"Tantamount" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... first to the studious depreciation of Sterne and Walpole, and secondly to a refinement of snobbishness on the part of the travelling crowd, who have an uneasy consciousness that to listen to common sense, such as Smollett's, in matters of connoisseurship, is tantamount to confessing oneself a Galilean of the outermost court. In this connection, too, the itinerant divine gave the travelling doctor a very nasty fall. Meeting the latter at Turin, just as Smollett was about to turn his face homewards, in March 1765, Sterne wrote of ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... already announced the startling doctrine that no regard was to be had to party in the selection of the great officers of government, which Mr. Gallatin considered as tantamount to a declaration that principles and opinions were of no importance in its administration. To lose sight of this principle was to substitute men for measures. Jackson's idea of party, however, was personal ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... knows now that he does not despise her. There was no trace of contempt in the gentleness, the tenderness of his manner. And how kindly he had told her of the intended change in his life! "Their paths would lie far asunder for the future," he had said, or something tantamount to that. He spoke no ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... as he moved quietly forward. To venture here in an unknown character was not far from being tantamount, if he were discovered, to taking his life in his hands. Malay John was a queer customer and a bad enemy, though counted "straight" by the underworld, and trusted by the crooks and near-crooks as few other men were in the Bad Lands. ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... over—some, long after the king himself. This council is, by one of the fictions of law so common in the Hellenic kingdom, supposed to form a legislative council, and it is implied that it ought to be considered as tantamount to a representative assembly. Some of its members are most brave and respectable men, who have rendered Greece good service; but since they were decked out in silver uniforms, and received large salaries to form a portion of the court pageant, they have lost much of their influence in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... land immediately and await the coming of the searchers, rather than to allow herself to be carried still further from Helium, thus greatly reducing the chances of early discovery; but when she dropped toward the ground she discovered that the violence of the wind rendered an attempt to land tantamount to destruction and she rose ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Henri IV., had no fortune whatever at the court of Louis XVIII., which gave them not so much as a thought. At this day there are names as famous as those of royal houses—the Foix-Graillys, for instance, or the d'Herouvilles—left to obscurity tantamount to extinction for want of money, the one ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... board a man-of-war. And, after all, what is a floating light but a man-of-war? Its duty is, like that of any three-decker, to guard the merchant service from a dangerous foe. It is under command of the Trinity Corporation—which is tantamount to saying that it is well found and handled—and it does battle continually with the storm. What more could be said of a man-of-war? The only difference is that it does its work with ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... think it would be tantamount to an astonishing revival of religion if the people would all walk to church on Sunday and walk home again. Think how the stones would preach to them by the wayside; how their benumbed minds would warm up beneath ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... three masks come forward). What talk you of nobility in Genoa? Let them all throw their ancestry and honors into the scale, one hair from the white beard of my old uncle will make it kick the beam. It is my will that you be procurator, and that is tantamount to the votes ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... disgrace my sex by thus encouraging every one who may feel disposed to visit me, who may honor me with their graceful bows and their choicest compliments. It is true that young men too often mistake civil politeness for the finer emotions of the heart, which is tantamount to courtship; but, ah! how often are they deceived, when they come to test the weight of sunbeams with those on whose strength hangs the future happiness of ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... there, a burly footman told him that His Lordship was not at home. The next instant Jim was in the hall. The second flunkey looked at the first. They had received strict instructions that Mr. Conlan was not to be admitted. They both came to the conclusion that physical obstruction in this case was tantamount to suicide. ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... and to put the offending provinces under the ban. Will not this, Sir, very soon teach the provinces to make no distinctions on their part? Will it not teach them that the government against which a claim of liberty is tantamount to high treason is a government to which submission is equivalent to slavery? It may not always be quite convenient to impress dependent communities ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... defense in her transportation system. Had she not granted fifty-five million acres of land for the different transcontinentals and spent far over a billion in loans and subsidies and guarantees? Value that land at ten dollars an acre. That was tantamount to an expenditure of two hundred dollars per capita for a transportation system of use to the empire in Imperial defense. Seventy trainloads of Hindu troops were rushed across Canada in cars with drawn blinds and transported to ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... satisfactory understanding with Austria, the record of which could be followed in the "Green Book," which was then given to the public. He informed the Chamber, what was generally known, that the Triple Alliance had already been denounced on the 5th of May, and he offered a "project of law," which was tantamount to a vote of confidence in the Government and which also gave the King and his ministers power to make war and to govern the country during the period of war without the intervention of Parliament. It thus authorized both the ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... divided the non-noble Estates should be abolished. In accordance with this proposal, the two Lower Estates, on the 16th of September, subscribed a memorandum addressed to the Rigsraad, declaring their willingness to renounce their privileges, provided the nobility did the same; which was tantamount to a declaration that the whole of the clergy and burgesses had made common cause against the nobility. The opposition so formed took the name of the "Conjoined Estates." The presentation of the memorial provoked an outburst of indignation. But the nobility soon perceived the necessity ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... and his masters giving credit to it? Good God! is that a state in which a man is to say, "I am upon the defensive—I am on my guard,—I will give you no satisfaction,—I have promised it, but I have already deferred it for seven or eight years"? Is not this tantamount to a denial? ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... whirling. He did not know what to think. What was worse, he did not know what to do. Did she think he had called back Time? That he had asked her to marry him? Had he? Were his words tantamount to that? Was he prepared to marry her—this wonderful, glorious creature stepping so joyously beside him—this peerless queen, who had wronged him, yet in his eyes could do no wrong? As once before, that touch upon his arm sent the blood singing through his veins. His pulses leaped ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... full possession of his office, he could want no confirmation therein except his own; and, in such circumstances, "to require certain things, as the conditions of his being confirmed in his government," is tantamount to a declaration "that he will not continue in his government, unless those conditions can be obtained." And the said attempt at prevarication can serve, its author the less, as either both sentences have one and the same meaning, or, if ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... themselves. The first was to use the muslin herself; it would make summer garments for years. The chief reason against that was that she was a little old for muslin. The second course was to send the whole paraphernalia back to her dear friend, with or without a comment. But that would be tantamount to a direct accusation of fraud. Never any more, if she did that, could she dispense her dear friend to Riseholme like an expensive drug. She would not so utterly burn her boats. There remained only one other judicious course of action, and ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... to Alice, Mr. Webber thought the day cooler than yesterday. In reply to Lydia, he admitted that the resolution of which the leader of the opposition had given notice was tantamount to a vote of censure on the government. He was confident that ministers would have a majority. He had no news of any importance. He had made the journey down with Lord Worthington, who had come to Wiltstoken to see the invalid at the ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... outlining of a plan was tantamount to the execution, it was not many hours later before she had both the apartment and the model ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... the main axis is tantamount to the non-existence of the plant, so that the terms "acaulescent," "acaulosia," etc, must be considered relatively only, and must be taken to signify an atrophied or diminished size of the stem, arising from the non-development ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... Hearts with two Royals, or two Royals with three Hearts, is almost tantamount to saying, "Partner, I know you are trying to shut out this declaration, but I am strong enough to insist upon it." Such action is only justified by 64 or 72 honors, and a ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... of his that few men pay enough attention to their backs,—not that he preached it; preaching is tantamount to spilling beans, supposing that the other fellow listens; and if he doesn't listen it is waste of breath. But he bore in mind that people behind him had eyes as well as those in front. Accordingly he made a very dignified exit down ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... whatever remarks would constitute his speech in the debate, thereby making a still greater saving of the time of the body. This would, no doubt, be felt as the greatest innovation of all, being tantamount to the extinction of oral debate; there being then nothing left but the replies of the movers. We need not, however, go the length of compulsion; while a certain number would choose to print at once, the others could still, if they chose, abide by the old plan of oral ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... beautiful Frenchwoman, now living at Nice. This gossip is passed on to the girl. The aunts forbid the hero to have any more communication with her; and the girl herself writes him a cold letter which is tantamount to an abrupt dismissal. ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... who formed the revolutionary organisation, it is he who marched under the red banners.... The Russian who would give credence to this tale would show his disrespect for the Russian nation. To assert that it is only owing to the help of the Jew that the Russian people freed themselves is tantamount to saying that without the Jew, the Russian nation can not reach the road of its own emancipation. No, however great my respect for the exceptional gifts of the Jewish people may be, I will not refuse the Russian nation the ability ...
— The Shield • Various
... the Patriarchs for their foundation. As in the fundamental passage, so here also, the sceptre, the symbol of dominion, stands for dominion itself. The substance of the two figurative expressions is briefly stated in ver. 19, in the words, "They shall rule out of Jacob," which are tantamount to, "A Ruler shall come out ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... "That is tantamount to putting me off altogether. It is ungenerous. It is preposterous. You may or may not be right; but it is simply farcical (Plancine cried, "George!"—but he went on warmly, nevertheless) to make our happiness contingent on the possible tumbling down of a bit of old ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... to utilise an expensive material such as bones for manufacturing an article which can be equally well manufactured from cheaper materials; for once the phosphate of lime is dissolved, it is equally valuable from whatever source it may be derived. Of course this is not tantamount to saying that dissolved bones as a manure are no more valuable than superphosphate. In dissolved bones we have, in addition to soluble phosphate, a considerable proportion of undissolved bone-tissue, containing a certain quantity of nitrogen ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... for in her softer humours she was always pleasant to him,—but because he had a clear insight into the misery of the whole connection. When the idea of marrying her suggested itself, he always regarded it as being tantamount to suicide. Were he to be persuaded to such a step he would simply be blowing his own brains out because someone else asked him to do so. He had explained all this to her at various times when suggesting Dantzic, and she had agreed with him. Then, at that point, his ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... keep the peace amounted to a conviction under the provisions of the Defence Act Regulations. I immediately referred the question to the Crown Solicitor, who said it was a difficult question I had raised, but ruled finally that being bound over to keep the peace was not tantamount to a conviction within the meaning of the Regulations. Whether this was sound law or not I cannot say, but it gave me the opportunity to let Sergeant Kingston off easily. I at once sent orders to his commanding officer to warn the sergeant to appear ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... existing somewhere in the mountains of Syria. At all events, since the late Sir Robert Peel placed it beyond the power of the governor and company to indulge in dangerous or erratic courses, it is abundantly manifest that to doubt of the perfect stability of the Bank of England is tantamount to questioning the infallibility of arithmetic. In the vaults and coffers of this huge establishment there is at present—as we learn from the published weekly-returns, a device of Sir Robert's—the bewildering amount of between L.14,000,000 and L.15,000,000 sterling in gold ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... by the Governments of Madras and Bombay, and the abolition of Suttee is now universally approved.[24] Such is the educative influence of a good law. Perhaps a would-be patriot may yet occasionally be heard so belauding the devotion of the widows who burned themselves that his praise is tantamount to a lament over the abolition of Suttee. But the general sentiment has been completely changed since the first quarter of the nineteenth century, when the Missionaries and some outstanding Indians like the Bengali reformer Rammohan Roy agitated for the abolition ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... rebelling against them, marks the path of wisdom. This may be an example of the testing of "the way" previously spoken of, for true wisdom shines brightly out in the presence of an angry ruler. Folly leaves its place,—a form of expression tantamount to rebelling, and may throw some light on that stupendous primal folly when angels "left their place," or, as Jude writes, "kept not their first estate, but left their habitation," and thus broke into the folly of rebelling against the Highest. For let any leave their place, ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... and a gentleman, the wearer of his Most Gracious Majesty's uniform, and in virtue of that fact I may claim—I do claim—to be in some sort his Majesty's representative, on board this ship. Any violence or indignity offered to me, therefore, is tantamount to offering the same to the king himself; and, as you are all fully aware, to offer indignity or violence to the king's person is high treason, a crime punishable with death. I hope, therefore, that you will pause and ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... few exceptions, to be presently considered) we know nothing of these songs, but it "seems certain" that they must be sung at the erotic dances of the natives; these, however, carefully conceal them from the missionaries, and as Jakobowski naively adds, to heed the missionaries "would be tantamount to giving up their old ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... cunning wink so well understood in all respectable family circles. This game Joseph played, and played, and played, until the credulity of old John seemed like a cooked fish in a pot of porridge. The fact must be confessed that Joseph was so politically dishonest that to be for once honest was tantamount to a great victory over his traditional immorality. Knowing right well the traits of character this Joseph possessed, Jonathan would at short notice lend a willing hand to thrash other morals into his system. However, with ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... dictionary, the rival of Adelung's, for the purpose of expelling every word of foreign origin and composition out of the language, by assigning some equivalent term spun out from pure native Teutonic materials. Bayonet, for example, is patriotically rejected, because a word may be readily compounded tantamount to musket-dirk; and this sort of composition thrives showily in the German, as a language running into composition with a fusibility only ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... the right, for commercial and fiscal purposes, to impose whatever duties it thinks fit, these duties must be equal for all exports and imports for whatever destination and from whatever source. It would be tantamount to world empire, in fact, if a country owning a large part of the globe could make discriminating duties between the motherland and dominions or colonies as against ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... with you now, Mr. Bertram, it would be tantamount to accepting you. Your own sense will certainly tell you that. Were I to do so, I should give you the privilege of coming with me as my lover. Forgive me for saying that I cannot give you that privilege. I grieve to hurt your feelings for a day even; but I am sure you will ultimately ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... and some sort of viands, not at all unprepossessing to him in his hunger, would always be forthcoming for him at the 'Cat and Whistle.' This supply was now closed to him. Were he, under his present circumstances, to seek for his dinner from the fair hands of Norah Geraghty, it would be tantamount to giving himself ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... the travellers states that "the inhabitants were living in expectation of the island being shortly attacked with the view to recolonization, which they considered would be tantamount to their enslavement. The decree issued on the 1st August, 1822, calling on all Brazilians to arm themselves for the defence of their shores and proclaiming under all circumstances a war of partisans had given rise to these fears. The measures which Prince Don Pedro propounded ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... the black ravines. Then presently the shadow of the thousand-foot-high Khyber walls began to cover them, and King drew rein to count them all and let them close up. To have let them straggle after that point would be tantamount ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... never gave pain to any human being, nor any living creature.... You are not like a witness who is required to tell all which he knows. In those cases the moral law requires us to tell nothing but the truth, but does not demand the whole truth, unless the suppression of any part of it should be tantamount to falsehood. ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... Mathra said to Abazi, "There are eight or even ten cases of transfer." Rab questioned Rabbi, "Suppose one from the outside were laden in the house with food, fruit, etc. How stands the law? Is the removal of his body tantamount to the removal of a thing from its place?" "Yes," said Rabbi; "this is not like the case of removing the hand, because the latter was not at rest, while in the former, the body, before and after removal, was entirely at rest." "Suppose," said one Rabbi to another, "that a person has ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... stupidity of the celebrated conception of "free will" and put it out of his head altogether, I beg of him to carry his "enlightenment" a step further, and also put out of his head the contrary of this monstrous conception of "free will": I mean "non-free will," which is tantamount to a misuse of cause and effect. One should not wrongly MATERIALISE "cause" and "effect," as the natural philosophers do (and whoever like them naturalize in thinking at present), according to the prevailing mechanical doltishness which makes the cause press and push until it ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... this denotes something close at hand and easy,—in place of something supposed to be remote and difficult,—is obvious. The whole of the earlier part of it, St. Paul affirms to be tantamount to the following injunction,—"Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into Heaven, to bring CHRIST down; or who descend into the abyss, to bring CHRIST up from the dead." Concerning which words of caution, we have to remark that there seems to have been no intention ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... Science has no grounds for supposing that light is in any way absorbed or destroyed merely by its passage through the "ether," that imponderable medium which is believed to transmit the luminous radiations through space. This of course is tantamount to saying that all the direct light from all the stars should reach us, excepting that little which is absorbed in its passage through our own atmosphere. If stars, and stars, and stars existed in every direction ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... from Greece which point to certain ritual performances on the part of the lover; the snatching, for instance, of a handkerchief from the beloved, of which the preservation is tantamount to the permanence of the subsequent union. He has a curious case, too, of a peasant who married a nymph and gave her a child but could not make her speak to him. He consulted a wise woman who advised him ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... Waife; no doubt a wise conception, and in accordance with the genius of the Nation. Every session of Parliament England is employed in settling folks, whether at home or at the Antipodes, who ignorantly object to be settled in her way; in short, "I'll settle them," has become a vulgar idiom, tantamount to a threat of uttermost extermination or smash; therefore the Mayor of Gatesboro' harbouring that benignant idea with reference to "Gentleman Waife," all kindly readers will exclaim, "Dii meliora! What will he ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... present, I will myself see that you do not suffer in consequence. Besides, flight would be tantamount to confession, and the case would ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... prison; and it was through one of these that he must pass if he was to escape at all. The passage itself, he remembered, simply communicated with the main building of the fort, and to travel by that path was tantamount to running into the ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... suppose in him who resorts thereto a right to withhold information that overrides the right of his interrogator. If the right of the latter to know is superior, then the hiding of truth would constitute an injustice, which is sinful, and this is considered tantamount to lying. And if the means to which we resort is not lying, as we have defined it, that is, does not show a contradiction between what we say and what we mean, then there can be no fear of evil on ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... provided I made application for his assistance. At Carpentaria, having ascertained that Lieutenant Woods was himself anxious to accompany me, I wrote the foregoing letter (Number 1) applying for that officer. Captain Norman's reply to this letter I considered tantamount to a refusal, and accordingly arranged to take Captain Alison. Having done so, I may have stated to Captain Norman that I considered I could do very well on this occasion ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... Government; violent parties, watchful to take advantage of any seeming usurpation on the part of the Executive, had distracted our councils; frequent removals, or forced resignations in every sense tantamount to removals, had been made of the Secretary and other officers of the Treasury, and yet in no one instance is it known that any man, whether patriot or partisan, had raised his voice against it as a ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... knowledge of any subject is mere pedagogy, a hindrance to clear thinking, a superfluity. We do not say so, to be sure, with respect to knowledge in general; but that is our attitude in regard to any particular subject that may be brought up. Yet to deny the value of special information is tantamount to an assertion of the desirability of general ignorance. It is only the politician who can afford to say: "Wide knowledge is a fatal handicap ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... be done with the bishop? To allow him to continue in his high office was tantamount to a grave scandal to religion, and his person was not safe from the fury of the populace. He was replaced by Edmund Grindal, and spent the remaining ten years of his life chiefly in the security of the Marshalsea, without any undue vigour or harshness. Mary's first dean, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... Flask, he was the youngest son, and little boy of this weary family party. His were the shinbones of the saline beef; his would have been the drumsticks. For Flask to have presumed to help himself, this must have seemed to him tantamount to larceny in the first degree. Had he helped himself at that table, doubtless, never more would he have been able to hold his head up in this honest world; nevertheless, strange to say, Ahab never forbade him. And had Flask helped himself, the chances ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... class of citizens by name that ought to be the servants of the community; yet unless that is done to what class of the People could you direct such a law? But if you passed such an act [limiting the area offered for sale in the Mississippi Valley], it would be tantamount to saying that there is some class which must remain here, and by law be obliged to serve the others for such wages as ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... deliver the same with all possible speed, and not to loiter by the way. Tim Linkinwater's sister lamented; the housekeeper condoled; and both kept thrusting their heads out of the second-floor window to see if the boy was 'coming'—which would have been highly satisfactory, and, upon the whole, tantamount to his being come, as the distance to the corner was not quite five yards—when, all of a sudden, and when he was least expected, the messenger, carrying the bandbox with elaborate caution, appeared in an exactly opposite direction, puffing and panting ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... ridged and linear scars to be self-inflicted. In Tanna the people produce elevated scars on the arms and chests. Bancroft recites that family-marks of this nature existed among the Cuebas of Central America, refusal being tantamount to rebellion. Schomburgk tells that among the Arawaks, after a Mariquawi dance, so great is their zeal for honorable scars, the blood will run down their swollen calves, and strips of skin and muscle hang from ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... this is effected by a closer and closer binding with their husbands, therefore they love the bonds of marriage as establishing the marriage-covenant, and this so much the more as they are loved again by their husbands, or what is tantamount, as the ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... deny," replied Cleopatra, "that even to me the doctrine of the Jews has something very fearful in it, and that to adopt it seems to me tantamount to confiscating all the pleasures of life.—But enough of such things, which I should no more relish as a daily food than you do. Let us rejoice in that we are Hellenes, and let us now go to the banquet. I fear you have found a very unsatisfactory ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to burn the body that very day so as to fulfill the prescribed ceremonial of the Hindoo religion. The mayor hesitated, telegraphed to the prefecture to demand instructions, at the same time sending word that a failure to reply would be considered by him tantamount to a consent. As he had received no reply at 9 o'clock that evening, he decided, in view of the infectious character of the disease of which the East Indian had died, that the cremation of the body should take place that very night, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... proper sense of this term also would have to be abandoned if it were meant to suggest a substance devoid of all distinctions. And that, in the case of a being consisting of non-differenced light, obscuration by Nescience would be tantamount to complete destruction, we have already explained above.—All this being thus, your interpretation would involve that the proper meaning of the two words 'that' and 'thou'—which refer to one thing—would have to be abandoned, and both words ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... him the trial of the delinquent, either in matter of fact or in matter of law." (Here various Saxon laws are quoted.) "In neither of these fundamental laws is there the least word, hint, or idea, that the earl or alderman (that is to say, the Prepositus (presiding officer) of the court, which is tantamount to the judge on the bench) is to take upon him to judge the delinquent in any sense whatever, the sole purport of his office is to teach the secular or worldly ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... was with him a point of conscience. He could not help telling himself now and again that, circumstanced as he was, he was most specially bound to take joy in any sign of reformation which the baronet might show. Not to do so would be almost tantamount to wishing that he might die in order that Mary might inherit his wealth; and, therefore, the doctor did with all his energy devote himself to the difficult task of hoping and striving that Sir Louis might ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... cheap, they held woman's honor more than dear, and to give currency to a tale of slander was tantamount to half a dozen challenges. Women were in the minority in the West, and although they did not vote, they were still of utmost importance in homes where clothing was handmade and the needs of numerous ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... England had not misgoverned the Soudan, had not raised the revolt or planted the garrisons. All that Egypt had a right to expect was commiseration. But the moment Zubehr was prohibited the situation was changed. The refusal to permit his employment was tantamount to an admission that affairs in the Soudan involved the honour of England as well as the honour of Egypt. When the British people—for this was not merely the act of the Government—adopted a high moral attitude with regard to Zubehr, they ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... altar-fellowship, as well as on the lodge-question. The Kirchenblatt of the Iowa Synod: "It is apparent that the influence of the General Synod on the General Council has paralyzed the practical principles of the fathers, and that the contemplated Merger is tantamount to an anulment of these principles, as far as the official practise of this new church-body will come into question. And yet, just this life, the ecclesiastical life and practise of the ministers and congregations, is the ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... income. He did not tell Phineas, in so many words, that he was proposing to make an ass of himself. He argued very prudently against the plan, and Phineas, when he received his father's letter, of course felt that it was tantamount to a paternal permission to proceed with the matter. On the next day he got a letter from his mother full of affection, full of pride,—not exactly telling him to stand for Loughshane by all means, for Mrs. Finn was not the woman to run openly counter to her husband in any advice ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... the Arkansas member and a few others, but they were treated as fools by more sagacious members; for, if the Delegate had been refused his seat, it would have been TANTAMOUNT TO A ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... surprised at you. ROB. I can't stop to apologize—an idea has just occurred to me. A Baronet of Ruddigore can only die through refusing to commit his daily crime. ROD. No doubt. ROB. Therefore, to refuse to commit a daily crime is tantamount to suicide! ROD. It would seem so. ROB. But suicide is, itself, a crime—and so, by your own showing, you ought never to have died at all! ROD. I see—I understand! Then I'm practically alive! ROB. Undoubtedly! (Sir Roderic embraces ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... nor seek to explain. He could invent no story that would not give the lie direct to his representations to the moonshiners. He felt that their eyes were upon him. He could only hope that his silence did not seem to them like denial—and yet was not tantamount to confession in ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... importance than Zalu Zako, the King-God, or potential King-God. Yet apparently he could not hope to approach Zalu Zako without overcoming the opposition offered by Bakahenzie. To give up little Bakuma to the sacrificial orgy was unthinkable; such an act would have appeared to him tantamount to sacrificing the girl to attain his ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... tantamount to solving a social problem which has perplexed the American people throughout the history of this nation. The Army cannot accomplish such a solution and (p. 022) should not be charged with the undertaking. The settlement of vexing racial problems cannot be permitted to complicate the ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... his legs in a minute, imploring his companion not to mind him but go on. "Going on doesn't seem to be so easy," said Madame Goesler, looking at the ditch as she held her horse in her hand. But to go back in such circumstances is a terrible disaster. It amounts to complete defeat; and is tantamount to a confession that you must go home, because you are unable to ride to hounds. A man, when he is compelled to do this, is almost driven to resolve at the spur of the moment that he will give up hunting for the rest of his life. And if one thing be more essential ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... is tantamount to confession." Let this ugly word alone; it is not only illegitimate, but ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... Rastelli,[45] which has given such an important advantage to their adversaries. Mr. Powell's explanation was extremely unsatisfactory, and in his examination yesterday they elicited from him what is tantamount to a contradiction of what he had said the day before. It is not possible to doubt what is the real state of the case. Rastelli is an active, useful agent, and they had occasion for his services; consequently they sent him off, and trusted that he would be back here ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... had come back to her old surroundings from some place far away. Everything about her now seemed sad and unfamiliar, though outwardly nothing was altered. Her parents had apparently forgotten the unhappy episode of the picture. It had been sent away to Grandchaux, which was tantamount to its being buried. Hubert Marien had resumed his habits of intimacy in the family. From that time forth he took less and less notice of Jacqueline—whether it were that he owed her a grudge for all the annoyance she had been the means of bringing upon him, or whether he ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... a man, even by strangers. She meant to remain silent about that strange night, she meant to tell some falsehood, and keep the recollection of her adventure entirely to herself. He made a furious gesture, which was tantamount to sending her to the devil. Good riddance; it suited him better not to have to go down. But, all the same, he felt hurt at heart, and considered that ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... indignantly, "I am doing nothing of the sort. Your remark is tantamount to telling me that I am speaking a falsehood. But, of course, for all I know, the thing may be some other ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... numerous volumes on so many different subjects, it is scarcely too much to say, that you will hardly find a page in which some one sentence out of every three does not deserve to be quoted for itself—as motto or as maxim. God bless thee, dear old man! may I meet with thee!—which is tantamount to—may I ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... remorseless vengeance of their enemies. The flame spread to Cyprus, where it was quenched by Hadrian, afterwards emperor. He expelled the Jews from the island. When Hadrian ascended the throne, in 117 A.D., he issued an edict which was tantamount to the total suppression of Judaism, for it interdicted circumcision, the reading of the law, and the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... voluptuous opulent puppets and by all that bevy of profligate girls. But still more despicable are those from old till now numberless dissolute roues, one and all of whom maintain that libidinous affections do not constitute lewdness; and who try, further, to prove that licentious love is not tantamount to lewdness. But all these arguments are mere apologies for their shortcomings, and a screen for their pollutions; for if libidinous affection be lewdness, still more does the perception of licentious love constitute lewdness. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... welled up to his eyes. He did not answer her, for he could not speak at all; but his silence was tantamount to ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... on her tongue to speak some word about the hospital; but she felt that if she did so now, it would be tantamount to asking him that question which it did not become her to ask; so she repressed the word, and ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... accusation of criminal malfeasance made against a Management or Paratime Commission agency on the floor of Executive Council was tantamount to an accusation made in court; automatically, the accuser became a criminal prosecutor, and would have to repeat his accusation under narco-hypnosis. Then the whole story would come out, bit by bit, back to its beginning in that first illegal deal in Indo-Turanian ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... done scoffing at the idea of a vicarious sacrifice for the sins of men, and yet it has advanced so far that its best thinkers, even without any religious bias, are agreed that the principle of self-sacrifice is the very highest element of character that man can aspire to. And this is tantamount to an acknowledgment that the great principle which the Cross illustrates, and on which the salvation of the race is made to rest, is the crowning glory of all ethics and must be therefore the germinal principle of ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... with flirting girls, in short. Then, she had no idea of the strength of the conflict between will and principle in some who were differently constituted from herself. With her, to be convinced that an action was wrong, was tantamount to a determination not to do so again; and she had little or no difficulty in carrying out her determination. So she could not understand how it was that Mary had acted wrongly, and had felt too much ashamed, ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the Free Lances,—on a people thus surrounded by danger, the effect was more than serious. The whole assembly had much cause to fear a surprise. The risk run by the Witch in this bold proceeding was very great, even tantamount to the forfeiting of her life. Nay, more; she braved a hell of suffering, of torments such as may hardly be described. Torn by pincers, and broken alive; her breasts torn out; her skin slowly singed, as in the case of the wizard bishop of Cahors; her body burned limb by limb on a small ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... unimpugnable, the moonshiner could not tell. Nevertheless, his loyalty to that secret vocation of his had become a part of his nature, so continuous were its demands upon his courage, his strategy, his foresight, his industry. It was tantamount to his instinct of self-defense. He held his head down, with his excited dark eyes looking up from under his brows at the coroner. But he would not speak. He would admit naught of what ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... than that," said Brennan ruefully. "He dislikes me to the point of blind, unreasonable hatred. He believes that I am the party responsible for the death of his parents and furthermore that the act was deliberate. Tantamount to a ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... the corner-stone of all our {79} knowledge"—otherwise as "the Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed." But the corner-stone of all our knowledge can be such only because, so far from being unknowable, it is intimately related to all our experience—which is tantamount to saying that it is not absolute at all; and again, if God be the Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed, that Energy must be thought of as related to all things—in other words, it ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... called "safe" with all those whom he had admitted to the penetralia of his house and heart. He could luxuriate in no society that was deficient in a certain feeling of faithful staunch high-churchism, which to him was tantamount to freemasonry. He was not strict in his lines of definition. He endured without impatience many different shades of Anglo-church conservatism; but with the Slopes and Proudies he could ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... all other complications (which would arise therefrom)—ruinous to the best interests of the Western Powers as they would be—the Queen need not refer to. But when the draft concludes with a declaration to Prussia that England "considers her neutrality as now at an end," this is tantamount to a declaration of war! The late articles in our newspapers, and the language of Count Walewski to Lord Cowley, make the Queen doubly anxious to warn the Government not to let themselves be drawn ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... made up and rivetted down on everything; must have his way; thinks every antagonist mistaken; is washy, windy, ponderous; has a clear notion that each of his postulates is worth a couple of demonstrations, that all his theories are tantamount to axioms; and, finally, has quarelled more with his churchwardens than any other live parson in Preston. He once fought for weeks, day and night, with a warden as to the position of a small gas-pipe, ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... carry all their kith and kin in their arms and their legs, there hardly ever appears any heir-at-law to claim their estate; seldom worth inheriting, like Esterhazy's. Wherefore, the withdrawal of a dead man's "kit" from the forecastle to the cabin, is often held tantamount to its virtual appropriation by the captain. At any rate, in small ships on long voyages, such ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... or fifty lacs of rupees would have been a moderate fine for Sujah ul Dowlah to exact,—he who had demanded twenty-five lacs for the mere fine of succession, and received twenty in hand, and an increased rent tantamount to considerably above thirty lacs more; and therefore I rejected the offer of twenty, with which the Rajah would have compromised for his guilt ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Hampstead,—and how infinitely better it would have been, how infinitely better it would be, for all the Traffords, for all the nobles of England, and for the country at large! But in thinking this she knew that she was a sinner, and she endeavoured to crush the sin. Was it not tantamount to wishing that ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... fragile. A member of the ideal and perfect commonwealth of letters lends another a hundred pounds for immediate and pressing use; and when he applies for it again, the borrower has still more need of it than he, and retains it for his own especial, which is tantamount to the public good. The Exchequer of pure reason, like that of the State, never refunds. The political as well as the religious fanatic appeals from the over-weening opinion and claims of others to the highest and most impartial tribunal, namely, his own breast. Two persons agree ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... both, that land is of any value whatever. In the course, therefore, of thirty-one years, the tract of land in question, taking the unimproved part as our criterion, since the improvements made in that portion of it, which is in a state of cultivation, may be considered tantamount to the difference in value between the one and the other, has evidently risen to this enormous price, from having been of no worth whatever: or in other words, each acre of land has increased in value during the interval that has elapsed since the foundation of the ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... it was to be so." Now that the time for the transaction was present he felt almost sure it would never be transacted. But still he must go on with it. Were he now to abandon his scheme, would it not be tantamount to abandoning everything? So he wreathed his face in smiles,—or made some attempt at it,—as he greeted the ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... repugnant to Louise that she turned abruptly and hurried out of the place without returning the good-morning which the German sent after her with the usual addition of her name. She resented it now, for if it was not tantamount to an introduction to that creature, it was making her known to her, and Louise wished to have no closer acquaintance with her than their common humanity involved. It seemed too odious to have been again made aware that they were inhabitants of the same planet, ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... and hollow sound in the air." Forthwith the suspicion entered his mind that the noises he had heard might be of supernatural origin. To him, true son of the seventeenth century, a suspicion of this sort was tantamount to certainty, and an unreasoning alarm filled his soul; an alarm that grew into deadly fear when, safe in the bed he had hurriedly sought, a tremendous booming sound came from the top ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... and outrage which have been preferred against General Morgan and his soldiers. So persistently have these accusations been made, that at one time an avowal of "belonging to Morgan" was thought, even in Kentucky, tantamount to a confession of murder and highway robbery. To this day, doubtless, the same impression prevails in the North, and yet, when it is considered how it was produced, it is surprising that it should ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... depression of the voice inseparable from accent;" (Key, p. 314;) holds that, "unaccented vowels are frequently pronounced long when the accented vowels are short;" (Key, p. 312;) takes long or short vowels and long or short syllables to be things everywhere tantamount; saying, "We have no conception of quantity arising from any thing but the nature of the vowels, as they are pronounced long or short;" (ibid.;) and again: "Such long quantity" as consonants may produce with a close or short vowel, "an English ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Conwell's lecture, "Acres of Diamonds," five thousand times. Such speeches lose nothing by repetition for the perfectly patent reason that they arise from concentrated thought and feeling and not a mere necessity for saying something—which usually means anything, and that, in turn, is tantamount to nothing. If the thought beneath your words is warm, fresh, spontaneous, a part of your self, your utterance will have breath and life. Words are only a result. Do not try to get the result without ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... of the Archbishop was an act of political folly, as being tantamount to a declaration that he was too good a man to countenance the designs of those who had usurped an unjust dominion over his flock. Had the promises of Chili been carried out in their integrity, both the Archbishop and his ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... says, "The proposition that the things and events in nature were not designed to be so, if logically carried out, is doubtless tantamount to atheism." Again, "To us, a fortuitous Cosmos is simply inconceivable. The alternative is a designed Cosmos.... If Mr. Darwin believes that the events which he supposes to have occurred and the results we behold around us were undirected and undesigned; or if the physicist believes ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge |
