"Foreknowledge" Quotes from Famous Books
... philosophers declared that the brilliancy of this sacred fire thus suddenly presented to the eye had no special meaning, but was merely the course of a fiercer breath descending by some singular power from the sky to the lower parts of the world; and that if any foreknowledge were to be derived from such a circumstance, it was rather an increase of renown which was portended to the emperor now engaged in a glorious enterprise; since it is notorious that flame, if it meet with no obstacle, does of its own nature ... — The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... laboureth to comfort Timothy with the remembrance of the steadfastness of God's eternal decree of election, because grounded on his foreknowledge; saying, though Hymeneus and Philetus have erred from the faith, and, by their fall, have overthrown the faith of some, 'Yet the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that ... — The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... not to know the future; be happy while you may, Nor cloud with dark foreknowledge the sunshine of to-day. I see that you are hopeful, I read it in your eyes, And I can learn no more from the stars that gem the skies. Trust not the outward seeming of all who speak you fair; What has been, maiden, may ... — Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... crime, are ascribed to the arrows of Apollo or Diana. The oracular functions of the god rose naturally out of the above fundamental attributes, for who could more appropriately impart to mortals what little foreknowledge Fate permitted of her decrees than the agent of her most awful dispensations? The close union of the arts of prophecy and song explains his additional office of god of music, while the arrows with which he and his sister were armed, ... — The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... immeasurable grief, the conqueror of so many battles wished to seek in suicide a refuge from the tortures of thought, and that he was to fail to find death, he who on the battle-field had squandered so many lives. O mortals, ignorant of your own fates, how happy you are not to have foreknowledge of them! ... — The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... foreknowledge, will and fate, Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no ... — Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... is, familiar, serene, festal. That the pilgrim knew he would see it in due time does not diminish for him the queer joy of seeing it; nay, this emotion would be far less without that foreknowledge. Some things are best at first sight. Others—and here is one of them—do ever improve by recognition. I remember that when first I beheld this steady strip of light, shed forth over a threshold level with the road, it seemed to me conceivably sinister. It brought Stevenson ... — And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... repent and believe, putting the verbs in the active voice, imperative mood. What inconsistent commands these would be if man possessed no freedom in the exercise of repentance and faith!" "God's fiat of the individual's election unto salvation must have been decided upon in foresight and foreknowledge of the whole content of faith, including both its divine enablement and its human element of freedom." (65.) Similar views on man's freedom and responsibility were expressed by Dr. Haas in Trends of Thought, 1915. In his book, ... — American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... quite prepared to say she had expected a positive proposal from Lord Rye to pop out of it. Our young woman arrived at last, none the less, at a definite vision of what was in her mind. This was a vivid foreknowledge that the betrothed of Mr. Mudge would, unless conciliated in advance by a successful rescue, almost hate her on the day she should break a particular piece of news. How could that unfortunate otherwise endure ... — In the Cage • Henry James
... sign are Morton, who had guilty foreknowledge of the murder; while his kinsman, Archibald Douglas, was present at the doing; Sir James Balfour, who was equally involved; Lethington, who signed the murder covenant; and Douglas of Whittingham, and ... — John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... Mistress Bridget brought in a tall beggar woman, dumb, or pretendedly so, and apparently deaf. She made many signs that the gift of foreknowledge was in her possession, though she seemed herself to have profited little by so dangerous an endowment. Ellen, being persuaded by her maid, craved a specimen of this wonderful art. The hag, a smoke-dried, dirty-looking beldame, ... — Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... the transaction is as given here. The most damning fact against Elizabeth was held to be her own statement to de Quadra on the eve of Lady Robert Dudley's murder to the effect that Lady Robert was "already dead, or very nearly so." This foreknowledge of the fate of that unfortunate lady has been accepted as positive evidence that the Queen was a party to the crime at Cumnor, which was to set her lover free to marry again. Far from that, however, I account it positive proof of Elizabeth's ... — The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... bountifulness, that he gave food to any free-born man as long as he would have it, and therefore there was at all times a throng of people at Reek-knolls; thus had Thorgils much renown of his house-keeping. He was a man withal of good will and foreknowledge. Thorgeir was with Thorgils in winter, but went ... — The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... attention, and made him thought superior to other men, because he was different from them. Like Lucian's Alexander[354] (who was all but his disciple), he was skilled in medicine, professed to be favoured by AEsculapius, pretended to foreknowledge, was in collusion with the heathen priests, and was supported by the Oracles; and being more strict in conduct than the Paphlagonian,[355] he established a more lasting celebrity. His usefulness to political aspirants contributed to his success; perhaps also the real and contemporary ... — Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... away to one side of the place, the common ensign of a well on a caravan route. The post was but a few structures of wood and mud, and, a little way off, the tents of the camp. In the east, the sky was red with foreknowledge of the sun; its light already lay pale over the meanness of all the village. I helped her from the train, and demanded to know ... — The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... reception Christian Science would have before it was understood, but this foreknowledge hindered 41:24 him not. He fulfilled his God-mission, and then sat down at the right hand of the Father. Persecuted from city to city, his apostles still went about 41:27 doing good deeds, for which they ... — Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... From whom was he descended? 2. What does Paulding say of him? 3. Where is found the quotation—"Free will fixed fate, foreknowledge absolute"? ... — Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... had ventured in with frightened faces, none dared molest the giant. The master turned his entreating eyes upon his wife, but she seemed stunned, and only covered her face with her hands and sat as if paralyzed by a foreknowledge ... — The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... fire, then, indeed, when we had seen it come to pass, we should not have been to blame to have paid more than common respect to their prophetic spirits (at least, we should have wondered at them, and have been more serious in our inquiries after the meaning of it, and whence they had the foreknowledge); but as they generally told us of a relapse into the plague, we have had no concern since that about them. Yet by those frequent clamors we were all kept with some kind of apprehensions constantly upon us; and if any died suddenly, or if the spotted ... — History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... good pleasure should exist between obedient and true believers and Himself, but of cautioning all against any superstitious feelings towards those who were nearly allied to Him by the ties of his human nature. With reverence I would say, it is as though He desired to record his foreknowledge of the errors into which his disciples were likely to be seduced, and warned them beforehand to shun and resist the temptation. The evidence borne by this passage against our offering any religious worship to the Virgin, on the ground of her having been the mother of our Lord, ... — Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... painted off, because the little dears are in their graves. Two nicer children were never seen, clever, and sprightly, and good to learn; they never even took a common bird's nest, I have heard, but loved all the little things the Lord has made, as if with a foreknowledge of going early home to Him. Their father came back very tired one morning, and went up the hill to his breakfast, and the children got into the boat and pushed off, in imitation of their daddy. It came on to blow, as it does down there, without a single whiff of warning; ... — Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... will surely be, Does only, first, effects in causes see, And finds, but does not make, necessity. Creation is of power and will the effect, Foreknowledge only of his intellect. His prescience makes not, but supposes things; Infers necessity to be, not brings. Thus thou art not constrained to good or ill; Causes, which work the effect, force ... — The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... Augustine says (De Praed. Sanct. ii, 14) that "predestination is the foreknowledge of God's benefits." But foreknowledge is not in the things foreknown, but in the person who foreknows them. Therefore, predestination is in the one who predestines, and not in ... — Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... her door who insisted upon being admitted to her presence. "I told him," said the servant, "that you were sick: he said he knew you were, and therefore he came to speak with you. I told him that you were asleep: he seemed to have a foreknowledge of that too, and said, that therefore he must speak with you. What is to be said to him, lady? for he seems fortified against all denial, and will speak with you, whether you will or no." Olivia, curious to see who this peremptory messenger might ... — Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... him a scheme whereby they should seize Queen Mary's person, and murder her secretary, Lethington, and her half-brother, Lord James Stuart, later Earl of Moray. Arran explained to Knox that, if ever the plot came to light, he would be involved in the crime of guilty concealment of foreknowledge of treason. But, if he divulged the plan, Bothwell would challenge him to trial by combat. Knox advised secrecy, but Arran, now far from sane, revealed ... — James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... existence of the contrast between things plainly understood, and things not understood, gives one distinct meaning to the term Mystery. In some cases, a mystery is formed by an apparent contradiction, as in the Theological mystery of Free-will and Divine Foreknowledge; here, too, there is a contrast with the great mass of consistent and reconcilable things. But now, when we are told by sensational writers, that everything is mysterious; that the simplest phenomenon in nature—the fall of a stone, the swing of a ... — Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... seen. Then promising to return again in case the worst should happen, he took his leave, while Mrs. Johnson, now that a weight was lifted from her mind, seemed to rally, and the physician pronounced her better. But with that strange foreknowledge, as it were, which sometimes comes to people whose days are nearly numbered, she felt that she would die, and that in mercy this interval of rest and freedom from pain was granted her, in which she might talk with Alice concerning ... — Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... that room, years to come. The rain that falls upon the roof: the wind that mourns outside the door: may have foreknowledge in their melancholy sound. Let him remember it in ... — Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... do predictions and foreknowledge of future events indicate, but that such future events are shown, pointed out, portended, and foretold to men? From whence they are called omens, signs, portents, prodigies. But though we should esteem ... — Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... was every one with a candidate for the throne that it was impossible not to suspect that there had been foreknowledge of the event. ... — Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... foreknowledge and human freedom, regularly discussed in studies of providence, receives an explanation which becomes more and more enlightening in the course of the book. The paradox, probably nowhere else discussed, of man's thinking and willing ... — Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... as enables us to draw the assumed line of demarcation. It is a difference not between common knowledge and scientific knowledge; but between the successive phases of science itself, or knowledge itself—whichever we choose to call it. In its earlier phases science attains only to certainty of foreknowledge; in its later phases it further attains to completeness. We begin by discovering a relation: we end by discovering the relation. Our first achievement is to foretell the kind of phenomenon which will occur under specific conditions: our last achievement is to foretell not ... — Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... may even be comprehensive of them all. It regards prayer as an element which was taken into account at the original constitution of the world, and for which an answer was provided, as the result of natural laws or of angelic agency, employed for this express end by the omniscient foreknowledge and wisdom of God. It is the solution that has obtained the sanction of some of the highest ... — Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... my talent in a napkin, and my skill be rak'd up with me in the dust. Therefore I have left it to posterity, that they may have the fruit when the old tree is dead and rotten. And because I would not be tedious, I shall descend to some few particular instances of my skill and foreknowledge of the weather, and ... — Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... who draws his conclusions from innumerable, imponderable data. Then he took a chair to the window and sat down. She was very real to him, this woman, and compelling, with her silences, her broken phrases. Rarely, very rarely before in his life, had he had this experience of intimacy without foreknowledge, without background—the sense of dealing with a human ... — The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Some foreknowledge of defeat clarified the young author's vision, and a bitter melancholy crept over him as the third act unrolled. "They will go out," he said to himself, "and they will not come back for the last act. The play is doomed to disaster." And a flame of hatred rose in his heart against the ... — The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... despite my tender, years to the leadership of a school; nay, more, that I was making read the very place in which I would undertake this task, the place being none other than the castle of Melun, at that time a royal seat. My teacher himself had some foreknowledge of this, and tried to remove my school as far as possible from his own. Working in secret, he sought in every way he could before I left his following to bring to nought the school I had planned and the place I had chosen for it. Since, however, in that very place ... — Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... muscular contractions, by means of some fact which experience has shown to be followed by it. All foresight, therefore, and all intelligent action, have only been possible in proportion as men have successfully attempted to ascertain the successions of phaenomena. Neither foreknowledge, nor the knowledge which is practical power, can be acquired ... — Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... Christianity in America. If it had not been for the Unitarian defection in New England, and for the attacks from Germany upon the historicity of the gospels, the theologians of America might to this day have been engrossed in "threshing old straw" in endless debates on "fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute." The exigencies of controversy forced the study of the original documents of the church. From his entrance upon his professorship at Andover, in 1810, the eager enthusiasm of Moses Stuart made him the father ... — A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... that upon the score of foreknowledge and divining I am infinitely inferior to the swans. When they perceive approaching death they sing more merrily than before, because of the joy they have in going to ... — Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... by chance disengaged to-morrow? Could you dine with me? I shall be alone; perhaps you don't mind that? We could exchange views on "fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute".' ... — Born in Exile • George Gissing
... date of the resurrection passes Human foreknowledge: men unborn Will gain by it (even in the lower classes), But none of these. It is not the morn Because the cock ... — The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... geese are swans. They were born to be duped, they like it, they cry for it, they don't know anything from anything, and they disgust one—luckily perhaps!— with Christian charity." His vehemence was doubtless an accident, but it might have been a strange foreknowledge. I forget what protest I dropped; it was at any rate something that led him to go on after a moment: "I only ask one thing—it's perfectly simple. Is a man, in a ... — The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... this is apparent. Even though no actual assistance be given, still complete foreknowledge of a coming mischief, unfollowed by corresponding precautions, implies a sanction. And this form of sanction Cromwell gave to the Insurrection. In a tone of triumphant cunning he assured his Parliament, during the ensuing year, that he had possessed 'full intelligence of' the conspiracy; though, ... — The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... they know about the quantity of food that will be necessary? How much of all this at least can they know consciously? Yet their actions, the pains they take, and the importance they evidently attach to these matters, prove that they have a foreknowledge of the future: this knowledge therefore can only be an unconscious clairvoyance. For clairvoyance it must certainly be that inspires the will of an animal to open cells and cocoons at the very moment that ... — Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... become familiar, even dear, through their three days' association with her happy bridals. Now the room and everything in it seemed to have been created for all time to be the accomplices and ministers of her degradation. They were well acquainted with her and it; they held foreknowledge of her, as the pier-glass held her dishonoured and ... — The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... dangerous thing in the world," said Heemskerk. "I still have my foreknowledge that I shall stand by your side in some great battle to come, but the first thing I shall do when I see you again, my friends, is to look around at you, one, two, three, four, five, and see if you have upon your heads the hair which is now so ... — The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... lead him to the contemplation of the Summum Bonum, which is God Himself, the knowledge of whom is the highest happiness. Then, in order a little to lighten his difficulties as to the permission of evil by the All-wise and Almighty One, she enters into a discussion of the relation between Divine Foreknowledge and Human Free-will, but this discussion, a thorny and difficult one, is not ended when the book comes to an abrupt conclusion, being probably interrupted by the arrival of the messengers of Theodoric, who brought the warrant for the ... — Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... foresee in this several disadvantages. Many of those men will commit sins they would not have committed as penguins. Truly their fate through this change will be far less enviable than if they had been without this baptism and this incorporation into the family of Abraham. But my foreknowledge must not ... — Penguin Island • Anatole France
... a stream of fumbling, warm-hearted, mistaken apology that sickened the old man's soul. When he finally rose for his great adventure, he spoke timidly, with a wretched foreknowledge of ... — Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... and accurately these two sources of foreknowledge are compared and combined, the more satisfactory will the ... — Barometer and Weather Guide • Robert Fitzroy
... been a merry mile, This summer-stroll by hedge and stile, With sweet foreknowledge all the while How sure the pathway ran To dear delights of kiss and smile, Across the ... — Practice Book • Leland Powers
... and stood, trembling like a leaf. Broussard rose, too. By some strange, psychic foreknowledge, Broussard knew that some disclosure, poignant and even vital to himself, was then to be made by Lawrence. It came in Lawrence's next words, dragged out of him, as it were, by a force like that which drags ... — Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... such foreknowledge is not for fathers or mothers, whatever their rank or station, and King James's only thought was one of pride in the two brave lads now whispering together in secret confidence. And into this he ... — The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... with those of Hudson Bay) effected a revolution in Canadian geography. They played the role of imperial pioneers with a stubborn heroism, with little thought of personal gain, and in most cases with full foreknowledge and appreciation of what would accrue to the British Empire through their success. It is impossible to relate the adventures of all of them within the space of any one book, or even of several volumes. Moreover, this has been done already, not only in their own ... — Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... in the memory; an enchanted experience, in which the single sense of sight had almost touched the boundary of music. They would remember these lakes as the central emotion of their youth. To mean men also who, in spite of years and of a full foreknowledge of death, yet attempt nothing but the satisfaction of sense, and pride themselves upon the taste and fineness with which they achieve this satisfaction, the Italian lakes would seem a place for habitation, and there such a man might build his house contentedly. But to ordinary ... — The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... type of pastoral, weather-beaten misery. He was precisely the shepherd for the foreground of a scratchy etching. There were faint odours of spring in the air, and the grass here and there was streaked with great patches of daisies; but it was spring with a foreknowledge of autumn, a day to be enjoyed with a substrain of sadness, the foreboding of regret, a day somehow to make one feel as if one had seen and felt a great deal—quite, as I say, like a heros de roman. Touching such characters, it was the illustrious Pelham, I think, who, on being asked ... — Italian Hours • Henry James
... but in the Scriptures themselves it frequently expresses insight and admonition without the element of foretelling. Forecast involves a marked degree of conjecture. Presage usually means to give as a presentiment or warning. Forebode expresses an uncertain foreknowledge of vague impending evil. Portend indicates the likelihood that something will befall which is threatening or evil in its consequences. Augur means foretelling from omens. Prognosticate means foretelling through the study of ... — The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... than this if we would fully understand the true nature of dramatic interest. The last paragraph has brought us to the verge of the inmost secret, but we have yet to take the final step. We have yet to realize that, in truly great drama, the foreknowledge possessed by the audience is not a disadvantage with certain incidental mitigations and compensations, but is the source of the highest pleasure which the theatre is capable of affording us. In order to illustrate my meaning, I propose to analyse a particular scene, not, certainly, ... — Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... the seer was sailing over the ocean, Kapukaihaoa had foreknowledge of what the prophet was doing, therefore he told Waka in a vision to carry Laieikawai away where she ... — The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... humble cheer The hermit sage to heaven cast up his eyne, His color and his countenance changed were, With heavenly grace his looks and visage shine, Ravished with zeal his soul approached near The seat of angels pure, and saints divine, And there he learned of things and haps to come, To give foreknowledge ... — Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... the first place, the great advantage of a definite mythological tradition which was known to everybody. In the second place, he wrote for people who still believed in oracles and received them seriously as credible manifestations of divine foreknowledge. Again, he could count on a living belief in the hereditary character of guilt: the belief that a good man, leading his life without evil intent, might be led to commit horrible and revolting acts because of some ancient taint ... — The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... destiny spun by the powers of the Underworld,' she said, 'and the foreknowledge that I should suffer harm from thee. And I knew not that thou wert here, or I and my sisters would have avoided thee. But it is fated,' she went on, 'that thou come with us to learn all that may be learned of the use of arms. For there are ... — King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... equestrian portion of the king's subjects. One of the most zealous advocates of the improvement was the present Sir Peter Laurie, not then elevated to a seat among the Equites, but imbued probably with a foreknowledge of his knighthood, and therefore anxious for the safety of his horse. Sir Peter was determined, in all senses of the word, to leave no stone unturned; and a very small mind, when directed to one object with all its force, has more effect than a large mind unactuated by the same zeal—as a ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... yond young fellow swears he will speak with you. I told him you were sick; he takes on him to understand so much, and therefore comes to speak with you. I told him you were asleep; he seems to have a foreknowledge of that too, and therefore comes to speak with you. What is to be said to him, lady? he's fortified against ... — Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... That in school is great altercation In this matter, and great disputation, And hath been of an hundred thousand men. But I ne cannot *boult it to the bren,* *examine it thoroughly * As can the holy doctor Augustine, Or Boece, or the bishop Bradwardine, Whether that Godde's worthy foreweeting* *foreknowledge *Straineth me needly* for to do a thing *forces me* (Needly call I simple necessity), Or elles if free choice be granted me To do that same thing, or do it not, Though God forewot* it ere that it was wrought; *knew in advance ... — The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... retired from the law in some measure. He knew these battles more accurately than the generals who fought them, and he was of a like proficiency in the European wars from the time of Napoleon down to our own time. I have heard a story, which I cannot vouch for, that when foreknowledge of his affliction, at the outbreak of our civil war, forbade him to be a soldier, he became a student of soldiership, and wreaked in that sort the passion of his most gallant spirit. But whether this was true or not, it is certain that he pursued the study with a devotion which never ... — Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... these Lectures requires something more, and that for two reasons. For, in the first place, the doctrine of necessity was most often in Bishop Butler's days derived from a conception of a Divine foreknowledge arranging everything by supreme Will, not from the conception of a blind mechanical rule holding all in its unrelaxing grasp. And though to the cold reason it may make no difference how the will is bound, yet to the moral sentiment ... — The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... he was so insistently at work to defeat Danglar's plans was in his favor; but that argument, like all others, came quickly and miserably to grief. Where the "leak" was, as Danglar called it, that supplied the Adventurer with foreknowledge of the gang's movements, she had no idea, save that perhaps the Adventurer and some traitor in the gang were in collusion for their own ends—and that certainly did not lift the Adventurer to any higher plane, or wash from ... — The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... of moderation, I have trusted the event to the care of Providence. Peace was the object of my counsels, as long as peace was consistent with the public welfare; but when the imperious voice of my country summoned me to arms, I exposed my person to the dangers of war, with the clear foreknowledge (which I had acquired from the art of divination) that I was destined to fall by the sword. I now offer my tribute of gratitude to the Eternal Being, who has not suffered me to perish by the cruelty of a tyrant, by the secret dagger of conspiracy, or by the slow tortures of ... — The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... the Scriptures," and, as his Hebrew Melodies testify, he was not unwilling to turn to the Bible as a source of poetic inspiration. Moreover, he was born with the religious temperament. Questions "of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate," exercised his curiosity because they appealed to his imagination and moved his spirit. He was eager to plunge into controversy with friends and advisers who challenged or rebuked him, Hodgson, for instance, ... — The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... that she was too, he would still have sharply challenged her hadn't he so felt it an abuse of her weakness to do more than take devoutly what she gave him, take it hushed as to a revelation. If he did speak, it was out of the foreknowledge of his loneliness to come. "If you're glad of what it's 'not' it might ... — The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James
... lives for himself alone; but he is doubly blest or doubly cursed when, in his second stage, he is visited through his children. What a blessing is our ignorance of the future! Fatal, indeed, to all happiness in this world would be a foreknowledge of that which is to come. We have but to do our duty and hope for the best, acknowledging, however severe may be the dispensation, that whatever is, or is to ... — Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the mountain ash is the Fairy Palace of the Quicken Tree, and on its walls is suspended the Horn of Foreknowledge, which if any one looks on it in the morning, fasting, he will know in a moment all things that are to happen during ... — Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... sat on a hill retired, In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate— Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute— And found no end, in ... — Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... MARTIN. If you have foreknowledge, you have no right to keep silent. If you do not help me, I may go to work in the wrong way. I know I have to destroy, but when I ask myself what I am to begin with, I am full ... — The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... under the compulsion of command. His play was old-fashioned, as any middle-aged man's is apt to be, but he was not an indifferent swordsman. He was cool, determined, dogged. But he was not brilliant, and he was oppressed with foreknowledge of defeat. A score of times, by quick and brilliant, he was mine. But I refrained. I have said that I was devilish-minded. Indeed I was. I wore him down. I backed him away from the moon so that he could see little of me because I ... — The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... fear of that," he said. "The papers are of no use except to us and to England. To England, I will admit that the foreknowledge of what is to come would be worth much, although the eventful result would be the same. It is for that reason that I am here, for that reason that I have ... — Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... perfected the last fragment of its arrangements. The old gray buccaneer, who had charge of the pool's interests, was as ready for action as was Mr. Bayard. The latter stock-King was perhaps the only one in the Street who possessed a foreknowledge of what daring deeds our White House meditated. To Mr. Bayard the secrets of Courts and Cabinets were told, for he had an agent at the elbow of every possibility. The old gray buccaneer was not so well provided; none the less, ... — The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... who will hear the song of peace as in the 'Pastoral Symphony,' but happy already he who has foreknowledge of it amid the tumult! And what does it matter in the end that this magnificent prophecy is fulfilled in the absence of the prophet! He who has guessed this has gleaned great joy upon earth. We can leave it to a higher being to pronounce if the ... — Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... When the fit was genuine, as of course it sometimes was, the test had no particular reviving effect; but if the man were shamming, as he probably was in spite of the great consistency of his symptoms, the chances were that, with all his nerve and foreknowledge of what was in store for him, the sudden biting of the fiery liquid into his naked flesh would bring him to his feet dancing with pain and cursing and banning to the utmost extent of ... — The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... His work, and hindered the results of His self-sacrifice. Eighteen hundred years have passed, and still His rule is imperfect; and not one third of the human race, whom He redeemed unto Himself with His own blood, accept Him as their King. But in His perfect foreknowledge, this hindering of His work of love for the salvation of man was present from the first; and was foretold by Him in part in His parables. And it pleased Him to entrust to His faithful people the task of removing and overcoming by their prayers and ... — The Kingdom of Heaven; What is it? • Edward Burbidge
... do it because he knew I could, and therefore devoted himself to trapping the boys who could not, until I finally forgot most of it. But when progress took place, what did it mean? First it meant Caesar, with the foreknowledge that to master Caesar meant only being set at Virgil, with the culminating horror of Greek and Homer in reserve at the end of that. I preferred Caesar, because his statement that Gaul is divided into three parts, though neither interesting nor true, was ... — A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... dispose and fix them by his determination, there would be room to agitate the question, whether his providence or foresight rendered them at all necessary. But, since he foresees future events only in consequence of his decree that they shall happen, it is useless to contend about foreknowledge, while it is evident that ALL things come to pass rather by ORDINATION and DECREE." (Vol ii. ... — The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... at this intelligence than the sexton. Like many other seers, he had not, in all probability, calculated upon the fulfilment of his predictions, and he now stared aghast at the extent of his own foreknowledge. ... — Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... syllable with Sah-luma—an indefinable yet tacit understanding existed between them,—an intuitive foreknowledge and subtle perception of each other's character, intentions, and aims, that for the moment rendered speech unnecessary. And there was something, after all, in the profound silence of the night that, while strange, was also eloquent— eloquent ... — Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... foreknowledge, will, and fate," he grappled with one of those great questions which have always perplexed and baffled human inquiry, and upon which much has been written to little purpose. He was tortured with anxiety ... — The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... tragedy of love and death which had been lived out in slow scenes during those many weeks. It was needful that it should come, and inevitable, soon or late. It began when Gianluca made that one last desperate effort to move, in sudden certainty of hope that ended in the instant foreknowledge of what was to be. A little thing swayed him then—such a little thing as the accident of a sharp foil, a rent in a jacket, the woman's blinding fear for the man she loved. There are many arrows in fate's quiver, and the little ones are as keen as the ... — Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... stiff breeze, ought to be sent into the Clyde for a coal-droger. An old vessel's a perfect pickpocket to owners; and if this old thing hasn't opened their purses as bad as her own seams, I'll miss my reckonin'. I've had a strong foreknowledge that we wouldn't get across in her. I saw the rats leaving in Jamaica—taking up their line of march, like marines on the fore. It's a sure sign. And then I'd a dream, which is as sure as a mainstay—never deceives me. I can depend on its presentiment. I have ... — Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... the individual will are not ignored. Judah Halevi as well as Abraham Ibn Daud discuss these arguments in detail. But freedom comes out triumphant. It is even sought to reconcile the antinomy of freedom vs. God's foreknowledge. God knows beforehand from all eternity how a given man will act at a given moment, but his knowledge is merely a mirror of man's actual decision and not the determining cause thereof. This is Judah Halevi's view. Abraham ... — A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end in wandering mazes lost. Of good and evil much they argued then, Of happiness, and final misery, Passion, and apathy, ... — Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... Stephanus! Strike! strike! Kill the tyrant!" On that same day, the hated Domitian was assassinated at Rome by a man named Stephanus. The humdrum interpretation of this "miracle" is simply that Apollonius had a foreknowledge of the intended attempt ... — The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... generals: "French, because he never failed in South Africa, and because he has the splendid gift of choosing the right man (he means Douglas Haig). Then Smith-Dorrien and Plumer." In the same way Joffre and Foch were known to be the great commanders of the French. Again in the same way (that is, by the foreknowledge of the real experts) Lord Jellicoe, though a junior rear-admiral at the time, was pointed out at the Quebec Tercentenary (1908) as the man who would command the Grand Fleet; while Sir David Beatty and Sir Charles Madden were ... — Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... horse falling lame was a snare of the devil to keep the good clergyman from preaching; the arrival of a skilful farrier was accounted a special providence to defeat the purpose of Satan. This was, doubtless, in a general sense true, since nothing can happen without the foreknowledge and will of Heaven; but we are authorized to believe that the period of supernatural interference has long passed away, and that the great Creator is content to execute his purposes by the operation of those laws which influence the general course of nature. Our ancient ... — Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... it was agreed to rest for the night, and in the morning endeavour to proceed to the nearest hill, which appeared to be distant about two miles and a half, with very light loads upon the best track we could find, and then return for the remainder of the baggage and stores. A foreknowledge of the difficulties we should have to encounter would certainly have prevented me from attempting to reach these mountains; the nature of this country baffles all reasonable expectation and conjecture, and that which appears one thing at a distance, ... — Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... Club as well. Clarke's power in the underworld as Marre had reached the height where the underworld itself eulogised that power by bestowing on the man the "moniker" of Wizard, investing him, as it were, with a title and a peerage in that inglorious realm. And this power, supplying a foreknowledge of events through intimacy with those whispered secrets in the innermost circles of the citizenry of crimeland, must have been of immeasurable worth. And now Clarke, hidden away somewhere, acting, it appeared, through ... — The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... mansion hath been built abutting the high ramparts of the arsenal without any outlet. But this unholy contrivance of Duryodhana was known to Vidura from the first, and he it was who enlightened us beforehand. The danger of which Kshattri had foreknowledge is now at our door. Save us from it without Purochana's knowledge thereof.' On hearing these words, the miner said, 'So be it,' and carefully beginning his work of excavation, made a large subterranean passage. And the mouth of that passage was in the centre of ... — The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... shrewdly hoped, the swirling blizzard had left its rough length bare, when all the lower ground was deep in snow. For the hundredth time since he had been on the station, Eric had to admit the wise foreknowledge ... — The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... as his steady fingers strove to undo the knot in her ribbons. But even after this lengthy business was concluded his trouble (if it could rightly be called a trouble) was only half over, for the careful Rose, with a prudent foreknowledge of the power of lake breezes to disarrange, if not carry away altogether, the headgear of helpless woman, had by some ingenious arrangement of hair-pins fastened the bonnet to the raven locks of her friend in such a manner that ... — An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... action of the Legislature," he said, following his modest custom of disclaiming foreknowledge of the events he shaped; "but in my opinion any measure which ignores the legitimate expectation of patronage on the part of the party in power is too idyllic ... — The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... all secrets that the wisest books can teach; Gained the Greek verb's long persistent root at last by prying hard; Found a natural foreknowledge of the rules and forms of speech, And drank the fountain water from the words of ... — Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... no other way could he account for the apparition he saw that morning on the face of the rock, nor for several sudden appearances of the same being, in places where there was no possibility of any foreknowledge that he himself was to be there, and as little that the same being, if he were flesh and blood like other men, could always start up in the same position with regard to him. He determined, therefore, on reaching home, to relate all that had happened, from beginning to end, to his father, asking ... — The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... killed.' Now it will be, 'Come, ducky, come and be cooked.' I move that Congress be urged to enact a law adopting that phrase as the only legal form of proposal. Then if any little goose accepts she knows what to expect, and is not caught up and fried without foreknowledge." ... — The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... any generation can speak with such assured confidence of future events as at present. When the living tongue is concerned with destiny it seldom does more than indicate the trend of things to come, examine tendencies and movements and predict, without any sure foreknowledge or conviction, what generations unborn may expect to find and the conditions they will create. Destiny for us, who speak of it, is an unknown sea whose waves, indeed, drive steadily onward before strong ... — New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Philosophy, is a necessary attribute of reason. Man has a measure of freedom, though a less perfect freedom than divine natures.—CH. III. But how can man's freedom be reconciled with God's absolute foreknowledge? If God's foreknowledge be certain, it seems to exclude the possibility of man's free will. But if man has no freedom of choice, it follows that rewards and punishments are unjust as well as useless; that merit and demerit are mere names; that God is the ... — The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... things as they might be; in his loyalty, his piety, his truthfulness. Of the great movement which was to mould the national character for at least a long series of generations he displays no serious foreknowledge; and of the elements already preparing to affect the course of that movement he shows a very incomplete consciousness. But of the health and strength which, after struggles many and various, made that movement possible and made ... — Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... whole of Europe. In 1851, when the first Great Exhibition was opened, all was peace—the long peace of forty years was still unbroken—people said it never was to be broken again, and that wars and rumors of wars had come to an end. So much for human foreknowledge. By the autumn of 1854, the horrors of the Crimean war had reached their climax. The Times was full, day by day, of the most thrilling and appalling descriptions of the hideous sufferings of our brave men—sufferings caused quite ... — Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... upon one another, though the population increased rapidly. Each of them delighted in the cultivation of his private "conscience"; and, in the absence of wars and oppressions, they argued one with another on points of theology, fate, freewill, foreknowledge absolute. They were far from indifferent to learning, but they liked nothing quite so well as manhood and integrity. The Connecticut Yankee impressed his character on American history, and wherever in our country there ... — The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... to state as the result of my acquaintance with them, that we have a large body of true friends among them, men who maintain our constitutional rights as explicitly and as broadly as we assert them, and who have performed this service with the foreknowledge that they were thereby to sacrifice their political prospects, at least, until through years of patient exertion they should correct error, suppress fanaticism, and build for themselves a structure on the basis of truth, which had long been unwelcome ... — Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... Determined to bring the very name of liberty into contempt Disputing the eternal damnation of young children Fate, free will, or absolute foreknowledge Louis XIII. No man can be neutral in civil contentions No synod had a right to claim Netherlanders as slaves Philip IV. Priests shall control the state or the state govern the priests Schism in the Church had become a public fact That ... — Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... to praise thy meal: thou surely hast no foreknowledge; for sad will be thy home: thy mother, I believe, ... — The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... God sends his prophets, and apostles, and Son, to command men to do justly and love mercy, when he has already determined that they shall commit sin. This school rejects the Arminian doctrine that God's decree is founded on his foreknowledge, and asserts that his foreknowledge is based on ... — Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... dreamy look came into the girl's eyes, just as if a foreknowledge of the drama in which she was so soon destined to play the chief role had suddenly appeared to her through the cloudy and distant ... — The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... even make a start with fewer. It is a good plan to learn the uses of a few tools before acquiring a complete set, as by this means, when difficulties are felt in the execution of work, a tool of known description is sought for and purchased with a foreknowledge of its advantages. This is the surest way to gain a distinct knowledge of the varieties of each kind of tool, and their application to the different purposes ... — Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... conducive to the ease, elegance, and security of the rider:—it consists in a foreknowledge of the direction which any given motion of the horse will impart to the body, and a ready adaptation of the whole frame to the proper position, before the animal has completed his change of attitude or action;—it is that disposition of the person, ... — The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous
... Sir Thomas. Impossible as it may be for us to reconcile the free will of man with the foreknowledge of God, I nevertheless believe in both with the most full conviction. When the human mind plunges into time and space in its speculations, it adventures beyond its sphere; no wonder, therefore, that its powers fail, and ... — Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... given us something equal or almost equal to the austere grandeur of the Dead March in Saul. But he saw death differently, and in the opening bar of the "Requiem aeternam" we have only sullen gloom and foreboding, deadly fear begotten of actual foreknowledge of things to come. The discord at the fifth bar seems to have given him the relief gained by cutting oneself when in severe pain; and how intense Mozart's pain was may be estimated by the vigour of the reaction when the reaction comes; for though the "Te decet hymnus" is like a gleam ... — Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... Bodery opened fire from, as it were, a masked battery; for he knew that the Frenchman was ignorant of his connection with one of the leading political papers of the day. It was a duel between sheer skill and confident foreknowledge. When Mr. Bodery spoke, Sidney Carew leant back in his chair and puffed ... — The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... Missouri his personal effects had not made travel a burden to him. During the past weeks all the balance of his belongings that possessed any negotiability whatsoever had been turned into meal. And his meal sack was empty! By no sort of foreknowledge can a man accustomed to enough money for current expenses,—a goodly budget as recognised by the class of which Steering was an exemplar,—imagine, during his easy circumstances, how he would feel if ever things should so go against him that he would be left staring into an empty meal sack. ... — Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... fruit trees, but there was nobody abroad. The roads were crowded enough, but Peter had no use for roads. I can picture him swinging along with his bent back, stopping every now and then to sniff and listen, alert for the foreknowledge of danger. When he chose he could cover country ... — Greenmantle • John Buchan
... in her kraal. Therefore if they were detained he would be obliged to live at some distance from her where an assegai might find him at night or poison be put in his food. At present they were impressed by her foreknowledge of his arrival, and that was why he had been admitted to her at once. But this would wear off—and then who could ... — The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... continued, "it would have been incalculably worse had it not been for the Weather Bureau warnings. Hundreds of people were saved by retiring to the upper portion of the town during the afternoon of the hurricane and no amount of foreknowledge could have told the sudden four-foot rise in the Gulf. Galveston learned her lesson, too, as was shown in ... — The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... back a vision of the Convent parlour, and she standing there with Fareham's miniature in her hand, wonderingly contemplative of the dark, strong face. At that stage of her life she had seen so few men's faces; and this one had a power in it that startled her. Did she divine, by some supernatural foreknowledge, that this face held ... — London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... greatly amused by Petrea's difficulty and conjectures, for he had his own peculiar notions about the object, and by degrees Petrea herself began to have a clearer foreknowledge, and to think that perhaps, after all, the true object might be no other than "our eldest" herself. After this insight into things, which Petrea was not slow in circulating among her sisters, Louise was ... — The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... certainly be for the better until it is tried; and should this one, perchance, turn out for the worse, then shall we have neither advantage nor law on our side. For my part I had rather see my country plunged into warfare—which no one, unless he is gifted with the foreknowledge of the gods, can say will be either prolonged or useless—than see her laws trampled under foot; for well do I know that, if the King be permitted to make himself an outlaw, blood will be kept boiling perpetually from one end of the land to the ... — Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... Scripture, e. g., Man's free will and God's foreknowledge, we have to take refuge ... — The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... time, the sun instructs me to notice and remember, that if it rises bright and clear and soon disappears in a cloud, I must prepare for heavy rain. The birds and the animals all, all say, 'We too are cared for, and we have our foreknowledge, which we disclose by our conduct to you." The brooks too have meaning in their voices, and the southern sentinel proclaims aloud, 'Prepare.' And the western, 'All ... — Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... upon the foreknowledge of the French import duty—Jadwin had sold his million of bushels short, the price of wheat had been steadily going down. From ninety-three and ninety-four it had dropped to the eighties. Heavy crops the world over had helped the decline. No one was willing to buy wheat. The Bear leaders ... — The Pit • Frank Norris
... to find an innumerable swarm of mosquitoes buzzing about our habitation, and apparently endeavouring to carry it off bodily. Letting down, however, the muslin curtains, which the foreknowledge of the faithful Q.M.G. had provided us with, we succeeded in puzzling the enemy for the time being. About eight o'clock, the fleet came to an anchor at a luxuriant little island at the entrance of the great lake; to all appearance, however, it might have been situated ... — Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... closed wearily as though to shut out the memories of the past, or the foreknowledge of what the future was sure to be. His head sank forward on his breast, and with his hand shading his eyes, he looked beyond, through the dying fire, into ... — The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... courage as his grief drifted farther behind him. Sometimes, in the afternoon or in the evening; when the neighbors had come in for a little while, he would walk up and down and talk in his old, marvelous way of all the things on land and sea, of the past and of the future, "Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate," of the friends he had known and of the things he had done, of the sorrow and ... — Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... with the biblical cosmogony, anthropology, and theodicy is obvious; but they are no less inconsistent with the sentimental Deism of the "Vicaire Savoyard" and his numerous modern progeny. It is as impossible, to my mind, to suppose that the evolutionary process was set going with full foreknowledge of the result and yet with what we should understand by a purely benevolent intention, as it is to imagine that the intention was purely malevolent. And the prevalence of dualistic theories from the earliest times to the present day—whether in the shape of the doctrine of the ... — Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... Foreknowledge to the distance of a year or so in either of them might have spoiled the effect of that pretty speech. Never deceive her! But they knew nothing, and the phrase ... — The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... sincere; he was, in his way, patriotic; he was a clever and eloquent orator. Moreover, he was generous and manly enough to admit himself beaten, as the sequel will show. To insure greatness, must the gift of long foreknowledge be added to brilliant parts and an honest character? If this be the essential, no wonder Melancthon Smith is forgotten. We have him asserting that in a country where a portion of the people live more than twelve hundred miles from ... — The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... that there had been any violence. A voluntary but hurried departure on the part of the Countess might have left just such traces as were discovered. The bed was still undisturbed, as if she had not lain down upon it. This fact appeared to indicate a foreknowledge, on the part of the lady, of what was to happen—as if she had had the intention of going off, but had made no preparation until the moment of departure. The furniture was all in its place—the window curtains and those of the alcove had not been disarranged, and no traces ... — Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... hand. She never moved a muscle. She held a hand of each, and looked alternately at them. Breathless, I watched. It was almost as exciting as if I had been joining in the play—more so, for to me everything was sur l'imprevu—revealed piecemeal, while to them some degree of foreknowledge must exist, to deprive the ceremony ... — The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill |