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Voluntary   Listen
adjective
Voluntary  adj.  
1.
Proceeding from the will; produced in or by an act of choice. "That sin or guilt pertains exclusively to voluntary action is the true principle of orthodoxy."
2.
Unconstrained by the interference of another; unimpelled by the influence of another; not prompted or persuaded by another; done of his or its own accord; spontaneous; acting of one's self, or of itself; free. "Our voluntary service he requires." "She fell to lust a voluntary prey."
3.
Done by design or intention; intentional; purposed; intended; not accidental; as, if a man kills another by lopping a tree, it is not voluntary manslaughter.
4.
(Physiol.) Of or pertaining to the will; subject to, or regulated by, the will; as, the voluntary motions of an animal, such as the movements of the leg or arm (in distinction from involuntary motions, such as the movements of the heart); the voluntary muscle fibers, which are the agents in voluntary motion.
5.
Endowed with the power of willing; as, man is a voluntary agent. "God did not work as a necessary, but a voluntary, agent, intending beforehand, and decreeing with himself, that which did outwardly proceed from him."
6.
(Law) Free; without compulsion; according to the will, consent, or agreement, of a party; without consideration; gratuitous; without valuable consideration.
7.
(Eccl.) Of or pertaining to voluntaryism; as, a voluntary church, in distinction from an established or state church.
Voluntary affidavit or Voluntary oath (Law), an affidavit or oath made in an extrajudicial matter.
Voluntary conveyance (Law), a conveyance without valuable consideration.
Voluntary escape (Law), the escape of a prisoner by the express consent of the sheriff.
Voluntary jurisdiction. (Eng. Eccl. Law) See Contentious jurisdiction, under Contentious.
Voluntary waste. (Law) See Waste, n., 4.
Synonyms: See Spontaneous.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Voluntary" Quotes from Famous Books



... supposed to have the magical effect of preventing a consummation of the marriage until they were untied. See Louandre, La Sorcellerie, 1853, p. 73. The same superstition and appliance existed in England.]—with which this age of ours is so occupied, that there is almost no other talk, are not mere voluntary impressions of apprehension and fear; for I know, by experience, in the case of a particular friend of mine, one for whom I can be as responsible as for myself, and a man that cannot possibly fall under any manner ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... of them returned the next day, and he gave up the blanket. On hearing this, I went out and praised him, and as he appeared to be sorry for his offence, I gave him a knife, in which I believe I erred, for we afterwards learnt, that the surrender of the blanket was not a voluntary act, but that he had been punished, and forced to restore it by his tribe. I cannot help thinking, however, that if the theft had not been discovered, the young rogue would have been ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... grievance. My eyes have been inflamed to a degree that rendered reading and writing scarcely possible; and strange as it seems, the act of metre composition, as I lay in bed, perceptibly affected them, and my voluntary ideas were every minute passing, more or less transformed into vivid spectra. I had leeches repeatedly applied to my temples, and a blister behind my ear—and my eyes are now my own, but in the place where the blister was, six small but excruciating boils have ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... the present writer's business at one time and another to point out that Captain Owen Kettle is a man of iron nerve; but I cannot call to mind any instance where his indomitable courage was more severely tried than in this voluntary descent in the diving dress. The world beneath the waters was strange and dangerous to him; his companion was a man against whom he held the blackest suspicion; the men at the pump (whose language he did not understand) might any moment cut off his ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... which 'tis blamed; how probe an unfelt evil? Would'st be the poor man's friend? Must freeze with him— Test sleepless hunger—let thy crippled back Ache o'er the endless furrow; how was He, The blessed One, made perfect? Why, by grief— The fellowship of voluntary grief— He read the tear-stained book of poor men's souls, As I must learn to read it. Lady! lady! Wear but one robe the less—forego one meal— And thou shalt taste the core of many tales Which now flit past thee, like a minstrel's songs, The ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley

... be put to a direct vote, even of the tax-payers alone—"Shall or shall not a system of Common School Education for the United Kingdoms be maintained by a National Tax?"—I believe Free Schools would be triumphant. Even if such a system were matured, put in operation, and to be sustained by Voluntary Contributions alone or left to perish, I should not ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... the present time Nursery Schools have been provided by voluntary effort entirely, and far too little encouragement has been given to those enlightened headmistresses of Infant Schools who have tried to give to their lowest classes Nursery School conditions. Since the passing of Mr. Fisher's Education Bill, however, we are entitled to hope that soon, for all ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... Archbishops, whose heavy hands came down on you after the late insurrection. The Archbishops have now nine thousand troops in Frankfort. If given leave, they will collect the sum three times over within a very few hours; so you, as chairman of the committee, may decide whether the fund shall be a voluntary contribution or an impost gathered by soldiery: it matters nothing to me. Have it proclaimed throughout the city that owing to the graciousness of the three Archbishops starvation is now at ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... 1500; sundry other methods, 454. Hanging and drowning are thus accountable for more than half the French suicides. The little stove of charcoal suggests itself as a remedy at hand to many a wretch without the means to buy a pistol or the nerve to use a knife. The cases of voluntary resort to poison are astonishingly few, but it must be remembered that the foregoing figures only embrace successful suicides, and antidotes to poison often come in season where the rope or the river would have made quick and fatal work. La France notes, regarding these statistics, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... The intention of this exception was to draw the line between the men who could exert influence in their respective communities, and those who were necessarily led by others. Fixing this partition between voluntary and involuntary guilt on the property line was a favorite measure with President Johnson. It met with much opposition from the loyal as well as ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... best way to cultivate them. Young Fogazzaro, having completed his course in the classics went on to the study of the law, which he pursued first in the University of Padua and then at Turin, where his father had taken up a voluntary exile. For Vicenza, during the forties and fifties, lay under Austrian subjection, and any Italian who desired to breathe freely in Italy had to seek ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... managed its own affairs, untroubled by squire or priest, very little troubled by the state. That within their little means they did it well, no one can doubt. They taxed themselves without friction, they built their own monastery schools by voluntary effort, they maintained a very high, a very simple, code of morals, entirely of ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding

... gap, and one bright and memorable Sunday morning he wheeled his new possession through the shop into the road, got on to it with the advice and assistance of Grubb, and teuf-teuffed off into the haze of the traffic-tortured high road, to add himself as one more voluntary public danger to the amenities of ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... the course of their employment, and forbids any one to "contract out" of this obligation. Within these limits, it allows freedom of contract. But at this point, in the more highly developed trades, the work is taken up by voluntary associations. Combinations of men have been met by combinations of employers, and wages, hours, and all the details of the industrial bargain are settled by collective agreement through the agency of a joint board with an impartial chairman or referee in case of necessity for an entire ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse

... a remedy, the laws may be armed against voluntary idleness, so as to prevent it, and a way may probably be found out to set those to work who are desirous to support themselves by their own labour; and if this could be brought about, it would not ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty

... of that city, and to the destruction of its commerce and manufactures, while the occasion now presented itself to the Prince of "winning praise and immortal glory by bringing back all the country to a voluntary and prompt obedience to his Majesty." He proposed, that, instead of his coming alone, there should be a number of deputies sent from ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... injured—which has not an ugly obverse: the withheld sting was gathering venom. She was absolutely dependent on Grandcourt; for though he had been always liberal in expenses for her, he had kept everything voluntary on his part; and with the goal of marriage before her, she would ask for nothing less. He had said that he would never settle anything except by will; and when she was thinking of alternatives for the future it often occurred to her that, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... thus driven from his dominions retired with a few faithful followers to the forest of Arden; and here the good duke lived with his loving friends, who had put themselves into a voluntary exile for his sake, while their land and revenues enriched the false usurper; and custom soon made the life of careless ease they led here more sweet to them than the pomp and uneasy splendor of a courtier's life. Here they lived like the old Robin Hood ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... will not be voluntary, Knox. I shall be kicked out as an incompetent ass; for, respecting the connection, if any, between the narrative of Colonel Menendez, the bat wing nailed to the door of the house, and Mr. Colin Camber, I have not the foggiest notion. In this, at last, I have ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer

... poor law as yet in Spain. Philanthropy is left to voluntary effort; but the list of charities is so great, and so widely spread over the whole country, that one would think wholesale beggary would be superfluous. Madrid is divided into thirty-three parishes, each having a board of Beneficencias, the Government holding ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... of voluntary reflection and understanding on their part is still greater when it comes to another phase of the question, which is one degree more complicated, but no less vital in its bearing on the affections. You cannot do evil things, or act in such a way as will bring harmful consequences upon ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)

... independence and the conquests of the people? You tell us that royalty never dies; we reply, Nor does its punishment. If the principle of sovereignty is eternal, so shall its punishment be eternal. The law ought to chastise the voluntary representatives, the willing heirs of a principle which the people have abolished." He went on to vindicate the execution of Louis XVI., and declared that those who voted against the death of that monarch, meditated a return to royalty, and reminded the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... king was, to escape from Paris, take refuge in the midst of a camp, or in a frontier town, and there treat with the baffled Assembly. Mirabeau remaining in Paris, and again possessing himself of the public mind, would lead matters, as he declared, to accommodation, and a voluntary restoration of the royal authority. Mirabeau had carried these hopes away with him into the tomb. The king himself, in his secret correspondence, testified his repugnance to intrusting his fate into the hands of the ringleader of the factions. Another cause of uneasiness troubled the king's ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... and highest method of forming great political bodies is that of federation. The element of fighting was essential in the two lower methods, but in this it is not essential. Here there is no conquest, but a voluntary union of small political groups into a great political group. Each little group preserves its local independence intact, while forming part of an indissoluble whole. Obviously this method of political union requires both high intelligence and high ethical development ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske

... this redemption, as to excite great expectations in the captors, and render our countrymen in fact irredeemable. We have not a single operation on foot for that purpose, but what you know of, and the more all voluntary interpositions are discouraged, the better for our unhappy friends whom ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... commentary on the precepts of Zeno. He was severe to himself, indulgent to the imperfections of others, just and beneficent to all mankind. He regretted that Avidius Cassius, who had excited a rebellion in Syria, had by a voluntary death deprived him of the pleasure of converting an enemy into a friend. War he detested as the disgrace and calamity of human nature; but when the necessity of a just defence called upon him to take up arms, he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... the foot of the scaffold brought tears of pride to her eyes. In the first row of the crowd that quietly and respectfully filled the place, ladies in sombre dresses were grouped as close as possible to the scaffold, as if to take a voluntary part in the punishment of the old Chouanne; and during the six hours that the exhibition lasted the ladies of highest rank and most distinguished birth in the town came by turns to keep her company in her agony; some of them even spread flowers ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... ills, it is, no doubt, fitting to examine through what phases of consent, through what voluntary falls the creature has passed, before ending in the gloomy disaster it deplores. We may well curse the vices of our ancestors and our own passions which beget the greater part of the woes from which we suffer; we may well loathe the civilization which has rendered life intolerable ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... the year; at Easter there are practically no abstentions from the sacrament. With this unanimity it has been possible to establish by legislation a most elaborate system providing for the support of the priests, for keeping up cemeteries and other parish needs. Elsewhere left largely to voluntary action, in Quebec such duties become a tax on the community as a whole. Whether a parishioner likes it or not, he must, if the taxpayers so determine, pay his share for building a church or for other similar expenditure ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... to me of the blood-letting to which I had been subjected. When any one is proved to be guilty of a crime, he is bled, for the purpose of detecting from the color of the fluid, or blood, how far his guilt was voluntary or otherwise; whether he had sinned through malice or distemper. Should the fluid be found discolored, he is sent to the hospital to be cured; thus this process is rather a correction than a punishment. A member of the council, or any one high in office, would be removed, should ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg

... stretch). A disease marked by persistent contractions of all or some of the voluntary muscles; those of the jaw are sometimes solely affected; the disorder ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... shone with a mysterious light, and one had desecrated it with his tongue. But, worse than that, he saw a thousand desecrated forms before him who ought to be living crucifixes, for were they not told to crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts, to remain upon their voluntary crosses till Christ said, "Come down. Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of the Lord"? And were they doing this? Were they repaying the love of Calvary, as for instance the saints of that day, Saints Philip and James, ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... merchantmen seemed to vie with each other which should afford us most voluntary assistance, and among others we were especially indebted to Captain Louis of the Augustus Caesar, a large London ship, who sent us wine, tea, sugar, sheep, fowls—indeed, everything we could possibly require. Altogether from them and the men-of-war we were ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... These voluntary offers, and this faint acceptance, ended without effect. The patron was not accustomed to such frigid gratitude: and the poet fed his own pride with the dignity of independence. They probably were suspicious of each other. Pope would not dedicate till he saw at what rate his praise was valued; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... number of terms in the original "Explanation." and if it is published now, it is not because I believe it to be complete; but because I do not believe it can be made complete except as the result of criticism and voluntary addition ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith

... connected with these sudden impressions. First, that the condition which seems to be the duplicate of a former one is often very trivial,—one that might have presented itself a hundred times. Secondly, that the impression is very evanescent, and that it is rarely, if ever, recalled by any voluntary effort, at least after any time has elapsed. Thirdly, that there is a disinclination to record the circumstances, and a sense of incapacity to reproduce the state of mind in words. Fourthly, I have often felt that the duplicate condition had not only occurred once before, but ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... how both we and the soldiers are entered into this action as voluntary men, without any impress or gage from her Majesty or anybody else. And forasmuch as we have hitherto discharged the parts of honest men, so that now by the great blessing and favour of our good God there have been ...
— Drake's Great Armada • Walter Biggs

... not of others, but myself," replied Raymond, "and I am as fair an example to go by as another. I cannot set my heart to a particular tune, or run voluntary changes on my will. We are born; we choose neither our parents, nor our station; we are educated by others, or by the world's circumstance, and this cultivation, mingling with our innate disposition, is the soil in which our ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... opinions.[16] Prudence and justice are virtues and excellences of all times, and of all places—we are perpetually moralists; but we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter are voluntary and at leisure. Physiological learning is of such rare emergence, that one may know another half his life, without being able to estimate his skill in hydrostatics or astromony; but his moral and prudential character ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... senses—her senses were holding commune with herself, and it was not altogether satisfactory—she was aware that a sensation all too warm, a feeling of attraction toward Francis Levison, was working within her. Not a voluntary one; she could no more repress it than she could repress her own sense of being; and, mixed with it, was the stern voice of conscience, overwhelming her with the most lively terror. She would have given ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... resentment he was not able to sustain; and many times saved his reputation and posteriors, by performing his exercises at school; so that it is not to be wondered at, if he had a particular regard for me and my interests. The attachment of Strap flowed from a voluntary, disinterested inclination, which had manifested itself on many occasions in my behalf, he having once rendered me the same service that I had rendered Gawky, by saving my life at the risk of his own; and often fathered offences that I had committed, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... become more extensive, owing to the revolution, when the building had been under artillery and rifle fire. At last, however, came the propitious moment, when one could think seriously of beginning the work. It was thought of raising half the estimated cost of 15 millions, by voluntary contributions from the trade and the industry, and both responded nobly to the call. But the moment the money was secured, most of it melted quickly away, through the depreciation of the Mark. Nevertheless, ...
— Bremen Cotton Exchange - 1872/1922 • Andreas Wilhelm Cramer

... ships were filled with soldiers, in some 200, besides the mariners, in some 500, in others 800. In ours there were none at all, besides the mariners, but the servants of the commander and some few voluntary gentlemen only. After many interchanged vollies of great ordnance and small shot, the Spaniards deliberated to enter the Revenge, and made divers attempts, hoping to force her by the multitude of their armed soldiers and musketeers; but ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... there till I got married. I was fondly attached to my aunt, who did all in her power after my mother's death to make me forget the double loss I had sustained. My leaving the convent altered the whole course of my existence, and as it was not a voluntary action I have nothing to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... METHOD.—Professor Henry Sidgwick has defined a method of ethics as "any rational procedure by which we determine what is right for individual human beings to do, or to seek to realize by voluntary action." [Footnote: The Methods of Ethics, Book I, chapter i, ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... were made by him and his common council for the better service of these watches. The principal of these set forth that each should be accompanied by a constable and a beadle selected from the inhabitants of their respective wards, who should be required in turn to render voluntary service in guarding the city, from nine of the clock at night till seven in the morning, from Michaelmas to the 1st of April; and from that date until the 31st of March, from ten at night ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... shall be fair. To-night, my boy shall be found guilty or purged of the baseness imputed to him; and, moreover, I apprise you now, that if he is innocent, I shall to-morrow restore him to liberty. His voluntary return was a voucher of honesty; and I doubt whether there is a clever man among you who does not agree with me. Stand forth, Gallego, and charge this youth again with the infamy you heaped on him while he ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... Every voluntary or involuntary action of the body, sense or mind must correspond to the dormant impressions stored up in the subtle body. Although growth, the process of nourishment and all the changes of the gross physical body take place according to the necessarily acting ...
— Reincarnation • Swami Abhedananda

... educated at Cambridge, and was afterward many years chaplain to the merchants adventurers at Antwerp in Brabant. Here he met with the celebrated martyr William Tindal, and Miles Coverdale, both voluntary exiles from their country for their aversion to popish superstition and idolatry. They were the instruments of his conversion; and he united with them in that translation of the Bible into English, entitled "The Translation ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... is the "household of the Lord," and they are to live and rule therein as the Lord directs. They are to appropriate it and dispose of its interests according to the known law and will of their divine Master, and in this sense, yield, with their whole household, a voluntary subordination ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... insurance to put up the mere shells and plain indispensable fittings of the church and town-hall, then make the drainage of Water Lane and Hall Street the first object for the rates, while the church is done by subscription and voluntary effort." ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... shadows bring their old beauty and waken the old heart-strains at morning, noon, and even-tide; the little children are still the symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty; and men still yearn for the reign of peace and righteousness—still own that life to be the best which is a conscious voluntary sacrifice." ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley

... necessarily its limits. The most practiced intellect is not exempt from the universal laws of our conceptive faculty. If daily habit presents to any one for a long period two facts in combination, and if he is not led during that period either by accident or by his voluntary mental operations to think of them apart, he will probably in time become incapable of doing so even by the strongest effort; and the supposition that the two facts can be separated in nature, will at last ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... home—of the pitying glance it cast on her the night she committed that crime, which had almost wrecked her soul? Why does she think of her interposition that very morning which had saved her from self-murder? It was from no voluntary will of her own; but these visions came, subduing and touching the rind of her weary heart, until it heaved with the throes of a new birth. She listens now. She cannot do otherwise, for the powerful voice of the preacher rings out clear, distinct, and impressive. His eloquence enchains ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... doctor. "That is the voluntary system. But these fellows can't drop out. There's no bottom to the Catholic Church. Everything that's in, stays in. If you don't mind my saying so—of course I view you all impartially from the outside—but it seems ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... blessed Lord and Master. No standard short of this will answer the requirements of the word of God. "He that abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, EVEN AS HE WALKED." All that we fall short of this is sin. There is no want of ability in the case, but what arises from our own voluntary wickedness of heart. Christ says that he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it. "We are not released from the obligation of perfect obedience; though grace has taken away the necessity of such obedience as the ground of our acceptance with God." The law is not made void, but established, ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb

... never forget this child's face. The Sabbath after Christmas we had a voluntary Sunday school on our hands. A score of odd-looking little boy and girl caterpillars appeared at church, excited, mysteriously curious, like queer young creatures who have experienced a miracle. They entered immediately into full ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris

... society, many other problems presented themselves to the worker, but for the most part they were subsidiary to the main question of wages. As long as man's place was fixed by law or custom, a customary wage left small margin for controversy. But when fixed status gave way to voluntary contract, when payment was made in money, when workmen were free to journey from town to town, labor became both free and fluid, bargaining took the place of custom, and the wage controversy began to assume definite proportions. As early as 1348 the great plague ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... temple was the primary subject at all meetings of congregations of the faith on September 12, 1920, and from voluntary donations on that day there was added to ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... regard to combinations now denounced by the Sherman antitrust law. I have already recommended as an aid in this matter legislation which would declare unlawful certain well-known phases of unfair competition in interstate trade, and I have also advocated voluntary national incorporation for the larger industrial enterprises, with provision for a closer supervision by the Bureau of Corporations, or a board appointed for the purpose, so as to make more certain compliance ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... antagonism by a voluntary and almost inveterate habit of never seeing or hearing any thing which was disagreeable to him, unless it touched upon his personal affections. The beings who did not think as he did, were only phantoms in ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... to suffer affliction as a good soldier of Christ; as [939]Paul adviseth constantly to bear it. But forasmuch as so few can embrace this good council of his, or use it aright, but rather as so many brute beasts give away to their passion, voluntary subject and precipitate themselves into a labyrinth of cares, woes, miseries, and suffer their souls to be overcome by them, cannot arm themselves with that patience as they ought to do, it falleth out oftentimes ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... has told them that hereafter their people will have to support them voluntarily. What the people will say to this at the start it is hard to guess. They may not wholly understand it. Under existing laws they are taxed for the support of the church. What their voluntary support of it will be remains to be seen. Protestants have almost a clear field for mission work here. The only Protestant church on the island is at Ponce, and that was opened on the Sunday after the Americans' arrival, for the first time, it ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall

... take care that thou dost not change these names; and if thou shouldst lose them, quickly return to them. And remember that the term Rational was intended to signify a discriminating attention to every several thing, and freedom from negligence; and that Equanimity is the voluntary acceptance of the things which are assigned to thee by the common nature; and that Magnanimity is the elevation of the intelligent part above the pleasurable or painful sensations of the flesh, and above that poor thing called fame, and death, ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius

... form the scholar, to really educate the man, there should intervene between the years of compulsory study and the active duties of life a season of comparative leisure. By leisure I mean, not cessation of activity, but self-determined activity,—command of one's time for voluntary study. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... voluntary imprisonment at Wartburg, among the Thuringian forests: he being probably conducted thither by the orders of the elector of Saxony. Here he was out of sight, but not out of mind; and his retirement, under the disguise of a knight, gave him leisure for literary labor. In the ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... obligation to do the impossible. He therefore did not sin, he did not deserve to be punished. That destroys justice and religion, and the fear of God. LAUR.—God foresaw sin; but he did not compel man to commit it; sin is voluntary. ANT.—That will was necessary, since it was foreseen. LAUR.—If my knowledge does not cause things past or present to exist, neither will my foreknowledge cause future ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... actions during which at the same time the serrating hammer in bewildering rapidity was beating on the plate with sharp loud cracks. The hammer reinforced the energy of the young laborers to an effectiveness which could never have been attained by mere voluntary effort. ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg

... little jest of "Any more for the shore?" were as comforting to many a man there as all the assurances of the ship's officers had been; nay, more, for they had been accompanied by a wave of the hand toward the boat and a voluntary stepping aside that seemed to say as plain as words—"Pass along, you who are afraid. I am not, and am entirely ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood

... that imitative and grimacing art of which it was a rude example, some sense of what the thing implied was carried home to my intelligence. The face looked down upon me with a painful and deadly contraction; but the rays of a glory encircled it, and reminded me that the sacrifice was voluntary. It stood there, crowning the rock, as it still stands on so many highway sides, vainly preaching to passers-by, an emblem of sad and noble truths; that pleasure is not an end, but an accident; that pain is the choice of the magnanimous; that it is best to suffer all things ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... than England, with the help of bounties, drafts, and the purchase of foreign vagabonds, ever set in the field during the direst stress of her struggle with Napoleon has been raised in a single year by voluntary enlistment. A people untrained to bear the burden of heavy taxes not only devotes to the public service sums gathered by private subscription that in any other country would be deemed fabulous, but by sheer force of public ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... the policy of the trustees and officers of the Zoological Gardens neither to employ collectors nor to send out expeditions in search of specimens. The society decided to depend upon voluntary contributions, and I was always busy, part of the day, in dictating answers to correspondents who wrote offering their services as hunters of big game, collectors of all sorts of fauna, trappers, snarers, and also to those who offered ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... civic development is rendered by the municipal bands existing in many towns. They are voluntary associations and tend to awaken in the inhabitants an interest and pride in their city. On Sunday night and sometimes on other nights during the week they play on the plaza, while the people, following the usual custom in the Spanish cities, promenade up and down. Such scenes are very attractive, ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

... the smallest recognition for our voluntary services, the Union Government repays our loyalty by persecuting our widows and fatherless children with the cold-blooded provisions of the Natives' Land Act. These cruelties are euphemistically described as the first step towards ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... softer according to the amount of it; they are more easily torn and may even tear across when the muscle is being used during life. The more a muscle is thus degenerated the weaker it is, because it contains less muscular substance and more fat. Not only do the heart and other voluntary muscles thus degenerate, but those ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... benefits from those who depend on them or put their trust in them; but if they do, and the givers repent of their bounty, the whole burden of proof is on the takers to show that the gift was in the first instance made freely and with understanding. Large voluntary gifts or beneficial contracts, outside the limits within which natural affection and common practice justify them, are indeed not encouraged in any system of civilized law. Professional money lenders were formerly checked by the usury law: since those ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... ceases to be accepted or endured. And in this last aspect of it the original character which it bore in relation to sin still makes itself felt. Transfigure it, as it may be transfigured, by courage, by devotion, by voluntary abandonment of life for a higher good, and it remains nevertheless the last enemy. There is something in it monstrous and alien to the spirit, something which baffles the moral intelligence, till the truth dawns upon us that for all our race sin and death are aspects of one thing. If we separate ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney

... point of voluntary transportation, no Minister shal transact and agree with any Parish, to be transsported thereto, without a full hearing of him, and his Parish, before the Presbyterie to which he belongs in his present charge, or superiour Kirk judicatories, if need ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... middle of the century, was a hearty advocate of religious establishments. Even Watts, a more decided Dissenter than he, in a poem written in the earlier part of Queen Anne's reign, spoke as if he would be thoroughly content to see a National Church working side by side with voluntary bodies, each labouring in the way most fitted to its spirit in the common cause of religion. Mrs. Barbauld, towards the end of the century, expressed the same thought; and a great number of the more intelligent and moderate Dissenters would have agreed in it. On the general question, we ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... sabre given him by the Emperor Francis. With Cambaceres on his left, and Lebrun in the front of the carriage, the First Consul traversed a part of Paris, taking the Rue de Thionville; and the Quai Voltaire to the Pont Royal. Everywhere he was greeted by acclamations of joy, which at that time were voluntary, and needed not to be commanded by ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... of Church and State, Lincoln's mission to France failed, and Sidney was left free to spend the time of his voluntary exile at his own discretion. He wisely chose to remain abroad, and spent nearly three years traveling in France, Germany, and Italy. But these three years were not given up to sight-seeing and social enjoyment. Sidney devoted his time to studying literature, science, music, foreign languages, ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... Justice; I loved you, because you are Love; I died for you, because you are the Source of Life. Will you reject me, O Unknown? My torturing doubts, my passionate search for truth, my difficult life, my voluntary death—accept them as a bloodless offering, as a prayer, as a sigh! Absorb them as the immeasurable ether absorbs the evaporating mists! Take them, you whose name I do not know, let not the ghosts of the night I have traversed bar the way to you, to eternal light! Give ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... was the usual voluntary at the opening of service. Then the old minister said, "Let us continue the worship of God by singing the hymn on page 554." He "lined" the hymn—that is, he read each couplet before it was sung. With the coming in of hymn ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... tempted on, there, by a feeling of voluntary emulation and conscious pride,' the fond lady went on to say. 'He would have risen against all constraint; but he found himself the monarch of the place, and he haughtily determined to be worthy of his station. It was ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... of twenty-five miles can any of those planes rise to our level. This is curious, but true. In the same way, on much the same principle, though through a very different application of it, you cannot speak or move until I so desire. All your voluntary muscles are completely, even though temporarily, paralyzed. The involuntary ones, which carry on ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... I have now sufficiently prepared the mind of the reader for an examination of the phenomena of the voluntary suspension of life that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various

... comprehension and patient stubbornness of will and strength to draw conclusions and act. Of all his powers, however, that of intuition was certainly the most wonderful, for was it not this alone which, owing to his voluntary imprisonment, enabled him to divine the vast evolution of humanity at the present day? He was thus keenly conscious of the dangers surrounding him, of the rising tide of democracy and the boundless ocean of science which threatened to submerge ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... been—a center of infection to the whole of Europe. Every disastrous experiment on which we have embarked has come from her. By her gross mismanagement of established institutions—the Church, the Peerage, the Army, Land, Labor, Capital—the whole system of voluntary service and voluntary education—she has driven the rest of Europe into revolutionary changes for which there was no necessity whatever. In avoiding the woeful example she has set us, of always ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... knowledge is essential to all undertakings, knowledge is the one thing needful. This exclusive regard to knowledge was his one-sidedness as a moral theorist; but he did not consistently exclude all reference to the voluntary control of ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain

... influence with his subjects; but he employed no force to bring them over to the new doctrine. Augustine thought proper, in the commencement of his mission, to assume the appearance of the greatest lenity. He told Ethelbert that the service of Christ must be entirely voluntary, and that no violence ought ever to be used in propagating so salutary a doctrine [s]. [FN [r] Bede, lib. 1. cap 26. [s] Ibid. lib. 1. cap 26. ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... followers first began, and three respectable men of his flock had already fallen victims to civil rage. Had he gone about to administer comfort out of his own family, it would have been termed sedition, and Dr. Reese would have made himself a voluntary martyr. He took the wiser course of retiring with his family before the storm, and under many privations, continued to preach. In theology, modern philosophy, and all the sciences connected with his profession he was deeply read. For classic literature, which it is so common ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... resisted. They showed her no order from the Emperor; they merely said that the presence of the Austrian lady with a French sovereign was something anomalous,—an infringement of the laws of etiquette,—and that the best way for the Empress to please the Emperor was by this voluntary sacrifice. Marie Louise yielded for the sake of peace, and gave up her friend, as later she was to give up her husband, out of weakness. Her decision gave her great pain, and it was not without a pang that she parted from the Countess Lazansky. "How agonizing this separation is!" she wrote ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... dignity, and that security to property, which ever attend freedom, have a tendency to increase the stock of a free community. Most may be taken where most is accumulated. And what is the soil or climate where experience has not uniformly proved that the voluntary flow of heaped-up plenty, bursting from the weight of its own luxuriance, has ever run with a more copious stream of revenue than could be squeezed from the dry husks of oppressed indigence by the straining of all the politic machinery in ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... a rhapsody against creeds and confessions. Dr Johnson shewed, that 'what he called "imposition", was only a voluntary declaration of agreement in certain articles of faith, which a church has a right to require, just as any other society can insist on certain rules being observed by its members. Nobody is compelled ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... There was no attendant at hand; but I noticed that one or two persons who passed by seemed to inquire whether she wished her wagon to be moved. Perhaps this is her mode of making progress about the city, by the voluntary aid of boys and other people who help to drag her. There is something in this—I don't yet well know what—that has impressed me, as if I could make a romance out of the idea of a woman living in this manner a public life, and ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of voluntary assistance from those who may be willing to edit or copy Texts, or to lend them books for reprinting or for ...
— Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue - A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles • Alexander Hume

... notwithstanding your former injunctions—You see that there can be no hope of reconciliation with your relations. Can you, Madam, consent to honour with your hand a wretch whom you have never yet obliged with one voluntary favour! ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... represented the figures of Sappho sweeping the lyre; of the Spartan mother bending over the body, and counting the wounds of her son; of Penelope in the midst of her maidens, carefully unravelling the funeral web of her husband; of Lucretia inflicting upon herself a glorious and voluntary death; and of Arria teaching her husband in what manner a Roman should expire. These stories had been miraculously communicated to Roderic, and were now explained by the attendants to the wondering Imogen. At the same time a band of ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... eve of his own trial might be supposed to have been extorted in some sort by compulsion, Coke appealed to Popham to interrogate the Commissioners. Devonshire, as their mouthpiece, declared to the jury that it was 'mere voluntary,' and had not been written under a promise of pardon. But Cecil supported Ralegh in the demand that the jury should have before it the earlier letter also. Coke, in a report printed in 1648 under the name of Sir Thomas Overbury, is represented as exclaiming: 'My Lord Cecil, mar ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... from anatomy, that the immediate object of power in voluntary motion, is not the member itself which is moved, but certain muscles, and nerves, and animal spirits, and, perhaps, something still more minute and more unknown, through which the motion is successively propagated, ere it reach the member itself whose motion is the immediate object of ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al

... up-stream, a house to be fashioned out of raw material from the forest, the shingle-bolt chute to be inspected and repaired, the work of cutting cedar to be got under way, all in due order. He became a voluntary slave to work, clanking his chains of toil with that peculiar pleasure which comes to men who strain and sweat toward a desired end. As literally as his hired woodsmen, he earned his bread in the sweat of his brow, spurred on by a vision of what he ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... (solus). This, too— And this too must I suffer—I, who never Inflicted purposely on human hearts A voluntary pang! But that is false— She loved me, and I loved her.—Fatal passion! Why dost thou not expire at once in hearts Which thou hast lighted up at once? Zarina![ah] I must pay dearly for the desolation ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... a trifle over a hundred and twenty-three thousand pounds through my discovery, and I am pleased to pay tribute to the young man's generosity by saying that his voluntary settlement made my bank account swell ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... who had fought against his King, who had spent his modest fortune to found this seat of learning, believing as he did that education is the cornerstone of republics; divining that lasting unity is possible alone by the transformation of the individual into the citizen through voluntary bestowal of service and the fruits of labour. Samuel Wootton, the Boston merchant who had given the hospital, was Andrew's true descendant, imbued with the same half-conscious intuition that builds even better that it reeks. And Andrew, could he have returns to earth in his laced ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... to men to maintain their opinions against women in society, this politeness, it may be said, is near akin to pride; we yield a victory of no importance; defeat does not humiliate when it is regarded as voluntary. Is it seriously believed that it would be the same in a public discussion on an important topic? Does politeness forbid the bringing of an action at law against ...
— The First Essay on the Political Rights of Women • Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat Condorcet

... affairs of their country, while they kept within the beaten channel, they were not born to grapple with arduous situations. They had not that commanding spirit of adventure, which leads a man into the path of supererogation and voluntary service: they had not that firm and collected fortitude which induces a man to look danger in the face, to encounter it in all its force, and to drive it from all its retrenchments. They were particularly attached to the ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin

... problems (urban and rural) typical of an industrializing economy such as deforestation, soil degradation, desertification, air pollution, and water pollution note: Argentina is a world leader in setting voluntary greenhouse gas targets ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... an unexpected witness stepped forth in my defence, in the person of Haxell, the taciturn carpenter. This individual seldom spoke to any one unless previously addressed; so his voluntary testimony on my behalf was all the more striking and effective, especially as it was given in the very nick ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson

... affirm that intelligence absolutely ends where insensibility begins? Who can say that the passions fade away and die exactly at the last beat of the heart which they have agitated? Cannot the soul sometimes remain a voluntary captive within the corpse already dressed for the coffin, and note for a moment from the recesses of its fleshly prison house, regrets and tears? Those who depart have so many reasons to mistrust those ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... distinctly heard the word half whispered from behind him. This was Ferdishenko's voluntary information ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... understands temperance, begging, giving up all savoury food, different kinds of self-mortification such as sitting in unnatural and wearying positions, hindering the action of the organs, especially by fasts, which, under certain circumstances may be continued to starvation. Voluntary death by the withdrawal of nourishment is, according to the strict doctrine of the Digambara, necessary for all ascetics, who have reached the highest step of knowledge. The Kevalin, they say, eats no longer. The milder ...
— On the Indian Sect of the Jainas • Johann George Buehler

... the origin is not absolutely fixed, except in a small number of muscles, as those of the face, which are attached at one extremity to the bone, and at the other to the movable integument, or skin. In most instances, the muscles may act from either extremity. The muscles are divided into the Voluntary, or muscles of animal life, and the Involuntary, or muscles of organic life. There are, however, some muscles which cannot properly be classified with either, termed Intermediate. The Voluntary Muscles are chiefly controlled by the will, relaxing ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... some measure prepared; but it was considered too hazardous; for had we detained the vessel for a day or two, he would have been obliged to make his situation known, and thereby forfeited all claims to the good treatment he hoped to ensure by a voluntary surrender. ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland

... satisfaction that I am able now to announce to Congress and to the country that by the voluntary act of Her Majesty's Government the obstacles which had been interposed to the execution of the extradition article of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... and freely accepted, accepted even with pleasure. The whole life of the Jew is taken into consideration beforehand, its boundaries are marked, its actions controlled. But this submission entails no self-denial; it is voluntary and the reason is provided with sufficient motives. Indeed, it is remarkable what freedom and breadth thought was able to maintain in the very bosom ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber

... possessions that which she would most suffer to lose; and in other days the man too manly to kill an erring wife deemed it vengeance enough to turn her away with all her hair shorn off. Only the greatest faith or the deepest love can prompt a woman to the voluntary sacrifice of her entire chevelure, though partial sacrifices, offerings of one or two long thick cuttings, may be seen suspended before ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... place. The tumult is now no longer confined to the forum, but spreads through the entire city. Those who were confined for debt, and those who were now at their liberty, hurry into the streets from all quarters and implore the protection of the people. In no place is there wanting a voluntary associate of sedition. They run through all the streets in crowds to the forum with loud shouts. Such of the senators as happened to be in the forum, fell in with this mob with great peril to themselves; nor ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... the Landgrave had now for some time made up his mind to found a merit with the Swedish chancellor and general officers, by precipitating an uncompromising rupture with his Catholic enemies, and thus to extract the grace of a voluntary act from what, in fact, he knew to ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... place for the affections in his scheme of the virtues, lapsed into passion when he attacked the National Debt, and developed an arithmetical enthusiasm when he explained his plan for providing through voluntary insurance for the old age of the worthy poor. He was not quite the first of the philosophers to dream of the abolition of war, and to plan an international tribunal for the settlement of disputes between nations. In that he followed Leibnitz, ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford

... be a long and wearisome negotiation with a group of adventurers—gentlemen, merchants, and others, seventy in number—for an advance of money to finance the expedition. The Pilgrims entered into a partnership with the merchants to form a voluntary joint-stock company. It was understood that the merchants, who purchased shares, were to remain in England; that the colonists, who contributed their personal service at a fixed rating, were to go to America, there to labor at trade, trucking, and ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... it plays an important role in the production of the majority of these injuries. The shoulder, mandible, and patella are, however, not infrequently displaced by muscular action alone. Acrobats sometimes acquire the power of dislocating certain joints by voluntary contraction of their muscles. ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... closed on his pipe. Chapel was over. The organist was prancing through the voluntary, and the first ripple of boys had already reached Dunwood House. In a few minutes the masters would be here too, and Ansell, who was becoming interested, hurried the ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... be multiplied ad infinitum. I can scarcely remember performing a wholly voluntary act. My whole life, as I look back upon it, seems to be a long series of inexplicable accidents, not only quite unavoidable, but even quite unintelligible. Its history is the history of the reactions of my personality to my environment, of my behavior before external ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken

... for municipal or national benefit, and who will not be seen, in leisure time, doing his best as a social being. Take the so-called sleepy market-town; it is bubbling with all manner of associated activities, and these of the quite voluntary kind, forms of zealously united effort such as are never dreamt of in the countries supposed to be eminently "social." Sociability does not consist in a readiness to talk at large with the first comer. It is not ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing



Words linked to "Voluntary" :   postlude, solo, armed services, serviceman, military personnel, unpaid, unforced, man, armed forces, draftee, military volunteer, military machine, freewill, war machine, willing, volunteer, willful, conscious, military, involuntary, wilful, military man, self-imposed, physiology, intended, voluntary muscle, uncoerced



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