"Oscillate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up between them a composite mental condition, adopting, in short, a modus vivendi which merely gives us the complex impression of life. But imagine these two feelings as INELASTIC and unvarying elements in a really living man, make him oscillate from one to the other; above all, arrange that this oscillation becomes entirely mechanical by adopting the well-known form of some habitual, simple, childish contrivance: then you will get the image we have so far found in all laughable objects, SOMETHING MECHANICAL ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... lie with their feet to the fire, and their heads resting in the hollow of their saddles. The horses, standing around a tree, and tied to its lower branches, seem also to sleep. I am awake and listening. The wind is high up, whistling among the twigs and causing the long white streamers to oscillate. It utters a wild and melancholy music. There are few other sounds, for it is winter, and the tree-frog and cicada are silent. I hear the crackling knots in the fire, the rustling of dry leaves swirled up by a stray gust, the "coo-whoo-a" of ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... accompanied by representative elements, perception accompanied by more complex elements of representation, then emotion, and that state of consciousness which surpasses sensations and perceptions. But Spencer has no suspicion of what art really is. His views oscillate between sensualism and moralism, and he sees little in the whole art of antiquity, of the Middle Ages, or of modern times, which can be looked upon ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... laborer at the time of his going to work had a severe diarrhoea, and while in the tunnel was obliged to make use of the bucket, in which the excavated chalk was hauled to the top. He admitted that at times the bucket, in being hauled up, would oscillate in such a way as to spill part of its contents and thereby pollute the water of the well below. Two weeks from this accidental pollution the epidemic began, and there can be little doubt of the relation of this mild case of typhoid to ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... a little behind his companions, and was three or four yards to the left of them. He was drifting along with his gaze fixed on the ducks, when all at once his canoe began to twist and oscillate ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... kaleidoscope and the vessels were seen drawn up in three parallel lines on the east and three on the west. Then the search-lights again flashed out, filling the whole intermediate area of the sky with beams of brilliant coloured light, which were caused to oscillate sideways and overlap, producing a most gorgeous intermingling of glowing colours. The Martians certainly had a complete understanding of all the peculiarities connected with mixtures of ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... between two small disks on the machine bends toward the negative pole, becomes widened, and, at a certain point of electric intensity, commences to vibrate and oscillate, exhibiting a peculiar stratification. Since these phenomena are also least observed in flames rich in oxygen, it appears to be a general law that carbon and hydrogen are more strongly attracted by the negative pole, while oxygen is more attracted by the positive pole, probably like in all ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... have been well had the discussion stopped here. In the heat of debate each pushed his argument beyond his own convictions. Colonel Bradshawe sat sipping his wine, listening with mock gravity and seeming to oscillate between the opinions of the disputants, but most of the company agreed with Lord Strathern; still L'Isle found several staunch backers for his mechanical theory. But when quoting facts in support of his views, he referred to the ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... the movement, I started with my first four Chasseurs. The bridge rang strangely under our horses' hoofs, and seemed to me to oscillate in an alarming manner. Fortunately the enemy was not on the other side; if he had been, our passage would have cost ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... in which to change your mind!" said Johnston, holding up his watch. "Bring along that log, boys, and get her on the swing;" and tightening my grip on the axe I watched the heavy beam oscillate as our partner called off the last ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... spectators. Behind this are ranged, one behind the other, and at right angles to the screen, a row of lighted candles. Being all in the same line, they throw one shadow only on the screen. The figure is now made to oscillate slightly, so as to impart some little motion to the shadow. One of the candles is now removed from its place in the row, and waved gently about, now high, now low, the effect to the spectators being that a second shadow springs out of the ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... the rivers lie on the highest part of the delta; not always the highest, but seldom the lowest. There is reason to believe that in the course of centuries they oscillate from side to side. For instance, four miles north of the Rakaia there is a terrace some twelve or fourteen feet high; the water in the river is nine feet above the top of this terrace. To the eye of the casual observer ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... divinations, and Stephen also declined, for another reason, namely that the result might prove to be different, which, he held, would be depressing. The other Zulus oscillated between belief and scepticism, as do the unstable who set to work to study the evidences of Christianity. But Sammy did not oscillate, he literally howled, and prepared the food which poured in upon us so badly that I had to turn on Hans to do the cooking, for however little appetite we might have, it was necessary that we should keep up ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... one of these treacherous paths meant destruction. The rear-most camel would stumble, oscillate violently for a moment, and over the side he would go, probably dragging his fellow with him and not infrequently the unfortunate driver as well. Sometimes a camel out of pure cussedness would "barrack" in the middle of a precipitous, narrow path, and ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... our current geological views will have to be considerably modified. My greatest trouble is, not being able to weigh the direct effects of the long-continued action of changed conditions of life without any selection, with the action of selection on mere accidental (so to speak) variability. I oscillate much on this head, but generally return to my belief that the direct action of the conditions of life has not been great. At least this direct action can have played an extremely small part in producing all the numberless and beautiful adaptations ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... Upon earth, houses in the town or cottages in the country feel every shock upon the surface of the globe. At sea, ships, rocked by the waves, are in perpetual movement. In the air, balloons incessantly oscillate upon the fluid strata of different densities. This projectile alone, travelling in absolute void amidst absolute silence, offered absolute ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... heard the name before, nevertheless my lips were forming the syllables almost before he spoke. As he flicked up his grey horse and the gig began to oscillate in more business-like fashion, I put him a fourth question—a question at once ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... are in general best to be explained by the action of earthquakes. Water being an exceedingly elastic substance, an earthquake passes through it with much greater speed than it traverses the rocks which support the ocean floor. The result is that, when the fluid and solid oscillate in the repeated swingings which a shock causes, they do not move together, but rub over each other, the independent movements having the swing of from a few inches to a foot or two in shocks of ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... whipped the end of the bullock-hide lariat round the tree to which he held, and began to oscillate it, so that the blazing bush might reach the ledge on which the daring convict sustained himself. The groan which preceded the fierce belching forth of the torrent was cast up to them ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... the carriages are said to oscillate, from being too heavy at the top, let a few copies of "Martinuzzi" be placed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... oscillate against the darkness which it displaced with a splash, when a bell sounded with slow strokes; "Ah," said he, looking again at his watch, "that is the hour ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... capable of transmitting wave motion? Roughly we may say two—elasticity and inertia. Elasticity in some form, or some equivalent of it, in order to be able to store up energy and effect recoil; inertia, in order to enable the disturbed substance to overshoot the mark and oscillate beyond its place of equilibrium to and fro. Any medium possessing these two properties can transmit waves, and unless a medium possesses these properties in some form or other, or some equivalent for them, it may be said with moderate security to be incompetent to transmit ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... legal principle, I would endeavor to fix that mercury by a positive law. If to please an administration the judges can go one way to-day, and to please the crowd they can go another to-morrow, if they will oscillate backward and forward between power and popularity, it is high time to fix the law in such a manner as to resemble, as it ought, the great Author of all law, in whom there is no variableness ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... tutor whose jokes and fooleries were incessant. His disposition fluctuated between gaiety and melancholy, and Rousseau attracted him. Meanwhile his health declined until a long illness, which began with a hemorrhage, caused him to oscillate for days between life and death; and convalescence, generally so delightful, was marred by a serious tumor. His father's disposition was stern, and he could become passionate and bitter, and his mother's domesticity made her turn to religion, so that on coming home ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... not similar at every impression, it can never be carried beyond the number of actual impressions; for, move any body as a pendulum, in one way, and it will continue to oscillate in an arch of the same circle, until the known causes make it rest; but if, after first putting it in motion in one direction, you push it into another, it can never reassume the first direction; because it can never move itself, and consequently it can have but the effect of that last motion; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... in the Middle Ages thought of authority as something arbitrary and unintelligible, while the truth is that such a conception was wholly foreign to the temper of that time. It is quite true that the political life of the Middle Ages seems constantly to oscillate between anarchy and despotism, but this is not because the men of those days did not understand the meaning of law and of freedom, but because they were only slowly working out the organization through which these can be secured. The supreme ...
— Progress and History • Various
... gets gradually longer to the right hand of an observer placed at the center of the pendulum. The plane of the oscillations remains fixed, but the Earth revolves beneath, from West to East. The fundamental principle of this experiment is that the plane in which any pendulum is made to oscillate remains invariable even when the point of suspension is turned. This demonstration enables us in some measure to see the Earth ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... of the Royal Institution tells me that he often craves for an absence of visual perceptions, they are so brilliant and persistent. The Rev. George Henslow speaks of their extreme restlessness; they oscillate, rotate, ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... we heard a strange rumbling noise under our feet, the ground beginning to oscillate violently, as if we were on board ship in a heavy sea; while, at the same time, a lot of earth and pieces of rock were thrown down on us from the heights above the little plateau where the cave was situated. The air, also, grew thick and ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... men of the Middle Ages look on the world as a vale of tears, which Pope and Emperor are set to guard against the coming of Antichrist; while the fatalists of the Renaissance oscillate between seasons of overflowing energy and seasons of superstition or of stupid resignation) here, in this circle of chosen spirits, the doctrine is upheld that the visible world was created by God in love, that it is the copy of a pattern pre-existing in Him, and that ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... picked it up from the ledge, beginning to oscillate it in front of her fair face, the nudging ceased. People looked at the thing with eyes wide with astonishment, ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... jutting into the sea, on the summit of one of which is a large single mass of stone, weighing about sixty tons, resting on a sort of pivot, so near the centre that the whole block may be easily made to oscillate or log, to and fro. This logging stone has created astonishment amongst the illiterate, and given rise to many fabulous stories: whilst others have imagined it was placed here by the Druids, to ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... the planets be populated (say Mars) with beings like ourselves, having the gift of language and the knowledge to adapt the great forces of nature to their wants, then if they could oscillate immense stores of electrical energy to and fro in electrical order, it would be possible for us to hold communication, by telephone, ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... shift, shuffle, shake, totter, tremble, vacillate, wamble^, turn and turn about, ring the changes; sway to and fro, shift to and fro; change and change about; waffle, blow with the wind (irresolute) 605; oscillate &c 314; vibrate between, two extremes, oscillate between, two extremes; alternate; have as man phases as the moon. Adj. changeable, changeful; changing &c 140; mutable, variable, checkered, ever changing; protean, proteiform^; versatile. unstaid^, inconstant; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... ascended the green summit of the Sun's hill, now glimmering in the moonlight, and drew from its hiding-place the pledge that had been entrusted to her. As if by a miracle, the little flower, touched by the moon's silvery glow, expanded in an instant. Almost spontaneously it began to oscillate in her hand, and shrill and clear the little bell rang, so that it resounded into the adjacent wood, whence a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... said in 1912 that "the Serbs have just as many reasons for asserting that the Macedonian is a Serbian language as the Bulgars have to deny it." As it was in the Middle Ages, so it is now; the mediaeval language used to oscillate between the two, and it is sometimes impossible to tell whether an old Macedonian Slav document is Bulgarian or Serbian.... When we come to the ethnologists we find they have only written books which deal with certain parts of Macedonia. ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... recitation of the French oscillate between two opposite extremes, the first of which is occasioned by the prevailing tone of the piece, while the second seems rather to be at variance with it,— between measured formality and extravagant boisterousness. The first might formerly preponderate, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... Scriptures? Did not experience also teach that the Church of Christ has become great in poverty, and straightway been corrupted by riches? Willingly or unwillingly, the government had to yield to public opinion, and awaken to a still more lively consciousness, that, if it would not continually oscillate, without character, between the old and the new, no escape remained, except in the way which the welfare and honor of the country pointed out; by making common cause with ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... These changes were frequent, and they kept the minds of the public in such a state of continual vibration that I fear the habit thus acquired is confirmed, and that they will never more cease to oscillate. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... in the aspect of Venus due to her varying positions in her orbit are not confined to those which cause her to oscillate with a pendulum movement eastward and westward from the sun. The discovery that she undergoes phases exactly like those of the moon, followed that of the existence of Jupiter's satellites as the second great result achieved by the use of the telescope in the ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... his way again. But in the twenty-mile run to Gaston more time was lost by the lumbering freight locomotive, and it was twenty minutes past three o'clock when the county seat came in sight and Kent began to oscillate between two sharp-pointed horns ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... which the Greve now presented was a frightful one. The heads, leveled by the perspective, extended afar, thick and agitated as the ears of corn in a vast plain. From time to time a fresh report, or a distant rumor, made the heads oscillate and thousands of eyes flash. Now and then there were great movements. All those ears of corn bent, and became waves more agitated than those of the ocean, which rolled from the extremities to the center, and beat, like the tides, against the hedge of archers who surrounded the gibbets. ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... things—we must consider what has actually been done; not merely what remains to be done. We must adopt proportionate standards, not the little measures of to-day and yesterday, in which the tides of human melioration may oscillate, and even seem to flow backward and at the best to make slight headway. But take up the cycle of history that preceded the advent of Christianity, and compare it with the present period; and is there not an entirely different expression on the face ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... lunar tides, must have their ebb because they have their flow. The feelings do not so much advance like a river, as oscillate like a pendulum. ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... frail board made the great stone, which was only balanced on a few inches of rock, oscillate in a most dreadful manner, and, to make matters worse, when he was half-way across the flying ray of lurid light suddenly went out, just as though a lamp had been extinguished in a curtained room, leaving the whole howling wilderness of ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... finalism are therefore, here, only external views of our conduct. They extract its intellectuality. But our conduct slips between them and extends much further. Once again, this does not mean that free action is capricious, unreasonable action. To behave according to caprice is to oscillate mechanically between two or more ready-made alternatives and at length to settle on one of them; it is no real maturing of an internal state, no real evolution; it is merely—however paradoxical the assertion may seem—bending the will to imitate the mechanism of the intellect. A conduct ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... collectedly, like a professor, "if I raise my pendulum till it reaches the point of Moderate Desires and then let it go, it will naturally swing to the point of Slight Troubles, and go no further. Then it will oscillate for some time in a more and more limited space on the line of Indifference, and finally it will stand still without any jerk on Dead Stop, Absolute Repose. That ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... that, while the third is preeminently the Christian view, all three are philosophically compatible with design in Nature. The second is probably the popular conception. Perhaps most thoughtful people oscillate from the middle view towards the first or the third,—adopting the first on some occasions, the third on others. Those philosophers who like and expect to settle all mooted questions will take one or the other extreme. The "Examiner" inclines towards, the "North American" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... observe the different customs of foreign sailors when sailing, homeward bound. The French, for instance, rig up a dummy man and trice him up to the main top, where he is made to oscillate with a pendulum movement until he gains sufficient impetus to clear the side, when he is let go overboard amidst the cheering of the men. The Russians man yards, white caps in hand, which, after ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... voice. All this may be of interest as a matter of research, but must one go into such minutiae in order to teach singing? I think the answer must ever be in the negative. You might as well talk to a gold-fish in a bowl-and say: 'If you desire to proceed laterally to the right, kindly oscillate gently your sinister dorsal fin, and you will achieve the desired result.' Oh, Art, what sins are committed in ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... increased, however, he would get up, perhaps walk across the room, or stand before the fireplace, his hands behind his back; a large cigar, sometimes unlighted, at other times emitting huge clouds of smoke, would oscillate from one side of his mouth to the other; his talk would grow in earnestness, his voice grow louder, his words come faster and faster, until finally they would gush forth in a ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... the aid of small metal spheres fixed in tubular supports by movable levers to which are communicated the motions of compression and dilatation of the air in the pump chamber. They oscillate in a plane whose direction may be varied according to the arrangement of the sphere, as seen in the two apparatus of this kind shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 2 will give an idea of the general arrangement. The two pistons of the air-pumps are connected to cranks that may be fixed in such a way as to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... less than cost. Some of them, if not worn long, have been worn much; they are jagged under the arms and at the bottom of the skirt, stains are on the lining, and other objections present themselves to those who oscillate between the dresses and dollars, 'notwithstanding they have been worn by Madam Lincoln,' as a lady who looked from behind a pair of gold spectacles remarked. Other dresses, however, have scarcely been worn—one, perhaps, ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... to a pretty vigorous youth in a quarter of a century; its inhabitants are so varied that the 'go slow' directions over its bridges are printed in three languages, and the religious services in its churches held in four; the thermometer, the barometer, the vane, the hygrometer, oscillate so rapidly, so frequently, so lawlessly, and through so wide a meteorological range, that the climate is simply indescribable, yet it is a growing resort for consumptives; it stands with all its gay prosperity just in the edge of a lonesome, ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... until a day or two later that a prolonged visit from the subject of these hesitations reminded her—perhaps more forcibly than before—that, however in his absence she might oscillate, in his actual presence a firm negative was, after all, the only answer ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... get on without faith of some sort. There is a sense in which that is as eminently as obviously true; there is another, in which, in my judgment, it is as eminently as obviously false, and it seems to me that the hortatory, or pulpit, mind is apt to oscillate between the false and the true meanings, without being aware ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... seen, hold it against the edge of a sheet of paper and hear the blows it strikes; or, watch one of the lowest strings of the piano after striking the key a sharp blow; or, look closely at the heavier strings of the violin (or better still, the cello) and watch them oscillate rapidly to and fro as ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... jar, quake, shiver, totter, brandish, joggle, quaver, shudder, tremble, flap, jolt, quiver, sway, vibrate, fluctuate, jounce, reel, swing, wave, flutter, oscillate, rock, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... the crank-pin D. Provision for changing the ratio of tool rotation is achieved by mounting the wheels composing the train on pins capable of sliding along a long slot in the bar supporting them. The farther end of this bar is caused to oscillate to and fro very slowly by means of an additional crank-pin S and crank-shaft, the projecting face of the bed-plate W being placed so as to allow V to slide about easily and smoothly. Motion is communicated to this part of the system by means of gears at 0 and P, and a belt working from ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... of the demand and the supply; but behind this operates continually the inexorable law of the cost of production. Sooner or later every price must represent the actual cost of producing the commodity concerned, or, at least, must oscillate now above and now below that point which it is always endeavoring to meet. For if temporary circumstances force the price well above the cost of producing the article in question, then the large profits to be made induce a greater and greater production. ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... Lawrence, a little below Montreal. They found the river completely frozen over, the cold being intense, but the ice-bridge had only just been formed, and the surface was rough and uneven, causing the sleigh to oscillate fearfully, threatening every moment to overturn. The storm had by this time increased to a perfect hurricane, and the drifting snow was driven with intense force into the faces of both men and horses, causing the latter to bound and gallop fearfully, to the extreme peril of those ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... repast was finished, Fougas arose without difficulty, gracefully offered his arm, and conducted his partner to the parlor. His gait was a little stiff and oppressively regular, but he went straight ahead, and did not oscillate the least bit. He took a couple of cups of coffee, and spirits in moderation, after which he began to talk in the most reasonable manner in the world. About ten o'clock, M. Martout, having expressed a wish to hear his history, he placed himself on a stool, collected his ideas for ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... rope half-way up the precipice, the wind acting upon his body, carried him at times several feet out from the face of the cliff—causing him also to oscillate violently from side to side, notwithstanding that the rope ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid |
