"Equipoise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what a lesson thou dost teach me! The life which is, and that which is to come, Suspended hang in such nice equipoise A breath disturbs the balance; and that scale In which we throw our hearts preponderates, And the other, like an empty one, flies up, And is accounted vanity and air! To me the thought of death ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... dissever them, and the obloquy attaching to the one seemed out of proportion altogether to its importance, while the other by no means justified the eulogy wherewith it was connected. Was there any immediate or even distant, effect on life caused by evil which was not instantly swung into equipoise by goodness? But these slender reflections troubled him only for a little time. He had little desire for any introspective quarryings. To feel so well was sufficient in itself. Why should thought be so apparent to us, so insistent? We do not know ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... throwing of darts "they make use of the becket, that is, a piece of stiff plaited cord, about six inches long, with an eye in one end and a knot in the other. The eye is fixed on the forefinger of the right hand, and the other end is hitched round the dart where it is nearly on an equipoise. They hold the dart between the thumb and the remaining finger, which serve only to give direction, the velocity being communicated by the becket and forefinger. The former flies off from the dart the instant its velocity becomes greater ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... dinner-table. When the cousin glanced back over her succession of neighbors, she came to the conclusion that they had lost in sprightliness what they had gained in moral worth. Fink was rather profane, but very amusing; Anton had a certain equipoise of goodness and pleasantness; Baumann was the best of them all, but also the most silent. Her conversation with him, though edifying enough, was never exciting. On Mondays, indeed, they had a mutual interest in discussing the Sunday's sermon, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... by which a real European partnership, based on the recognition of equal right and established and enforced by a common will, will be substituted for force, for the clash of competing ambition, for groupings and alliances, and a precarious equipoise. Mr. Lloyd George insists that there must be "no next time." Viscount Grey warns us that if the world cannot organize against war, if war must go on, "then nations can protect themselves henceforth only by using whatever destructive agencies they can invent, till the resources and inventions of science ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... hitherto produced, some from the labours of every publisher I have advanced into the text; those are to be considered as in my opinion sufficiently supported; some I have rejected without mention, as evidently erroneous; some I have left in the notes without censure or approbation, as resting in equipoise between objection and defence; and some, which seemed specious but not right, I have inserted ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... was on the bed of sickness, exchanging the light wines of France, Italy, and Germany, for the black and loathsome potions of the Apothecaries' Hall, writhed by darting stitches, and burning with fiery fever, that he felt the full force of that sublunary equipoise that seems evermore to hang suspended over the attainment of long-sought and uncommon felicity, just as it is ripening to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Wilson's virile virtue-voice, Whose whisper hushed Earth's Hum, were we not proud To have him cross the sea to speak aloud And, with a finger raised, hush battle noise, And lift all lands to Justice's equipoise? Oh, such his truth to God,—so oft avowed,— A spirit thund'red from a luminous cloud: "This man crowns Lincoln's ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... and in wealth—exactly as good a title to a place in the sun. [Prolonged cheers and some laughter.] And it means, finally, or it ought to mean, perhaps by a slow and gradual process, the substitution for force, for the clash of competing ambition, for grouping and alliances and a precarious equipoise, the substitution for all these things of a real European partnership, based on the recognition of equal right and established and enforced by a common will. [Cheers.] A year ago that would have sounded like a Utopian ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... given; the powder caught, and the mine exploded. Had it been strongly charged with powder, many of those without might have suffered; but the explosion was only powerful enough to blow out, in a lateral direction, a part of the wall just above the foundation, sufficient, however, to destroy the equipoise of the building. Then, amid a cloud of smoke, which began gradually to encircle the turret like a shroud, arising slowly from its base to its summit, it was seen to stagger and shake by all who had courage to ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... Afghanistan, on the arrival at Peshawur of the Jellalabad brigade. The members of council, who in the long interval since the previous meeting had been gradually regaining their self-respect and mental equipoise, unanimously declined to accept the proposals tendered them by their commanding officer and his political ally; and a letter written by Monteath was accepted, which 'was not a continuation of ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... Terra Australis incognita must necessarily exist, somewhere in the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere, to counterbalance the great masses of land in those of the northern one, and thus maintain a just equipoise of the globe. ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... he may desire to act, and thus give a determination to the course of the Balloon in the opposite direction. This will appear more clear as well as more certain when we consider, that the aerial vessel being in a state of perfect equipoise, as it ever must be when proceeding on the same level, the slightest alteration in its buoyancy is sufficient to send it to a considerable distance either up or down as the case may be: the rejection of a pound of ballast, or of an equivalent amount of gas, being enough to conduct the aeronaut ...
— A Project for Flying - In Earnest at Last! • Robert Hardley
... weighty authority, however, of Sainte-Beuve, at first thrown into the scale that at length would sink, was thence withdrawn, and at last, if not resolutely cast upon the opposite side of the balance, was left wavering in a kind of equipoise between the one and the other. But our preliminary sketch has already passed the limit within which our choice of authors for representation is ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... (addressing Nanki-Poo). Oh fool, that fleest My hallowed joys! Oh blind, that seest No equipoise! Oh rash, that judgest From half, the whole! Oh base, that grudgest Love's lightest dole! Thy heart unbind, Oh fool, oh blind! Give me my ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... individuals, yet wholly submerged in the unity that is Wagner; and so reconcile life's duality by balancing its opposing laughters in a definite form—thereby sending out into life a profounder duality than existed before. A Platonic equipoise, Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence—the only real philosophic problem, therefore one of which these two ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... yet so thick was the forest, that it was scarcely perceived an hundred miles from the shore. But as such violent storms are probably occasioned by the rarefaction of the air, with excessive heat, they are seldom of long duration, for having restored the equipoise in the atmosphere, the wind commonly ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... characteristic was Taste, an external quality, it is true, but one which is often the indication of more valuable ones lying deeper. In the conduct of life it insures tact, and in Art a certain gentlemanlike equipoise, incapable of what is deepest and highest, but secure also from the vulgar, the grotesque, and the extravagant. Leslie, we think, was more at home with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... deep eyes held his at bay, and despite his habitual, haughty equipoise, her crisp tone ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... of going, the person coolly sat down. The proprietor of the little shop glanced toward the door and half started from his chair. Whereupon the visitor smiled; he had a charming smile in these moments of calm equipoise, it gave one an impression of potential possibilities. Mr. Mackintosh sank back ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... temptations, and others that you cannot surmise," exclaimed Vannelle, "and I will conquer them,—if not through spiritual grace, then by some bodily penance of lasting effect. I discern in you certain qualities of mind that may serve to regulate the equipoise of mine. I have the means to provide for us both during the high speculations in which we shall engage. Let us be comrades in this undertaking. I seek to bridge the great gulf that separates the natural from the spiritual. My father ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Kant's strenuous insistence upon the categorical imperative of duty. A man, he urges, must be free; and the slavery of duty is no better than any other slavery. Virtue is inclination to duty, and the ideal is to be found in the perfect equipoise of the sensuous and the rational nature; in other words, when 'thou shalt' and 'I would' pull steadily and harmoniously in the same direction. So he defines 'dignity' (Wuerde) as the expression of a lofty mind, just as winsomeness is the expression of a beautiful soul. Control ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... resolutions than contemporaries, for posterity is able to accept them in a more literal sense. Hilbrough's ascendency in the bank, and his appreciation of Millard, in spite of the latter's symmetrical way of parting his hair, the stylish cut he gave his beard, and the equipoise with which he bore his slender cane, procured the latter's promotion to the vacant cashiership without visible opposition. Meadows would have liked to oppose, but he found powerful motives to the contrary; ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... way his mentality was abnormally acute. He saw with eyes which were inspired by a brain capable of vast achievement, but which possessed none of that equipoise so necessary for a well-balanced manhood. And it told him all that, and forced conviction upon him. It told him so much of that which no man should believe until it be thrust upon him overwhelmingly by the ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... management of his own property, to which was soon added that of his intended bride, who having died without male issue, her estates reverted to him, as heir of entail. But freedom and wealth were unable to restore the equipoise of his mind; to the former his grief made him indifferent—the latter only served him as far as it afforded him the means of indulging his strange and wayward fancy. He had renounced the Catholic religion, but perhaps some of its doctrines continued to influence a ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... coronet on the queen's brow, and they infer a diamond woman, not recking of the human heart that throbs wildly out of sight. They see the foam-crest on the wave, and picture an Atlantic Ocean of froth, and not the solemn sea that stands below in eternal equipoise. You turn to them the luminous crescent of your life, and they call it the whole round globe; and so they love you with a love that is agate, not pearl, because what they love in you is something infinitely below the highest. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... fixed, it's hung by a chain from a lever, and balanced by an equipoise. You shall see it nearer. Else, of course, there'd be no way of getting fuel into the thing. Every now and then the cone dips, ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... three hundred to less than one hundred, and the German states which mainly benefited, along with Prussia, were the southern states of Bavaria, Wuerttemberg, and Baden, which Napoleon desired to use as an equipoise against both Austria and Prussia. In this ambition he was not disappointed, for in the War of the Third Coalition (1805) he received important assistance from these three states, all of which were in turn liberally ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes |
