"By nature" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and poetry had gone through the whole circle of human interests before they turned to the representation of nature, and even then the latter filled always a limited and subordinate place. And yet, from the time of Homer downward, the powerful impression made by nature upon man is shown by countless verses and chance expressions. The Germanic races which founded their states on the ruins of the Roman Empire were thoroughly and specially fitted to understand the spirit of natural scenery; and though Christianity compelled them ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... before the pulpit and filled the hearts of nervous probationers with dismay, not because his face was critical, but because it seemed non-conducting, upon which their best passages would break like spray against a rock. It was by nature the dullest you ever saw, with hair descending low upon the forehead, and preposterous whiskers dominating everything that remained, except a heavy mouth and brown, lack-lustre eyes. For a while Donald ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... eight hundred years before the Christian era. At all events, we were the noblest in the land, and received the salaams of the Sublime and the Pensive as obviously due to our exalted rank. As I looked at my husband, so kingly in aspect by nature, of such high courtesy in manner; and at Una, princesslike, with her sweet dignity, I did not at all wonder at the stolen glances of our waiters; that looking without looking for which a thorough-bred English waiter is so ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... strength united with a heart of feminine softness; for while she was resolute and determined, and had firmness and courage to bear up against the heaviest afflictions, she had no coldness or insensibility in her temperament, but was endowed with the tenderest and warmest affections. She was not by nature imaginative, but her understanding was excellent and utterly devoid of lumber and affectation. She had the sound practical sense of a vigorous and healthy mind, without a particle of vanity or conceit; she never attempted to plunge out of her depth, or ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... his room on the corridor as he heard the approach of the traveler, squinting his bleared, yellow-spotted eyes. He was surly by nature, but he bowed low to the man whose power was so great in California, and whose generosity had sent him many a bullock. He cooked him supper from his frugal store, piled the logs in the open fireplace,—November ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... his niggers, giving them a little preaching once in a while. Now, let the generous move; shake your dimes; let us turn a point, and see what can be done in the way of selling the lot,—preacher, wife, and family. The boy, Harry, is a preacher by nature; has by some unknown process tumbled into the profession. He's a methodist, I reckon! But there's choice field property in him; and his wife, one of the primest wenches in the gang, never says die when there's plenty of cotton to pick. As for the young uns, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... poets that are sown by Nature,'" thought the minister, quoting Wordsworth to himself. "And I wonder what becomes of them! That's a pretty idea, little Rebecca, and I don't know whether you or my wife ought to have the more praise. What made you think ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... perhaps serve as a sample of such—learned, critical, self-conscious, productive, but unoriginal? And the worst sign in Germany is less that the young musicians copy Wagner than that they copy him not instinctively and by nature, but theoretically and of deliberate intent, exalting his theories to rank ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... pipe and reading his newspaper, with little explosions to which no one pays any attention, because it is his daily habit. He is a fine-looking man of fifty odd, with red-grey moustaches and hair, both of which stiver partly by nature and partly because his hands often push them up. MARY and JOHNNY are close to the fireplace, stage Right. JOHNNY sits on the fender, smoking a cigarette and warming his back. He is a commonplace looking young man, with a decided jaw, tall, neat, soulful, who has been ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the first class, answering the various needs of knowing in order afterwards to act, are much the more numerous.... Is primitive man by nature curious? The question has been variously answered; thus, Tylor says yes; Spencer, no.[61] The affirmative and negative answers are not, perhaps, irreconcilable, if we take account of the differences in races. Taking it generally, it ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... open window. One of the two was scarcely conscious of the odor, for she did not believe in roses; she believed mainly in mahogany, linen, and hams; to the other it brought too much sadness to be welcomed, for it seemed, like the sunlight, to issue from the grave of his vanished youth. He was not by nature a sad man; he was only one that had found the past more delightful than the present, and had not left his ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... consist in having something new added to us, but in learning to bring into action powers which already exist in us, but which we have never tried to use, and therefore have not developed, simply because we have always taken it for granted that we are by nature defective in some of the most important faculties necessary to ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... he has most estimable qualities after a brief sojourn in the kitchen. Domesticated, though he can scarcely be classed as a dainty feeder, he makes a strong appeal to some people, especially after he has contracted an intimate alliance with sage and onions, but he was never intended by Nature for a sprinter, nor are his webbed feet adapted for rapid locomotion. Sufferers from chronic melancholia would, I am sure, benefit by witnessing the nightly football scrums and speed-contests of these Chinese ducks, for I defy any one to see them ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... all a mother's love from your birth, cannot read every change in your countenance? Do you think I cannot see that you are fighting hard to keep something back?—you, whom I have always been so proud to think were as frank by nature as you are by name? Come, be honest with me. You are hiding something ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... Handel was an aristocrat by nature, even if not exactly so by birth, and so had nothing to do with the modest and bucolic Bach—even going so far, they do say, as to leave, temporarily, the City of Halle, his native place, when a contest was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... but he knew what it meant. For the first time in his life, he hated his mother. He heard her weeping in the little room they called home. He merely shut his lips tightly and, in spite of the stoicism that was his by nature, the tears swelled up in ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... fate that linked the lives of the fifteenth Louis of France and Marie Leczinska, Princess of Lorraine, and daughter of Stanislas, the dethroned King of Poland; for there was probably no Princess in Europe less equipped by nature to hold the fickle allegiance of the young French King, and no Royal husband less likely to bring happiness into the life of such ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... that he could answer. Though he could discuss Alice Rokeby, one of those vague, sweet women who seem designed by Nature to develop the sentiment of chivalry in the breast of man, he felt that it would be disloyal to speak lightly of his hero, John Benham. "You could never guess where I've been," he said with relief because he had got rid of the subject. "I might as ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... to him as she said the last words, and there was in the word 'please' that one tone of hers which he could never resist. It is said that even lifeless things, like bridges and towers, are subject by nature to the vibration of a sympathetic note, and that the greatest buildings in the world would tremble, and shake, and rock and fall in ruins if that single musical sound were steadily produced near to them. We men cannot pretend to be harder of hearing and ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... by nature a superior intellect, and, when she wished, could be agreeable and amiable. Her face was commanding, though somewhat spoiled at last by fat. She had much eloquence, speaking with an ease and precision that charmed and overpowered. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... their pockets, utterly regardless of the souls they led away from Christ and salvation," exclaimed Eric, warming as he proceeded. "He has done, and he is doing a glorious work, and though his foes were to burn him to-morrow, they could not extinguish the light he has kindled. He teaches that man is by nature sinful and alienated from God, but that God so loved the world that He sent His Son to become a sacrifice for man's sins, to suffer instead of man, and thus to enable him, through repentance and faith in ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston
... am not by nature more timid than other men, but as the dismal evening closed in I took from my desk two revolvers kept ready for possible emergencies, and laid one upon the desk where I was making freight entries and the other on the table where the electric battery stood. At intervals a fresh ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... it may be said, in general terms, that those who knew him best loved him most. He had by nature a passionate temper, but it was grandly controlled, and seldom, if ever, led him into an injustice. His munificence in giving was unequalled in my experience. He was the warmest and staunchest of friends; through honour and dishonour, storm and sunshine, weal or woe, always ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... sublime nature of divine authority, by reason of which the power to command is competent to God. Secondly, because infusion of grace and virtues may precede, even in point of time, all virtuous acts: and in this way obedience is not prior to all virtues, neither in point of time nor by nature. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... ill and was ordered to the baths at Aix-la-Chapelle for cure. She did not get well, poor lady, and before long I was left in the strange city alone. I had the name of being very quiet, but I was not so by nature. You see I forced myself to speak only in French or broken English, and it was not always easy. At last I saw in a newspaper that a lady in Aix wanted a French maid to go with her to America. Here was my chance. Why, Mr. Donald, if you'll believe ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... the father, resuming his gravity, "is indeed blessed with a winning gift of making comfits and syllabubs; but, on minute enquiry, I do not find that the youth has tasted any of them. Neither is sister Ursula so hard-favoured by nature, as from the effects of an accident; but your honour knows that when a woman is ugly, the men do not trouble themselves about the cause of her hard favour. I will go, with your leave, and see in what state the youth now is, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... effects."—Kames cor. "In regard to their origin, the Grecian and Roman republics, though equally involved in the obscurities and uncertainties of fabulous events, present one remarkable distinction."—Adams cor. "In these respects, man is left by nature an unformed, unfinished creature."—Bp. Butler cor. "The Scriptures are the oracles of God himself."—Hooker cor. "And at our gates are all kinds of pleasant fruits."—S. Song cor. "The preterits of pluck, look, and toss, are, in speech, pronounced ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... as I have done that man makes a breed, let it not be confounded with saying that man makes the individuals, which are given by nature with certain desirable qualities; man only adds together and makes a permanent gift of nature's bounties. In several cases, indeed, for instance in the "Ancon" sheep, valuable from not getting over fences, and in the turnspit dog, man has probably only prevented crossing; but ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... the most of the wave of popularity which greeted him on his return—if he had advertised his fame and, amid high circles, played the part of Chinese Gordon in a becoming manner— the results would have been different. But he was by nature farouche; his soul revolted against dinner parties and stiff shirts; and the presence of ladies— especially of fashionable ladies— filled him with uneasiness. He had, besides, a deeper dread of the world's contaminations. And so, when he was appointed to Gravesend to supervise ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... did not enter on the apparently dark problem of the moral world with the least hope that he should be able to throw any light upon it, nor with any other set purpose and design. He simply revolved the subject in mind, because he was by nature prone to such meditations. So far from having aimed at things usually esteemed so high and difficult with a feeling of presumptuous confidence, he has, indeed, suffered most from that spirit of ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... instead of answering, looked fixedly at him, nodded, and turned away. 'You would deceive some, Sir George,' he said quietly, 'but you do not deceive me. When a man who is not jocular by nature makes two jokes in as many minutes, he ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... this line of communications four times as long as that which led from the sea to New Orleans, and of far more difficult pilotage, but that the natural character of the enemy's positions upon it was essentially different. They were as yet undeveloped by art; but by nature they were high and commanding bluffs, having secure land communications with an extensive enemy's country in their rear over which our troops exercised no control whatever—where they had not even been seen. To speak of "taking them in the rear" was to ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... was romantic; but there was a prosaic corner to shock those who fancy that fiction is the spontaneous overflow of a poetic fountain fed by nature only; between the fireplace and the window, and within a foot or two of the wall, stood a gigantic writing-table, with the signs of hard labor on it, and of severe system. Three plated buckets, each containing three pints, full of letters to be answered, other letters to be pasted into a ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... they like to enjoy all their comforts themselves, and that they are better served by strangers than they would be by their own children. Besides which, the English being great epicures, and very avaricious by nature, indulge in the most delicate fare themselves and give their household the coarsest bread, and beer, and cold meat baked on Sunday for the week, which, however, they allow them in great abundance. That if they had their own children at home, ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... She could not go back. She would not go down. There was wrenched from her tried and sore heart an unalterable and unquenchable decision—to make her own soul prove the evolution of woman. Vessel of blood and flesh she might be, doomed by nature to the reproduction of her kind, but she had in her the supreme spirit and power to carry on the progress of the ages—the climb of ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... not expect to see scorpions this time of the year. The scorpion was killed instantly. It was a small one, and its stroke feeble, for the lad complained very little, and I heard no more of the matter. In the Apocalypse, locusts are represented as striking a man like scorpions, although they are by nature harmless, so far as wounding humankind is concerned. It is well to observe, the Saharan people always speak of scorpions as not stinging but striking a man, the verb used being ضرب, "to beat," "to strike." So in chap. ix. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... half-conscious self-forgetfulness" naturally lead to the thesis that the empty, restless exertion of men in general is nothing but Gothic perversity, and "boots naught but ennui to ourselves and others." Man is by nature "a serious beast; one must labor to counteract this shameful tendency." Schleiermacher ventured, it is true, to raise the question as to whether the hero ought not to have some trace of the chivalrous about him, or ought not to do something effective in the outer world—and posterity ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... "They are forced by nature to develop their powers of invention, as a bird its feathers of flight;" and we might add, remarks another writer, "that the inventive faculty, like a bird, is apt, when fully grown, to fly away. Then, when their own imaginative resources begin to fail them, ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... to avoid the blow the lad trod on Dumps's paw, and instantly there came from the throat of that excellent dog a roar of anguish that caused Poker to leap, as the cook expressed it, nearly out of his own skin. Dogs are by nature extremely sympathetic and remarkably inquisitive; and no sooner was Dumps's yell heard than it was vigorously responded to by every dog in the ship, as the whole pack rushed each from his respective sleeping-place, and looked round ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... words hold a message alike for us as we meet and pass in that Indian crowd, and for the girl by the fireside at home who wants to know her Lord's will that she may do it, and whose heart's prayer is: "May Thy grace, O Lord, make that possible to me which is impossible by nature." ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... Though nominally our subjects, their actual rulers are the Tibetans, and we do nothing to protect them against the exactions and tortures of the intruders. Why then should we expect them to be faithful to us? The Shokas are not treacherous by nature, but they are compelled to be deceitful to protect their lives and their homes. Properly treated, these honest, gentle, good-natured mountaineers would assuredly become loyal and trustworthy subjects ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... prevents the writer from saying as much as he could wish about the genius of this wonderful man, the greatest of his country's songsters, well calculated by nature to do honour to the most polished age and the most widely-spoken language. The bards his contemporaries, and those who succeeded him for several hundred years, were perfectly convinced of his superiority, not only over themselves, ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... doctrine, preached so long in vain and now almost forgotten, is the opposite of this. It insists that man is by nature a passive, an experiencing creature, and that he can do nothing well in action unless he has first learned a right passivity. Only by that passivity can he enrich himself; and when he has enriched himself he ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... has been much experimental work to ascertain the possibility of separating potash for fertilizer purposes; but, because of cost, this source of potash is not likely for a long time to compete with the potash salts already concentrated by nature. ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... from certain tropical diseases, he observed, first, that all animals tend to vary in some degree, and, secondly, that agriculturalists improve their domesticated animals by selection. He added that what is done in the latter case by art seems to be done with equal efficacy, though more slowly, by nature in the formation of varieties of mankind fitted for the countries which they inhabit. Again in 1831 Mr. Patrick Matthew published a work on "Naval Timber and Arboriculture," in which he put forth precisely the same view concerning the origin of species as that propounded by Mr. Wallace and by ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... Manila, who are largely in care of the Jesuits, are devout by nature, and much inclined to confession and other pious exercises. A confraternity among them accomplishes many pious and benevolent works, and exerts a great influence on those outside it. In the Taytay mission there is cheering progress, and many of the mountain Indians, hitherto infidels, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... decidedly concave. I wish Rennie would turn his attention to the state of numerous noses in the metropolis. I am sure a lucrative company might he established for the purpose of erecting bridges to noses that, like my own, have been unprovided by nature. I should be happy to become a director. Revenons nous—my mouth is decidedly large, and my teeth singularly irregular. My father was violently opposed to Dr. Jenner's "repeal of the small-pox,"[4] and would not have me vaccinated; the consequence of which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... work in the quiet of his studio, with his notes ready at hand. He used the sketches as the raw material for a work of art. Rembrandt said that the only rule that should bind the artist is nature,[15] but he was certainly not distracted by nature. The individual genius here lies in assembling many observations from nature into a work which goes beyond nature and ...
— Rembrandt's Etching Technique: An Example • Peter Morse
... again sobbed. Gentle and indolent by nature, desirous of peace and quietness before anything else, she was incapable of deceiving her husband, as he well knew. But the trouble was that an addition to the family would upset the whole economy of ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Oates was by nature choleric; and the credit he had acquired made him insolent and conceited. Even his exterior was portentous. A fleece of white periwig showed a most uncouth visage, of great length, having the mouth, as the organ by use of which he was to rise to eminence, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... over-conscientiousness. Erny, his wife, is a childlike creature, not displeased by flattery, too innocent to be circumspect, but faithful unto death. And Otto von Meran, the princely profligate, is one of Grillparzer's boldest creations—not bad by nature, but utterly irresponsible; crafty, resourceful, proud as a peacock and, like a monkey in the forest, wishing always to be noticed. He cannot bear disregard; contempt makes him furious; and a sense of disgrace which would drive a moral being to insanity ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... again with your beau, at such an hour of the day, in a hurry. You've too much pride and spirit in you for that. I like to see a girl fly out at the notion of being talked about. It shows they're neither giddy, nor hold by nature. As for that girl, she might be hold, but she'd never be giddy. I'll do her that justice. Now as to Fanny, she'd be giddy, and not bold. She's no courage in her, ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... French, or for Germany to borrow Hungarian cavalry for the Rhine, or for Austria to borrow German army corps to protect Galicia, all that is needed is three or four days in which to entrain and move these great masses of men. There is no area in Europe which is better suited by nature for thus fighting upon two land frontiers than is the area of the combined ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... whatsoever motives excited, operating to answer the important designs of Heaven. Thus we behold Kentucky, lately a howling wilderness, the habitation of savages and wild beasts, become a fruitful field; this region, so favorably distinguished by nature, now become the habitation of civilization, at a period unparalleled in history, in the midst of a raging war, and under all the disadvantages of emigration to a country so remote from the inhabited parts of the continent. ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... not devoid of literary intuition. His tendency, and we say it with the proper amount of regret, would not constitute classic taste. He is not very academic by nature. Thus, to give an example, the popularity of Mademoiselle Mars among that little audience of stormy children was seasoned with a touch of irony. The gamin called her Mademoiselle ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... hands, in order to save that which the follies of some particular men may otherwise put in danger. Take not this for a threatening," added the king, "for I scorn to threaten any but my equals; but as an admonition from him who, by nature and duty, has most care of your preservation and prosperity."[***] The lord keeper, by the king's direction, subjoined, "This way of parliamentary supplies as his majesty told you, he hath chosen, not as the only way, but as the fittest; not because he is destitute of others, but ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... for hers are the effusions of the heart and the imagination, prompted by nature and uttered because they are irrepressible. Many females travel for the purpose of writing and publishing books—whilst Mrs. Heman's, Mrs. Osgood's, and Mrs. Sigourney's volumes may be regarded as grateful offerings to the muse in return for ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... than the seeker of love; all his transgressions, the fault of his morbid disposition, come home to him; he takes the blame of his sin upon his own shoulders, while the seeker of love revenges himself on his victims for his own shortcomings. The seeker of love is by nature polygamous, while the slave of love is, as a rule, monogamous (and consequently has little success with the opposite sex). Both aspire to a union of sensual and spiritual eroticism, but in both cases the union is a failure. All the repulsive and terrible manifestations of these ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... said "the leopard cannot change his spots nor the Ethiopian his skin," but the deer, assisted by nature, can change both his color and his hide. In summer the deer is red, and the young deer are covered with beautiful spots which disappear by fall. The hair of the deer is short in summer and his hide is thick. At this ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... neighbourhood of St. James's Street, from the first day to the last of the London season, and to dine artistically and discreetly at one of those older and more exclusive clubs dear and familiar to him from the bright years of his youth. He was by nature a flaneur, a gossip, a lover of expensive luxuries and frivolous pleasures. He was not only incapable of a high thought himself, but was an unbeliever in the possibility of high thoughts or noble principles in the world ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... peculiarly fitted the artist to be the satirist of English Society—his love of the comedy of people by nature honest finding themselves only able to get through the day with decent politeness by the aid of "the lie to follow." English people, Puritan by ancestry and by inclination, are nevertheless driven into frequent subterfuge by their good nature, and having pared their language and gesture of ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... attack in a country where every human being has a market value, and are little seen by the passing caravan. In habits they are semi-pastoral agriculturalists, and would be useful members of society were they left alone to cultivate their own possessions, rich and beautiful by nature, but poor and desolate by force of circumstance. Some of the men can afford a cloth, but the greater part wear an article which I can only describe as a grass kilt. In one or two places throughout the passage of these hills a caravan may be taxed, but ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... unto Sin, and a new Birth unto Righteousness: For being by Nature born in Sin, and the Children of Wrath, we are hereby ...
— The A, B, C. With the Church of England Catechism • Unknown
... he repeated, "I'd let him go; for several reasons. First of all, he's got such a start of you now that you couldn't catch him, anyway. Then he's a coward by nature, and it'll be a mighty long time before he ever shows up here again. And last of all," the speaker hesitated, "last of all," he repeated slowly, "though I don't know, I believe you were right when you said the boy could tell more about it than the rest ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... dawn of Christianity, slavery was an established institution in all countries.[478] Some pagan philosophers, like Seneca, maintained that all men are by nature free and equal, still by the law of nations slavery was upheld in all lands; and it was an axiom among the ruling classes, that "the human race exists for the sake of the few." Aristotle held that no perfect household could exist without slaves and freemen and that the natural law, as ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... doctrines spread far and wide, blasting, like a malaria, whatever it met with on its way that had any connection with religion, morals, or venerable social customs. Besides Voltaire, who presided over this coterie, at least in spirit, the daily company included Diderot, an enthusiast by nature and a cynic and sophist by profession; D'Alembert, a genius of the first order in mathematics, though less distinguished in literature; the malicious Marmontel, the philosopher Helvetius, the Abbe Raynal, the furious enemy of all modern institutions; ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... me, "one may be faithless, and be shriven by the morning sun. Isn't it funny how these things go? Such a lot of fuss is made in the world by ignoring the great fact that man is by nature both gregarious and polygamous. Believe me, there is much in this doctrine of the Mormons, ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... forest as an heritage, given to us by nature, not for spoil or to devastate, but to be wisely used, reverently honored, and carefully maintained. I regard the forest as a gift entrusted to us only for transient care during a short space of time, to be surrendered to posterity again as unimpaired ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston
... have sought his inspiration from the poetry, Aemilianus went rather to the philosophy, of Greece; he was altogether of a colder temperament, just as his literary friends Terence and Lucilius were by nature less ardent than Ennius. Between them they laid the foundation of that broader conception of civilisation which is expressed by the significant word humanitas, and which had borne its intellectual fruit when the whole people raised a ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... the whole mass of the atmosphere would, in time, become unfit for the purpose of animal life; and yet there is no reason to think that it is, at present, at all less fit for respiration than it has ever been. I flatter myself, however, that I have hit upon two of the methods employed by nature for this great purpose. How many others there may be, ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... (for I feel sure that your tendency will be to despise me and my crotchets), that all my notions about HOW species change are derived from long continued study of the works of (and converse with) agriculturists and horticulturists; and I believe I see my way pretty clearly on the means used by nature to change her species and ADAPT them to the wondrous and exquisitely beautiful contingencies to which ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... a few days before the wedding, Sylvia, who had written to ask Lady Roehampton for an interview, called by appointment in St. James' Square. Sylvia was received by Lady Roehampton in her boudoir, and the interview was long. Sylvia, who by nature was composed, and still more so by art, was pale and nervous when she arrived, so much so that her demeanour was noticed by the groom of the chambers; but when she departed, her countenance was flushed and ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... into the convex, rather than the convex into the concave? The reader may easily anticipate the answer from what has been said about the deeply fixed tendency of the eye to solidify a plane surface. We are rendered much more familiar, both by nature and by art, with raised (cameo) design than with depressed design (intaglio), and we instinctively interpret the less familiar form by the more familiar. This explanation appears to be borne out by the fact emphasized by Schroeder that the illusion is much more powerful if ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... so great a favourite that her festivals were celebrated with more than ordinary pomp. She was descended from a Roman family of rank and opulence, and endowed by nature with great personal beauty. She was beheaded at the early age of thirteen, in the year 306. By the sentence of her judge, she was ordered to be treated in a most shameful manner, but through a providential interposition she was saved from the ignominy her persecutors intended ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... predominant, it is not easy to understand in what sense God can be said to be good. The poet does not formulate the argument, of which this is the gist, in very precise terms, nor press it home to its last conclusions. But he leaves no doubt about his meaning. Some men are relatively good by nature, others wicked; but all men were created by God and act in accordance with the disposition they received from Him. If that disposition or character brought forth sin and evil, these then are God's work, not man's, and He alone is responsible therefor. The ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... of you, too. It really means that the names came by nature, so fit like a glove, of course. But I must be off at once. Thank you for a pleasant morning, Mrs. Gunter! I will bring my husband around to-morrow for his approval, if he can spare the time. At any rate, I think I am not too hasty in saying we will take the rooms. We will, ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... harmless and peaceably inclined in their dispositions, although each individual is generally armed with a spear about eight feet in length, made of a hard wood, and barbed at one end. They appeared also to be a healthy race of people, for although here and there one or two might be less favoured by nature in their persons, no signs of the diseases so common among the natives of Africa were to be seen ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... fitted by nature and inborn liking for investigations of this character, no amount of education and experience will fit him. But, given natural equipment and inclination, it is necessary first of all that the expert have a good general education. He should have a sufficient command of language to make others ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... of that of the one hundred and ten years since the establishment of the Legislative Union, that, through good report and ill report, and allowing for all our shortcomings, we have not unsuccessfully fulfilled our trust. Our forefathers found a province, the least favoured by nature of the four of which Ireland consists, and it is to-day the stronghold of Irish industry and commerce. Its capital, Belfast, stands abreast of the leading manufacturing centres in Great Britain; it contains the foremost establishments in Europe, in respect of such undertakings as linen manufacturing, ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... are contain'd. His words and looks Are like the flashes and the bolts of Jove; His deeds inimitable, like the sea That shuts still as it opes, and leaves no tracts, Nor prints of president for meane mens facts: 40 There's but a thred betwixt me and a crowne; I would not wish it cut, unlesse by nature; Yet to prepare me for that possible fortune, 'Tis good to get resolved spirits about mee. I follow'd D'Ambois to this greene retreat; 45 A man of spirit beyond the reach of feare, Who (discontent with his neglected worth) Neglects the light, and loves obscure ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... local self-government long practiced, has been a powerful factor in American life; that an indifference to the past has often been only the obverse of an elastic hope, a consciousness of destiny; that a fearlessness and a spirit of adventure have been invited by the large promises held out by nature; that an expansiveness of mind, and an alertness and facility in intellectual device, have been encouraged by the flexile condition of American society. All things have seemed possible to the ardent American, and each has secretly said ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... She could stay with Mary Lambe, who with her brother would serve for witnesses. She well knew that some girls would think all this unnecessary, and that all she and Jon need do was to go away together for a weekend and then say to their people: "We are married by Nature, we must now be married by Law." But Fleur was Forsyte enough to feel such a proceeding dubious, and to dread her father's face when he heard of it. Besides, she did not believe that Jon would do it; he had an ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... tall, well-developed figure was the perfection of manly symmetry, and his musical laugh was ever ringing out freely and unconsciously. His temperament was just the reverse of Arthur's. Bold, courageous, self-relying, he hoped all things, and feared nothing that man could do; by nature too, he was quick and passionate, yet full of affection and all generous impulses. Such was Henry Hamilton, now eighteen years of age—the pride of his family—the favorite of ...
— Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog • Anonymous
... rails laid on which to move them from place to place. The broken nature of the ground afforded ideal opportunities for the concealment of artillery positions. It is safe to say that nowhere in the whole theatre of the Great War was there a line better adapted by nature and equipped by man for purposes of defensive warfare. The Austrian Archduke Eugene, who was in charge of the Italian operations, revealed his plan of campaign during the first few days after the beginning ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... Poo asked the bird was as follows: "Being gifted by nature with a perfect larynx, which should enable you to sing beautifully, do you confine yourself to singing a colorless 'Tit Willow' because you don't know any better, or because you are attempting to sing on top of an improperly selected meal?" In other words, he put ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... score of similar incidents showed me the Bulgarian national character as kind, honest, patient, courageous. They made it impossible for me to believe that by nature these people are invariably cruel, rapacious, murderous. That in cases of Balkan massacres and outrages the Bulgarian people have not been always the victims, and have not been always blameless, I know. It is impossible to shut one's eyes to the fact that something survives of the traditions ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... certainly not 'blue,'" she said, sweetly—"If by that term you mean 'advanced' or in any way unwomanly. But she has been singularly gifted by nature—yes, dear child, I must be allowed to speak!"—this, as Innocent made an appealing gesture,— "and if people say she is the author of the book that is just now being so much talked of, they are only saying the truth. The secret cannot ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... alligator is in its great strength, and the chief means of its attack or defence is its large tail, so well contrived by nature to supply his wants, or guard him from danger, that it reaches, when curved into a half-circle, to his enormous mouth. Woe be to him who goes within the reach of this tremendous thrashing instrument; for, no matter how strong or muscular, ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... cases a month, to recover from the enormous dose, sometimes five hundred drops of laudanum, given to a patient to deaden the pain during a surgical operation. Young Dr. Morton believed that there must be some means provided by Nature to relieve human suffering during these terrible operations; but what could he do? He was not a chemist; he did not know the properties of chemical substances; ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... der Wuste"), on the other hand, with curious ingenuity, turns every thing to the prejudice of the "headstrong man" Moses, save that he does grant him a vivid sentiment of justice. He makes him both by nature and education a grand, strong man, but brutal (roh) withal. His killing the Egyptian is a secret murder; "his dauntless fist gains him the favour of a Midianitish priest-prince . . . . under the pretence of a general festival, gold and silver dishes ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... use of the suspensive participle is French and objectionable: e.g. "Careless by nature, and too much engaged with business to think of the morrow, spoiled by a long-established liberty and a fabulous prosperity, having for many generations forgotten the scourge of war, we allow ourselves to drift on without taking heed of the signs of the times." The remedy is to convert ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... develops naturally in proportion as the growth of moral courage becomes complete. Fear is nowhere so distressing as in our relations with our Creator. That which is by nature best becomes worst when it is perverted; and as the blessed hope to which, as children of God, we are all born heirs, is in its fulness an infinite source of joy and blessing to the soul, so when ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... woman's career in La Chance had never before inclined her to tolerance. So that when Mrs. Draper rose to go and asked casually if Sylvia couldn't run in at five that afternoon to have a cup of tea at her house with a very few of her favorites among the young people, Mrs. Marshall, rather inflexible by nature and quite unused to the subtleties of social intercourse, found herself unable to retreat quickly enough from her reflected tone of cordiality to refuse the invitation for ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... he would call again, and returned to the cabin, where, waking Viviette, who was not by nature an early riser, he waited on the column till she was ready to breakfast. When this had been shared ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... by nature of their enterprise, stock and mutual insurance companies and mutual building and loan associations, unlike fraternal benefit societies, have not been accorded the same unique constitutional protection; and, with few exceptions,[112] have had controversies ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... discriminating patron of the Arts, and as well equipped as any man of his time for the give-and-take of social intercourse; wholly free from the prejudices and narrowing rules of caste; at home in all companies; an enfranchised citizen of the world. To such a man, endowed as he was by nature, placed where he was by fortune and by circumstances, there was open, if he had chosen to enter it, an unlimited field for self-indulgence. But, Sir, as every one will acknowledge who was brought into daily contact with him in the sphere of affairs, his duty to the State always ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... courage one day, after dinner, to express his—"love;" so he really called it, and so we suppose must we, in our extreme ignorance of the precise category of nomenclature to which the feelings that actuated him belonged. Honest man! bigoted and selfish as he was, he was neither cruel by nature nor cross-grained; and he was even moved by the pathetic and frank avowal which Barbara made to him on the state of her heart. But, though touched by her tears, he understood them not, treated them but as the natural ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... remarkable, and the more so in that Rachel was convinced that, whereas she was as critical and inimical as ever, old Batchgrew had slightly improved. He behaved "heartily," and everybody appreciates such behaviour in the Five Towns. He was by nature far too insensitive to notice that the married lovers were treating each other with that finished courtesy which is the symptom of a tiff or of a misunderstanding. And the married lovers, noticing that he ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... in its employers' eyes after its late slip from rectitude. "She" was taking the hill gaily, pretending not to know it from the level, and it did seem hard to play the part of good Samaritan to one marked by nature as a Levite. But—noblesse oblige, ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... had come to hold quite extraordinary views about himself. I noticed it, but I said nothing. One day this man's wife told me that he was sometimes mentally unbalanced; and then thought he was Julius Caesar. For many years I kept this secret conscientiously, for I'm not ungrateful by nature. But life's tricky. It happened a few years later that this Caesar laid rough hands on my most intimate fate. In anger at this I betrayed the secret of his Caesar mania and made my erstwhile benefactor such a laughing stock, that his existence became unbearable ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue is acquired by teaching or by practice; or if neither by teaching nor by practice, then whether it comes to man by nature, ...
— Meno • Plato
... remarked the General when Damocles de Warrenne was ushered into his presence in the great library at Monksmead. "Hope he's Stukeley by nature too. Sturdy young fella! 'Spose he's vetted sound in wind ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... there lived one Brimbaudier, (1) saddler to the Queen of Navarre, and a man whose colour of feature showed him to be by nature rather a servant of Bacchus than a priest of Diana. He had married a virtuous woman who controlled his household very discreetly, and with whom ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... exhausted. Rothenstein's lithograph in particular, with the sort of morbid languor that pervades it, the mournful fixity of the gaze, the aristocratic slenderness of the hands and the features, surprises and startles the spectator. "By nature and by education," says M. Paul Bourget, "M. Ed. de Goncourt possesses an intelligence, the overacuteness of which verges on disease in its comprehension of infinitesimal gradations and of the infinitely subtle creature." Mr. Rothenstein ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... albeit a rustic person, gifted by nature with a good deal of discrimination. She was besides advanced in years; and had gone through many experiences in her lifetime, so when she, in the first place, saw how extremely delighted old lady Chia was with her, and, in the second, how eager the whole ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... of three hundred. Once off and away—while wood and welkin rings—and nothing is felt—nothing is imaged in that hurricane flight, but scorn of all obstructions, dikes, ditches, drains, brooks, palings, canals, rivers, and all the impediments reared in the way of so many rejoicing madmen, by nature, art, and science, in an enclosed, cultivated, civilized, and Christian country. There they go—prince and peer, baronet and squire,—the nobility and gentry of England, the flower of the men of the earth, each on such steed as Pollux never reined, nor Philip's warlike ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... said the Earl, "that all it was in my power to bestow upon her was not merely deserved, but a thousand times overpaid, by her own virtue and beauty; for never did greatness descend upon a creature so formed by nature to grace and ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... wish is not wrong, provided it doesn't act as a temptation to neglect present opportunities. We are all by nature self-seekers, and in no small danger of giving ourselves credit for wishing to serve the Lord, when, maybe, He sees it is ourselves we wish to serve. The best evidence we can give that we would honour Him in a larger sphere is, ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... was ever very strong. His defense of Mrs. Browning led straight to "The Defense of Guinevere," begun while at Oxford and printed in book form in his twenty-fourth year. Not that the offenses of Guinevere and Elizabeth Barrett were parallel, but Morris was by nature a defender of women. And it should further be noted that Tennyson had not yet written his "Idylls of the King,"-at the time Morris ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard |
