"Potent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but whose danger they share without any interest in their passions or recompenses!"—Coupled with the physical needs which requires a certain amount of ease and of daily food, and which, if too strenuously opposed, produces passing jacqueries, there is a still more potent longing which, on suddenly encountering its object, seizes on it, clings to it, gorges it, and produces revolutions that last: this longing is the desire to contemplate one-self with satisfaction and complacency, forming of one's self a pleasing, flattering ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... look in, as before, very frequently, with a budget of his funny stories, to which other neighbours gladly came to listen. There was invariably much laughter, and no small amount of tea and tobacco consumed, not to speak occasionally of some more potent compound; but my uncle took good care that none of his guests should pass the limits of sobriety, though he had at times some little difficulty in keeping old Jerry in order. I should remark that old Jerry was an exception to the general character of our guests, ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... be as potent as genuine recollection, so far as its effects go, unless it happens to come more into collision with other and not mistaken memories than it is ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... declare behind his back that he must have invented something in the way of a system to be able to wear those clothes and drive that hitch. To be sure, there were some who insisted that the matter of Vona was still potent with Britt and that Britt's money was behind Harnden. But there were more who were certain that it was not the style of Britt to invest in any such remote possibility as a girl who openly declared that she proposed to wait seven years for the ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... themselves; so he made haste to bring the royal goblet, filled with a liquid as bright as gold, and which kept sparkling upward, and throwing a sunny spray over the brim. But, delightfully as the wine looked, it was mingled with the most potent enchantments that Circe knew how to concoct. For every drop of the pure grape juice there were two drops of the pure mischief; and the danger of the thing was, that the mischief made it taste all the better. ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sweet of you," said Gavin, after a moment's pause, wherein his desire to laugh struggled with a far deeper and more potent emotion. "But, if it's just the same to you, ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... A potent force in the development of the city has been the electric traction lines, of which Dayton has more than any other city in Ohio. There are nine lines, with a total mileage of three hundred and eighty-five miles, which radiate in all directions through the ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... to the village-peasant level; they had no wealth worth taking or carrying away. It was, however, a place where a ship could be set down, and there were women, and the locals had not lost the art of distillation, and made potent liquors. A crew could have fun there, much less expensively than on a regular Viking base planet, and for the last eight years a Captain Nial Burrik, of the Fortuna, had been occupying it, taking his ship out for occasional quick raids and spending most of the time ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... of the principle of evaluation, and the difficulty under many circumstances of applying it, is the source of commercial fraud, and one of the most potent causes of ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... ex-secretary the more graciously because she had seen that he had been very well received in three boxes already. Mme. de Serizy knew none but unexceptionable people, and moreover he was Montriveau's traveling companion. So potent was this last credential, that Mme. de Bargeton saw from the manner of the group that they accepted Chatelet as one of themselves without demur. Chatelet's sultan's airs ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... forfeit, or any position in society to maintain, were ready to welcome as deliverers the allied army of invasion. It was then, to meet this emergency, that that terrible Revolutionary Tribunal was organized, which raised the ax of the guillotine as the one all-potent instrument of government, and which shed such oceans of innocent blood. "Two hundred and sixty thousand heads," said Marat, "must fall before France will be safe from internal foes." Danton, Marat, and Robespierre were now in the ascendency, riding ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... which might render doubtful the correctness—i. e., dishonesty of witnesses, defective examination of locality, unreliability of the object, ignorance of experts, etc. It is necessary to know clearly which of these influences might be potent in the case in hand, and to what degree. The *standardization consists, also this time, in the comparison of the conditions of the present case with those of other cases. The *variation, again, consists in the abstraction from the evidence of those ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... from some hundred-headed monster, shot out incessantly, and licking the air a moment, were gone forever. Occasionally this thick, cloudy veil concealed all but the spars of the enemy from sight, and then the tall masts seemed rising, by some potent spell, out of nothing; occasionally the terrific explosions would rend and tear asunder the curtain, and, for an instant, the black hulls would loom out threateningly, and then disappear. The roar of three hundred guns ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... will acknowledge that after his exile he lived for this principle, and that he died for it. "Respublica," the Republic, was the one word which to his ear contained a political charm. It was the shibboleth by which men were to be conjured into well-being. The word constitution is nearly as potent with us. But it is essential that the reader of Roman history and Roman biography should understand that the appellation had in it, for all Roman ears, a thoroughly conservative meaning. Among those who at Cicero's period dealt with politics in Rome—all of whom, no doubt, spoke of the Republic ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... of this period some rays of improvement shone out. To end the reign of Owen's misleading types and imaginary archetypes, there arose a wielder of two potent words, "morphology" and "biology," the sciences of form and of life, who showed that differences of adult form grew out of likeness and simplicity in the young; and that the life of plants and animals was one science, their study one discipline. ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... citizens preside at each entertainment, but pledge them to crisp introduction. High grade entertainments wisely managed, prove themselves of benign influence, and an agency more potent than many laws in the preservation of peace and the reform of ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... small proportion of the adult male population of the several States; and by and by the work, thus done, might be undone; for such action was lawfully revocable by subsequent legislatures or conventions, which bodies would be just as potent at any future time to reestablish slavery as the present bodies were now potent to disestablish it. It was entirely possible that reconstruction would leave the right of suffrage in such shape that in some States pro-slavery men might in time ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... at the immigration of foreigners, such as the Hungarian miners and Italian laborers, who willingly underbid them. In other words, they are beginning to realize, in a practical way, the truth that increasing numbers are far more potent than anything else in reducing wages. So long as immigration is free to any race or nationality, there is no such thing as "protection to home laborers"; the only protection to them—not that I am urging the desirability of such measures—can come solely from forces which limit the number ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... bright and strong came forth the young Earl, every trace of the anger and disappointment of the night having been removed from his face, if not from his mind, by the recreative and potent sleep of ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... cigar," said he, "which has all the flavor and shock of a richer looking and more suggestive leaf." He indicated the rather negative wrapper, and went on: "As you see, it hasn't any of that lush darkness which one usually associates with potent tobacco. And all because the wrapper was grown in Pennsylvania; for a casual inspection tells nothing of the ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... the discharge of some giant cannon, the green mass volleyed into the sea. It did not slope gently like a beach or offer a rugged shoulder to be gnawed away as a rocky cliff, but thundered forward into the surging brine, yielding but invincible, a landforce potent as the wave itself. Hundreds of feet into the air it towered, falling abruptly in a sharp wall, its ends and fringes merging with the surf and wallowing in happy freedom. The breakers did not batter it for it offered them no enmity to rage and boil upon, but giving way with each surge, smothered ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... might be expected to appear such "variation of species" as contained that rarest of elements, the divine spark we call genius. In due time the "variation" made its appearance, now known as Watt, the creator of the most potent instrument of mechanical ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... Prince of authors, the deified Julius [Caesar]; and hence it is probable that they too have passed into Germany. For what a small obstacle must be a river, to restrain any nation, as each grew more potent, from seizing or changing habitations; when as yet all habitations were common, and not parted or appropriated by the founding and terror of Monarchies? The region therefore between the Hercynian Forest and the rivers Moenus and Rhine, was occupied by the Helvetians; ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... beauty's potent charms subdued, For Chloe felt a tender pain; Her equal love with ardour sued, But found ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... dangerous, and never to be resorted to unless the deceased is suspected to have suffered foul play, as it is called. It is the more unsafe to tamper with this charm, in an unauthorized manner; because the inhabitants of the infernal regions are, at such periods, peculiarly active. One of the most potent ceremonies in the charm, for causing the dead body to speak, is, setting the door ajar, or half open. On this account, the peasants of Scotland sedulously avoid leaving the door ajar, while a corpse lies in the house. The door ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... now it sought Of colour fair the magic spell, And trac'd her to the Friar's[6] cell. No foolish pride, no narrow rule Enslav'd his soul; from every School, Whatever fair, whatever grand, His pencil, like a potent wand, Transfusing, bade his canvass grace. Progressive thus, with giant pace. And energy no toil could tame, He climb'd the rugged mount of Fame: And soon had reach'd the summit bold, When Death, who there delights to hold His fatal watch, with envious blow Quick hurl'd ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... 11 Now Drury's potent king extorts applause, And pit, box, gallery, echo, 'How divine!' Whilst, versed in all the drama's mystic laws, His graceful action saves the ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... that he treated religious questions in a spirit of levity as the weak defence of those who know that irony and sarcasm are the deadliest enemies of their faith. Superstition dislikes argument, but it hates laughter. Nimble and far-flashing wit is more potent against error than the slow dull logic of the schools; and the great humorists and wits of the world have done far more to clear its head and sweeten its heart than all its sober philosophers ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... but from desire to show his shame of having behaved so ungenerously: Donal received him so as to make it plain he did not misunderstand him, and they had a long talk. Graeme was all the readier for his blunder to hear what Donal had to say, and Donal's unquestionable disinterestedness was endlessly potent with Graeme. Their interview resulted in Donal's thinking still better of him than before, and being satisfied that, up to his light, the man was honest—which is saying much—and thence open to conviction, and both sides of a question. But ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... secrets, was among the forces which brought about the great geographical discoveries of the period. Its influence in this direction is evident enough in England and elsewhere later on; but, judging by the difficulties of Columbus in securing support, it was not in his time potent with those in control of government policy and government funds. The Italian navigator John Cabot and his son Sebastian made their voyages from England in 1498 and 1500 with very feeble support from Henry VII, though it was upon their discoveries that England later based her American claims. ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... entirely fresh style of his own creation: nervous, articulate, coloured, concise, with brief metaphors which reveal not only a poet, but a fine poet, in the vein of Michelet, but with the difference of febrility to the potent discharge of power. ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... is beside the question. It does not settle whether the apologist's influence upon the men and women of his generation and beyond—an influence which, in his lifetime, was incontestable, and may be deemed potent still, to judge by the extent to which his books are read—was and is good or bad. Balzac's personality is here only indirectly involved. His individual character might have been better or worse without the conclusion to be drawn being affected. Good men's influence is not always good, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... Hudson's Bay Company. It is high time indeed that a military post should be established somewhere on the Red River by our government. The Hudson's Bay Company is now a powerful monopoly. Not so magnificent and potent as the East India Company, it is still a powerful combination, showering opulence on its members, and reflecting a peculiar feature in the strength and grandeur of the British empire— a power, which, to use the eloquent language of Daniel Webster, "has dotted over the whole surface of the globe ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... days, and would probably have reached even to the bishop's ears. He was neither bad enough, nor audacious enough, nor foolish enough, for such perjury as that. And, moreover, though the wiles of Arabella had been potent with him, he very much preferred Dorothy Stanbury. Seven years of flirtation with a young lady is more trying to the affection than any duration of matrimony. Arabella had managed to awaken something of the old glow, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... drawn the water of life. Since the introduction of the printing-press books have been, beyond all other agencies, the educators of men. And of all books of which we have any knowledge, those together constituting the Bible form incomparably the most potent factors in the moral and religious progress of the western world; and as all other progress is fed from moral and religious forces, I may add, in the general advance ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... promised by the advocates of the system should be made from the Federal Treasury in their neighborhood. Whole sections of the country were thus sought to be influenced, and the system was fast becoming one not only of profuse and wasteful expenditure, but a potent political engine. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... slow foot retired. Yet were remaining some of ancient race, And ancient arts were now their sole delight: With Time's first sickle they had marked the hour When at their incantation would the Moon Start back, and shuddering shed blue blasted light. The rifted rays they gathered, and immersed In potent portion of that wondrous wave, Which, hearing rescued Israel, stood erect, And led her armies through his crystal gates. Hither (none shared her way, her counsel none) Hied the Masarian Dalica: 'twas night, And the still breeze fell languid on the waste. ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... the 'old man,'" I returned. The name of that potent Unknown seemed to be my only weapon in the contest with Detective Coogan, and I thought this a time ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... when the peers were a first-rate force, because the greatest peers, those who had the greatest social importance, did not care for their own House, or like it, but gained great part of their political power by a hidden but potent influence in the ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... made many curious and important discoveries, but one above the rest, which I will now impart under the promise of eternal and inviolable secrecy. Know, then, that I have found out an easy and expeditious combination of common materials, the effect of which is equal or superior to the most potent and destructive agents in nature. Neither the proudest city can maintain its walls, nor the strongest castle its bulwarks, against the irresistible attacks of this extraordinary composition. Increase but the quantity, and the very rocks and mountains will be torn asunder with ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... his lap was a banjo which he thrummed vigorously, with rhythmic precision, if no greater musical art, and head and body and feet, all gave emphasis to the movement. At intervals, his raucous voice rumbled a snatch of song. It was evident that the moonshiner was mellow from draughts of his own potent product. ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... sea. The entrance was by a narrow gorge, and here we witnessed one of those natural phenomena that still impress an ignorant people with the awe from which, in more ancient times, religion received its most potent sanction. The wind passing through some orifice in the cliff far above our heads, even when we felt none below, produced a mysterious organ-like sound, which the people regarded as due to some supernatural influence. As all the modern sanctuaries in that part of the world are founded ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... the girl had ejaculated, "now when you have." At last the work was over, and in unconscious comradery they sat side by side on the broad south doorstep; the sun shining down full upon their uncovered heads—smiling an unconscious blessing more potent than formula of clergy. She was looking out as she spoke, out over the level earth dazzling with its dancing heat waves, mysterious in its suggestion of unfathomable silence, of limitless distance. "It's such a ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... dignity very much when Uncle Heywood called our attachment a boy-and-girl affair; but I soon found that he knew best about it. For a time I kept my love very warm and glowing; but it was not long ere the distractions you bade me seek in society proved more potent than I wished. I found there were other things to be enjoyed than dreams of you, and even—shall I confess it? I can now, I suppose—other people to be admired as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... potent help to enable one to despise Death is to recall those who, in their greed for life, tarried the longest here. Wherein had they really more than those who were cut off untimely in their bloom? Together, at last, somewhere, they ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... movement of mind, when they are made free of our own immortals. I would only say this to my idealist friends, whether Indian or European, that for every passage that they can find in Mill, or Burke, or Macaulay, or, any other of our lofty sages with their noble hearts and potent brains, I will find them a dozen passages in which history is shown to admonish us, in the language of Burke—"How weary a step do those take who endeavour to make out of a great mass a true political personality!" ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... promptly availed himself of the opportunity to pour about a tablespoonful of spirits into the partially open mouth. For a moment there was no result, then a cough and a splutter on the part of the sick man showed that the potent elixir was making its way down his throat, and, with another groan, the patient made a feeble effort to struggle to his feet. But the attempt was a failure, the last particle of strength had already been spent, and, sighing heavily, Butler subsided back upon the supporting arm ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... presents. They were never haughty with her; on the contrary, they were exceedingly pleasant. They called her "Miss Denas" and carefully avoided anything like condescension in their intercourse. Yet Denas knew that between them and herself there was a line impalpable as the equator and just as potent in its ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... fit of despair, he set manfully to work to repair the loss, and the new version was finished in January, 1837. This book marked an epoch in the writing of history. Hitherto few had realized what potent force there was in the original documents lying stored in libraries and record offices. They were 'live shells' buried in the dust of a neglected magazine; and in the hands of Carlyle they came to life again and worked havoc among the traditional judgements of history. This ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... Chat-oue! Seet down yondeh!" And at the potent voice of Maximian Roussel the offender was pushed silently into the seat he had risen from, and Bonaventure gave the ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... will not swallow it as greedily as all her silver sisters, resembling as they do delicate and fragile foolish ware that sells itself in a market created by its own vanity, where false coin passes easily without detection, and is even more potent and valuable than true. And yet in her case, flattery is very easy, for the grossest is only the ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... cure her lacerated soul. Again Egypt lies in the background, as it does everywhere in this Book, the veritable wonderland, from which many miraculous blessings are sent. Moreover it is the land of potent drugs, "some beneficial and some baneful;" its physicians too, are celebrated as excelling all men. Still more curious is the fact that women possess the secret of medicine as well as men, and Polydamna may be set ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... left Thea at her hotel, Dr. Archie admitted to Fred, as they walked up Broadway through the rapidly chilling air, that once before he had seen their young friend flash up into a more potent self, but in a darker mood. It was in his office one night, when she was at home the summer before last. "And then I got the idea," he added simply, "that she would not live like other people: that, for better or worse, she had ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... to her entreating arms and eyes, as he had so often before in like moments, when the need to put aside the consciousness of existence, of the world as it appears, had come to one of them or both. Yet it seemed that this love was like some potent spirit, whose irresistible power waned, sank, each time demanding a larger draught of joy, a more ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... whom this potent charm is imputed, was one of the Magi who followed the tenets of Zoroaster. He had come to the court of this youthful Princess, who received him with every attention which gratified vanity could dictate, so that in a short time her awe of this grave personage was lost in ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... the passengers, sharpened by the keen mountain air, were more potent than their curiosity, and, as the breakfast-bell rang out at the moment the stage stopped, a majority of them rushed into the dining-room and scrambled for places without giving much heed to the vanished couple or to the Judge and Yuba Bill, who had disappeared also. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... alleged intrusion had taken place, and he had satisfied himself by a private examination of its inmates that the charge was true. But now he professed to know nothing at all about the matter. Probably the really potent influence in the case was the money which Crassus liberally distributed among the jurors. The fact of the money was indeed notorious. Some of the jury had pretended that they were in fear of their lives, and had asked ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... for the ex-Stadholder, though he refused to consider the case of the King of Sardinia, who, he averred, had offended him by appealing to the Czar. The territorial interests of France in Italy doubtless offered a more potent argument to the First Consul: after practically annexing Piedmont and dominating the peninsula, he could ill brook the presence on the mainland of a king whom he had already sacrificed to his astute ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... it meant. Then, with some hazy recollection of dangers encountered in old wells, he bent down cautiously and started up again, for it gradually dawned upon both that for about two feet above the floor there was a heavy stratum of poisonous gas, so potent that it overcame them directly; and it was into this they had plunged as soon as they ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... and was subsequently to become an Australian Governor and to achieve a pathetic immortality in another field of exploration, entered the world at Spilsby. Sir Joseph Banks, the botanist of Cook's first voyage, Flinders' steadfast friend, and the earliest potent advocate of Australian colonisation, though not actually born in Lincolnshire, was the son of a squire who at the time of his birth owned Revesby Abbey, which is within a short ride of each of the ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... those young princes, schooled by stern adversity, from whom so much might be expected,—all made me hope that new-born liberty might be made to accord with the ancient monarchy of our forefathers. The government would thus have possessed the two most potent spells in all human affairs,—antiquity and novelty; memory and hope. It was a fair dream, and most natural at my age. Each succeeding day, however, dispelled a portion of that dream. I perceived with grief that old forms but ill contain ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... nature at large. He was already convinced, from very wide knowledge, experience, that the other could not form a permanent attachment to the Manchu; and Nettie's great difference, together with the romance of her unhappy position, must have a potent effect on the fellow's evident sentimentality. A dank air rose from the water, like the smell of death; and, with an uncontrollable shiver, he ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... under a ruined gateway we came to the old farm-house in the thick stone wall outside the old quadrangle of Hoghton Towers: which I looked at like a stupid savage, seeing no specially in, seeing no antiquity in; assuming all farm-houses to resemble it; assigning the decay I noticed to the one potent cause of all ruin that I knew, - poverty; eyeing the pigeons in their flights, the cattle in their stalls, the ducks in the pond, and the fowls pecking about the yard, with a hungry hope that plenty of them ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens
... a mere caprice; she was quick at reading character, and saw in Margaret Brandt that which in one of her own sex goes far with an intelligent woman; genuineness. But, besides her own sterling qualities, Margaret had from the first a potent ally in the old ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... not deal with the objects of reflection at first hand and in themselves, but only with the reminiscences of objects, which he had never approached in a spirit of deliberate and systematic observation, and with those reminiscences, moreover, suffused and saturated by the impalpable but most potent essences of a fermenting imagination. Instead of urgently seeking truth with the patient energy, the wariness, and the conscience, with the sharpened instruments, the systematic apparatus, and the minute feelers ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... creating glamours and effecting the impossible. He came before her eyes as a very central man, and that always counts, and he had powers, unique powers as it seemed, at any rate in the air. The performance with the model had just a touch of the quality of a potent incantation, and women have ever displayed an unreasonable disposition to imagine that when a man has powers he must necessarily have Power. Given so much, and what was not good in Filmer's manner and appearance became an added merit. He was modest, he hated display, but given an occasion ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... of the less. There is whiskey and whiskey. Now our idea would be to send an unlimited supply of the more deadly variety of that exhilarating fluid, (highly camphened,) to the convivial Piegans. After an extensive debauch upon this potent tipple, very few Piegans would be likely to take the field, either this summer or any other. They would be Dead ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... a formidable enemy is not merely its preparation for war, it is not merely its organization, potent as that is, but it is the spirit of every class and section of its population. You have only got to read the papers to see that as far as they are concerned they are all of them subordinating everything to the one ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... With this potent instrument in my pocket, I literally as well as figuratively 'returned to the charge,' and presented myself at the Police Station of the district. There, I found on duty a very intelligent Inspector (they are all intelligent men), who, likewise, had never heard of ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... small trading outposts. The savages of Guayana are great drinkers, but not drunkards in our sense, since their fermented liquors contain so little alcohol that inordinate quantities must be swallowed to produce intoxication; in the settlements they prefer the white man's more potent poisons, with the result that in a small place like Manapuri one can see enacted, as on a stage, the last act in the great American tragedy. To be succeeded, doubtless, by other and possibly greater tragedies. My thoughts at that period of suffering were pessimistic in the ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... him whose life's devotion to Ireland was repaid by her confidence and her love, and from those without whose potent aid his labours had been vain—the beloved clergy of the people—down throughout all ranks and orders of the national organisation, Death has been busy, still enough remain of devoted, determined, patriot ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... to come to Belgrade. Nevertheless there is a more general and more grievous discontent in Yugoslavia, since, after all, the Croats' attitude is of a temporary character—for it is probable that after the next general election their peculiar upbringing will not be so potent in determining their sentiments towards the State. More and more will they be ready to make common cause with Serbs and Slovenes; and their criticisms, which are now so negative, will be of a more useful kind. (They will recognize, for example, that if it costs 3000 dinars ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... solitudes, and fields which the ploughshare of the husbandman has never turned. In this state it is offered to man, not in the barbarous and isolated condition of the early ages, but to a being who is already in possession of the most potent secrets of the natural world, who is united to his fellow-men, and instructed by the experience of fifty centuries. At this very time thirteen millions of civilized Europeans are peaceably spreading over those fertile plains, with whose resources and whose ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... master, sleeping a sleep from which not even the wildest roar of battle, no, nor her cheerful neigh at morning, would ever wake him? Or is there in animals some instinct, answering to our intuition, only more potent, which tells them whom to trust and whom to avoid? I know not, and yet some such sense they may have, they must have; or else why should this mare so fearlessly attach herself to me? By what process of reason or instinct I know not, but there she chose me for her ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... meaning. The characters are understood, but they appear to show an older form of the language, which at present can not be deciphered. Brasseur de Bourbourg's "Rosetta Stone," discovered in Landa's manuscript, will not serve him here. Another more potent must be found before these old inscriptions can be made to give ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... Who ne'er again her former sway will boast, Till, to complete her works, she starts a ghost. If such the mode, what can we hope to-night, Who rashly dare approach without a sprite? No dreadful cavern, no midnight scream, No rosin flames, nor e'en one flitting gleam. Nought of the charms so potent to invite The monstrous charms of terrible delight. Our present theme the German Muse supplies, But rather aims to soften than surprise. Yet, with her woes she strives some smiles to blend, Intent as well to cheer ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald
... subtile and hard to define. It is not the result of mere beauty, although that may be an important element; and if wit, intelligence, learning, accomplishments, and goodness are added, all combined cannot wholly explain the power that some women possess. Deeper, perhaps more potent, than all else, is an individuality which distinguishes one woman from all others, and imparts her own peculiar fascination. Of course, such words do not apply to those who are content to be commonplace themselves, and who are satisfied with the ordinary homage of ordinary minds, or the conventional ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... She gave him such potent reasons, and showed him so plainly his refusal would infuriate his uncle, and make her miserable, that he had no choice. He packed up his dress suit, and drove to Raby Hall, with a heavy ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... Colonel Fennister spelled the word with an upper case P, and put the word in italics. It was, to him, a more potent word than any other in ...
— Cum Grano Salis • Gordon Randall Garrett
... far the most important and most greatly to be feared of the venereal diseases. No disease has been so wide-spread in its dissemination or more potent in ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... mysterious means to correspond. They send each other the song of the birds, the perfume of the flowers, the smiles of children, the light of the sun, the sighings of the breeze, the rays of stars, all creation. And why not? All the works of God are made to serve love. Love is sufficiently potent to charge ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... on him. This is he whose works ye know; Ye have adored, thanked, loved him,—no, not him! But that of him which proud portentous woe To its own grim Presentment was not potent to subdue, Nor all the reek of Erebus to dim. This, and not him, ye knew. Look on him now. Love, worship if ye can, The very man. Ye may not. He has trod the ways afar, The fatal ways of parting and farewell, Where all ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... near her, and showed as plainly as they could—and how plainly women can show things when they like!—that they were eager to welcome her into the county's social circle; and it required no effort on their part, for Nell's charm, which Drake had found so potent, was irresistible. There was some playing and singing, and the countess wanted Nell to do one or the other; but ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... and the breath of glory kindles it no more; it is once again a captive. After all, it does not make the mysteries clearer to speak in physical terms and do violence to our intuitions. If we ever use these centres, as fires we shall see them, or they shall well up within us as fountains of potent sound. We may satisfy people's minds with a sense correspondence, and their souls may yet hold aloof. We shall only inspire by the magic of a superior beauty. Yet this too has its dangers. "Thou has corrupted thy wisdom by reason ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual thought is on greater things. It is for these reasons that Jonson is even better in the epigram and in occasional verse where rhetorical finish and pointed wit less interfere with the spontaneity and emotion which we usually associate with lyrical ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... Truly the magic was swift and potent. A few more steps, and she was aware of a widening of the hedge. They were emerging into ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... his American counterpart strives to show himself—but merely a cheery good-fellow—drifted into our conversation, and when we found I had slept in his native village he would have it that we accept a round of Valdepenas. Which must have been potent, for it moved "Scotty" to unbutton an inner pocket and set up an entire bottle of amontillado. So midnight was no great space off when we turned out again into the howling night and, having helped Renson to reach a sleeping-place, scattered to the bachelor quarters that had been found for ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... would have entered into with thorough zest." And she goes on to speak of La Vernia in a manner which seems to show that it was the latter establishment which most keenly interested and impressed her. She was in fact under the spell of the great and still potent personality of Saint Francis, which informs with his memory every detail of the buildings and rocks around you. Each legend was full of interest for her. The alembic of her mind seemed to have the secret of distilling from traditions, which in their grossness the ordinary visitor turns from ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... is a more potent mover than evil: because evil does not cause movement save in virtue of good, as Dionysius states (Div. Nom. iv). Hence an evil does not prove an obstacle to reason, so as to require virtues unless that evil be great; there being, seemingly, one such evil ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... brave men disported themselves in the interminable twilights of the Alaskan summer. In the reign of the Princess Maksontoff the ladies were first shown to the sideboard. When they had regaled themselves with potent punch and caviare, the gentlemen followed suit. But the big brazen samovar was forever steaming in the grand salon, and delicious draughts of caravan tea were in order at ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... box the monarch had nodded graciously and from the silver bower the lady had smiled softly, so that the duke had no reason for dissatisfaction; the attitude of the crowd was of small moment, an unmusical accompaniment to the potent pantomime, of which the principal figures were Francis, the King Arthur of Europe, and the princess, ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... pushed into the grave one who was only trembling with uncertainty upon its brink. Yet as a set off against these feelings there is the satisfaction experienced when sufferings are relieved or health restored by the interposition of my aid. The profession of medicine is potent for good and evil. For good in the hands of him who makes it his lifelong study; for evil in his hands who adopts it merely as a respectable means of obtaining his livelihood. It is noble in the one case; detestable in the other. You do ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... and did not return, though his sister twice called upon him. It is true that she uttered the word brother so faintly, that perhaps the sound did not reach his ears.—"He is gone," she said, "and I have had no power to speak out! I am like the wretched creatures, who, it is said, lie under a potent charm, that prevents them alike from shedding tears and from confessing their crimes—Yes, there is a spell on this unhappy heart, and either that must be ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... was a potent prince, went ashore to confer with the king of Zubut, who in the end became almost ready to pay tribute instead of demanding it; but Magellan only asked liberty to trade, which was readily granted. Magellan persuaded the king and his principal people to become Christians, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... got a small bundle of different kinds of medicinal woods, and, burning them in a potsherd nearly to ashes, used the smoke and hot vapor arising from them as an auxiliary to the other in causing diaphoresis. I fondly hoped that they had a more potent remedy than our own medicines afford; but after being stewed in their vapor-baths, smoked like a red herring over green twigs, and charmed 'secundem artem', I concluded that I could cure the fever more quickly than they can. If we employ a wet sheet and a mild aperient in combination ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... His flowing locks and gold-encircled brow And kingly gait, for ever; such a spell In his severe looks, such a majesty As drew of old the people after him, In Agrigentum and Olympia, When his star reign'd, before his banishment, Is potent still on me in his decline. But oh! Pausanias, he is changed of late; There is a settled trouble in his air Admits no momentary brightening now, And when he comes among his friends at feasts, 'Tis as an orphan among prosperous boys. Thou know'st of old he loved this harp of mine, When first ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... become, when used to read corrupt books, or to look upon licentious pictures, or vulgar theater scenes, or when used to meet the fascinating gaze of the harlot! What an instrument for depraving the whole man may be found in the matchless powers of the brain, the hand, the mouth, or the tongue! What potent instruments may these become in accomplishing the ruin of the whole being, ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... seal-cutter for keeping so faithfully to the time of the Peshawar telegrams. It went on to say that skilled doctors were night and day watching over the man's life; and that he would eventually recover if the fee to the potent sorcerer, whose servant was the head in the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... back spreads through a house; As then the dreams and terrors of the night Decamp, so from my mind were driven All its own thoughts and feelings. Close she leant Propped on a swarthy arm, while the other helped With eloquent gesture potent as wizard wand, Veil the world off as with an airy web, Or flowing tent a-gleam with pictured folds. These tauten and distend—one sea of wheat, Islanded with black cities, borders now The voluminous blue pavilion of day. There-under to the nearest ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... himself, at the same time, shelved in his new rank, powerless, and regarded as a nobody in the state where hitherto he had been a potent signior—mastered in every action by the secret tribunal, and presiding nominally in councils where his opinion was of little consequence—is evident. And a man so well acquainted, and so long, with all the proceedings of the state, who ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... "Most potent and noble prince, let me know your will in regard to this proposal, and have the goodness to send me as speedy an answer as may be; for in all affairs of arms, the shortest determination is the best, especially for the kings ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... hatch, we proceeded to search the vessel. In the hold were several casks of French brandy, immensely strong spirit, intended to be diluted before being sold. From one of these the crew had evidently been helping themselves, and not being accustomed to so potent a liquid, fancying it of the ordinary strength, it had overcome their senses before they were aware of what was happening to them. We found, also, Dutch drops, several bales of tobacco, and sundry other things, amply sufficient to condemn the craft as a smuggler, but which ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... of action, you see, would be their body. And it might be physical outline. So potent a descent of spiritual life would select materials for its body where it could find them. Our conventional notion of a body—what is it? A single outline moving altogether in one direction. For little human souls, or fragments, this ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... necessity upon Himself; and God will deny us nothing but when we ask of Him to do us ill offices, to give us poisons and dangers, and evil nourishment, and temptations; and He that hath given such mighty power to the prayers of His servants, yet will not be moved by those potent and mighty prayers to do any good man an evil turn, or to grant him one mischief—in that only God can deny us. But in all things else God hath made all the excellent things in heaven and earth to ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... later, and for an instant only, the two stood together on the narrow beam, Garstin a shrinking form, his every limb shaken by something more potent than the gusty wind, his face turned anywhere but downwards. Trevannion did not hold him, but his hand rested reassuringly on the other's quivering arm. For an instant only, and then Garstin was pushed on to the firm bank again ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... mere mention of these scenes will remind us painfully of a third cause; and perhaps it is the most potent of all. I mean the suffering of Desdemona. This is, unless I mistake, the most nearly intolerable spectacle that Shakespeare offers us. For one thing, it is mere suffering; and, ceteris paribus, that is much worse to witness than ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... the power and protection of the respective planet: these charms were thought to possess virtue sufficient to overrule the bad effects presaged by an unlucky hour of birth, to promote to places of honour and profit, and to be of potent efficacy in matters of commerce and matrimony. The German soldiers, in the dark and superstitious ages, believed that if the figure of Mars, cast and engraved under the sign of the Scorpion, were worn about the neck, it would render them invulnerable, and insure success ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... a spark of fervent heat, as well as radiant light, with power to enkindle the common mass of human mind; so that, when it glimmers in its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no night follows; but it leaves the world all light, all on fire, from the potent contact ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... House, who knew and esteemed his many virtues. Now, of all living men, my Lord Wrotham knew and loved best his neighbour and old fellow-soldier, Martin Lambert, declaring that the world contained few better gentlemen. And my Lord Bute, being all potent, at first, with his Majesty, and a nobleman, as I believe, very eager at the commencement of his brief and luckless tenure of power, to patronise merit wherever he could find it, was strongly prejudiced in Mr. Lambert's favour by the latter's old ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... War Office had ever taken the Salonica Expedition seriously; and both departments would gladly have washed their hands of a business barren of profit and credit alike. But the motives which had impelled London to keep Paris company so far were as potent as ever, and English politicians had hitherto proved themselves so pliant that, provided French pressure continued, the utmost which could be apprehended from them was a feeble show of resistance followed by abject acquiescence. Notwithstanding the moderation England had ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... to their different mental temperaments, will view things in a different light. Where one, an artist born, is carried away with the beautiful scenery, another, with a more practical turn of mind, perceives only its adaptability for investments. Education and habits of life are also very potent factors in determining our views on various questions. Scholars of wide and extended learning differ very greatly in their views of questions deeply affecting human interests. We know how true that is of abstruse topics, such as religion and questions of state polity. ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... much stronger toward good, in the midst of a world which we never had entered and of which we never had dreamed before—shall we perversely put on again the old man of criticism, and dissemble that we have been conducted by a most beneficent and most potent genius? Nothing proves to me so manifestly in what a pestiferous condition are its lazarettos, as when I observe how little hath been objected against those who have substituted words for things, and how much against those who ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... the Creed, the Glory be to the Father, and the Sign of the Cross, which are said in reciting the rosary, are the most beautiful, I the holiest and most excellent of prayers, and for this reason also the most potent and efficacious. The mysteries of our holy faith, which are at the same time meditated upon, embrace the entire work of our redemption, in its work (joyful mysteries), its accomplishment (sorrowful mysteries), and in its fruits (glorious mysteries). Meditation combined with prayer as it ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings
... sailed from island to island and sea to sea, till we arrived at the Island of the Bell, which containeth a city two days' journey in extent, whence after a six days' run we reached the Island Kala, hard by the land of Hind.[FN55] This place is governed by a potent and puissant King and it produceth excellent camphor and an abundance of the Indian rattan: here also is a lead mine. At last by the decree of Allah, we arrived in safety at Bassorah-town where I tarried a few days, then went on to Baghdad-city, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... hitherward. A magnet which will draw logs of timber and faggots half across the parish, which will pull pheasants off their perch, extract trout from the deep, and stay the swift hare in midst of her career, is a power indeed to be envied. Had any enchanter of mediaeval days so potent a charm? ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... wear and tear, she decided to adopt the strong course of asking Alfred's assistance. Alfred was sure to view the proposed match with hearty approval, and, though he might not have much influence directly, he could in all probability secure a potent ally in the person of Letty Tew. This was rather a brilliant idea; Mrs. Waltham waited impatiently for her son's return from Belwick ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... that whispered now and then softly in the treetops. It was such a night; a night when the Red Gods whisper low among themselves, a carnival of glory in which even the dipping shadows and the high stars seemed to quiver with the life of a potent language. It is barely possible that old Tuboa, with his ninety years behind him, would have learned something, or that at least he would have SUSPECTED a thing which Carvel in his youth and confidence did not ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... matter had stood alone, perhaps it would not have been sufficient ground for his recall; but coming as it did on the top of all the others, it was, I think, the most potent factor. ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... of the breath which is life. Both stages are wholly God's work. The prophet's part was to prophesy to the bones first; and his word, in a sense, brought about the effect which it foretold, since his ministry was the most potent means of rekindling dying hopes, and bringing the disjecta membra of the nation together again. The vivid and gigantic imagination of the prophet gives a picture of the rushing together of the bones, which has no superior in any literature. He hears a noise, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the Fates' doom, When th' Empire was removed from thence to Rome, The Potent Caesars had their circi, and Large amphitheatres, in which might stand And sit full fourscore thousand, all in view And touch of voice. This great Augustus knew, Nay Rome its wealth and potency enjoyed, Till by the barbarous ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... poisonous mushrooms, the Amanita phalloides and the fly agaric, or Agaricus muscarius, are the most potent. The active principle of the former is phallin, and of the latter muscarine. The Amanita phalloides is distinguished from the common mushroom (Agaricus campestris) by having permanent white gills and a hollow stem. The Agaricus muscarius is bright red with yellow spots. ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... as impossible to describe a successful solution of the problems of any particular school as it is to paint the lily, the rose, or the rainbow. All are equally indescribable and intangible, but nevertheless the more real, potent, and inspiring on that account. Such a situation means the presence of a strong life, a strong mind, and a strong hand exemplifying ideals every day. This is education, this is growth, this is ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... was more conducive to the prosperity of a town than the reputation of having a holy man within its borders, or the possession of the miracle-working relics of a saint. Just as St. Elizabeth made Marburg so St. Sebaldus proved a very potent attraction to Nuremberg. As early as 1070 and 1080 we hear of pilgrimages to Nuremberg in honor of her ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... peoples, having little respect for the prerogatives of traffic or the hypocritical refinements of diplomatic craft? Are not such conditions, with the luxurious licentiousness so natural thereto, combined with the stolid indifference and poverty of the masses, most potent factors in the decline ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... of tone circling around their focal point (the attack) find a cup-shaped resonating cavity when they reach the front of the mouth and the lips, which, through their extremely potent auxiliary movements, infuse life and color into the tone and the word. Of equal importance are the unimpeded activity of the whirling currents of sound and their complete filling of the resonating spaces in the back of the throat, the pillars of the fauces, and the head cavities in which the vocalized ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... 'let me!'" burst out Randy quickly. "So go to it, Most Potent Sower of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Cornmeal! ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... crushed its fragrant head in his hand with a sort of wanton petulance—"The King himself is less acquainted with his people's doings than the wearer of the All- Reflecting Eye! Thou hast not yet seen that weird mirror and potent dazzler of human sight, . . no,—but thou WILT see it ere long,—the glittering Fiend-guarding of the whitest breast that ever shut in passion!" His voice shook, and he paused,—then with some effort continued—"Yes,—Lysia has her secret commissioners ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... play the part of defender. I can imagine their purport, and they shall influence me as if I had read them all. However eloquent they may be, they are needless witnesses. Is any written testimony required in behalf of charms whose magic is still potent?" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Miss Demolines. He sat at his ease in a comfortable chair, and amused himself by watching her different little plots. And then she had bright eyes, and she flattered him, and allowed him to scold her occasionally. And now and again there might be some more potent attraction, when she would admit him to take her hand,—or the like. It was better than to sit smoking with men at the club. But he could not sit up all night even with Madalina Demolines, and at eleven he got up to take his leave. "When shall ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... the Holy See of Bologna and Ravenna. The King of Sardinia, though pressed by England to accept Metternich's offer of alliance, maintained with great decision the independence of his country, and found in the support of the Czar a more potent argument than any that he could have drawn from ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... now Lord, Eliott (Heathfield of Gibraltar), he was one evening invited to a party where, together with some ladies, there happened to be a considerable number of Bernese senators, a dignified set of elderly gentlemen, aristocratically proud, and perfect strangers to fun. These most potent, grave, and reverend signors were set down to whist, and were so studiously attentive to the game, that the unlucky brat found little difficulty in fastening to the backs of their chairs the flowing tails of their ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... it is essential, in the highest interest not merely of this country, but of the world, that Britain should at all hazards maintain her place and her prestige amongst the Great Powers of the world. Her potent influence has many a time been in the past, and may yet be in the future, invaluable to the cause of human liberty. It has more than once in the past redeemed continental nations, which are sometimes too apt to forget that service, from overwhelming disasters and even from national extinction. ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... the Deity. The more the great spring that directs the machine of the universe is exact, simple, constant, certain, and productive of abundance of useful effects, the more it is plain that a most potent and most artful hand knew how to pitch upon the spring which is the most ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... may think—certainly rendering it Titanesque and gloomy—we have the spectacle of Burke in his old age, like another Laocoon, writhing and wrestling with the French Revolution; and it may serve to give us some dim notion of how great a man Burke was, of how affluent a mind, of how potent an imagination, of how resistless an energy, that even when his sole unassisted name is pitted against the outcome of centuries, and we say Burke and the French Revolution, we are not overwhelmed by any sense of ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... most obvious suggestion; and so it was supposed that its exclusion might be a potent remedy. Therefore a double curtain of glazed muslin was stretched across the window; and the tank, both top and sides, wrapped in folds of paper. A week of darkness changed the deep green to a dingy olive. But the experiment ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... Church was thus a potent link between past and present, but the most direct link of all was the political survival of the Empire. Here, too, many landmarks had been swept away. The marvellous system of Roman Law had proved too subtle and complex ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... which the Rabbi held in his hand, the better to guide his pupils, was never used for corporal punishment, for a glance or a whispered admonition from the beloved teacher was more potent than were blows from another. At his side sat his little daughter Recha, scarcely nine years of age, whose features gave promise of great oriental beauty. Her dark eyes and darker hair, her rosy lips and merry smile, formed a veritable symphony of ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... between them. Perhaps it was Society, which henceforward would exclude Helen. Perhaps it was a third life, already potent as a spirit. They could find no meeting-place. Both suffered acutely, and were not comforted by the knowledge that ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... afternoon, addressed to Harvey. In a state of great excitement he broke the seal and read the poignant missive with eyes that were glazed with wonder and—something even more potent. ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... seen her, of course it became Lord George's duty to pay her his compliments in person. At first he visited her in company with his wife and Lady Sarah, and the conversation was very stiff. Lady Sarah was potent enough to quell even Mrs. Houghton. But later in the afternoon Lord George came back again, his wife being in the room, and then there was a little more ease. "You can't think how it grieves me," ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... as to what would be best for their convenience, honor, and reputation, and as to what means should be taken to fulfil all their commission. The strongest reason that he adduced was the discovery of the return passage to Nueva Espana; and he said that that had been the most potent reason for the construction of that fleet. In short, the unanimous reply, given through the mouth of Father Urdaneta, was that it was very proper to ascertain correctly the return passage, since by it, the kingdoms ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... helpful fashion things one should strive for and guard against, things he should leave off doing, as well as others he should put on. It is a pleasant thing to read and it should be a potent factor in leading one to an appreciation of the real beauty and opportunity that lies 'west of ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... local acknowledgment of his proficiency in this line. No wonder Mrs. Pember looked back at the ten years of her married life with a shudder. With the rigid training of her somewhat dogmatic communion still potent, she listened in a horrified expectancy, rather actual than figurative, for the heavens to strike or the earth to swallow up her nonchalant husband. Nor was this all. The weakness for grog, unfortunately supposed to be inherent in a nautical existence, was carried ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... you understand? Why, Joe, do you think for one moment that I would place against the best value of my son's life the paltry value of a safe? And can I say, until time has told me, whether this trip of yours could not possibly have been better? Such an experience is as potent for evil as for good. One dollar is exactly like another—there are many in the world: but no Joe is like my Joe, nor can there be any others in the world to take his place. Don't you ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... venture to predict the future of our sonneteer; but the fact remains that now three hundred years after his time, his lifelong devotion to the prototype of Idea constitutes, as he conventionally asserted it would, his most valid claim to interest, and that the sonnets where this love has found most potent expression mount the nearest to the true ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... but half the truth. Oh, potent Prince of Kingsland, hear me out! You will be hanged tomorrow morning for murdering your wife! You didn't murder her, did you? Who ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... more potent, Matter or Spirit? Is the power with which the people endow their king identical with the power of wealth with which we enrich him by paying him his Royal dues? We make him irresistible not by wealth but by the strength of our lives, the strength of ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... much power over him. Once by one unconsidered word arouse the boy's obstinacy, and all chance of controlling him was gone. Then, your only chance was to call in Miss Thornton, who had a way of managing the boy, more potent than Mary's hysterics, and Tom's indignant remonstrances, or Sam's ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... such as had not come upon him since the days of his youth. He had had a fairly wide experience of love-making; but never had he been so completely mastered by his passion as he was now. The consideration that had once been so potent with him—love of ease, money, and position—seemed all to have vanished away. What mattered it that to abandon Ethel Kenyon at the last moment would mean disgrace and perhaps even beggary? He had no care left for ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... intellectual objects, created an audience even before it found expression in a poet. The elegant effeminacy of Hipparchus contributed to foster the taste of the people—for the example of the great is nowhere more potent over the multitude than in the cultivation of the arts. Patronage may not produce poets, but it multiplies critics. Anacreon and Simonides, introduced among the Athenians by Hipparchus, and enjoying his friendship, no doubt added largely to the influence which poetry began to assume. The peculiar ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... would Napoleon have looked on that infuriated populace, those still resisting though overpowered Swiss, and that burning palace, had any seer whispered to him, "Emperor that shall be, all this blood and massacre is but to prepare your future empire!" Little anticipating the potent effect which the passing events were to bear on his own fortune, Bonaparte, anxious for the safety of his mother and family, was now desirous to change France for Corsica, where the same things were acting ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... opportunity to participate in industrial processes is due, as is well known, to the rapid development of our industrial system. Since the removal of industrial processes from the home the public has awakened to the fact that the child is being deprived of one of the most potent educational influences, and efforts have already been made to restore the educational factor that was in danger of being lost. This is the significance of the educational movement ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... "Thrice potent, generous, and august emperor; here let my knees cleave to the earth, until thou shalt do me justice on that inhuman caitiff Gobble. Let him disgorge my substance which he hath devoured; let him restore to my widowed arms my child, my boy, the delight of my eyes, the prop of ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... in these realms had that aspiration for a universal brotherhood a more potent spell than upon a youthful genius then at Cambridge, with whom some notable Royston men were afterwards to come in contact. That glorious dream, in which the French Revolution had its birth, had burnt itself into the very soul of young Wordsworth ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... seductress, leads mortals astray, Over hearts, Lise, how vast and resistless thy sway. Cease, duchess, to blush! cease, princess, to rave— Venus sprang from the foam of the ocean wave. All the gods pay their homage at her beauteous shrine, And adore her as potent, resistless, divine! To her Paris, the shepherd, awarded the prize, Sought by Juno the regal, and Pallas the wise. Who rules o'er her lord in the Turkish , Reigns queen of his heart, and e'er basks in his smile? 'Tis she, who ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... he had never ceased to have her in his mind; he would not think of her it is true if he could help it, but often he could not help it, and as a negative presence, as a thing denied, she was almost more potent than she had been as a thing accepted. Meanwhile he worked. His nervous irritability increased, but it did not hinder the steady ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... effectually as these powerful words which I kept constantly pouring into her ear: "Bettina, you are getting better; but if you dare to scratch yourself, you will become such a fright that nobody will ever love you." All the physicians in the universe might be challenged to prescribe a more potent remedy against itching for a girl who, aware that she has been pretty, finds herself exposed to the loss of her beauty through her own fault, if she ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Being too long for a play of one act, it was continued from day to day. What would seem irreverent on a modern stage was regarded as perfectly simple and natural in the Middle Ages, and it was a potent factor in teaching the masses ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis |
