of the old Jesuit missions to isolate the people and keep them in strict obedience to the priesthood, and Francia adopted a similar policy. Anarchy prevailed without, he said, and might penetrate into Paraguay. Brazil, he declared, was seeking to absorb the country. With these excuses he forbade, under the severest penalties, intercourse of any character ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... Miss Tippet, as she gazed at it through the windows of her upper rooms, and awaited the arrival of "a few friends" to tea. Miss Tippet's heart was animated with feelings of love to God and man; and she had that day, in obedience to the Divine precept, attempted and accomplished a good many little things, all of which were, either directly or indirectly, calculated ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... solemn hour," said she, "an' a woful sight in this place of misery. Keep quiet, all of you. I know what this is about, dear Condy," she said; "I know it; but what is the value of our faith, if it doesn't teach us obedience? Kiss your child, here," said she, "an' go—or come, I ought to say, for I will go with you. It's not to be wondhered at that she couldn't bear it, weak, and worn, and nearly heartbroken as she is. Bless her, too, before you go. ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... it was permitted between Israelite and Gentile. Furthermore, it seems impossible to decide what was the nature of the obligations imposed—whether the prohibition supposed and ratified an already existing universal obligation, in charity or justice, or merely imposed a new obligation in obedience, binding the consciences of men for economic or political reasons. So, too, it seems impossible to decide absolutely whether the decrees were intended to possess eternal validity; the probabilities, however, seem to favour very strongly the view that they were intended as mere economic ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien

... shouted "Hello!" as was the custom of neighbors passing on their way to or from town. The whole family, including "Al-f-u-r-d," betook themselves to the roadside to gossip. "Al-f-u-r-d," busy as usual, clambered up over the muddy wheels into the vehicle. He was praised by uncle and aunt for his obedience, and promised candy when they returned from town. Clambering down he missed his footing and narrowly escaped being trampled upon by the old mare who was vigorously stamping and swishing her tail to ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... a trireme amounted to about 200 men. The captain, or "trierarch," commanded implicit obedience. Under him were a sailing master, various petty officers, sailors, ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... swirl through with destructive power. He was being oppressed and seeing Conscience oppressed by a spirit which he regarded as viciously illiberal—and he accused Conscience, in his own mind, of blind obedience to a distorted sense of duty. Unconsciously he was seeking to coerce her into repudiating it by a form of argument in which the graciousness of his nature gave way to a domineering insistence. Unconsciously, too, that form of attack aroused in her ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... Francis Galton and Mrs. Victoria Woodhull Martin, admitting absolutely their leading argument that it is absurd to breed our horses and sheep and improve the stock of our pigs and fowls, while we leave humanity to mate in the most heedless manner, and if, further, the whole world, promising obedience, were to ask these two to gather together a consultative committee, draw up a scheme of rules, and start forthwith upon the great work of improving the human stock as fast as it can be done, if it undertook that marriages ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... responded Lovell, as he hastened away to select his twenty men. The topsail was by this time sheeted home, and the men were mast-heading the yard. The skipper sprang upon the rail, steadying himself by the weather main swifter, to con our schooner alongside; and I, in obedience to an order from him, went forward and gave the word for those who were not of the boarding-party to arm themselves with muskets, and pick off any of the Frenchmen who might show their heads above ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood



Words linked to "Obedience" :   obeisance, filial duty, respect, tractableness, flexibility, tractability, obedience plant, truckling, submissiveness, obey, disobedient, submission, obedient, disobedience, compliance



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com