"Renounce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... make ourselves more holy, more self-denying, more primitive, more worthy of our high calling. To be anxious for a composition of differences is to begin at the end. Political reconciliations are but outward and hollow, and fallacious. And till Roman Catholics renounce political efforts, and manifest in their public measures the light of holiness and truth, perpetual war is ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... envoys at last succeeded in forming an alliance; and in February 1778 a treaty offensive and defensive was concluded between France and America. Lord North strove to meet the blow by fresh offers of conciliation, and by a pledge to renounce for ever the right of direct taxation over the Colonies; but he felt that such offers were fruitless, that the time for conciliation was past, while all hope of reducing America by force of arms had disappeared. In utter despair ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... son of the following, invaded Scotland; was crowned king at Scone, supported by Edward III.; was driven from the kingdom, and obliged to renounce all claim to the crown, on receipt of a pension; died at ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the hideous hypocrisy. It's no use to put it on religion. The Jews keep Christmas, too, and we know what they think of Christianity as a belief. No, we've got to go further back, to the Pagan Saturnalia— Well, I renounce the whole affair, here and now. I'm going to spend the rest of the night bundling these things up, and to-morrow I'm going to spend the day in a taxi, going round and giving them back to ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... stuck to her point; so the soldier yielded, and said all right, if such were the orders he must obey, and would do the best that was in him; then he refreshed himself with a lurid explosion of oaths, and said that if any man in the camp refused to renounce sin and lead a pious life, he would knock his head off. That started Joan off again; she was really having a good time, you see. But she would not consent to that form of conversions. She said ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... entranced with Pyrenean views; Still, still to thee, where'er my footsteps roam, My heart shall point, and lead the wanderer home. When Splendour offers, and when Fame incites, I'll pause, and think of all thy dear delights, Reject the boon, and, wearied with the change, Renounce the wish which first induced to range; Turn to these scenes, these well known scenes once more, Trace once again old Trent's romantic shore, And tired with worlds, and all their busy ways, Here waste the little remnant of my days. But if the Fates should this last wish deny, And ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... hand warmly. "No, no; renounce everything without fear. Raoul can get on without you. I ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... renounce all hopes of heaven," replied Mistress Nutter, "and devote yourself to Satan. You will then be baptised in his name, and become one of his worshippers. You will have power to afflict all persons with bodily ailments—to ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... year had scarce begun Before his word went forth to seal the briefs Which summoned Baligant from Babylone, (The aged Emir, he whose life outlived Homer and Virgil). Now the King Marsile Had begged the Baron's help for Sarraguce. Should he not come, gods, idols, once adored He will renounce, the holy Faith of Christ Embrace, and join in friendship with King Carle. Afar was Baligant, and tarried long; From forty realms his people had he called And ordered to prepare his dromonds vast, ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... the sacrifice of myself. Despite the sacred ties, which for thirty-two years have bound me so firmly to this country, for whose prosperity and greatness I have given all my powers, I have decided to renounce the royal Bulgarian crown in favor of my eldest son, His Highness the Prince Royal Boris of Tirnovo. I call upon all faithful subjects and true patriots to unite as one man about the throne of King Boris, to lift the country from its difficult ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... True, I forgot. But when he sees the Goddess of the Dawn and the Socialistic Sun-God together, he will give them his blessing and renounce all claims. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... in vain Pentheus remonstrated, commanded, and threatened. "Go," said he to his attendants, "seize this vagabond leader of the rout and bring him to me. I will soon make him confess his false claim of heavenly parentage and renounce his counterfeit worship." It was in vain his nearest friends and wisest counsellors remonstrated and begged him not to oppose the god. Their remonstrances only made him ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... so his Majesty once more urges you to renounce the world, which has nothing more important to offer you than memories, which the convent is the best place to cherish. There you will regain the favour of Heaven, which it so visibly withdrew from you, and also the regard of his Majesty, which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 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 be ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... loathing to him. St. Francis (and thirty years before him Peter Valdez) had naively interpreted the imitation of Christ as a life of absolute poverty, and had been relentless in his denunciation of worldly wealth, which every monk of his order had to renounce. He himself never touched money, seeing in it the source of all evil. His transcendent treasure was "Holy Poverty"; Jacopone wrote an ardent hymn to "Queen Poverty," and even Thomas, the representative of Dominican ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... niece's character. For several days Julie, plied with temptations, steadfastly declined to seek amusement abroad; and much as the old lady's pride longed to exhibit her pretty niece, she was fain to renounce all hope of taking her into society, for the young Countess was still in morning for her father, and found in her loss and her mourning dress a pretext for her sadness and desire ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... By the secret treaty with Spain, furthermore, France had agreed to continue the war until Gibraltar should be taken, and—if the British should be driven from Newfoundland—to share the fisheries only with Spain, and to support Spain in demanding that the Thirteen States renounce all territory west of the Alleghanies. The American States must by no means achieve a genuine independence but must feel the need of sureties, allies, ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... it for one instant, and I had the greatest difficulty in the world to persuade him to renounce his maniacal project. I am going to permit no ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... one course to pursue, and that was to go to Eleanor and beg her to renounce her scheme of vengeance. Grace felt very dubious as to the outcome of such an interview. Eleanor had in the past proved anything ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... national power and greatness, in which the emancipation of the negro has been forced upon us by circumstances and accepted as a necessity. We are very far from denying this; nay, we admit that it is so far true that we were slow to renounce our constitutional obligations even toward those who had absolved us by their own act from the letter of our duty. We are speaking of the government which, legally installed for the whole country, was bound, so long as it was possible, not to overstep ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... the undenied right of resistance to tyranny and armed oppression, we all, in one national, civic and brotherly spirit, unite our strength in one; and, persuaded that the happy result of our great undertaking depends chiefly on the strictest union between us all, we renounce all prejudices and opinions which hitherto have divided or might divide the citizens, the inhabitants of one land and the sons of one country, and we all promise each other to be sparing of no sacrifice and means which only the holy love of liberty can provide ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... yet disheartened. I love to flatter myself with your friendship, Sire, and I will not easily renounce the hope that you will give me a real mark of it in an affair which interests me so strongly. Nobody has greater ascendency over the mind of the Empress of Russia than your Majesty; use it, Sire, to incline it ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Will men never renounce their foolish pretensions? Will they not recognize that nature was not made for them? Will they not see that this nature has placed on equal footing all the beings which she produced? Will they not see that all organized ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... worried for a good hour by my parents, who with sighing and weeping try to persuade me to give up my opinions; but they don't know Erasmus Montanus. Not if I were to be made an emperor for it would I renounce what I once have said. I love Mademoiselle Elisabet, to be sure; but that I should sacrifice philosophy for her sake, and repudiate what I have publicly maintained—that is out of the question. I hope, though, that ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... warms one's blood, and sees the eager hurrying faces of men and women in the street, dramatic faces over which the disturbing experiences of life have passed and left their symbols, one's heart thrills up into one's throat. No, no, no, a thousand times no! how can one deliberately renounce this coloured, unquiet, fiery human life of the earth?' And, all the time, her subtle criticism is alert, and this woman of the East marvels at the women of the West, 'the beautiful worldly women of the West,' whom she sees walking in the Cascine, 'taking the air so consciously attractive ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... I wish to call particular attention, contains a request to his next of kin to transfer the right of publishing his writings to society at large, or, in other words, to renounce ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... renewed and continued, long after the cause thereof had passed away. Going amongst them every day, I did my utmost to stop hostilities, setting the evils of war before them, and pleading with the leading men to renounce it. Thereon arose a characteristic incident of Island and Heathen life. One day I held a Service in the village where morning after morning their Tribes assembled, and declared that if they would believe in ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... my friend's precipitate promise had miscarried or had lingered by the way. What I little suspected, my father had acquainted Mrs. Fielder with his conduct towards me; and this, together with her mother's importunities, had prevailed on Jane once more to renounce me. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... her if I could." She was now quite composed, in the full sense of duty done. "But it is imperative that I go to-morrow and announce aloud my disapproval of this unfortunate marriage. I shall renounce my guardianship of her property the day I return to London. I cannot save her, ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... great divines of the preceding generation. He had just come to power when a book was published at Rome by Sanctarelli renewing the theories of Bellarmin and Suarez, which had excited the indignant resentment of the university and the Parliament. Richelieu required the Paris Jesuits to renounce the doctrines which their brethren proclaimed essential to orthodoxy. And they did what he required of them, accepting, in France, the sentiments of France, and protesting, at Rome, that they retained ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... treated stage performers. While people of quality eagerly sought the society of those who furnished them as much diversion in private as in public, the church refused to all players the marriage blessing; when an actor or actress wished to marry, they were obliged to renounce the stage, and the Archbishop of Paris diligently resisted evasion or subterfuge.[346] The atrocities connected with the refusal of burial, as well in the case of players as of philosophers, are known to all readers in a dozen illustrious ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... Guillaume de Gruyere, Pierre and Philippe de Glane. Guillaume de Glane, son and nephew of the murdered protectors of their young suzerain, profoundly moved by the tragedy which had befallen his house, determined to renounce the world and commanding that not one stone should remain of his great castle of Glane dedicated these same stones to the enlargement of the monastery of Hauterive, where, taking the garb of a monk, he finished the remainder of his days. Such was the origin of the power ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... influence of Rome in the northern lands was augmented by the revival of the Western Empire, which meant the co-operation of Pope and Emperor in the extension of the Christian Republic. Cyril and Methodius, the Apostles of the Slavs, found it necessary to renounce the allegiance of the Greek Church, and to place their converts under the protection of Rome (866). It was from Rome that St. Adalbert went forth on his ill-starred but glorious mission to the Prussians (997); and it was a Pope, Sylvester II, who earned the glory of ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... the hope I shall forget At length, my lord, Pieria?—put away For your so passing sake, this mouth of clay These mortal bones against my body set, For all the puny fever and frail sweat Of human love,—renounce for these, I say, The Singing Mountain's memory, and betray The silent lyre that hangs upon me yet? Ah, but indeed, some day shall you awake, Rather, from dreams of me, that at your side So many nights, a lover and a bride, But stern in my soul's chastity, ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... risk is thought to be more than usually great. The Frankish kings were never allowed to crop their hair; from their childhood upwards they had to keep it unshorn. To poll the long locks that floated on their shoulders would have been to renounce their right to the throne. When the wicked brothers Clotaire and Childebert coveted the kingdom of their dead brother Clodomir, they inveigled into their power their little nephews, the two sons of Clodomir; ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... of women. His dress appeared to be an object of no small concern with him; and every one who knew him before he left the country, and who saw him now, pronounced without hesitation that Bennillong had not any desire to renounce the habits and comforts of the civilized life which he appeared so readily ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... second day Jacquet was obliged to tell his friend that he must renounce his desire, because, in a city where the number of tears shed on black draperies is tariffed, where the laws recognize seven classes of funerals, where the scrap of ground to hold the dead is sold at its weight in silver, where grief is worked for what it is worth, where the prayers ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... resist the human instinct for employing arguments such as would baffle and confound the unprincipled opponent, rather than such as would satisfy the mature Christian. If a man denied himself all specious arguments, and all artifices of dialectic subtlety, he must renounce the hopes of a present triumph; for the light of absolute truth on moral or on spiritual themes is too dazzling to be sustained by the diseased optics of those habituated to darkness. And hence we explain not only the many gross delusions of the fathers, their sophisms, their errors ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... but when he reached the trap-door under Augustus Barnard's cabin he failed to raise it, and on slipping the blade of his knife through One of the joints he found that a heavy mass of iron was placed upon the trap, as though it were intended to condemn him beyond hope. He had to renounce his attempt and drag himself back towards the chest, on which he fell, exhausted, while Tiger ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... persons to be the essential sharers in the administration of their Government, and that this form of Government is truly Republic, that the body of the People will not be perswaded nor compelled to "renounce, detest, and execrate the very Word Republican as the English do." Their Education has "confirmed them in the opinion of the necessity of preserving, and strengthening the Dykes against the Ocean, its Tydes, and Storms," and I think they have made more ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... friend, I see that we shall not come to an understanding with each other. You are bent upon plunging into ruin a poor defenceless girl in the name of what you call love, and will not renounce, though you have not the slightest hope of winning her—that I do not understand. I, on the other hand, am the legal adviser of the young lady's family, and, in that capacity, I considered it my duty to protest very energetically against the match in question. But when they placed those ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... brawles which were growne from religion, and he therfore exceedingly detested the tyranny of the church of Rome, more for ther imposinge uncharitably upon the consciences of other men, then for ther errors in ther owne opinions, and would often say, that he would renounce the religion of the church of Englande tomorrow if it oblieged him to believe that any other Christians should be damned: and that no body would conclude another man to be damned, who did not wish him so: No man more stricte and seveare to himselfe, to other men so charitable as to ther opinions, ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... become interested for Katherine, who was gentle and amiable. The difference of years was rather a circumstance in her favor; for Henry was just at that age, when a youth is most likely to be captivated by a woman older than himself: and no sooner was he required to renounce her, than the interest she had gradually gained in his affections, became, by opposition, a strong passion. Immediately after his father's death, he declared his resolution to take for his wife the Lady Katherine of Spain, and none other; and when ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... 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, Catholic or Protestant, he should burn. Then he spoke out, as ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... it merely as a supposition, I said if I did make your wish my law, how then? Less than ever can I renounce ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... were interested; and as they went on their way several of them interrupted the course of their meditations to say to themselves that she was the most thoughtful looking young girl they had ever seen. There was a touch of wistfulness about her, too; as of one whose benevolence must renounce all hope of ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... that moment, as 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 ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... of all this was that I must renounce Martin Conrad, wash my heart clean of my love of him, shun the temptation of seeing him again, and if possible ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... rights—to put it despotically out of count. Stephen, as he had long recognized, had been overborne and silenced by Meynell's personality rather than by Meynell's arguments—by the disabling force mainly of his own devotion to the man who bade him wait and renounce. But in his heart he had never quite forgiven, or understood; and for all the subsequent trouble about Hester, all his own jealousy and pain, he had not been able to prevent himself from blaming Meynell. And now—now!—if this story were true—he began to understand. Poor child—poor ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... But the wind became so light that Paul could not work his ship in close enough at an hour as early as intended. His purpose had been to make the descent and retire ere break of day. But though this intention was frustrated, he did not renounce his plan, for the present would be ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... been his brother? What white woman his sister? He had two courses left open to him,—he could either have renounced all natural ties, and have led a hopeless, joyless life among the whites, ever a servant, ever an inferior being; or he could renounce civilisation, and return to the friends of his childhood, and to the habits of his youth. He chose the latter course, and I think that I should have done ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... 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 did no more for ten years, the years that ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... for the first time how much the experience had meant to both,—the examination of the picture and the silence of death enabled her to understand that. He had had the strength—or was it rather weakness?—to do "the right thing," to renounce love and fulfilment and fame because of her and their child. It came over her in a flash that she could not have done as much. Give up love that was strong and creative—no, never, not for all the right and convention on the earth. Any more than the Russian woman would have given ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... to the subject of my last letter. It seems that you have misunderstood me, for your answer grants me after all just what I ask. You think that I wish to renounce entirely the study of medicine? On the contrary, the idea has never occurred to me, and, according to my promise, you shall have one of these days a doctor of medicine as a son. What repels me is ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... suburbs of a city that had cast Him out. Before the cross of such a capitalist, and such a carpenter, all men can afford to shake hands and worship. Here is the every man's Christ. None so high, but He was higher. None so poor, but He was poorer. At His feet the hostile extremes will yet renounce their animosities, and countenances which have glowered with the prejudices and revenge of centuries shall brighten with the smile of heaven as He commands: "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... common sense, overlaid as it was by an embroidery of sentiments and emotions, still constituted the basic quality in his character, and Sarah would have been the last woman in the world to think lightly of renouncing—or of inviting another to renounce—an income of ten thousand dollars a year. He might dream that love would bring happiness, but she was reasonably assured that money would bring comfort. Between the dream and the assurance there would have been, in Sarah's mind at least, ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... handsome fortune[1193]—for the turmoil of the French capital, threatened every day with the outbreak of civil war, where nothing but censure and hatred could be reaped.[1194] But Santa Croce did not hesitate long to renounce his golden prospects, and almost at the same moment that the Cardinal of Ferrara started from the banks of the Tiber, the Bishop of Pisa set forth from the gates of Lisbon. Neither legate nor nuncio, however, was in much haste to reach his destination. Ferrara could plead ill-health, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... the Faculty of Medicine called upon M. D'Eslon, for the third and last time, to renounce the doctrine of animal magnetism, or be expelled from their body. M. D'Eslon, so far from doing this, declared that he had discovered new secrets, and solicited further examination. A royal commission of the Faculty of Medicine ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... with us. Resign these unwarlike notions. It is true that even war has its respites; in these it would be possible to have our Roman coena with all its equipage of ministrations. Such luxury untunes the mind for doing and suffering. Let us voluntarily renounce it; that when a necessity of renouncing it arrives, we may not feel it among the hardships of war. From the day when you enter the gates of the camp, reconcile yourself, tyro, to a new fashion of meal, to what in camp dialect ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... place and name. 'What is this truth you seek? What is this beauty?' men will ask, with derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explore truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When you shall say, 'As others do, so will I: I renounce, I am sorry for it, my early visions: I must eat the good of the land, and let learning and romantic expectations go, until a more convenient season;'—then dies the man in you; then once more perish ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... their consent, and thus appropriating it to the purposes of their slavery and destruction, is justly considered, as contrary to and subversive of their original social compact, and their intention in uniting under it: They cannot therefore readily think themselves obliged to renounce those forms of government, to which alone for the advantages imply'd or resulting, they were willing to submit. We are sensible, as you observe, that the design of our enemies in England, as well as those who reside here, ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... piteous plight for fear and distress and hunger and thirst. Then I reproached myself for what I had done and my soul was weary after a life of ease and comfort; and I said to myself, "O Sindbad, O Seaman, thou repentest not and yet thou art ever suffering hardships and travails; yet wilt thou not renounce sea-travel; or, an thou say, 'I renounce,' thou liest in thy renouncement. Endure then with patience that which thou sufferest, for verily thou deservest all that betideth thee!"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... is not sufficiently brought to their doors to make them feel the precariousness with which all American property is possessed. But let our imaginations transport us a few moments to Boston; that seat of wretchedness will teach us wisdom, and instruct us forever to renounce a power in whom we can have no trust. The inhabitants of that unfortunate city, who but a few months ago were in ease and affluence, have no other alternative than to stay and starve, or turn out to beg. Endangered by the fire of their friends if they continue within the city, and plundered ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... me. No! I can't answer it. I—I don't want to answer it. I simply surrender. He shall have his way with you—and with me. Only," he added in a gloomy lowered tone which struck Mr Powell as if a pedal had been put down, "only it shall take a little time. I have never lied to you. Never. I renounce not only my chance but my life. In a few days, directly we get into port, the very moment we do, I, who have said I could never let you go, I shall let ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... thou didst accept the world as a barrier between you; then, poor as thou wert, thou wouldst have preferred her to riches. Thou went then sensible only of the ingenuous impulses of youth, but the moment thou saidst, 'I am Rochebriant, and having once owned the claims of birth and station, I cannot renounce them for love, Isaura became but a dream. Now that ruin stares thee in the face—now that thou must grapple with the sternest difficulties of adverse fate—thou hast lost the poetry of sentiment which ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... never divide their property with strangers and become poor as beggars; nor will they renounce their authority, for they are the leading people of ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... Heraclius, the persecutions were renewed against these unfortunate people. In this century, Hebrews refusing baptism suffered banishment and confiscation of all their property; they were obliged to renounce the Sabbath, circumcision, and all Hebraic rites if they wished to remain. About this period the success of the Saracens induced persecutions of the Hebrews in Spain, where their children were taken away from them that they might be ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... the deceitful lives they have led. These have become Christians, and have openly confessed to their evil practices in trading on the superstitions of the Dyaks. Some have become Catechists and teachers, and are teaching others to renounce the belief in evil spirits which they at one time taught, and are undoing the evil they did in the past by bringing ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... beginning of November, Jonathan Burge, finding it impossible to replace Adam, had at last made up his mind to offer him a share in the business, without further condition than that he should continue to give his energies to it and renounce all thought of having a separate business of his own. Son-in-law or no son-in-law, Adam had made himself too necessary to be parted with, and his headwork was so much more important to Burge than his skill in handicraft that his having the management ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... other Indian philosophers, we look in vain. At first it might seem as if the very first aphorism of Kapila, namely, 'the complete cessation of pain, which is of three kinds, is the highest aim of man,' was merely a philosophical paraphrase of the events which, as we saw, determined Buddha to renounce the world in search of the true road to salvation. But though the starting-point of Kapila and Buddha is the same, a keen sense of human misery and a yearning after a better state, their roads diverge so completely and ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... 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 ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of inherited lawlessness and passion? A woman does not gamble, steal, and take life in a moment of violence without some exceptional flaw in temperament and will, and we see again and again how such flaws reappear in the descendants of weak and wicked people. Then again—Oliver must renounce and throw away all that is implied in family memories and traditions. His wife could never speak to her children and his of her own mother and bringing up. They would be kept in ignorance, as she ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... renounce the world? wherefore adopt a resolution so desperate, so extreme? your country has a right to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... whereby they travel, And sue God for a 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 Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... Leave it for the household maiden, By the stove so idly sitting. To the bench-end cast thy singing, Joyous carols to the windows, Girlish ways unto the bath-whisks, And thy pranks to blanket-edges, Naughtinesses to the stove-bench, On the floor thy lazy habits, 50 Or renounce them to thy bridesmaid, And into her arms unload them, That she take them to the bushes, Out upon the ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... 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 to keep his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... withdrawing himself frequently from public view, that the priests might not nip his plan in the bud. As all the prophets had worked miracles, and many were expected from the Messiah, he too was obliged, according to Becker, to undertake them or renounce his hopes. No doubt he performed miracles; for the power of the mind on the body is such that we need not doubt his curing the melancholy and the nervous. As to the miraculous meals, raising the dead, curing the blind and deaf, these things must be attributed to the calculation of ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... bold and so brave, Never shall wash himself, comb or shave, Nor adorn his body, Nor drink gin-toddy, Nor indulge in a pipe— But shall dine upon tripe And blackberries gathered before they are ripe, And forever abhor, renounce and abjure Rum, hollands, and brandy, ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... love us often are the hands That softly close our eyes and draw us earthward. We give them all the largesse of our life— Not this, not all the world, contenteth them, Till we renounce our ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... thunderstruck at the discovery, and so much incensed against Hatchway for the part he had acted in the whole, that he deliberated with himself, whether he should demand satisfaction with sword and pistol, or dismiss him from the garrison, and renounce all friendship with him at once. But he had been so long accustomed to Jack's company, that he could not live without him; and upon more cool reflection, perceiving that what he had done was rather the effect of wantonness than malice, which ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... is to say it disunites the particles of bodies. This is assuredly the mark of motion, at least in the true Philosophy, in which one conceives the causes of all natural effects in terms of mechanical motions. This, in my opinion, we must necessarily do, or else renounce all hopes of ever comprehending anything ...
— Treatise on Light • Christiaan Huygens
... blind goddess. She who still veils herself from others hath fully discovered to thee her whole character. If thou likest her, take her as she is, and do not complain. If thou abhorrest her perfidy, turn from her in disdain, renounce her, for baneful are her delusions. The very thing which is now the cause of thy great grief ought to have brought thee tranquillity. Thou hast been forsaken by one of whom no one can be sure that she will not forsake him. Or dost thou indeed set value on ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... Pianezza, led the latter at first to attempt to win over the patriot warrior by offering him a pardon for himself and the safe return of his wife and three daughters (who had been captured at Rora) if he would renounce his "heresy," but threatening him if he refused with the severest treatment. To this Janavello nobly replied, "That there were no torments so cruel, nor death so barbarous, which he would not prefer to abjuration; that if ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... people were beginning to talk and write of non-resistance, of the right to judge, to punish, to make war; when some people in our set were beginning to do without servants, to retire into the country, to work on the land, and to renounce animal food ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... involved in the war of the Samnites, and in its issue. That that was the only nation which continued to make opposition; and that with power very inadequate, since the Lucanians left them: these however might yet be brought back, and induced to renounce the Roman alliance, if proper skill were used in sowing dissension between them." These reasonings being readily adopted, by people who wished for a change, some young Lucanians of considerable note among their countrymen, but devoid ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... strange words, for good comes to no land save by risk and daring, and not for all the gold of Milan would I renounce my desire to find him in his wood and ...
— The Romance Of Tristan And Iseult • M. Joseph Bedier
... is hardly necessary for me to state that our showing is conceived in the very best spirit, and with the fullness of Christian love towards our Baptist and Methodist brethren. Did I not believe that the church of which I am a member is best suited for the Negro, I would at once renounce attachment thereto and embrace most lovingly the one which I thought more efficiently equipped to minister to the complexed and diversified needs of my race. On account of a multitude of reasons, ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... him and attack the old man, and that he cannot topple us over by force, he prowls and moves about on all sides, tries all devices, and does not desist until he finally wearies us, so that we either renounce our faith or yield hands and feet and become listless or impatient. Now to this end the consolation is here given when the heart feels that the burden is becoming too heavy, that it may here obtain ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... mistress of the Abbey House led in these latter days of glowing summer weather; and perhaps it was only the distractions of crewels and point-lace which preserved her from melancholy madness. The Captain had been too long a bachelor to renounce the agreeable habits of a bachelor's existence. His amusements were all masculine, and more or less solitary. When there was no hunting, he gave himself up to fishing, and found his chief delight in the persecution of innocent salmon. He supplied the Abbey ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... holds his place, and who, so far as his reasoning went, is unassailed and unassailable. Even the two other great religions in China that rival Confucianism—Buddhism and Taoism (the religion of Lao-tsze)—do not renounce Confucius: they merely seek to ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... patriotism. The first of these feared that they would not be truly themselves unless their personality could take shelter beneath an accent that was unmistakably from England, and the others felt that it was like hauling down the British flag to renounce the long-drawn English "A-o-o." And, curiously, at the other extreme, the slightest tinge of an English accent is rather liked in Paris, perhaps only among those touched with Anglomania. But now we ought to be able ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... early this morning with his paint-things, and has not returned. May his house be destroyed! He is the worst of sons. He shuns all counsel, and does nothing that one asks of him. How often have I begged him to renounce his painting, or to go with me to the Mission and make show of penitence. As well instruct the sand. It is likely he will scout this plan of thine. Oh, what have I ever done to be thus afflicted? Why, why has he not the wit of Asad ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... would renounce his cousin utterly,—putting his renunciation on paper,—Sir Harry would pay all his debts to the extent of twenty thousand pounds, would allow him four hundred a year on condition that he would live ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... Loy o la, an illiterate Spanish soldier and priest, with papal authority, organizes the society of the Jesuits, to require Christians to renounce whatever opinions may separate them, and, accepting the doctrines and worship of the Roman Catholic church to acknowledge the pope as Christ's ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... nothing unadvised or hastily. I would not sacrifice eternal for worldly life. At present I wish to live a true life, desiring nothing external, seeing that things external cannot procure those things for and in which I live. I do not renounce things, but feel no inclination for them. All is indifferent to me—poverty or riches, life or death. I am loosed. But do not on this account think I am sorrowful; nay, for I have nothing to sorrow for. Is there no bright hope at a distance which cheers ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... secured to Virginia and to the Union. "The western States," he wrote to Governor Harrison of Virginia, "stand as it were upon a pivot. The touch of a feather would turn them any way." The situation in Kentucky became more acute as intimations reached the people that John Jay was proposing to renounce the free navigation ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... not desert the moral hero, even when the reward, however real, which he doubtless receives from the consciousness of well-doing, is any thing but an equivalent for the sufferings he undergoes, or the wishes which he may have to renounce. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... I well may feel the sore Of this low earth-life's melancholy. I am too old to live for folly, Too young, to wish for nothing more. Am I content with all creation? Renounce! renounce! Renunciation— Such is the everlasting song That in the ears of all men rings, Which every hour, our whole life long, With brazen accents hoarsely sings. With terror I behold each morning's light, With bitter tears my eyes are filling, To see the day that shall not ...
— Faust • Goethe
... prospect lured him home on the wings of hope. What hope was there? What hope of happiness either for himself or for the lady whom he loved? If he yielded to his love, he wronged her—her and his own honour. If he resisted, he must renounce her—aye, and leave her, not to a loving husband, but to one who deceived her most grossly and most cruelly, in a way which made her own venial errors seem as nothing in the Captain's partial, pitying eyes. In the ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... now very great; his soul, with all its affections, clave unto Christ: but lest spiritual pride should exalt him beyond measure, and lest he should be scared to renounce his Saviour, by the threat of transportation and death, his heart was again wounded, and quickly after this his 'love ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... "Non-co-operation" movement to demonstrate the finality of the breach. Mr. Gandhi appealed in the first place to the educated classes to set the example to the people. He called upon those on whom the State had conferred honours and titles to renounce them, upon barristers and pleaders to cease to practise in the law-courts, and upon parents to withdraw their children from the schools and colleges tainted with State control and State doles. If parents would not hearken to him, ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... not blame yourself, do not feel the least remorse. It was the height of selfishness in me to ask you to sacrifice the joys of life to an impossible future; impossible, because to realize it a woman must abandon her children, abdicate her position, and renounce eternity. Many a time I have thought you higher than I; you were great and noble, I, petty and criminal. Well, well, it is settled now; I can be to you no more than a light from above, sparkling and cold, but unchanging. Only, Felix, let me not love the brother I have chosen without return. ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... a woman deliberately to renounce her marriage vows to taste the sweets of forbidden pleasure, but quite another for a heart so loyal to duty, to be betrayed into crime by an ingenuity ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... while his body was still suffering, so that Poole might, on recovery, break with all former associations. On seeing Jasper in the dress of an exquisite, with the thrws of a prize-fighter, Uncle Sam saw the stalwart incarnation of all the sins which a godfather had vowed that a godson should renounce. Accordingly, he made himself so disagreeable that Losely, in great disgust, took a hasty departure. And Uncle Sam, as he helped the nurse to plunge Dolly into his bed, had the brutality to tell his nephew, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... old woman put her two hands on the shoulders of Shibli Bagarag, saying, 'Make thy reverence to him on the raised seat; have faith in thy tackle and in me. Renounce not either, whatsoever ensueth. Be not abashed, O my ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fashion Of sin and self the anchor strong; 110 Can thence compel the driving force Of daily life's mechanic course, Nor less the nobler energies Of needful toil and culture wise; Whose soul is worth the tempter's lure, Who can renounce, and yet endure, To him I come, not lightly wooed, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... races, as of animals, have followed one another upon the earth. It may be the inestimable privilege of our young naturalists to solve this great problem, but the older men of our generation must be content to renounce this hope; we may have some prophetic vision of its fulfilment, we may look from afar into the land of promise, but we shall not enter in and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... never weak! But this bull of the Kuru race (Yudhishthira) would never accept the sovereignty of the earth, unless it were won by the prowess of his own arms. Neither for the sake of pleasure, nor from fear, nor from covetousness, would Yudhishthira ever renounce the rules of the caste; nor would these two heroes, who are mighty, when mounted on a car—Bhima and Arjuna; nor the twin brothers, nor Krishna, the daughter of Drupada. He possessing the appetite of a wolf (Bhima), and the winner of riches (Arjuna), are both ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... proposed to procure by means of war the expansion necessary to care for it. Adelyne More, in "Uncontrolled Breeding," a study of the birth rate in its relation to war, quoted the Berliner Post: "Can a great and rapidly growing nation like Germany always renounce all claims to further development or to the expansion of its political power? The final settlement with France and England, the expansion of our colonial possessions, in order to create new German homes for the overflow of our population—these are ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger |
