"Weaken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the day which the good Bishop witnessed with grief and indignation, and set himself zealously to reform. This was the publishing of romances, or novels, which, as then written, could only poison the minds of their readers, inflame their passions, and weaken their sense of right and wrong. He pondered the matter, and having made up his mind that it would be absolutely useless to endeavour to hinder their being read, as this would only increase the obstinacy and perversity of those who took pleasure in them, he decided on adopting another ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... against the marriage of even distant relations. Eadwig offended against these rules by marrying his kinswoman, AElfgifu. A quarrel arose on this account between Dunstan and the young king, and Dunstan was driven into banishment. Such a quarrel was sure to weaken the king, because the support of the bishops was usually given to him, for the sake of the maintenance of peace and order. The dispute came at a bad time, because there was also a quarrel among the ealdormen and other great men. At last the ealdormen of the north and centre of England ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... second year of its $1.3 billion IMF Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility, Islamabad continues to require waivers for politically difficult reforms. Long-term prospects remain uncertain as development spending remains low, regional tensions remain high, and political tensions weaken Pakistan's commitment to lender-recommended economic reforms. GDP growth will continue to hinge on crop performance; dependence on foreign oil leaves the import bill vulnerable to fluctuating oil prices; and efforts to open and modernize ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... prevent the further advance of the Freestaters into the colony, and, during the most critical period of the war, this had been accomplished with much success and little loss. At last the pressure had become so severe that the enemy had to weaken the most essential part of their general position in order to relieve it. The object of the operations had really been attained when Clements found himself back at Arundel once more. French, the stormy petrel of the war, had flitted on from Cape Town to Modder River, where a larger prize ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for bases. In striking, everything counts—bunt, swat or foul tip. The moment bat and ball come in contact the batsman starts for first base. There are five men on a side. Lots of fun. Avoid remaining in fresh water too long as it has a tendency to weaken vitality. ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... excellence of our system, which contrasts favourably in this respect with the badgering and the prolonged moral torture to which a French prisoner is subject. Reforms, however, are needed which will not weaken these excellences. The absence of any plan for interrogating the prisoner avoids the abuses of the French system, but is often a cruel hardship upon the innocent. 'There is a scene,' he says, 'which most lawyers know by heart, but which I can ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... a sufficient protection against his falling into the sin of peculation, by so amply supplying him with simpler means of enriching himself. Besides, it is fair to presume that the long acquaintance had begotten sufficient confidence to weaken the effect of that saying which some wit has put into the mouth of a wag, "Make me your executor, father; I care not to whom you leave the estate." Let all this be as it might, nothing can be more ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... predominating to such a degree that it has the tenor timbre; and in proportion as the high notes of the male voice result from artificial training instead of from natural capacity, the boy-soprano timbre will creep in and weaken the tenor quality in falsetto. Some basses and low baritones can be trained to reach the high notes of the male vocal compass in falsetto, but as natural facility to produce these notes is lacking in such voices and their production is due wholly to artifice, ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... 24:12 12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! Art thou cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations! ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... annoying, and we daily strengthened ourselves in our aversion from him. He could never have done with degrading religion and the sacred books for the sake of injuring priestcraft, as he called it; and thus produced in me many an unpleasing sensation. But when I now learned, that to weaken the tradition of a Deluge, he had denied all petrified shells, and only admitted them as lusus naturae, he entirely lost my confidence; for my own eyes had on the Baschberg plainly enough shown me that I stood on the bottom of an old dried-up sea, among ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... incentives to unselfish living. He could think of enough things in the city to warrant a different judgment, but if Barker's lesson from his experience there was this, Sewell was not the person to weaken its force with him. He said, with a smile of reserved comment, "Well, perhaps you'll be coming back to us, ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... Severity upon such disorders is not tyrannical abridgment of the rights of conscience, for no proper citizen's conscience can ever prompt or constrain him to any such things. And everything which tends to weaken and destroy regard for the eternal Power on which all things depend, to relax the sense of accountability to the divine judgment, and to trample on the laws of eternal morality, is the worst enemy of the state, which it cannot allow without peril to ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... notoriously corrupt and the cities harbor the great masses of foreigners. The high cost of living in the cities and the relatively low wages force the aliens into poor and crowded quarters which tend to weaken them physically and degrade them morally and socially. Among the Italians of the cities there appears to be a vicious element composed of social parasites who found gambling dens, organize schemes of black-mail, and are the agents of the dreaded Black Hand. It is the class which furnishes ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... a family will not then weaken his constitution and debase his sentiments, by visiting the harlot, nor forget, in obeying the call of appetite, the purpose for which it was implanted; and the mother will not neglect her children to practise the arts of coquetry, when sense and modesty secure her the friendship ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... was the forger.[5] An Italian impugner of the 'Chronicle,' Giusto Grion of Verona, declared for Antonfrancesco Doni as the fabricator.[6] These hypotheses, however, are, to say the least, unlucky for their suggestors, and really serve to weaken rather than to strengthen the destructive line of argument. There exists an elder codex of which Fanfani and his followers were ignorant. It is a MS. of perhaps the middle of the fifteenth century, which was purchased for the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... his son. The sheriff was full of pity, and entered readily into a discussion of David's chances. But he was obliged to point out that they were extremely small. The jury and the judge were all alike cattle men; their sympathies were positively against everything likely to weaken the discipline necessary in carrying large herds of cattle safely across the continent. In the moment of extremest danger, David had not only refused assistance, but ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... childhood, ought to extend through a man's whole life and ennoble it. This is the teaching of "Tintern Abbey," in which the best part of our life is shown to be the result of natural influences. According to Wordsworth, society and the crowded unnatural life of cities tend to weaken and pervert humanity; and a return to natural and simple living is the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... of the settlers, and saw that unless they made a powerful effort, and that speedily, they must forever relinquish all hope of reconquering Kentucky. Such an effort was determined upon for the next year; and in order to weaken the whites as much as possible, till they were prepared for it, they continued to send out small parties, to infest ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... 1787, from which period may be dated the commencement of her literary career. On her arrival in London she was affectionately received by the few friends whose attachment neither detraction nor adverse fortunes could weaken or estrange. During an absence of five years death had made inroads in the little circle of her connections; many of those whose idea had been her solace in affliction, and whose welcome she had delighted to anticipate, were ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... with some other. If with him, then certainly afterward with another—with others. No matter how jealously he might guard her, she would go that road, if once she entered it. If he would have her for his very own he must strengthen her, not weaken her, must keep her ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... continued the wary merchant, who saw that the value of the hand of which he had to dispose, was somewhat reduced in the market, "have placed you on a footing, in my esteem. Should my niece, after all, prefer Captain Ludlow for a partner in her worldly affairs, why it should not weaken friendship between the son of old Stephanus Van Staats and Myndert Van Beverout. Our grandmothers were cousins, and there should be charities ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... might be taken of the cause of this delay on the part of Henry. Perhaps he was acting prudently by allowing time for his enemies to weaken each other, and to exhaust their resources by the insatiable demands of civil warfare. Meanwhile, ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... once in the telling of the story did she speak or move. It was a terrible story at best, he thought, but he did not weaken it by smoothing over the details. This was his opportunity. He wanted her to know why he must possess the body of Roger Audemard, if not alive, then dead, and he wanted her to understand how important it was that he learn more about Andre, ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... must weaken their respect for the laws of property, we find among them numerous instances of the most rigid integrity, and as many as among their better instructed masters, of benevolence, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... view may be taken of the subject, it is incontrovertible that these salt works were destroyed by the Union Army while engaged in regular military operations, and that the sole object of their destruction was to weaken, cripple, or defeat the armies of the so-called ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... To remove or weaken these centres of power would be to strike the most deadly blow at the education of the colored people. It would be the removal of so many nerve centres out from which still flow the stimuli needful to keep in active operation and growing ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 2, June, 1898 • Various
... and self-indulgent and not imaginative enough to foresee to what a pass a few years more of lounging and stuffing would bring her, regarded exercise as unladylike and dieting as unhealthful. She would not weaken her system by taking less than was demanded by "nature's infallible guide, the healthy appetite." She would not give up the venerable and aristocratic tradition that a lady should ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... or in the provincial capitals, and the less favoured civilian who bears the heat and burden of the day in the mofussil is both more dependent upon them and more jealous of the many advantages they naturally enjoy. Posts and telegraphs and the multiplying of "regulations" everywhere tend to weaken personal initiative. Nor can it be denied that with the increased facilities of travel to and from Europe civilians no longer look upon India quite so much as their home. The local liaisons, not uncommon in pre-Mutiny days, are now things of the ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... Maulincour had a friend in the old Vidame de Pamiers, formerly a commander of the Knights of Malta. This was one of those undying friendships founded on sexagenary ties which nothing can weaken, because at the bottom of such intimacies there are certain secrets of the human heart, delightful to guess at when we have the time, insipid to explain in twenty words, and which might make the text of a work in four volumes as amusing as the ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... it could not hear, With longing breast and undeluded ear. 20 Foiled was perversion by that youthful mind,[ry] Which Flattery fooled not, Baseness could not blind, Deceit infect not, near Contagion soil, Indulgence weaken, nor Example spoil,[rz] Nor mastered Science tempt her to look down On humbler talents with a pitying frown, Nor Genius swell, nor Beauty render vain, Nor Envy ruffle to retaliate pain,[sa] Nor Fortune change, Pride raise, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... its due proportion of blue. The result may be anticipated. The transmitted light, where moderate distances are involved, will appear yellowish. But as the sun sinks towards the horizon the atmospheric distance increases, and consequently the number of the scattering particles. They weaken in succession the violet, the indigo, the blue, and even disturb the proportions of green. The transmitted light under such circumstances must pass from yellow through orange to red. This also is exactly ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... frequent procession, in the persons of noble youths, like those who at the Oschophoria bore the branches of the vine from his temple, to the temple of Athene of the Parasol, or of beautiful slaves; to contribute through the arts to the adornment of life, yet perhaps also in part to weaken it, relaxing ancient austerity. Gradually, his rough country feasts will be outdone by the feasts of the town; and as comedy arose out of those, so these will give rise to tragedy. For his entrance upon this new stage ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... hear them," responded Sobieska, "but Josef reported them as reinforcements from the Rifles for the frontier. There may have been some cannon, but not as many as you think. He dare not weaken his ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... was rejected, by the disciples of the twelve Apostles, that they must have been in being at the time they were rejected, and therefore could not have been forged, a century after that period. I am not conscious of any wish to weaken the force of Mr. English's arguments, by affecting to speak of them in contemptuous terms, I would, as I have, answered them fairly, or ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... he put forth the most complete and masterly exposition of his beliefs, his 'History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches.' The Revolution of 1688-89 in England did not in the least, sad though it seemed, weaken his faith in the ultimate triumph of Catholicism. In France at that time the English revolution was not considered an assertion by the people of political and religious rights, but the carrying out of a detestable family conspiracy of a daughter and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... the world and find God in it. Eyes blind enow but not too blind to see The lovely things behind the dross and darkness, And lovelier things to be; And friends whose loyalty time nor death shall weaken And quenchless hope and laughter's golden store— All that a man might ask thou hast given me, England, Yet grant thou one thing more: That now when envious foes would spoil thy splendour, Unversed in arms, a dreamer such, as I, May in thy ranks be deemed ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... kings was peculiar to Sparta, and is said to have arisen from the accidental circumstance of Aristodemus having left twin sons, Eurysthenes and Procles. This division of the royal power naturally tended to weaken its influence and to produce jealousies and dissensions between the two kings. The royal power was on the decline during the whole historical period, and the authority of the kings was gradually usurped by the Ephors, who at length obtained the entire control of the government, ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... performed, nor on the other hand appear by remaining in your situation without a favourable answer, to countenance a system which your own mind informs you to be at once unjust and impracticable." If you think the expressions too strong, or not sufficiently so, you will weaken or aggravate them; but I am very impatient to receive some such letter, which shall not enter into reasons or discussion on a subject so completely exhausted, but shall manifest your own intention, which I am ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... prerogatives of power, which are claimed and exercised by those who possess property, shall be suffered, in the name of religion, or politics, or prejudice of any kind, to disturb or abridge the civil or religious rights of the people, and thus weaken the bonds which should render the interests of landlord and tenant identical. Prejudice so exercised is tyranny. Every landlord should remember that the soil ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... your mother. Pray and sleep. In the forenoon come to me and we will speak of the measures which it may be possible to take to have this matter examined and opposed. We are very poor; but still we are not altogether helpless. Only, there must be no violence. You wrong yourself and you weaken a good cause by such wild threats. Good-night, ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... party reached Hasbeiya on the fourteenth of October, and found those who had remained there in great fear. The Patriarch having arrived the same day, to inflame the passions of their enemies, intimidate the governor, and weaken the hands of the Druze sheiks. Butrus wrote, advising that no missionary come there until the Patriarch was gone, and things had become more quiet. He was succeeded by Tannus, in October, and he, in the following ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... lonely, being almost deserted, the shops closed. The notable contrast between its present rather dreary desolation and the wild revelry of the previous night seemed really painful, while the solemn prevailing stillness served to weaken Winston's bold resolutions and brought him a strange timidity. He slowly strolled a block or more, peering in at the shop windows, yet never venturing beyond easy view of the hotel steps. Then he ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... gettin' hurted," retorted the boy, with shaky indignation. "Did youse t'ink I'd weaken fur dat? Yer don't know me, den. Dat ain't bodderin' me—I've been hurted plenty. I'm just ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... woman can set a big man hunting a halo," he said. "An' I allow he's li'ble to find it, if she don't weaken in her play. But a bad woman—why, I guess a bad woman can send him down quicker than most things in life, once she tucks herself into a ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... man was deacon in a church of a denomination other than that to which the parson belonged, and the rivalry between the two sects had been brisk, not to say thoroughly bitter and almost mean, for a long time. Anything that would disgrace the family of the pastor of the opposing church would weaken the influence of the church itself, and the same would redound to the glory of the church in which the deacon officiated. I grant that this is a side issue, but side issues are often of more moment, in cases like ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... moral values. (The above is only a personal impression, but it is based on carefully remembered instances, during a period of about fifteen or twenty years.) Possibly the fondness for individual utterance may throw out a skin-deep arrangement, which is readily accepted as beautiful—formulae that weaken rather than toughen up the musical-muscles. If the composer's sincere conception of his art and of its functions and ideals, coincide to such an extent with these groove-colored permutations of tried out progressions in expediency, that ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... two points. If Austria has made her peace (which, though certainly not improbable, I do not however consider as the most likely event), and if the royalists are crushed, our force can then only be used in desultory expeditions to annoy the enemy, and weaken his means of acting against us; for to make a serious impression on France with sixty, or even eighty thousand men, unsupported by any diversion, is impossible, and the attempt can only lead to disaster, and to the loss of the only army we ever can have during this war. This was our situation ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... banks, under the very ground, dormant animals. A quiet cold that at first does not seem cold because it is so quiet, but which gradually seizes on and stills the sap of plants and the blood of living things. A ruthless frost, still, subtle, and irresistible, that will slay the bird on its perch and weaken the swift hare. ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... "Nature will only weaken me! I will not seek after it. Man it is that I require: these egotistical, false beings—these lords of everything! How we flatter our weaknesses and admire our virtues! Whatever serves to advance our own wishes we ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... pair. Look at each in turn. Mark the one tunnel that leads upward to the nest, mark the two galleries that surround it, mark that they wind in a spiral, and are not joined by shafts at intervals. That would so weaken the surroundings as to leave the nest an easy prey to scratching weasel. Why is the spiral made? To cheat inquiry; a dozen tunnels join it from the run; from it are a dozen exits to the surrounding field. One tunnel only leads ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... Spartan government. The leading men became convinced that unless they could secure the neutrality of the Persians, Sparta must succumb to the hostility of her Hellenic enemies. Under these circumstances they devised, with much skill, a scheme likely to be acceptable to the Persians, which would weaken their chief rivals in Greece—Athens and Thebes—while it would leave untouched their own power. They proposed a general peace, the conditions of which should be the entire relinquishment of Asia to the Persians, and the complete autonomy ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... on the esteem which was mutual, you will not, perhaps, be surprized that the renovation of our intercourse should give birth to that union which at present subsists. When the period had elapsed necessary to weaken the remembrance of Theresa, to whom he had been bound by ties more of honor than of love, he tendered his affections to me. I need not add that the tender ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... whole nature would have revolted against it. He had spoken with passion, urged by her contempt into a desire to show her where his power lay, without any intention of actually using it. He meant perhaps to weaken her intolerable defiance, and show her where a hole in her armor lay. He was not prepared for the effect of ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... emotions from wrath and invective to tenderness and humor. It was precisely his own powerful individuality which made him demand for others the right to become free and strong souls. Other powerful individuals have used up the rest as means to their end. What human life or character did Jesus weaken or break down? He was an emancipator, a creator of strong men. His followers in later times did lay a new yoke on the spirits of men and denied them the right to think their own thoughts and be themselves. But the ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... industry and intellectual courage. What to put in and what to leave out; whether some particular fact be organically necessary or purely ornamental; whether, if it be purely ornamental, it may not weaken or obscure the general design; and finally, whether, if we decide to use it, we should do so grossly and notably, or in some conventional disguise: are questions of plastic style continually rearising. And the sphinx that patrols the highways ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... printed by the Propaganda under ecclesiastical authority." Notwithstanding all this, the brethren took a hopeful view of their prospects. "To get a firm footing," they say, "among a people of a strange speech and a hard language; to inspire confidence in some, and weaken prejudice in others; to ascertain who are our avowed enemies, and who are such in disguise; to become acquainted with the mode of thinking and feeling, with the springs of action, and with the way of access to the heart; to begin publicly to discuss controversial subjects with the dignitaries ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... visible, and thus to increase the desolate aspect of the scene. But when the ruddy flames began to shoot forth and tip with a warm glow the nearest projections, they brought out in startling prominence the point of Bellew's nose and the bowl of his little pipe. Continuing to gain strength they seemed to weaken the force of distant objects in proportion as they intensified those that were near. The pale woods and dark waters outside deepened into invisible black, while the snow-walls of Bellew's chamber glowed as if on fire, and ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... act, and for the more frequent meeting and calling of parliaments. The arguments for and against septennial parliaments have already been stated. The ministry now insisted upon the increase of papists and Jacobites, which rendered it dangerous to weaken the hands of the government; they challenged the opposition to produce one instance in which the least encroachment had been made on the liberties of the people since the septennial act took place; and they defied the most ingenious malice ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... doctor's wife went to a chemist for advice. He gave her a pink stimulant; and, as stimulants have two effects, viz., first to stimulate, and then to weaken, this did her no lasting good. Dr. Staines cursed the London season, and threatened to ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... that Jackson's approach would cause the enemy to prolong their front in order to cover their line of retreat to the White House, and so weaken that part of the position which was to be attacked by Longstreet; and Jackson had been ordered* to draw up his troops so as to meet such a contingency. (* This order was verbal; no record of it is to be found, and Jackson never mentioned, either ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... hurt. She sat clasping the great doll, the pinks, and the pink cup and saucer before her on the table—a lone little weak child, opposing her single individuality against so many, and to her own hurt and horror and self-condemnation, and she did not weaken; but all at once her head drooped on one side, and her father ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... not that my voice will weaken the inspirations which thine hath breathed into the breast of Boabdil. Alas! if my counsel were heeded, thou wouldst hear the warriors of Granada talk less of Muza, and more of the king. But Fate, or Allah, hath ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book I. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... akin to sacrifice; the body is tormented because the soul is beyond human reach. The fasting is done in order to render the body more accessible to the influence of the mind. Often, too, one fasts in order to weaken the body, in order to free the soul from its thralls and bring it into a closer relation with the powers regarded as supernatural. At all events, fasting and purifications were a sure sign that serious affairs were in process of development, and such proceedings ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... is being's winter season, Fitful, gloomy, piercing cold; Passion weaken'd, yields to reason, Man feels then himself grown old; His senses one by one have fled, His very soul ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... Phrontis and Melas went to where their mother was. But Medea stayed, and AEetes looked upon her with his great leopard's eyes. "My daughter, my wise Medea," he said, "go, put spells upon the Moon, that Hecate may weaken that man in his hour of trial." Medea turned away from her father's eyes, and ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... to question. The older girls petted Will; the younger regarded him as a superior being; while to all it seemed so fit and proper that the promise of the stars concerning his future should be fulfilled that never for a moment did we weaken in our belief that great things were in store for our only brother. We looked for the prophecy's complete fulfillment, and with childish veneration regarded Will as one destined to sit ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... No; but it had upset her stomach. No doubt the thunder had shaken her stomach's confidence in the soundness of its opinions, so as to weaken its proselytising power. By and by, seeing that she ate a pretty good dinner, ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... thereto: "The climate of Japan reflects the characteristics of that of the neighbouring continent, and exhibits like that two great annual contrasts—a hot, damp summer and a cold relatively dry winter; these two seasons lie under the sway of the monsoons, but the neighbouring seas weaken the effects of these winds and mitigate their extremes in such a manner that neither the summer heat nor the cold of winter attain the same height in Japan as in China at the same latitudes. Spring and autumn are extremely agreeable seasons; the oppressive summer heat does ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... use the superlative of grammar: 'most perfect,' 'most exquisite,' 'most horrible.' Like the French, they are enchanted, they are desolate, because you have got or have not got a shoestring or a wafer you happen to want—not perceiving that superlatives are diminutives and weaken.... All this comes of poverty. We are unskilful definers. From want of skill to convey quality, we hope to move admiration by quantity. Language should aim to describe the fact.... 'Tis very wearisome, this straining talk, these experiences ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler
... him at all points. And because of this, because of giving more and more time to him, she could not always loose him from her and let him go. And she was afraid lest the pull he had on her might weaken Rodney's thread. ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... country were held by the tricks and manouvres of the Jew party, determined to make a stand against them: among these was a highly respected member of parliament, a great sporting character, and a very worthy man. His losses proved excessive, but they were promptly paid. In order to weaken his credit, and, if possible, shake his confidence and insult his feelings, the Jew took an opportunity, during High 'Change, of telling him, 'Dat he had got his cote and vaistcote, and he should very soon have his shirt into de bargain:' in this prophecy, however, Mr. Mordecai was mistaken; ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... shoulders the burden of other people's sufferings. It is well to feel and realise them, and the gift of sympathy is a beautiful thing, but our own individualism is also a sacred gift. It is not for us to weaken or destroy it by encouraging a superabundant sympathy for others. We each have our place in the world, whether we owe it to fate or our own efforts, and it is our duty to make the best of it. Our own happiness, indeed, is a present charge upon ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Xiaoping gradually introduced market-oriented reforms and decentralized economic decision making. Output quadrupled in the next 20 years and China now has the world's second largest GDP. Political controls remain tight even while economic controls continue to weaken. ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Central Europe had assumed an aspect quite different from that which they had worn five years earlier. More and more France was drawn into the actual conflict of the Thirty Years' War, impelled by a sense of new and unparalleled opportunity to weaken the House of Hapsburg. This, in turn, meant the preoccupation of Richelieu with European affairs, and a heavy drain upon the resources of France in order to meet the cost of her more ambitious foreign policy. Thus the duel with Austria, as it ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... responsibility was, and is, and always will be, a prime necessity. Teaching of the kind I absorbed from both my text-books and my surroundings is a healthy anti-scorbutic to the sentimentality which by complacently excusing the individual for all his shortcomings would finally hopelessly weaken the spring of moral purpose. It also keeps alive that virile vigor for the lack of which in the average individual no possible perfection of law or of community action can ever atone. But such teaching, if ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... dissociation of America from the history and the achievements of the Old World, the melancholy absence of monuments of past greatness and worth,—these and many other circumstances peculiar to our position all serve to weaken the general interest in what are called classical studies, and to direct the attention of the most ambitious and active minds far too exclusively to the pursuits of science. And when to these circumstances peculiar to ourselves is added the influence of those ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... plain that the teacher should follow the same plan. His pupils cannot remain mentally inactive, and yet learn; neither can the mere routine of verbal exercises either cultivate the mind or increase knowledge. These are but the husks of education, which may tantalize and weaken, but which can never satisfy the cravings of the young mind for information. Their mental food must be of a perfectly different kind, consisting of ideas, and not of words; and these ideas they must receive ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... favor and friendship, would in future become so on hers. If her attachment was proof against my misfortunes, to this I knew she must become a victim, and that her grief would add to my pain. Should my disgrace weaken her affections, she would make me consider her constancy as a sacrifice, and instead of feeling the pleasure I had in dividing with her my last morsel of bread, she would see nothing but her own merit in following me wherever I was ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... sensitive spirit will not tremble at the thought of a judgment so unavoidable and so tremendous as this! The votaries of superstition are mistaken in supposing that the removal of their false beliefs will destroy or weaken the sanctions of duty among men. The removal of imaginary sanctions will but cause the true ones to appear more clearly and to ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... frozen polar sea itself couldn't weaken that mixture of elemental forces. See to it," I went on sternly, "that you remember only the innocent parts of it if you are ever asked for the recipe." ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... from that diversion, however, the debate, long and involved as it was, followed but three general lines. The whole is resolvable into three elements,—personalities, politics, and principles. There were the attacks which each made upon the other's record; the efforts which each made to weaken the other's position before the people; and the contrary ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... each other in close and costly combat—i.e., "the wearing-down battle" which must go on in this war, as in all wars where large and equal forces are engaged, till one or the other combatant begins to weaken. And, finally, the last stage, when the weakening combatant stakes "on a supreme effort what reserves remain to him," and must abide by the issue. Germany staked her last reserves in the "great sortie" of her beleaguered Armies, which lasted from April to July of 1918. She lost the game, and ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... working long shifts day and night, half-naked under the fierce heat of furnaces, sometimes half choked by the escaping fumes of fire-damp, I tell myself it is not for me, too old for active service and only able to use a pen, to dishonour England, and her Empire, in the presence of her Allies, or weaken her in the face of her enemies, by one word of complaint against the young manhood ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... a pause, 'I'd not rather see you a leader in our ranks than a Parliament man. I was bred a doctor, Mr. Kearney, and I must take an illustration from my own art. To make a man susceptible of certain remedies, you are often obliged to reduce his strength and weaken his constitution. So it is here. To bring Ireland into a condition to be bettered by Repeal, you must crush the Church and smash the bitter Protestants. The Whigs will do these for us, but we must help them. Do you ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... in the education of the future man and mother of men. In the child is seen the parent of other generations, one who, as he is well or ill-directed, will strengthen or weaken the great work of human happiness, bearing with him a blessing or a curse for the community. Therefore whatever may be the pains or expenditure required in the cure of incipient faults, as of incipient disease, we know that society will be repaid more ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... private opinions and prejudices, which we must either strengthen or weaken, according as we see necessary. Fear, too, sometimes must be removed, as Cicero, in his defense of Milo, endeavors to assure the judges that Pompey's army, drawn up about the Forum, is for their protection; and sometimes there will be an occasion to intimidate them, as the same ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... head kept falling backward toward the ground. And for Kieran, as he felt his enemy weaken, the purple lights were flashing again. The call of battle was ringing in his ears; came back to him the memory of more careless days, when he lived for this kind of thing. After all, what was life but a means whereby to give one's spirit play? And yet again—and yet—was he no more than ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... the commencement of the war in 1804, were to be rased.[7] These concessions, which rendered the dependence of Servia on the Porte little more than nominal, were doubtless granted through the secret influence of Russia, whose obvious interest it was to weaken the connexion between her destined prey and its titular suzerain; but the despotic power thus placed in the hands of Milosh, was exercised with a degree of arrogance and contempt of vested rights, which soon rendered him highly unpopular. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... general, and yersel', too, corporal," said Macintosh, "the reports they have acted upon are native reports, and they may be good, and they may be bad, they may be honest, and they may want to get detachments sent aboot to weaken the force ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... the entire area of Central Asia and comprises much of the greater part of Europe as well. In its own territory, it is unassailable, and never has been invaded with success. No power can plunder or weaken Russia as long as she remains within her own borders. Of all the great powers in Europe she is the one that after England has the least need ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... conqueror was to weaken the Oriental power (as the Jews were regarded) and strengthen the Hellenistic element in the country. The Jews were soon to feel the heavy hand and suffer the insatiate greed of Rome. National risings were put down with merciless cruelty, the Temple treasury was spoiled in 56 B.C.E. by the avaricious ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... I am sure it is our duty to love it. I am sure we weaken ourselves if we do not. If I did not, I should be looking on mist, hearing a perpetual boom instead of music. I remember hearing Mr. Whitford say that cynicism is intellectual dandyism without the coxcomb's feathers; and it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... died in exile Hannibal, the greatest foe Rome ever knew, and Scipio, one of its ablest generals. Rome was already master of Greece. But the Roman senate feared trouble from the growth of the Achaean League, and, to weaken it, took a thousand of its noblest citizens, under various charges, and sent them as hostages to Rome. Among them was the celebrated historian Polybius, who wrote the ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... forms of rhetoric. To do so would only weaken the force of our warning. What we have written is no mere fancy work. The pictures thrown upon our canvas with all the power of vivid portraiture that we possess are but feeble representations of the tragic scenes ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... the world. One who can not obey is the merest slave—essentially and in himself a slave. The crisis of Tom's fever was at length favorably passed, but the result remained doubtful. By late hours and strong drink, he had done not a little to weaken a constitution, in itself, as I have said, far from strong; while the unrest of what is commonly and foolishly called a bad conscience, with misery over the death of his child and the conduct which had disgraced him in his own eyes and ruined ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... check the gathering tear That lurks beneath thine eyelid, ere it flow And weaken thy resolve; be firm and true— True to thyself and me; the path of life Will lead o'er hill and plain, o'er rough and smooth, And all must feel the steepness of the way; Though rugged be thy ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... far as income derived from capital or land may represent the savings of the individual and not his inheritance. The true distinction is between the inherited and the acquired, and while the taxation of acquired wealth may operate, so far as it goes, to diminish the profits, and so far to weaken the motive springs, of industry, it is by no means self-evident that any increase of taxation on inherited wealth would necessarily have that effect, or that it would vitally derange any other social function. It is, again, a matter on which only experience ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... Remainder of her Life melancholy and distressed. This is the Lesson: And if it be a good one, the Force of it ought not to be weakened by her Recovering from all her Distresses, and growing quite happy again; which indeed would not only weaken, but intirely take away, all the Force that was intended to be given ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson
... is that as his mind develops, his body seems to weaken. Food, special exercise, massage—poor Lord Buntingford has been trying everything—but with small result. It is pitiful to see him watching the child, and hanging on the doctors. 'Shall we stop all the teaching?' he said ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... able to sell the place at all; that some other way would be provided for their leaving it; and that, when he was an old man, he would be allowed to return to die in it. But up started his conscience, jealously watchful lest hope should undermine submission, or weaken resolve. God MIGHT indeed intend they should not be driven from the old house! but he kept Abraham going from place to place, and never let him own a foot of land, except so much as was needful to bury his dead. And ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... the pleasures of the table; his disregard of the precept 'Vivre de peu.' This was the cause; and, be it observed, that indulgences of this sort, while they tend to make men poor and expose them to commit mean acts, tend also to enfeeble the body, and more especially to cloud and to weaken the mind. ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... bark or grass, supported by sticks, where she kindles a fire and cooks her victuals alone. Her seclusion lasts four days. During this time she may not approach or touch a horse, for the Indians believe that such contamination would impoverish or weaken the animal.[227] Among the Potawatomis the women at their monthly periods "are not allowed to associate with the rest of the nation; they are completely laid aside, and are not permitted to touch any article of furniture or food which the men have occasion ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... by rules, and weaken'd as refined, For years the power of Tragedy declined; From bard to bard the frigid caution crept, Till Declamation roared, whilst Passion slept. Yet still did Virtue deign the stage to tread, Philosophy remained ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... stores, and ships which they captured and destroyed, whilst our efforts at rescue were too late to prevent the catastrophe impending over Burgoyne's unfortunate army. After one of those delays which always were happening to retard our plans and weaken the blows which our chiefs intended to deliver, an expedition was got under weigh from New York at the close of the month of September, '77; that, could it have but advanced a fortnight earlier, might have saved the doomed force of Burgoyne. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that if we hold resolutely to this course, the principle of international cooperation will eventually command the approval even of those nations which are now seeking to weaken or ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... and remoueth all humidity and moysture. But my father did not allow of this custome, warning men of strength, and those that are borne for the Common-wealth, not to accustom themselves to such kind of softnesse, which doe weaken our bodies. Also [c] when you put off your garments to go to bed, then put away all your cogitations, & lay them aside, whether they be publike or priuate, for when all your [* Page46.] members be free from all cares, ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... because that would bring bad luck. The same if you shook the table-cloth after sundown. And he said if a man owned a beehive and that man died, the bees must be told about it before sun-up next morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die. Jim said bees wouldn't sting idiots; but I didn't believe that, because I had tried them lots of times myself, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and North, yet with England it may not be so, because the naturall coldenes of our Climate is sufficient without any assistance to further bitternesse, our best industry being to be imployed rather to get warmth, which may nourish and bring forth our labours, then any way to diminish or weaken the same. ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... disturbance or subversion, is in violation of the Constitution, insulting to the States so interfered with, endangers their domestic peace and tranquillity—objects for which the Constitution was formed —and, by necessary consequence, tends to weaken and destroy the ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... so much more ably stated by one whose enlightened view of geological science has taken away some difficulties from its cultivators, and, I hope, removed a stumbling-block from many respectable individuals, that I should only weaken by adding to the argument. [I allude to the critique of Dr. Ure's Geology in the British Review, for July, 1829; an Essay, equally worthy of a ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... very often. When those floating bodies are disengaged from each other by the thaw, they sail away separately, maintaining their balance; but by degrees, as they near the south, where the water is relatively warmer, their base, shaken by the collision with other icebergs, begins to melt and weaken; it then happens that their centre of gravity is displaced, and, naturally, they overturn. Only, if that one had turned over two minutes later, it would have ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... symptom I would rather not have found. But I can't make any positive diagnosis as yet. Some big sickness is coming on—that, I am afraid, is certain. I shall come out here to-morrow. But, Mr. Bennett, be careful of yourself. Even steel can weaken, you know. You see this rabble" (he motioned with his head toward the anteroom, where the other visitors were waiting) "that is hounding you? Everybody knows where you are. Man, you must have rest. I don't need to look at you more than once to know that. Get away! Get away even from your ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... Cassandra was not believed, Troy fell. Therefore, we ought to examine strictly into the truth of a matter, rather than {suffer} an erroneous impression to pervert our judgment. But, that I may not weaken {this truth} by referring to fabulous antiquity, I will relate to you a thing that happened within my ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... such a nervous state, with them. He remembered a savory text about being made all things to all men, which would bear application particularly well to the case of this young woman. He knew how to weaken his divinity, on occasion, as well as an old housewife to weaken her tea, lest it should keep ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... cap in salute. "Very well, then. I flattered myself we had done well together thus far—you have made it easy. But now—no, no, I will not say it. I would rather see you defiant than to have you weaken. I love courage, and you have it. That will carry you through. It will keep you clean ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough |
