"Conceive of" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so young that you cannot yet conceive of the amount of treasure that will yet be poured in upon you, by all sorts of people, if you do not go about professing that you have all you want already. You know the story of the two school-girls on the Central Railroad. They were dead faint with hunger, having ridden all day without ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... and those I loved far better than myself endured. We were hastening to preserve from destruction the accursed viper who was to sting us to death. Thus, Heaven ordained it should be, and its ways are dark and intricate, beyond my comprehension, for surely it is against all the rules one can conceive of justice that a virtuous action should be thus rewarded. Perhaps you will say that His ways are inscrutable, and, that as we have neither the power, nor have we the right to attempt to read them, so we should not venture to cavil at His ordinances, but humbly believe that the ultimate result will ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... note, without a glimmer of warmth between the lines. I'm afraid there's a certain ugly truth which will have to be faced some day. But I intend to stick to the ship as long as the ship can keep afloat. I am so essentially a family woman that I can't conceive of life without its home circle. Home, however, is where the heart is. And it seems to take more than one heart to keep it going. I keep reminding myself that I have my children at the same time that I keep asking myself why my children are not enough, why they can't seem to fill my cup of contentment ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... which goes back of our very conception of a personal God, or which is inherent in that conception. We cannot conceive of God as God, unless we conceive of him as the true God, and the God of truth. If there be any falsity in him, he is not the true God. Truth is of God's very nature. To admit in our thought that a lie is of God, is to admit that falsity ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... province; this House have a right to judge for themselves, whether it was thus exercised. We cannot avoid taking this occasion, freely to declare to your Excellency, that the holding of the Assembly in this place, without any good reason which we can conceive of, under the many and great inconveniences which this, and former Houses, have so fully set forth to your Excellency, is, in our opinion, an undue exercise of power; and a very great grievance, which we still hope will soon ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... a point—there will be a degree of rarity, at which, if the atoms are sufficiently numerous, the interspaces must vanish, and the mass absolutely coalesce. But the consideration of the atomic constitution being now taken away, the nature of the mass inevitably glides into what we conceive of spirit. It is clear, however, that it is as fully matter as before. The truth is, it is impossible to conceive spirit, since it is impossible to imagine what is not. When we flatter ourselves that we have formed its conception, we have merely deceived ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... since, by all ruling of loyalty and dignity, the wall of partition was ordained to stand, wasn't it safer to remind both himself and Damaris, at times, of its presence? He must keep his feet on the floor, good God—keep them very squarely on the floor—for otherwise, wasn't it possible to conceive of their skirting the edge of unnamable abysses? In furtherance of that so necessary soberness of outlook he ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... I have received no word to the contrary from Johnson, I shall let him go, and bid him God speed. If, however, I should receive orders to continue to hold him, or even to deliver him over to his savage captors, which God forbid, I can conceive of no alternative save ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... it is sinful, because idolatrous. When it is said that 'love is the fulfilling of the law,' it is not love to God merely that is meant, I think, but love to Him supremely, and to all created things as well, self included, because if you can conceive of this passion being our motive power, and fairly balanced in our breasts—God and all created beings and things occupying their right relative positions,—self, although dethroned, would not be ignored. Depend on it, Charlie, ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... pulse does not beat quicker, and who does not feel within him a high exultation and pride, in the past glory and future prospects of his country. With these prospects are associated—if we are only wise, true, and faithful, if we shun sectional dissension—all that man can conceive of the progression of the American people. And the only danger which threatens those high prospects is that miserable spirit which, disregarding the obligations of honor, makes war upon the Constitution; which induces men to assume powers they do not possess, ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... superseded. The commissioners of customs might have enforced the Navigation Acts indefinitely; the objectionable Tea Act might have stood permanently on the statute-book; but, without a more tangible grievance, it is not easy to conceive of the colonists actually beginning a revolution. The time had now come when a more serious issue was raised than the right of Parliament to collect a revenue by a tariff in the colonies. If Parliament was to be allowed to crush the prosperity of a colonial seaport, to centralize ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... he upbraided her though she deserved it not, hours of penitence could not blot out from his own remembrance the act of weakness and injustice: he pondered upon it long after the gentle girl had forgotten that ever unkind word had passed between them. Beings of a gross and fettered nature cannot conceive of a love so pure as that which Barbara felt for the mis-shapen Robin—so perfectly devoid of earthly passion, yet so faithful—so exalted—so devoted—so engrossing! She had looked so long on his deformities, that she had ceased to perceive them; and often paused and wondered what people ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... nothing that is not founded on reason. I should be very glad to believe in an Infinite Creator, only it is entirely impossible, you see, for the mind to conceive of a being who is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... her hand still in mine, conscious that her cheeks were flushing. It was impossible for me to conceive of her performing ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... the Scaffold from the Prison, tied each with his arms behind him and again to each other; they were attended by a Priest, not, however, in black, and a party of soldiers. The time of execution of the whole five did not exceed five minutes. Of all situations in the world, I can conceive of none half so terrible as that of the last Prisoner. He saw his companions ascend one after another, heard each fatal blow, and saw each Body thrown aside to make room for him. I shall never forget his ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... to indicate the other element of hostility—far more serious than that of Ulster, because it challenged Redmond's leadership. It was that of the extremist group, which rapidly began to welcome German successes, not for any love to Germany but because it could not conceive of any hope for Ireland except in the weakening or Destruction of British power. These men, as been already seen, had acquired an influence in the Volunteer Force out of all proportion to their numbers, owing to the fact that the Irish ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... their rank upon the emperor, and in many cases serving in his employ. Below these the populace, of whose rights and liberties the emperor is an official champion to whom theoretically any Roman citizen can appeal against a sentence of death or against cruel wrong. It is hard to conceive of a stronger position for one ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... only against French law, but against the religion which sanctions it. He sees none of the beauty of the Gospels which Rousseau had admitted. His views are more rigid than those of his teacher. Scarcely can he conceive of two influences, the spiritual and the governmental, working on parallel lines, on different parts of man's nature. His conception of human society is that of an indivisible, indistinguishable whole, wherein materialism, tinged now and again ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... question had but a single answer,—the inculcation of contentment, by contrast with the most disagreeable surroundings in which one might anywhere else be placed. Perhaps it is over-sanguine to conceive of a further answer even now. If there be any, it is this: In its crudest state the alkaline earth of the Desert is sufficiently pure to make violent effervesence with acids. No elaborate process is required to turn it into ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... wants. The more assured he is of the morrow, according to the common acceptation, the more exclusively does he concern himself with how he shall live, and provide for his children and his children's children. Impossible to conceive of the fears of a man established in life—their number, their reach, and ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... with the lively little incidents which diversify the picture as the culminating glory of these various provocative elements,—form a picture which it hath not entered into the heart of the average American citizen to conceive of. ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... I should, of course, not have been excusable if I had failed in any case vigorously to carry out my instructions. But every time I plainly saw matters getting worse and worse; and I should have failed of my duty also if I had not so informed the President and the Department. I can conceive of no more awkward situation for an Ambassador or for any other man under Heaven. I turned the whole thing over in my mind backward and forward a hundred times every day. For the first time in this stress and strain, I lost my appetite and digestion ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... with a literary ambition which aims at falling just outside it. It is quite right to invent subtle analyses and detached criticisms, but it is unreasonable to expect them to be punctuated with roars of popular applause. It is possible to conceive of a mob shouting any central and simple sentiment, good or bad, but it is impossible to think of a mob shouting a distinction in terms. In the matter of eloquence, the whole question is one of the immediate effect of greatness, such as is ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... to the other. It might be concluded from the foregoing account that I see little difference in the aptitudes and powers of the sexes physically, morally, or intellectually. That does not necessarily follow. It is possible to conceive of each sex as the complement of the other; and between complements there can be no question either of superiority or of inferiority. The great historian of European Morals has analysed the constitutional differences of the sexes as he conceived ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... impossible to believe that equality will not eventually find its way into the political world as it does everywhere else. To conceive of men remaining for ever unequal upon one single point, yet equal on all others, is impossible; they must come in the end to be equal ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... forget that the love which they are discussing is a personal love, which might expand in a rarefied form to embrace a man's native country, but which disappears before it can embrace an artificial state such as Austria, England, or Turkey, and which we cannot even conceive of in relation to all ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... "But I cannot conceive of a case where even the greatest intellect can conceive a story of crime covering years of duration, with constantly shifting scenes and changing characters, and maintain that story with circumstantial detail as to ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... quite beyond the imagination of Rufus Griswold to conceive of, even. His furtive eye was on the watch, his jealous heart was filled with foul surmises and he added a new poison to the old, with which he was working, drop by drop, upon the good name of ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... ever-present question on my mind has been, whether electricity has an actual and independent existence as a fluid or fluids, or was a mere power of matter, like what we conceive of the attraction of gravitation. If determined either way it would be an enormous advance in our knowledge; and as having the most direct and influential bearing on my notions, I have always sought for experiments which would in any way ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... Presently a window was softly closed. I had just begun to get over the agitation with which we always awake from nightmare dreams, when I heard the sound which seemed to me as of a woman's voice,—the clearest, purest soprano which one could well conceive of. It was not loud, and I could not distinguish a word, if it was a woman's voice; but there were recurring phrases of sound and snatches of rhythm that reached me, which suggested the idea of complaint, and sometimes, I thought, of passionate grief and despair. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... they find it harder than clergymen to believe that there can be any world or state from which this benevolent agency is wholly excluded. This may be very wrong; but it is not unnatural. They can hardly conceive of a permanent state of being in which cuts would never try to heal, nor habit render suffering endurable. This is one effect ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... whether such an ether has any real material existence, and is anything more than a sort of mathematical [why 'mathematical'?] entity." [60] "It is clear that matter really does consist of minute particles which do not touch," and even these we must conceive of as "corks as it were floating in an ocean of ether, causing waves in it by their own proper movement," [61]—an explanation which loses some of its helpfulness when we remember that the ethereal ocean is only a mathematical entity. "A cubic centimetre contains 21,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... another sense, our author himself in his concluding chapter betrays his anthropomorphism; for he attributes to the Divine Being wisdom and beneficence and forethought, which are conceptions derived by man from the study of himself. Indeed, I do not see how it is possible to conceive of Deity except through some sort of anthropomorphism in this wider sense of the term, and certainly our author has ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... possible for man to conceive of anything more perfectly infamous? Can you believe that such directions were given by any except an infinite fiend? Remember that the army receiving these instructions was one of invasion. Peace was offered on condition that the people submitting should ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... companions, or one's own nation, or even the entire human race, but is so comprehensive as to include all life, human and sub-human; such love as this marks the highest point in moral evolution that human intelligence can conceive of or ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... honest soul's conception of all concrete evil was brought forth in two words, of odd enough application. In Europe, and Italy more particularly, true men have suffered chiefly from this form of evil, and the captain evidently could conceive of no other cause of suffering anywhere. We were talking of the American war, and when the captain had asked the usual question, "Quando finira mai questa guerra?" and I had responded as usual, "Ah, ci vuol pazienza!" the captain gave a heavy sigh, and turning his head ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... This is not new: the kindergarten gives domestic life a prominent place with little children. But with the kindergarten the present and familiar is abandoned in most schools and emphasis is placed upon that which is unfamiliar and remote. It is impossible to conceive of children working their own way from the familiar to the unknown unless they develop a method in understanding the familiar which will apply to the unfamiliar as well. This method is the method of art and science—the method of experimentation and inquiry. We can almost say that ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... cherished delusions had fallen from the scheme of things.... What was the good of making believe that up there they were planning some great counter-stroke that would end in victory? It was as plain as daylight that they had neither the power of imagination nor the collective intelligence even to conceive of a counter-stroke. Any dull mass may resist, but only imagination can strike. Imagination! To the end we should not strike. We might strike through the air. We might strike across the sea. We might strike hard at Gallipoli instead of dribbling inadequate armies thither ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... lower and lower. It seemed to me as we stood in that empty garage that an invisible hand was drawing a net closer and closer about Isobel and my ideas became increasingly chaotic, for the purpose of it all eluded me, try how I would to conceive of a scheme by which any one could profit which necessitated the imprisonment, or worse, ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... the shore, and pushed on round the spouting rocks into the next valley. This was that valley of which I have spoken as running across the entire island. It was by far the largest and most beautiful that we had yet looked upon. Here were trees of every shape and size and hue which it is possible to conceive of, many of which we had not seen in the other valleys; for, the stream in this valley being larger, and the mould much richer than in the Valley of the Wreck, it was clothed with a more luxuriant growth of trees and plants. ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... suggestive name for a tutor preparing young men for a Cavalry Regiment is "VON ORSBACH!" Not only would pupils surmount all difficulties of EUCLID's propositions, but being brought up by VON ORSBACH, they would dare all "riders!" Then as to the Princes, his pupils, cannot we conceive of the first Prince THURN how he has been turned out a perfect 'orseman by VON ORSBACH, and how it would tax all an Examiner's ingenuity to pluck TAXIS. Pity that when one Prince was called TAXIS the other ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... everything—their safety, his own self-respect and Ernest's confidence in him—rested on this last and different test. He could not conceive of a reason for landing, but Ernest said ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... in doing this appears to you a sign of domination, an order he gives the object to come nearer, or to you to bring it to him. It is nothing of the kind. It means only that the object seen first within the brain, then upon the eye, is now seen at arm's length, and that he does not conceive of any distance beyond his reach. Be careful, then, to walk often with him, to transport him from one place to another, to let him feel the change of position, and, in this way to teach him how to judge of distances. When ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... matter now whether I was insincere or not? I can't conceive of anything mattering less. I was very fine—is ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... saloon-keeper, in Presley's imagination, with all the dignity of the tragedy. He could not blame Caraher for being a "red." He even wondered how it was the saloon-keeper had not put his theories into practice, and adjusted his ancient wrong with his "six inches of plugged gas-pipe." Presley began to conceive of the man ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... evasively; "caze efn she wuz, she wouldn't be teachin' school fur er livin'; an' den ergin, efn she's so mighty rich, whar's her niggers? I neber seed 'em. An', let erlone dat, I ain't neber hyeard uv 'em yit;" for Mammy could not conceive of a person's being rich ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... seconds delay on the part of Carson must have proved fatal to him, for the savage was a good marksman, and was standing still, with such a brief space intervening, that he could not have missed. It is hard to conceive of any escape more narrow than that ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... the Ends and Designs of the Divine Wisdom in the Creation or Government of the World, is to suppose that we have a comprehension of God's Works, adequate or commensurate thereunto; which is not only to conceive of his Wisdom as not being infinite, but even to circumscribe it within very narrow bounds. If the Wisdom of God, (like his other Attributes) does infinitely surpass our reach, his Views must, for that reason, be necessarily oftentimes, ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... I try to think of myself as unaided by Johnson's Dictionary, or by "Sir Charles Grandison," whose prosiest speeches I committed joyfully to memory, my fancy stumbles in vain in the attempt. For five drudging years those books were my constant companions, my one resource, and to conceive of myself without them is to conceive of another and an entirely different man. If there was harm in any of them, which I doubt, it was clothed to appeal to an older and a less ignorant imagination than mine; and from ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... is this, and it is a very important one: Do you know, or can you conceive of any motive which could have actuated this person to plot against you ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... boat hoisted out and the captain to come aboard, which he refused. He again ordered our boat out and enforced his orders with a menace that in case of refusal he would sink us, using at the same time the vilest and most infamous language it is possible to conceive of. ... We hauled the ship to wind and as he passed poured a whole broadside into him with great success. Sailing faster than we, he ranged considerably ahead, tacked and again passed, giving us a broadside and furious discharge of musketry, which he kept ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... received theory of the whole subject. When a screw or paddle wheel is put in motion, a body of water is driven astern and the ship is driven ahead. Water, from its excessive mobility, is incapable of giving any resistance to the screw or paddle save that due to its inertia. If, for example, we conceive of the existence of a sea without any inertia, then we can readily understand that the water composing such a sea would offer no resistance to being pushed astern by paddle or screw. When a gun is fired, the weapon moves in one ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... of like powers and passions with ourselves. Hence the invention of those 'catastrophies'—in which the reputations of deities as well as of men and women have often suffered. It is the same tendency in the human mind which makes it so difficult to conceive of all the changes in the earth's surface-features and its inhabitants being due to similar operations to those still ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... be very strange if Ella's mother did not discover her absence till the next day. The young lady was very sad, and shook her head with so much significance, that I was afraid her mother was not kind to her, though I could hardly conceive of such ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... remarkable peculiarity of being in the key of E major—a violent modulatory relation to that of the first movement. I should say that this fact indicated that Haydn did not conceive of the three movements of the sonata as constituting a single whole, because if he had he could not have followed a close in E-flat major with an opening in E major, exactly a semitone higher, without the slightest modulation. This proceeding is inexplicable ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... has had a cocktail for an appetizer, a bottle of red wine with his meat course, and a bottle of white wine with the salad and dessert course. When the demi-tasse comes along, with it must be served his cordial in the shape of cognac, benedictine, or creme de menthe. He can not conceive of a man not taking a little alcohol with his after-dinner coffee, as an ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... for us to forget, that the village maiden of Dom Remi expiated her pious and visionary patriotism in the flames at Rouen. Only half her tragedy has been written; the other half remains for some future Schiller. Nor can we conceive of a better opportunity for the display of the peculiar powers of this poet, than would have been afforded by that catastrophe he has chosen to alter. Was the opportunity felt to be too great? Had the poet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... personality. Our adoration of him as our divine Lord makes it seem almost sacrilege to place his humanity in the ordinary rank with that of other men. It seems to us that life could not have meant the same to him that it means to us. It is difficult for us to conceive of him as learning in childhood as other children have to learn. We find ourselves fancying that he must always have known how to read and write and speak. We think of the experiences of his youth and young manhood as altogether unlike those of ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... saddle-bags all right, but never recovered the horse. The next day toward night we approached the Mission of San Francisco, and the village of Yerba Buena, tired and weary—the wind as usual blowing a perfect hurricane, and a more desolate region it was impossible to conceive of. Leaving Barnes to work his way into the town as best he could with the tired animals, I took the freshest horse and rode forward. I fell in with Lieutenant Fabius Stanley, United States Navy, and we ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... Fathers, believed and preached the pre-existence of the human soul and universal salvation. Now, if Jesus said anything contrary to this belief of universal salvation, either Origen did not know anything about it or he did not regard it as of any authority, one or the other. We cannot conceive of his holding a position of this sort if he had known that Jesus had pronounced explicitly to ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... highest object of human ambition, and that the hangman himself should take precedence of archbishops, kings, and emperors, inasmuch as he occupied the position of Almighty God, taking vengeance for the shedding of human blood. I confess I can scarcely conceive of a Christian man occupying such a position, neither can I agree with the reverend lecturer that the command given to Noah was intended to extend to all generations and societies of men. When it was promulgated there were only a few individuals left ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... smiled back at her, ambiguously; and Rudolph Musgrave laughed. "I perceive," said he, "you are a follower of Epicurus. For my part, I must have fetched my ideals from the tub of the Stoic. I can conceive of no nobler life than one devoted to furthering the ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... feet. More than three thousand years old, they look less eternal than the Sphinx. Like them, the Sphinx is waiting, but with a greater purpose. The Sphinx reduces man really to nothingness. The Colossi leave him some remnants of individuality. One can conceive of Strabo and AElius Gallus, of Hadrian and Sabina, of others who came over the sunlit land to hear the unearthly song in the dawn, being of some—not much, but still of some—importance here. Before the Sphinx no one is important. But in the distance of ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... London of a mature and disillusioned vision. It was London seen magnified and distorted through the young man's crystalline intentions. It had for him a quality of multitudinous, unquenchable activity. Himself filled with an immense appetite for life, he was unable to conceive of London as fatigued. He could not suspect these statesmen he now began to meet and watch, of jaded wills and petty spites, he imagined that all the important and influential persons in this large world of affairs were as frank in their private lives and as unembarrassed in ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... scarcely past his prime, a wearied; broken-hearted old man. His triumphs, military and civil, have been recorded in these pages, and his character has been elaborately pourtrayed. Were it possible to conceive of an Italian or Spaniard of illustrious birth in the sixteenth century, educated in the school of Machiavelli, at the feet of Philip, as anything but the supple slave of a master and the blind instrument of a Church, one might for a moment regret that so many gifts ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of a rose or of a peach is clearly not a physical quality. Nor do we in attributing beauty to some particular quality in an object, say colour, conceive of it as a phase of this quality, like depth or brilliance of colour, which, again, is known by a special modification of the sensations of colour. Hence we must say that beauty, though undoubtedly referred to a physical object, is extraneous to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... are not the recipient of the full support of the men of Pennsylvania. They cannot conceive of a man changing his views so thoroughly as you have. But this lack of perception they ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... like that which moved the Popes of the Renaissance to dismember Italy for their bastards. Hildebrand, like Matilda, was himself the creature of a great idea. These two potent personalities completely understood each other, and worked towards a single end. Tho mythopoeic fancy might conceive of them as the male and female manifestations of one dominant faculty, the spirit of ecclesiastical dominion incarnate in a man and woman of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... of childhood make it impossible, of course, for children to conceive of their school in a spirit of full appreciation. On the other hand, the very nature of childhood is responsiveness and readiness of cooeperation in any form of interesting activity,—is loyalty of attitude toward what is felt to minister to personal happiness and well-being. In so ...
— New Ideals in Rural Schools • George Herbert Betts
... should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart, and set out to accomplish it. He should make this purpose the centralizing point of his thoughts. It may take the form of a spiritual ideal, or it may be a worldly object, according to his nature at the time being; ...
— As a Man Thinketh • James Allen
... message' which he has to tell, that 'God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.' So the light of righteousness, as well as the lambent flame of love, burn together on that central fire of the universe. We must not so conceive of the love of God, as to darken the radiance of His righteousness, or to obscure the brilliancy of that pure light which tolerates ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... passed before the gleaming copper cylinders were finished. During this time Crane added to their already complete equipment every article he could conceive of their having any use for, while Seaton raged up and down the plant in a black fury of impatience. Just before the bars were ready, they made another reading on the object-compass. Their faces grew tense and drawn and their hearts turned sick as second followed second ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... from London to his wife in April, 1809, says of Charles and Mary Lamb: "If we may use the expression, their Union of affection is what we conceive of marriage in Heaven. They are the World one to the other. They are writing a Book of Poetry for children together." Later: "It is task work to them, they are writing for money, and a Book of Poetry for Children being likely to sell has induced them to compose one." Writing to Coleridge ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... it is ecstasy for me to see a perfectly unattractive, stupid woman snapped up at last, when I have given up hopes of settling her in life. Sometimes there are men so uninspiring that I cannot converse with them a single moment without yawning; but though failures in all other relations, one can conceive of their being tolerably useful as husbands and fathers; not for one's self, you understand, but ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Dr. Duchesne was delighted, and divided with admiration between his patient's progress and the millionaire's sagacity. "And there are envious people," said the enthusiastic doctor, "who believe that a man like him, who could conceive of such a plan for occupying a weak intellect without taxing its memory or judgment, is merely a lucky fool! Look here. May be it didn't require much brains to stumble on a gold mine, and it is a gift of Providence. But, in my experience, Providence ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... comedy, or more broadly humour, on the other hand, have their great place in literature; for they are forms of the intermediate world of conflict. I speak of the spiritual world of man's will. We may conceive of the world optimistically as a place in which all shall issue in good and nothing be lost; or as a place in which, by alliance with or revolt from the forces of life, the will in its voluntary and individual action may save or lose the soul at ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... here,'—that the man or woman who supplied that comfort were by to see how blessed it is. Believe me, you may all give and work in the earnest hope that you alleviate suffering, but none of you realize what you do; perhaps you can't conceive of it, unless you could see your gifts in use. * * ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... Testament—in the Gospels, in the doctrine of the kingdom; in the Epistles, in the corresponding doctrine of the Church. It can hardly be said too often, that, according to the New Testament ideal, there are no unattached Christians. The apostles never conceive of religion as merely a private matter between the soul and God. All true religion, as John Wesley used to say, is not solitary but social. Its starting-point is the individual, but its goal is a kingdom. Christ ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... itself. Young Granson belonged to that class of men of talent who distrust themselves and are easily discouraged. His soul was contemplative. He lived more by thought than by action. Perhaps he might have seemed deficient or incomplete to those who cannot conceive of genius without the sparkle of French passion; but he was powerful in the world of mind, and he was liable to reach, through a series of emotions imperceptible to common souls, those sudden determinations which make fools say of a ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... really conceive of operation in two hours? Two hours," Arnold said. "Two days, maybe. More ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... And as the heat of the Sun is more powerful when it emerges from clouds and after mist, so Love is sweeter and hotter after a jealous tiff with the loved one,[124] and moreover, as some think the Sun is kindled and extinguished, so also do people conceive of Love as mortal and uncertain. Moreover, just as without training the body cannot easily bear the heat of the Sun, so neither can the untrained soul easily bear the yoke of Love, but both are equally out ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... a piercing scream and threw herself into her husband's arms. Was it for the first time such a thought had ever been presented to her mind? Life without her husband! She could not conceive of it. It seemed as if he had always been with her; as though he had become so much a part of herself that she could not live without him. For, though she wearied and annoyed him, teased, opposed, and vexed him, she loved him beyond all ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... a lover, I welcome the openings that are being given to women to earn their own livelihood. I can conceive of no more degrading profession for a woman—no profession more calculated to unfit her for being that wife and mother we talk so much about than the profession that up to a few years ago was the only one open ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... direct opposition to the commands of God, can be, while he continues in this course, a true christian. Such a supposition would be no less absurd, than it would be to suppose, that a man is a good and peaceable subject, though he lives in open rebellion against the king. You may as well conceive of a holy devil, as of an ...
— An Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies, Established in New South Wales and Norfolk Island. • Richard Johnson
... policy of conservation, for example; and I do not conceive of conservation in any narrow sense. There are forests to conserve, there are great water powers to conserve, there are mines whose wealth should be deemed exhaustible, not inexhaustible, and whose resources should be safeguarded and preserved for future generations. But there is much more. There are ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... has come ont of Akasha, in obedience to a law of motion inherent in it, and, after a certain existence, passes away. Nothing ever came out of nothing. We do not believe in miracles; hence we deny creation, and cannot conceive of a creation of something out of nothing. Nothing organic is eternal. Everything is in a state of constant flux, and undergoing change and reformation, keeping up the continuity according to the ...
— The Buddhist Catechism • Henry S. Olcott
... after a long absence. The sick man learned very speedily how high his uncle stood in the city, for the last polite inquiry of each visitor was whether the Senator had called to welcome his nephew. In the narrow world of the Endicotts the average mind had not strength enough to conceive of a personality which embraced in itself a prize-fighter and a state senator. The terms were contradictory. True, Nero had been actor and gladiator, and the inference was just that an American might achieve equal distinction; but the Endicott mind refused to consider such an inference. Arthur ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... Can we, my hearers, conceive of a higher and more horrid contradiction of the whole spirit of our religion than a national war? And can there be anything more discouraging to him who hopes for the speedy diffusion of the Gospel ...
— National Character - A Thanksgiving Discourse Delivered November 15th, 1855, - in the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church • N. C. Burt
... Eliza, "to find that my teachings promise such happy results, that the seeds I have so carefully sown already show signs of a glorious fruition. Now, while it is true that I cannot conceive of a happier love than that which exists between my own dear tabby cat and myself, it is also true that I recognize your bassoon as an object so much worthier of adoration than mankind in general, and your male acquaintances in particular, that ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... of the most stupendous inquiries which could be impressed on future generations, and affected all the relations of society. Martyrdom was one solution of this mighty question which introduced a new power upon the earth, for we cannot conceive of Christianity as an all-conquering influence, except as it unfolds a new and superior existence, in contrast with which the present is worthless. The principle of martyrdom, setting at defiance the present, led to unbounded charity and the renunciation of worldly possessions. What are ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... l'estat de Fr. sous Francois II." to his pen is erroneous. I shall not insist upon the fact that the description of La Planche as "homme politique plustost que religieux" is inappropriate to the author of this history. But I can scarcely conceive of La Planche correcting errors in his own speech, and not only expressing an utter dissent from the account which he himself gave the queen of the motives that led La Renaudie to engage in the enterprise that had for its object the overthrow of the Guises, but even accusing himself of ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... lifts us from the depths of woe to the highest contemplations on human life. When Lear says of Edgar, "Nothing but his unkind daughters could have brought him to this;" what a bewildered amazement, what a wrench of the imagination, that cannot be brought to conceive of any other cause of misery than that which has bowed it down, and absorbs all other sorrow in its own! His sorrow, like a flood, supplies the sources of all other sorrow. Again, when he exclaims in the mad scene, "The little dogs and all, ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... feelings than the stateliest mansion unprotected from the sun. Who would care to live by the side of the purest stream or body of water, if it were not fringed with trees? Were it not for trees, would there be any beauty in mountain, hill, or valley,—for who can conceive of a beautiful landscape ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... monster—into a curse rather than a blessing.... There would not be two hundred families of persons who would emigrate from the United States to New Mexico for agricultural purposes in fifty years.... I have never heard of anything, and I cannot conceive of anything, more absurd and more affrontive of all sober judgment than the cry that we are getting indemnity by the acquisition of New Mexico and California. I hold that they are ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... money, Evelyn?" I asked gravely. "O sister, can you conceive of no higher happiness ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... skill, he includes in his thought the thing in the handling of which the skill is employed. One can hardly conceive of using skill except in handling something of the general nature of an instrument, even if the skill is employed in handling something which is not usually called an instrument. For instance, if a man handles an organization with the intent thereby to produce a certain result, the organization ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... the cliffs and ran up and down the ledge in a vain search for the spot where we had clawed our way to the top. Not that we thought the finding of the place would solve the problem of the descent. It was hard to conceive of a more difficult way than the one by which we had come, and as if he had suddenly come to the conclusion that any other path would be preferable, Holman dropped upon his knees and lowered himself upon a ledge ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... steady nerve and a thoroughly convincing roar. They have fought their kind and the elements for centuries and centuries, and know no fear. This, then, was the animal we sought in order to secure food for our dog teams. I can conceive of no form of big game hunting so conducive to great mental excitement and physical activity as walrus hunting from an open whale-boat. At the completion of such a hunt I have seen Eskimo so excited and worked up that they were ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... say for to show unto thee my conceit that I have of thee and of thy stirrings, as thou hast asked of me; for I conceive of thee that thou art full able and full greatly disposed to such sudden stirrings of singular doings,[243] and full fast to cleave unto them when they be received; and that is full perilous. I say not that this ableness and this greedy disposition in thee, or in ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various
... not stand by itself, it will beseem it (if need be) to walk in the mud, to tread on thorns, and sometimes even to be cut off, for the benefit of the whole body; else it is no longer a foot. In some such way we should conceive of ourselves also. What art thou?—A man.—Looked at as standing by thyself and separate, it is natural for thee in health and wealth long to live. But looked at as a Man, and only as a part of a Whole, it is for that Whole's sake that thou shouldest at one time fall sick, at another brave ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... another policeman and a corporal of infantry saluted and rose. In the centre of an admiring and sympathetic crowd of Dienstmadchen sat the culprit, the least concerned of the party; a stripling—a boy—scarcely out of his teens! Indeed, it was impossible to conceive of a more innocent, bucolic, and almost angelic looking derelict. With a skin that had the peculiar white and rosiness of fresh pork, he had blue eyes, celestially wide open and staring, and the thick flocculent yellow curls of the sun god! He ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... It is not necessary to argue this proposition at length. Pantheists often speak of the great being, which, according to Pantheism, is composed of all the intelligences of the universe. Can any man conceive of such a being? Can intelligences be piled one upon another, like brick and mortar, and thus be compounded? And if my spirit be the highest intelligence in the universe, did it create itself? Does it govern itself? Did it create the universe? Does it govern it? Some Pantheists have gone ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... office, why was there not an exception in that oath? Why did it not run "that we would support the Constitution of the United States unless our State shall secede before our term was out?" Sir, there is no such immunity. There is no way by which this can be done that I can conceive of, except it is standing upon the Constitution of the United States, demanding equal justice for all, and vindicating the old flag of the Union. We must maintain it, unless we are cloven down ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... us to conceive of the speechless terrors which these poor wretches suffer from the screeching of owls, the shrieking of night-hawks, the rustling of the trees ... all of which are only channels of poison wherewith the demons would ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... impressed Bull immensely. Here was a man talking commonplaces in the face of death. A greater man than Uncle Bill, he felt at once—a far greater man. It was impossible to conceive of that keen, sharp eye and that clawlike hand sending a bullet far from ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... able to make use even of popish priests if they will help to found a new market for his commerce. The portrait is not the less effective because the artist was so far from intending it that he could not even conceive of anybody being differently constituted from himself. It shows us all the more vividly what was the manner of man represented by the stalwart Englishman of the day; what were the men who were building up vast systems ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen |
