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Renounce   Listen
verb
Renounce  v. t.  (past & past part. renounced; pres. part. renouncing)  
1.
To declare against; to reject or decline formally; to refuse to own or acknowledge as belonging to one; to disclaim; as, to renounce a title to land or to a throne.
2.
To cast off or reject deliberately; to disown; to dismiss; to forswear. "This world I do renounce, and in your sights Shake patiently my great affliction off."
3.
(Card Playing) To disclaim having a card of (the suit led) by playing a card of another suit.
To renounce probate (Law), to decline to act as the executor of a will.
Synonyms: To cast off; disavow; disown; disclaim; deny; abjure; recant; abandon; forsake; quit; forego; resign; relinquish; give up; abdicate. Renounce, Abjure, Recant. To renounce is to make an affirmative declaration of abandonment. To abjure is to renounce with, or as with, the solemnity of an oath. To recant is to renounce or abjure some proposition previously affirmed and maintained. "From Thebes my birth I own;... since no disgrace Can force me to renounce the honor of my race." "Either to die the death, or to abjure Forever the society of man." "Ease would recant Vows made in pain, as violent and void."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Renounce" Quotes from Famous Books



... there is no such thing as what philosophers call material substance, I am seriously persuaded: but if I were made to see anything absurd or sceptical in this, I should then have the same reason to renounce this that I imagine I have now to reject ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry

... happiness is only found in obedience and in humility. For one little hour of passion, or of pride, we sometimes are obliged to suffer all our lives. If you wish to be contented on this earth, be submissive, be ready to renounce and ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... untoward circumstances, she found a heart worthy of her own. The ardour of attachment which united my father and mother was perhaps partly due to the strange manner of their meeting; it knew, at least, no bounds either divine or human; my father, for her sake, determined to renounce his ambitions and abjure his faith; and a week had not yet passed upon the march before he had resigned from his party, accepted the Mormon doctrine, and received the promise of my mother's hand on the arrival of the party ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... paid them a visit, when they received me in a friendly way," he observed. "I know how to treat them; and though they are still heathens, they look upon me with respect, and may listen to what I say, however little inclined they are to renounce their idolatrous practices." ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston

... handkerchief, to keep the fabric together; but that it should not be relentlessly and oppressively paraded; the triumph is to have habits and to conceal them, just as in Ruskin's celebrated dictum, that the artist's aim should be to be fit for the best society, and then that he should renounce it. One ought to be reliable, to perform the work that one undertakes without ceaseless reminders, to discharge duties easily and satisfactorily; and then, if to this one can add the grace of apparent leisureliness, the ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... at all," thought Beausire; then he said aloud, "Explain yourself clearly, dear M. Manoel; our private differences should give place to the public interests. I acknowledge you the author of the idea, and renounce all right to ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere

... concessions in Asia Minor, for which Italian statesmen laboured so hard and so long, went in reality to the Banca Commerciale, which is but a roundabout way of saying to Germany. And in order to win their suit and have those advantages conferred on "Italy," King Victor's Government agreed to renounce their claims for the reimbursement of the expenses incurred during the administration of the occupied Turkish islands. This sacrifice meant tens of millions of francs, kept from the pockets of Italian taxpayers and handed over to the German bankers, who spent them in promoting anti-Italian ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... life, when Providence deigns to fit our hearts for the enjoyment. I shall never look forward with confidence till your pride extends to that. I had vainly flattered my self that pride was inseparable to true love. In yours I find my error; but cannot renounce my idea of its being a necessary support to, and the only ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... moment, came into the mind of the Spaniard, that struck upon his spirit like a thunderbolt. It was this:—"If the young girl, after all, is really in love with this fellow, what a dilemma! I may have to renounce all idea of the marriage, which I had designed as the corner-stone ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... tearing its way through the peaceful plans he had been making for his life. He remembered the story of Menander refusing to leave the intellectual life of Athens for the luxuries of Ptolemy's court. Must he, on the contrary, for the sake of an idea, renounce this life, with its cherished poverty and philosophy, its peace and learned leisure, its freedom and candour and regard for beauty, to go back to Rome where, in terrifying coalition, power and pleasure, wealth and display, passion and brutality were forever crowding ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson

... the great Officer of Hell took them up by the body, and, putting their heads into the water, said over them, "Thou art mine, I have full power over thee:" and thereupon they engaged and covenanted to renounce God, Christ, their sacred baptism, and the whole way of Gospel salvation, and to use their utmost endeavors to oppose the kingdom of Christ, and to set up and advance the kingdom ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... is not that Fainlove, Isabella's Husband? Oh Villain! Villain! I will renounce my Sense and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... be proud that our leadership renewed hope for lasting peace in the Middle East. Some of you were with me last December as we watched the Palestinian National Council completely renounce its call for the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William J. Clinton • William J. Clinton

... the other strove to do him hurt, the more he increased and throve and flourished. At last the hatred his neighbour bore him and his constant endeavour to do him hurt came to his knowledge and he said, 'By Allah, I will renounce the world on his account!' So he left his native place and settled in a distant city, where he bought a piece of land, in which was a dried-up well, that had once been used for watering the fields. Here he built him an oratory, which he fitted up with all that he required, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... true, I was only bragging! Love has never been offered to me, I've had nothing to renounce! I was born unlucky and will continue so for the rest of my days... and perhaps it's for the best. Since I can't get that, I must turn my attention to something else! If you can combine the one with the other... ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev

... is a desert, Courtier, between a man and the sacred city, he doesn't renounce his journey because he has to wash in dirty water on the way: The ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... guilds, or the monastic orders, or the allegiance of the vassal to his lord. It is the living spirit that keeps the vows—and when that is gone their power is less than nothing. Once I could not see how it was possible for a man to renounce his knighthood and his Lord. I have lived with such a man, and I know that it came of his losing faith. He lost the power to believe in good. I think that he hated me because I reminded him of his own land and all that he no longer ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... the representations of Miss Seward, who strongly urged on him the absolute necessity of his adherence to trade, if he wished to secure the means of accomplishing matrimony, that Andre was now persuaded to renounce, for some years longer, his desire for the army. He went back to London, and applied himself diligently to his business. An occasional visit to Lichfield, and a correspondence that he maintained with Miss Seward, served ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... will be allowed no time!" said Lestocq, with solemnity. "When you give up your plans and renounce your rights, then, princess, it will be all over with the days of enjoyment and happiness. It will then no longer be permitted you to convert your palace into a temple of pleasure, and thenceforth you will be known only as the priestess ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... features of this deserted innocent, trace the resemblance of the wretched Caroline,-should its face bear the marks of its birth, and revive in thy memory the image of its mother, wilt thou not, Belmont, wilt thou not therefore renounce it?-Oh, babe of my fondest affection! for whom already I experience all the tenderness of maternal pity! look not like thy unfortunate mother,-lest the parent, whom the hand of death may spare, shall be snatched from thee by the more cruel ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... me with the most cowardly treachery, I should disgrace every feeling that is honourable and respectable between man and man. I have no choice; my immediate return is as much a duty and obligation upon me as can in human society be laid upon one who would not renounce the character of a gentleman. Judge, then, of the distressful situation I must have been in at the time of decyphering your last lines, and judge how sacred and indispensable those circumstances must be, that do ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... enough to live on, I allow; for in addition to the income derived from my profession, I have saved two hundred thousand francs; and if you can be induced to renounce your projects, I will divide this sum with you. You have ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... and I ask with confidence, should we find such want of purpose as our public men exhibit, such uncertainty, such feebleness, and such defective allegiance to party, in a whist-playing age? Would men be so ready as we see them to renounce their principles, if they bore fresh in their mind all the obloquy that follows "a revoke"? Would they misquote their statistics in face of the shame that attends on "a false score"? Would they be so ready ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... at hand a collection of hooks and lines belonging to Edouard, and nets belonging to Michel; as for the fish, they, you know, are the last thing one thinks about. Are you fond of hunting? The forest of Seillon is not a hundred yards off. Hunting to hounds you will have perforce to renounce, but we have good shooting. In the days of my old bogies, the Chartreuse monks, the woods swarmed with wild boars, hares and foxes. No one hunts there now, because it belongs to the government; and the government at present is nobody. In my capacity as General Bonaparte's aide-de-camp I'll ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... think of your friend Careless? Has he been treacherous, or did you give his insolence a licence to make trial of your wife's suspected virtue? D'ye see here? [Snatches the letter as in anger.] Look, read it. Gads my life, if I thought it were so, I would this moment renounce all communication with you. Ungrateful monster! He? is it so? Ay, I see it, a plot upon my honour; your guilty cheeks confess it. Oh, where shall wronged virtue fly for reparation? I'll be divorced ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... the reformation of the offender.—And to one who ardently loves righteousness there is no joy comparable to that of seeing a man who has been doing wrong, turn from it, renounce it, and determine that henceforth he will endeavor to do right. Contrast heightens our emotions. And there is "joy over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine righteous persons that need no repentance." Deliverance from wrong is effected by ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... for not succeeding in his negotiation for the surrender of Ormuz, that he caused him to be beheaded; and was so much exasperated against the Christians, that he forced many of his Armenian subjects to renounce the faith. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... father. And Slattery's a rank specimen of the latter class. When he attempts to branch out for himself he invariably comes to grief. After giving a dreadful account of how Catholics persecute those who renounce the faith, declaring that they were a disgrace to the church while within its pale, he produced a certificate from a Philadelphia minister to the effect that he—the Philadelphian—had visited Slattery's old parish in Ireland and the Catholics ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... so low, or even so criminal, that can subject a man to the possibility of such an engagement? Would you dare attempt to bind your footman to such terms? Will the law suffer a felon sent to the plantations to bind himself for his life, and to renounce all possibility either of elevation or quiet? And am I to defend myself for not doing what no man is suffered to do, and what it would be criminal in any man to submit to? You will excuse me for ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... franchise. Does He watch Behind the lattice of the boreal lights? In that grail-chapel of their stern-vowed quest, Ninety of God's long paces toward the North, Will they behold the splendor of His face? To conquer the world must man renounce the world? These have renounced it. Had ye only faith Ye might move mountains, said the Nazarene. Why, these have faith to move the zones of man Out to the point where All and Nothing meet. They catch the bit of Death between ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... forgotten his name; that at least was dead!—she would have realized her vocation the moment Sister Dominica sounded the call. When the famous nun, with that passionate humility all her own, had implored her to renounce the world, protested that her vocation was written in her face—she really looked like a juvenile mater dolorosa, particularly when she rolled up her eyes—eloquently demanded what alternative that hideous embryo of a city could give her—that rude and noisy city that looked as if it had been ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... Among the people. No kind memories Shall linger round his ashes, or refresh The bearts of men. They who come after him Shall be astonish'd at his doom, as they Who went before him, view'd it with affright. Such is the lot of those who know not God Or wickedly renounce Him." ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... watchman" hither and placed her in the keeping of certain motherly dames. Presently, seeing a moment when she might speak with me, Ann said in my ear: "I will end this sport, Margery; I can no longer endure it. He hath sworn to renounce all and everything that may keep us apart!" There was no time for more. Each one had to take his seat. As yet their Majesties were not come, and there ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... of the danger, or could provide a remedy when it approached, then it might well be said that "ignorance is bliss;" but as it gives only the kind of security which shutting the eyes affords against the dangers of a precipice, and consequently leaves its victim doubly exposed, it is high time to renounce its protection, and to seek those of a more powerful and beneficent ally. Every medical man can testify that, natural character and other circumstances being alike, those whose knowledge is the most limited are the fullest ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... this fragile organism show, as a rule, powers of endurance and a strength of will by no means characteristic of the average sanguine and sensual creature who eats, drinks, fights, loves, and does his best in a world which he calls vile, yet would not renounce for ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... have had to renounce all hope of getting any information from her governess if Casimir's mother, Madame Bretoneux, had not decided to come to the chateau on a visit. This coming visit opened the lips of Mlle. Belhomme, which otherwise would ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot

... the conditions, mind, you will be conveyed to what land you please, with such amount of treasure as you choose.) There is no more, except, I say, for form, I would, if I were you ('twill be expected), I would just publicly affect to renounce our faith, and ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... recantation on the way to the stake. "Now," ended his address to the hushed congregation before him, "now I come to the great thing that troubleth my conscience more than any other thing that ever I said or did in my life, and that is the setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth; which here I now renounce and refuse as things written by my hand contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death to save my life, if it might be. And, forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand therefore shall be the first punished; ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... myself, and will, therefore, be as brief as possible. When I was first honored with a call into the service of my country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no instance departed, and being still under the impressions which produced it, I must decline as inapplicable to myself any share in the personal emoluments ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various

... they had the right to refuse to admit any garrison within the walls. They held to this right because it delivered them from the pillage, the rapine, the burnings and constant molestations inflicted by the King's men. But now they were eager to renounce it; for they realised that alone with only the town bands and those from the neighbouring villages, mere peasants, they could not sustain the siege; to resist the enemy they must have horsemen, skilled in wielding the lance, and foot, skilled ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... who have become perfect, and who, instead of entering the Nirvana their efforts have won, renounce peace and bliss in order to help forward their human brothers ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal

... coquette, she was as warmly attached to her husband as he was to her; if she trifled, it was only for her amusement, and to attract that meed of admiration to which she had been accustomed previous to her marriage, and which no woman can renounce on her first entry into that state. Men cannot easily pardon jealousy in their wives; but women are more lenient towards their husbands. Love, hand-in-hand with confidence, is the more endearing; yet, when confidence happens to be out of the way, Love will sometimes ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... martyrdom, it is said, redeemed everything. It is extraordinary that so much ignorance should exist on this subject. The fact is that, if a martyr be a man who chooses to die rather than to renounce his opinions, Cranmer was no more a martyr than Dr. Dodd. He died solely because he could not help it. He never retracted his recantation till he found he had made it in vain. The Queen was fully resolved that, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... and a night's lodging. He had shaken hands with Major Bromham in a mood of curious exaltation. He had decided almost without a struggle. To his mind the question was a clear one of right and wrong, and no argument helped it. Still, a man does not renounce five thousand pounds every day of his life; and, when he does, has some right to pat his conscience on the back. He derived some pleasure, too, from picturing the pretty gratitude with which his beneficiaries would hear Major Bromham's message. He ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... does not exist by the renunciation of whoredoms, unless it be made from a principle of religion, is, because a man (homo) without religion is not spiritual, but remains natural; and if the natural man renounces whoredoms, still his spirit does not renounce them; and thus, although it seems to himself that he is chaste by such renunciation, yet nevertheless unchastity lies inwardly concealed like corrupt matter in a wound only outwardly healed. That conjugial love is according to the state of the church with ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... are loose Domestic kinds are void of use, And that a chicken or a hog Should take the place of every dog, Which, though with appetite endued, Is not itself a source of food. What! shall we part? Nay, rather we'll Renounce the cheap but wholesome meal That men begrudge us, and we'll take Our leave of bones and puppy cake. Back to the woods we'll hie, and there Thou'lt hunt the fleet but fearful hare, Pursue the hedge's prickly pig, Dine upon rabbits' eggs and dig With practised ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various

... thou renounce the boundless store Of charms which nature to her vot'ry yields! The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields; All that the genial ray of morning gilds, And all that ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... constantly swelling, mouth ulcerated, and many other distressing symptoms that would be tedious to repeat; amongst which, however, I must mention one, because it had never failed to accompany any attempt to renounce opium—viz., violent sternutation. This now became exceedingly troublesome, sometimes lasting for two hours at once, and recurring at least twice or three times a day. I was not much surprised at this on recollecting what I had somewhere heard or read, that ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey

... by a unity of spirit, though in a diversity of operations, that, if I were sure the colonists had, at their leaving this country, sealed a regular compact of servitude, that they had solemnly abjured all the rights of citizens, that they had made a vow to renounce all ideas of liberty for them and their posterity to all generations, yet I should hold myself obliged to conform to the temper I found universally prevalent in my own day, and to govern two million ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... want to renounce the world and the flesh and all the other bad things this early in the term, but I'm afraid that I've already done it. She's laid a spell ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston

... answered, wildly, and forgetting all his embarrassment. "Whatever man has done to win woman would I do to win you—more than ever man did to win woman would I do to win you! I would renounce my friends, betray my country, abjure my faith, ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... astonishment. This faithlessness perplexes my understanding. I think that Satan in person could be no worse than such a jade! I could have sworn it was not in her. Unhappy he who trusts a woman after this! The best of them are always full of mischief; they were made to damn the whole world. I renounce the treacherous sex for ever, and give them to the devil ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere

... duly signed and sealed, with the customary rider to it that I must renounce the Stuarts, and swear allegiance to King George. I am no hero of romance, but a plain Englishman, a prosaic lover of roast beef and old claret, of farming and of fox-hunting. Our cause was dead, and might as well be buried. Not to make long of the ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... independence, and in his work China's Destiny (1944) Chiang Kai-shek insisted that China's aim remained the recovery of the frontiers of 1840, which means among other things the recovery of Outer Mongolia. In spite of this, after the Second World War Chiang Kai-shek had to renounce de jure all rights in Outer Mongolia. Inner Mongolia was always united to China much more closely; only for a time during the war with Japan did the Japanese maintain there a puppet government. The disappearance of ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... horror and remorse, "This happy Union we will dissolve this picture of peace and prosperity we will deface—this free intercourse we will interrupt—these fertile fields we will deluge with blood—the protection of that glorious flag we renounce—the very name of Americans we discard!" And for what, mistaken men! for what do you throw away these inestimable blessings—for what would you exchange your share in the advantages and honor of the Union? ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... faith and glory. And the hand of God, Inscrutably withheld, smote him not dumb, But suffered him to go. Now in our sight He rises to proclaim his searing doubt, His hot destroying passion, and tears down Our fairest altars. I, who was his friend, Hereby renounce him; and in sober words Counsel all men to flee the company Of one who hates the ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke

... few moments without answering, as if stunned by the Colonel's vehement rhetoric. "Monsieur Fougas," she said to him, "I have always obeyed you, I promise to obey you all my life. If you do not wish me to marry poor Leon, I will renounce him. I love him devotedly, nevertheless, and a single word from him arouses more emotion in my heart than all the fine things you have said ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... objective synthesis of phenomena. Here, certainly, reason establishes, with much plausibility, its principle of unconditioned unity; but it very soon falls into such contradictions that it is compelled, in relation to cosmology, to renounce its pretensions. ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... with the spirit and intention of our alliance with France, especially as the present politics of the British cabinet aim at seducing you from that alliance, by an offer of independence, upon condition you will renounce it, a measure that will injure the reputation of our States with all the world, and destroy their confidence ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... to speak to his ears bidding him to lay down great possessions to follow whither Heaven should lead him. Thomas Owen had obeyed the voice; though, owing to circumstances which need not be detailed, to do so he was obliged to renounce his succession to a very large estate, and to content himself with a younger son's portion of thirty thousand pounds and the reversion to the living which he had now ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard

... and compel you hereafter to give them ten times as much, against your will, as they would now be contented with, if it were voluntarily surrendered. Remember what happened in the American war, when Ireland compelled you to give her everything she asked, and to renounce, in the most explicit manner, your claim of Sovereignty over her. God Almighty grant the folly of these present men may not bring on such another crisis ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... preventing an union between France and Spain was, "that Philip should formally renounce the kingdom of France for himself and his posterity; and that this renunciation should be confirmed by the Cortes or states of Spain, who, without question, would heartily concur against such an union, by which their country must become a province to France." In like manner, the French ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... and am still executing, a bold and meritorious resolution. The mornings in winter, and in a country of early dinners, are very concise; to them, my usual period of study, I now frequently add the evenings, renounce cards and society, refuse the most agreeable evenings, or perhaps make my appearance at a late supper. By this extraordinary industry, which I never practised before, and to which I hope never to be again reduced, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... fear of the fire and the stake before her, and on promise of being taken to a kindlier prison among women, and released from chains, she promised to renounce her visions, and submit to Cauchon and her other enemies. Some little note on paper she now signed with a cross, and repeated a short form of words. By some trick this signature was changed for a long document, in which she was made to confess ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... misgovernment had gradually excited burst forth under his unfortunate son, and forced him, after some unimportant attempts, to renounce all further participation in the German war, in order to stem within his own kingdom ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.

... communication from M. de Bourqueney, relative to a most unjustifiable act of the Turkish Government, in having, under circumstances of great cruelty, put to death an Armenian Turk who had embraced Christianity, and had refused to renounce that religion and resume the ...
— Correspondence Relating to Executions in Turkey for Apostacy from Islamism • Various

... is their ready self-abnegation, not only in externals, but even in spiritual things, such as a cherished ideal, convictions that have germinated in their minds. Confronted with truth, the man of science has no pre-conceptions; he is ready to renounce all those cherished ideas of his own that may diverge therefrom. Thus, gradually, he purifies himself from error, and keeps his mind always fresh, always clear, naked as the Truth with which he desires to blend in ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... much propriety; though Dr. Perley thinks the latter usage "is not to be encouraged."—Gram., p. 28. Our authors and editors, like kings and emperors, are making we for I their most common mode of expression. They renounce their individuality to avoid egotism. And when all men shall have adopted this enallage, the fault indeed will be banished, or metamorphosed, but with it will go an other sixth part of every English conjugation. The pronouns ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... Ormond was as much of a failure as the far greater expedition under Alexander of Parma. The fleet was wrecked in the Bay of Biscay. The French were invading the northern provinces of Spain, and the King of Spain was compelled not only to get rid of Alberoni, but to renounce once more any claim to the French throne, and to abandon his attempts on Sardinia and Sicily. Another danger was removed from England by the death of Charles the Twelfth. "A petty fortress and a dubious hand" brought about the end of him who had, "like the ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... snowdrifts lasting for weeks and weeks, and more than this too, he thought of his plans for self-improvement, the lectures he would miss, the professors and learned men he would not meet, the companionship of other students he must perforce renounce. ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... so to speak, which the mind has upon it. We always, I believe, make an effort to see every new object as a repetition of the object last before us. Objects are so varied, and present themselves so rapidly, that as a general rule we renounce this effort too promptly to notice it, but it is always there, and it is because of it that we are able to mistake, and hence to evolve new mental and bodily developments. Where the effort is successful, there is illusion; where nearly successful but not quite, there is a shock ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... might remain, and without risk "Be seen, she gave to my appearance age, "Nor left me features to be known again: "And long deliberated, whether Crete "Or Delos, for my dwelling she would chuse. "But, Crete and Delos both abandon'd, here "She plac'd me, and my name she bade renounce "Which still reminded me of my wild steeds; "Saying—O thou, Hippolytus who wast! "Be Virbius now! Thenceforth within these groves "I dwell,—a minor deity, I tend "My heavenly mistress, and ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... reach his master's body and die at his side; when Marke has forced an entry he finds nothing but death. Brangaene notices that Isolde is still living, and they now explain. The secret of the love-potion has been told to King Marke, and he has hurried up to renounce his intention of wedding Isolde and ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight

... Recoiling in horror from this dead and cheerless creed, he toils and wanders in the labyrinths of pantheism, seeking comfort and rest, but finding none; till, baffled and tired, and sick at heart, he seems inclined, as far as we can judge, to renounce the dreary problem altogether, to shut the eyes of his too keen understanding, and take refuge under the shade of Revelation. The anxieties and errors of Julius are described in glowing terms; his intellectual subtleties are mingled with the eloquence of ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... the Portuguese could be driven from Malacca, they would have to renounce trade on the Coromandel coast; for they would have no safe course, should they wish to get cloth, and they could gain nothing, for the expense would overbalance the profit. Consequently, I believe that all the commerce of the Portuguese in the East Indies depends ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... was not George Eliot's. Christianity bids men renounce the world for the sake of a perfect union with God; George Eliot desires men to renounce selfishness for the sake of humanity. The Christian idea includes the renunciation of all self-seeking, it bids us give ourselves for others, it even teaches ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... "I can have no hesitation in making my offer. I will sell this place to you for what you gave for it. Secure the sum to me outright, and I renounce my title to Clyde Farm. Make it, if you please, wholly a manufacturing place; do not consult me whether there shall be rail-roads ...
— Rich Enough - a tale of the times • Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee

... the storm still more violently. But when I thought of their voluntary banishment from the world, up in that high pass of the Alps, and that the affection of woman never gladdened their hearts, I was ready to renounce my monkish dress next morning, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... represent to ourselves the interior of the Earth as fused and undergoing an enormous pressure, and at a degree of temperature the amount of which we are unable to assign, p 190 we must renounce all idea of a magnetic nucleus of the Earth. All magnetism is certainly not lost until we arrive at a white heat,* and it is manifested when iron is at a dark red heat, however different, therefore, the modifications may be which are excited in substances ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... the venal rule which they prescribe for themselves. I am no candidate for any office in the gift of these States, united or separated. I never wish, never expect to be. Pass this bill, tranquillize the country, restore confidence and affection for the Union, and I am willing to go to Ashland and renounce public service forever. Yes, I have ambition, but it is the ambition of being the humble instrument in the hands of Providence to reconcile a divided people, once more to revive concord and harmony in a distracted land,—the pleasing ambition of contemplating the glorious ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... fashion would be as sad as ever. She was not to change, she was only to intensify, to become "bigger and better." And this essential stability was not contradicted by the fact that, in one or two instances, she found herself developing. She was glad, and in the presence of Mrs. Wake, gravely to renounce past errors as to the English people. Since coming to know Basil, typical of his race, its flower, as he was, she had come to see how far deeper in many respects, how far more evolved that English character was than their own,—"their," ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... the sentence runs smoothly on, especially if the Revised Version's reading is adopted. The purpose of arming us with the same mind is that, whilst we live on earth, we should live according to the will of God, and should renounce 'the lusts of men,' which are in us as in all men, and which men who are not clad in the armour which Christ ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... 'use not the language of compliment with those who renounce it. Had this poor courtesy been very inconvenient, perhaps I ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... and deere wife in executing of this my last and unrevocable will and testament, if any should be soe malicious or unnaturall as to crosse or question the same; And I doe utterly revoke and for ever renounce, frustrate, disanull, cancell and make void, all and whatsoever former wills, legacies, bequests, promises, guifts, executors or overseers (if it should happen that anie bee forged or suggested for untill this tyme, I never writt made or finished ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson

... the Muhamedan tenets. The Negroes, however, are disposed to abjure idolatry for any other form of religion that they can be persuaded to think preferable, or that holds out a better prospect; a convincing proof of which has been seen by the readiness of the Africans of Congo and Angola, to renounce their idolatry for the Christian faith, by the conversion of thousands to that faith by the indefatigable zeal of the catholic missionaries, when the Portuguese first discovered those countries, and ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... could be moved, my presence was required at my estates in Barbadoes. It crossed my mind—wild as the idea may appear to you—to renounce the condition which compelled my son as well as myself to take the Armadale name, or lose the succession to the Armadale property. But, even in those days, the rumor of a contemplated emancipation of the slaves—the emancipation which is ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... equally excited by the new agreement. It was obvious that the lease to the Congo Free State was intended to exclude France from the Nile by placing the Congo Free State as a barrier across her path. Pressure was brought to bear on King Leopold, from Paris, to renounce the rights acquired under the agreement, and on the 14th of August 1894 King Leopold signed an agreement with France by which, in exchange for France's acknowledgment of the Mbomu river as his northern frontier, His Majesty renounced all occupation and all ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... January 2006, the Islamic Resistance Movement, HAMAS, won control of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). The international community refused to accept the HAMAS-led government because it did not recognize Israel, would not renounce violence, and refused to honor previous peace agreements between Israel and the PA. HAMAS took control of the PA government in March 2006, but President ABBAS had little success negotiating with HAMAS ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Atlantic. When the storm fell he sailed east until he had passed the expected meridian of Africa, and then, turning northward, struck land far beyond Cape Agulhas. He had solved the problem, and India was within his reach. His men soon after refused to go farther, and he was forced to renounce the prize. On his way back he doubled the Cape, which, from his former experience, he called the Cape Tempestuous, until the king, showing that he understood, gave it a name of better omen. Nevertheless, Portugal ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... Herstal, for a couple of years (date 1546-1548, the Prince of Orange, real proprietor, whose Ancestor had bought it for money down, being then a minor); once, and perhaps a second time in like circumstance; but had always to renounce it again, when the Prince of Orange came to maturity. And ever since, the Chapter of Liege sighs as before, 'Herstal is perhaps in a sense ours. We had once some kind of right to it!'—sigh inaudible ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... be sure,' said Mary, 'I never would have married, except that my mother's happiness and the happiness of so good a friend seemed to depend on it. When we renounce self in anything we have reason to hope for God's blessing; and so I feel assured of a peaceful life in the course I have taken. You will always be as a mother to me,' she added, laying her head on ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster

... "Are you going to give Petinka nothing—do you WISH to give him nothing?" So put about was the old fellow with what I had said, that he seemed almost ready to renounce his own proposal if only I would give his son something. What a kind heart he had! I hastened to assure him that I should certainly have a gift of some sort ready, since my one wish was to avoid spoiling ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... "I renounce nothing, give up no legitimate claim that I have put forward for hand or land in our native country, but I see that I am come to leaving them unclaimed. Madame Angelique, to whom, mayhap, I have confided those consolations ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne

... she had run away again, and came here to Lebedeff's; and when I found her here, she said to me, 'I'm not going to renounce you altogether, but I wish to put off the wedding a bit longer yet—just as long as I like—for I am still my own mistress; so you may wait, if you like.' That's how the matter stands between us now. What do you think of all this, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... on his companion's face. "You are ready, then," he suggested, "to renounce your new religion and go back to ...
— The Lost Word - A Christmas Legend of Long Ago • Henry Van Dyke

... who has not passed through that mad, ardent, over-excited but generous epoch, cannot imagine to what a forgetfulness of material existence the intoxication, or, if you prefer, infatuation of art pushed the obscure and fragile victims who would rather have died than renounce their dream. One actually heard in the night the crack of solitary pistols. Judge of the effect produced in such an environment by M. Afred Vigney's 'Chatterton'; to which, if you would comprehend it, you must restore ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... helplessness that ever a sinner was brought to feel. I am helpless in respect of every lust that ever was, or ever will be, in the human heart. I am a worm—a beast—before God. I often tremble to think that this is true. I feel as if it would not be safe for me to renounce all indwelling strength, as if it would be dangerous for me to feel (what is the truth) that there is nothing in me keeping me back from the grossest and vilest sin. This is a delusion of the devil. My only safety ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar

... yours to renounce? France may be, but is the property? It is scarcely worth mentioning; but is ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... Sarawia in surplices in front of their verandah, the people standing round; but unfortunately it was a very wet day, and the rush of rain drowned the voices, as the Bishop made his convert Wilgan renounce individually and by name individual evil fashions of heathenism, just as St. Boniface made the Germans forsake Thor and Odin by name. There were twenty-five more nearly ready, and a coral-lime building was finished, 'like a cob wall, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... band of Delawares with Pequot captives, among them a young chief to whom had been offered not only life but leadership if he would renounce his tribe, receive the mark of the turtle on his breast, and become a Delaware. On his refusal, he was bound to a tree, and was about to undergo the torture, when a girl among the listeners sprang to his side. She, too, was a Pequot, but the turtle totem was on her bosom, and when ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... splendour and magnificence, upon each of which the genius of the land shed its immortal lustre, one feels coerced to the conviction that the high command and abiding destiny of France must be equally imperishable. But these considerations belong not to my story, and I renounce the idea of commemorating the sensations of gratified pride which that gorgeous capital awakened in my bosom. Her architecture and her art, her memorials of glory, and the triumphs of her progress, require to be scanned by the eye ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... remember perhaps that day, nay I am sure you remember the day, and the hour and the place too, when, as I think, you and Pontia [he still keeps to the form 'Pontia'] last met in the house of Salmasius—you to renounce the marriage-bond, she to make you name the day for the nuptials. When she saw, on the contrary, that it was your intention to dissolve the marriage-engagement made in the seduction, then lo! your unmarried bride, for I will not call her Tisiphone, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... do with such an outrage," exclaimed Le Gardeur warmly, "I would renounce him on the spot. I have heard Bigot speak of this gift to De Marville, whom he hates. He says it was all La Pompadour's doing from first to last, and I ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... of this kind!" said Judith, who was frankly enjoying herself; "and if you choose to renounce the charms of Cluhir, you needn't make a virtue of it! Perhaps they don't want you! They mayn't realise what a nice person you are! Would you like me to ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... road of well-being or comfort. His philosophy was more decidedly monistic than is usual among Vishnuites, and Indian monism has generally taught that, as the soul and God are one in essence, the soul should realize this identity and renounce the pleasures of the senses. But with Vallabhacarya it may be said that the vision which is generally directed godwards and forgets the flesh, turned earthwards and forgot God, for his teaching is that ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... Melmoth [see ante, iii. 422], in Letter VIII. of his collection, published under the name of Fitzosborne. 'We may safely assert, that the belief of a particular Providence is founded upon such probable reasons as may well justify our assent. It would scarce, therefore, be wise to renounce an opinion which affords so firm a support to the soul, in those seasons wherein she stands in most need of assistance, merely because it is not possible, in questions of this kind, to solve every difficulty ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... House. Then had come the mother's renunciation of all the ties which had so long held her to the banks of the Snake River. Happiness had been hers in the long years of her life there, but the overwhelming shadow of suffering weighed her down completely now, and she would gladly renounce the home which had ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... enemies of God, and compelled, sometimes by force, to receive baptism, without any previous explanation of the origin and design of that rite; at other times they were tortured with the greatest cruelty, under a notion that in the extremity of their agony they might be induced to renounce the only creed which had come to their conviction. Many thousands of that unhappy people were exterminated, for they did not even understand the language in which doctrines the most sublime and marvellous in history were attempted to ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... renounce your earth-born pride, Ye low, your shame and fear: Live, as ye worship, side by side; ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... you have forced that letter from me, and discovered my real sentiments, I scorn to renounce them.—I am Antonio's friend, and it was my intention that your daughter should have served you as all such old tyrannical sots should be served—I delight in the tender passions and would befriend ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... only three essentials of merit—good sense, justice, and truth. As far as relates to good sense, we will say that the Duchess of Palma was far richer than her husband. Her talent had long procured her a brilliant income; and to renounce the stage, at the height of her reputation and glory, when every note she uttered was worth a doubloon, was to reject vast wealth, the source of which was her voice and talent. Good sense would not justify the reproach of cupidity; truth and justice would equally ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... contribution should be augmented from three hundred and fifty to seven hundred pounds of gold; that a fine or ransom of eight pieces of gold should be paid for every Roman captive who had escaped from his Barbarian master; that the Emperor should renounce all treaties and engagements with the enemies of the Huns; and that all the fugitives who had taken refuge in the court or provinces of Theodosius should be delivered to the justice of their offended ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... means, and at any price, the South was to procure new States. Cuba would furnish some, several would be carved out of Mexico and Central America; for otherwise the slavery majorities would be compromised in Congress, and slavery would be forced to renounce forever the election of the Presidents of free America. To avoid such a misfortune, there is nothing that they would not ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin

... thirty-second year of his age, and resolved to renounce his profession,—or, to use his language, "to withdraw from the marts of lip-labor and the selling of words,"—and enter the service of the new master who had called him to prepare himself for a higher ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... parents, rejoice with me that the Lord calls me to His service. I follow Him to arrive sooner at the port of salvation, the sole object of my vows. Do not worry about me, nor take the trouble to seek me. I renounce the marriage, which was ever against my will. I renounce all that concerns the world. All my desires turn toward heaven, whither I would arrive. I take the ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... but sounding in her ears again! If only she could feel now the touch of his powerful arms as he carried her the long sick miles to Chira. Trembling with longing, her gaze fell upon the man sleeping at her feet. She drew a sudden troubled breath. Must she renounce this new rapture of ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow

... in his set, had been admired most generally, and his god was success—success in everything on which he placed his heart, or, rather, mind. For her to become engaged to Graydon, and then, because of his poverty, to be willing to renounce him for a more fortunate man, would not answer at all. He must appear to the world to have won her in fair competition with all others, and the girl had an instinctive knowledge of this fact. The events of the previous day, with her father's note, therefore ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... Bobbachy Bahawder, of whom his Highness intends to get rid. You shall be second in command of his Highness's forces. Look, here is his commission signed with the celestial seal, and attested by the sacred names of the forty-nine Imaums. You have but to renounce your religion and your service, and ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... which promise he, for his part, will most surely keep and perform. Wherefore, after this promise made by Christ, this Infant must also faithfully, for his part, promise by you that are his sureties, (until he come of age to take it upon himself,) that he will renounce the devil and all his works, and constantly believe God's holy Word, and obediently ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England

... and go from the cell to the palace, did not urge much to excuse himself from accepting the obliging offer which the princess made him. "Princess," said he, "whatever resolution a poor wretched woman as I am may have made me renounce the pomp and grandeur of this world, I dare not presume to oppose the will and commands of so pious ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.

... resign, abjure, discontinue, quit, retire from, cast off, forego, recant, retract, cease, forsake, relinquish, surrender, cede, forswear, renounce, vacate, depart from, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... notoriously no father (1Samuel x. 12), their importance rests on the individuals; it is characteristic that only names and sketches of their lives have reached us. They do indeed, following the tendency of the times, draw together in corporations; but in doing so they really renounce their own distinctive characteristics: the representative men are always single, resting on nothing outside themselves. We have thus on the one side the tradition of a class, which suffices for the occasions of ordinary life, and on ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... sacrifice we have had the courage to make in its name, will have left its indelible mark on our moral existence. The body is gone, but the palace it built still stands, and the space it has conquered will remain for ever unenclosed. It is our duty, and one we dare not renounce, to prepare homes for truths that shall come, to maintain in good order the forces destined to serve them, and to create open spaces within us; nor can the time thus ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... where they take two sides, one side must be in error. Sometimes these two parties are equally balanced, and that for long periods. With which has the truth been? Is God always with the majority? If so, we must at once renounce our Unitarian belief for the Trinity, as an immense majority of votes are given in its favor. But, then, we must also renounce Protestantism; for Protestantism has only eighty or ninety millions against a hundred and forty millions who are Catholics. And, still further, we must renounce ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... is omitted, because it is indefinite, OR EASILY SUPPLIED."—Butler's Practical Gram., p. 52; Bullions's Analytical and Practical Gram., p. 233. Converted at his wisest age, by these false arguments, so as to renounce and gainsay the doctrine taught almost universally, and hitherto spread industriously by himself, in the words of Lennie, that, "What is a compound relative, including both the relative and the antecedent," Dr. Bullions now most ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... and demanded the support of all Europe. As before, from 1227 to 1230, the pressure of the papal necessity was at once felt in England. The legate had to raise supplies at all costs. Crusaders were allowed to renounce their vows for ready money. Every visitation or conference became an excuse for procurations and fees. Presents were no longer rejected, but rather greedily solicited. On the pretence that it was necessary to reform the Scottish Church, "which does not recognise the Roman Church ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... not join to-day in the petitions of our worthy pastor for a reconciliation between our no longer parent, but tyrant state, and these colonies. Let us separate. They are no longer worthy to be our brethren. Let us renounce them, and instead of supplications, as formerly for their prosperity and happiness, let us beseech the Almighty to blast their councils and bring to ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... certainly not pleasing to be put out of the public service. But I wish to be a member of parliament, to have my share of doing good and resisting evil. It would therefore be absurd to renounce my objects in order to obtain my seat. I deceive myself indeed most grossly if I had not much rather pass the remainder of my life hidden in the recesses of the deepest obscurity, feeding my mind even with the visions and imaginations of such things, than to be placed on the most ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... establishment of the Slavonians in the Byzantine empire during the middle ages. Upon this question, much debated at present, Count Kostia had espoused the opinion most favorable to the ambitions of Muscovite policy. He affected to renounce his country and to censure it without mercy; he had even denationalized himself to the extent of never speaking his mother tongue and of forbidding its use in his house. In fact, the idiom of Voltaire was more familiar to him than that of Karamzin, ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... this period of blissful insanity. All the views he formed of men and circumstances at this time remained true for him always. He not only did not renounce them subsequently, but when he was in doubt or inwardly at variance, he referred to the views he had held at this time of his madness and they always ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... ginger-haired fellow grew angry, and shouted that if Salvat were guilty, he ought to be caught and guillotined at once, without waiting for judges, Toussaint ended by endorsing his opinion. "Yes, yes, he may have married one of my sisters, but I renounce him.... And yet, you know, it would astonish me to find him guilty, for he isn't wicked at heart. I'm sure ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... sword.... Ah, you are unwilling to pray for me. Is it because a Roman priest has excommunicated me? But who gave him any such power? Who has the power to release subjects from their oath of allegiance to the legally appointed ruler? No one; and you ought to know it.... Renounce the hope of putting me in a convent and of shaving my head, like Louis the Debonair, and submit yourselves; for I am Caesar! If you don't, I shall banish you from my empire, and scatter you over the surface of the earth like the ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... lesser pleasure might not stand in the way of a greater, and that no pleasure ought to be pursued that should draw a great deal of pain after it; for they think it the maddest thing in the world to pursue virtue, that is a sour and difficult thing, and not only to renounce the pleasures of life, but willingly to undergo much pain and trouble, if a man has no prospect of a reward. And what reward can there be for one that has passed his whole life, not only without pleasure, but in pain, if there is nothing to ...
— Utopia • Thomas More

... impress the senses, no colour, or ornament, or church decoration, or music. The solemnity of the scene—was produced by the earnest sincerity and serious purpose with which these children of the Far West were prepared to offer themselves to God, and to renounce for eer the hateful sins and cruel deeds of their heathenism; and the solemn stillness was broken only by the breath of prayer. The responses were made with earnestness and decision. Not an individual was there whose lips did not utter ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock

... have no more to say. Thus, pleasure and mind may both renounce the claim to the first place. But mind is ten thousand times nearer to the chief good than pleasure. Pleasure ranks fifth and not first, even though all the animals in the world assert ...
— Philebus • Plato

... "To renounce when it shall be necessary and not be embittered." A woman with a baby carriage comes by. Something tender and sane and everyday and basic about her and her baby. A Chinese woman passing looks for all the world like a black and iridescent purple grackle in ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey

... one of the clerical deputies to the States-General of 1789; attached himself to the Tiers-etat, was a member of the National Convention, and a staunch advocate for civil and religious liberty, but refused resolutely to follow "Goose Gobel," the archbishop of Paris, and renounce the Christian religion and deny his Master (1750-1831). ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... a kind of practical summary of the criticism developed in the first six chapters of this treatise, a kind of definition of the practical position to which such a criticism is capable of leading whosoever will not renounce life and will not renounce reason and who is compelled to live and act between these upper and nether millstones which grind upon the soul. The reader who follows me further is now aware that I am about to carry him into the region of the imagination, of imagination not destitute of reason, ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... canoness of Mauberge. The circumstance caused great talk and wonder in the fashionable circles of Paris; everybody was at a loss to imagine why a young girl, beautiful and rich, in the very springtime of her charms, should renounce a world which she was so eminently qualified to ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... hand, "My friend, I have deceived you. My daughter did not die. I procured her pardon by the use of such influence as I possessed at that time. But having done that, deluded by this villain's tale, I forced her to renounce you and to ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman

... to you, but I am unable to put my ventures out of my mind. The consequences of loss would be so serious to me that I suppose my imagination becomes unduly active and apprehensive. Also, I find myself eager to secure large gains. I must renounce Aladdin's lamp from this day forth, my dear, and trust to my ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... part there? Nor did I refuse To look above the transient boon Of time; but it was hard so soon As in a short life, to give up Such beauty: I could put the cup Undrained of half its fulness, by; But, to renounce it utterly, —That was too hard! Nor did the cry Which bade renounce it, touch my brain Authentically deep and plain Enough to make my lips let go. But Thou, who knowest all, dost know Whether I was not, life's ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... severely treated after him? And is it not the duty of every Christian to imitate such holy patterns? but especially of the Clergy, who are to be shining lights and visible examples; and therefore to be satisfied with a very little morsel, and to renounce ten times as much of the world as ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... now: Lady Clementina was unhappy in her mind. My fortune, it is true, is higher: it is, indeed, as high as I wish it to be. I then declared, that if you would give me your Clementina, without insisting on one hard, on one indispensable article, I would renounce her fortune, and trust to my father's goodness to me for a provision. Shall my accession to the estate of my ancestors alter me?—No, madam: I never yet made an offer, that I receded from, the circumstances continuing the same. If, in the article of residence, ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... peddler, for, drawing comfort and joy from his religion, he is reconciled to his miserable lot. But the Jew who is educated and enlightened, and yet has no means of occupying an honorable position in the country, will be moved by a feeling of discontent to renounce his religion, and no honest father will think of giving an education to his children which may lead to such an ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... are your sentiments," replied the Earl, proudly, "the Congregation can no longer acknowledge your authority, and must renounce their ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... very wainscoted chamber which you paused to remark was so gloomy. It was that night hung with rich tapestry, representing the exploits of the Cid, particularly that of his burning a few Moors who refused to renounce their accursed religion. They were represented beautifully tortured, writhing and howling, and "Mahomet! Mahomet!" issuing out of their mouths, as they called on him in their burning agonies;—you could almost hear them scream. At the upper end of the room, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... intellectual, artistic, financial, or commercial life of Germany are the pastors of the Lutheran Churches. And the Jews have won their way to the front in almost a generation. Still refused commissions in the standing army (except for about 114 since the war), still compelled to renounce their religion before being eligible for nobility or a court function, still practically excluded from university professorships, considered socially inferior, the Jews of Germany until a few years ago lived under disabilities that had survived from the ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... font, which both sexes did quite naked, the neophytes had to renounce the devil, his pomps and angels. Baptisms were usually conferred at Easter and in the season of Pentecost which ensued, and by the bishop or by priests and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... collect the duties and imports"—that and nothing more. Practically the only "property and places" now left to the government at the South were Forts Sumter and Pickens. To yield them without effort was to renounce the minimum of self-assertion he had ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... scene passes from the hut of the swineherd to the palace, where the Suitors soon hear of the safe return of Telemachus. Antinous also comes back, foiled and evidently angered; he proposes to the Suitors that they should slay Telemachus "in the fields or on the highway" wherever found, or renounce the suit for Penelope in the palace: "Let each one woo her from ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... and very dirty. The one at which Longueville had taken up his abode was entered by a dark, pestiferous arch-way, surmounted by a sign which at a distance might have been read by the travellers as the Dantean injunction to renounce all hope. The other was not far off, and the day after his arrival, as he passed it, he saw two ladies going in who evidently belonged to the large fraternity of Anglo-Saxon tourists, and one of ...
— Confidence • Henry James

... the Mormons set such extravagant store by that doctrine of many wives. This is the great reason: It serves to mark the Church members and separate and set them apart from Gentile influences. Mormonism is the sort of religion that children would renounce, and converts, when their heat had cooled, abandon. The women would leave it on grounds of jealousy and sentiment; the men would quit in a spirit of independence and a want of superstitious belief in the Prophet's "revelations." Polygamy prevents this. ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee

... all that my mother brought my father, and which she still conceals from him—all this is mine! Not one of the Cossacks owns such weapons as I; for the pommel of my sword alone they would give their best drove of horses and three thousand sheep. And I renounce all this, I discard it, I throw it aside, I will burn and drown it, if you will but say the word, or even move your delicate black brows! But I know that I am talking madly and wide of the mark; that all this is not fitting here; that it is not for me, who ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol



Words linked to "Renounce" :   vacate, repudiate, unsay, refute, leave office, abjure, resign, withdraw, abandon, rebut, foreswear, deny, tergiversate, reject, renunciant, forswear, resile, renouncement, apostatise, relinquish, recant, step down, give up, disclaim, take back, quit, apostatize, abdicate



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