"Majority" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which women were held I was surprised that the Pachatupecs consented to be ruled by one of the sex. But Gondocori told me that Mamcuna came of a long line of princes who were supposed to be descended from the Incas, and when her father died, leaving no male issue, a majority of the caciques chose her as his successor, in part out of reverence for the race, in part out of jealousy of each other, and because they thought she would let them do pretty much as they liked. So far from that, however, she made them do as she liked, and when some of the caciques ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... Payzant College did not like Grace Seeley—that is to say, the majority of them. They were a decidedly snobbish class that year. No one could deny that Grace was clever, but she was poor, dressed very plainly—"dowdily," the girls said—and "roomed" herself, that phrase meaning that she rented a little unfurnished ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Devastation), it is said, sixty-seven times, without any other effect on the stout iron plates than to dint them, at the most, one and a half inches,—still, there were ten men killed and wounded in this battery by shot and shell which entered the ports,—and the majority of damage to the French personnel (twenty-seven men) occurred in the ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... were some dissentient voices, the majority were in favour of the spider-monkey. A dollar was asked, a high price for a monkey, considering that hundreds are caught in the woods to be cooked for dinner; but then, as the Carib tried to explain, this one was civilised, and his education had ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... Failure—deplorable very! G is Sir Garnett, alas, not ubiquitous! H stands for H——t, an M.P. iniquitous. I stands for India, a source of vexation: J are the Jews, a most excellent nation. K is the Khedive, whose plan is to borrow L L. s. d.—I'll annex him to-morrow! M's the Majority, which I much prize; N are the Non-contents whom I despise. O's the Opposition, so often defeated; P is P——ll, that Home-ruler conceited. Q are the Questions put by noble Lords; R my Responses, more cutting than swords. S is the Sultan, my friend true and warm; T are the Turks, whom ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... tried to get away, no doubt there were many hardships and dangers, but at least a possibility of rejoining sooner or later. At any rate, he would be no worse off than the many hundreds who had straggled during the march, for it was probable that the great majority of these were spread over the country, as the French, pressing forward in pursuit, would not have troubled themselves to hunt down fugitives, who, if caught, would only be an encumbrance ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... thinking men to know and see that the present generation and the rising generation of white men in the South are taught in practice that republican institutions are a failure, and that elections are to be carried, not by the honest vote of a fair majority, but by campaigning, which begins with rank intimidation and ends with subterfuge and evasion. The white people suffer more by the trickery and malfeasance by which they score victory than the colored ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 3, March, 1889 • Various
... hardy, democratic, intelligent, radically sound, and just as American, good-natured and individualistic race, as the average range of best specimens among us. As among us, too, I please myself by considering that this element, though it may not be the majority, promises to be the leaven which must eventually ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... the law insisted jealously on their accepting with them all the feudal obligations. Attempts to use the land as "a commodity" were, as we shall presently see, angrily repressed; while, again, in the majority of instances, such persons endeavoured, as they do at present, to cover the recent origin of their families by adopting the manners of the nobles, instead of transferring the habits of the towns to the parks and chases of the English counties. ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... confession to a priest; or to teach that such practice of habitual confession, or the being subject to what has been termed the direction of a priest, is a condition of attaining to the highest spiritual life." By far the greater majority of the clergy and laity endorse, ...
— Confession and Absolution • Thomas John Capel
... language for a loyal people; they call themselves "Halligonians." This title, however, is sometimes pronounced "'Alligonians," by the more rigid, as a mark of respect to the old country. But innovation has been at work even here, for the majority of Her Majesty's subjects aspirate the letter H. Alas for innovation! who knows to what results this trifling error may lead? When Mirabeau went to the French court without buckles in his shoes, the barriers of etiquette were broken ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... interest of a majority of the young ladies, who had anticipated a horridly delightful duel, at least; but FLORA was slightly hysterical about it, even late in the afternoon, when it was announced that her guardian had come ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... country, and pay therefor nearly or quite the same enhanced price which the duty adds to the imported articles. Those who buy imports pay the duty charged thereon into the public Treasury, but the great majority of our citizens, who buy domestic articles of the same class, pay a sum at least approximately equal to this duty to the home manufacturer. This reference to the operation of our tariff laws is not made by way of instruction, but in order that we may be constantly ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... all creeds, that there is something belittling if not degrading in absorbing association with women. His feeling is not at all the commoner feeling of men that leads them all to cry, "The woman tempted me." Women tempt Mr. Martyn no more than they did Ruskin, but he seems to feel that the majority of them are nuisances if not baggages. So strong is this feeling in "A Tale of a Town" that it leads him to make Millicent behave in a way no Jasper Dean in real life would ever stand, for Jasper Dean is not a man pronouncedly uxorious until his abject ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... What this means I cannot conjecture, unless there are dispatches from abroad with assurance of recognition, based on stipulations of emancipation, which can not be carried into effect without the consent of the States, and a majority of these seem in a fair way of falling into the hands of the ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... most of these animals were quite unfit to enter upon the hard work of a campaign, and with a totally inexperienced and quite insufficient staff of officers to supervise them, it was evident that the majority must ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... executive. He had no power in debate, but he possessed qualities which we believe are more uniformly influential in a public assemblage,—tact, industry, a conciliatory disposition, and systematic habits of thought. He was always familiar with the details of legislation. The majority of the members of a legislature can seldom know much about its business. Those questions which excite popular attention and become party tests are inquired into; but most matters attract no attention and are not party tests. Only a few ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... the sort," he snapped. "I've supposed they would do the inevitable—choose the strongest man who looks like the majority ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... New-York, her decks and cabins were filled by some five or six hundred passengers. There were men, women, and children, of various characters, colours and conditions. The scene on deck was pleasing and cheerful; the day was lovely, the steamer looked neat and bright, and the great majority of the females were gaily dressed in their summer attire; most of the faces looked good-humoured, as if pleased to escape from the heat and confinement of the town, to cooler air, and a sight of the water and green woods. ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... them, the chance of a blow at the enemy, if any of her cruisers of anything like equal force appeared,—a chance sure to come about in the frequented waters of the English Channel. The crew of an American man-of-war at that period, at least the native portion of it, always in overwhelming majority, was of much higher class than the general run of seafaring men. Among those in the Ranger were several who had been mates of merchantmen,—Bentley again among the number,—men of some education, and able to serve their country as ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... circle the great majority of people were inert. I have already described the behaviour of the men and women to whom I spoke. All over the district people were dining and supping; working men were gardening after the labours of the day, children were being put to bed, young ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... in human society possesses an Achilles' heel. Again it is slavery. Where slavery has become bred into the bone, the standard of the normal becomes reduced so tremendously that the average of normals, the majority, are hopelessly inferior. In effect, they are really subnormal. So the ideal of our ideal statesman is bound to be defeated because of the inadequacy ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... wisdom to any perceptible extent. The first collection of proverbs, Heywood's, did not appear until 1546, so that in Barclay we possess the earliest known English form of such proverbs as he introduces. It need scarcely be said that that form is, in the majority of instances, more full of meaning and point than ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... has remarked, in the preface to his biographical chart, that the majority of great men have lived beyond forty-five. And, considering the thoughtless manner in which they lavished their strength, when investigating a favourite science, they have wasted the lamp of life, forgetful of the midnight hour; or, when, lost in poetic dreams, ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... different bodies of Continental troops. They even at times purchased a vague and clouded title from some Indian tribe. As with most other speculative business investments, the great land companies rarely realized for the originators and investors anything like what was expected; and the majority were absolute failures in every sense. Nevertheless, a number of men made money out of them, often on quite a large scale; and in many instances, where the people who planned and carried out the scheme made nothing for themselves, they yet left their mark in the shape of settlers ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... much younger. He foresaw, too, that Caius, once on the throne, would murder Gemellus; which also happened. But there was nothing to be done. Had he named his grandson his successor, a strong regent would have been needed to carry things through until that successor's majority, and to hold the Empire against the partisans of Caius. There was no such strong man in sight; so, what had to come, had to come. Apres lui le deluge: Tiberius knew that. Le deluge was the four years' terror of the reign of Caius, known as Caligula; who, through no good will of his ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... fortifications which are in question with you, I have no doubt they will all be carried. Not that the monocrats and papermen in Congress want war; but they want armies and debts; and though we may hope that the sound part of Congress is now so augmented as to insure a majority in cases of general interest merely, yet I have always observed that in questions of expense, where members may hope either for offices or jobs for themselves or their friends, some few will be debauched, and that is sufficient to turn the decision where a majority is, at most, but ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... all, we maybe assured that no class or order of men ever does so; because, though the principles of common prudence do not always govern the conduct of every individual, they always influence that of the majority of every class or order. But the revenue of idle people, considered as a class or order, cannot, in the smallest degree, be increased by those operations of banking. Their expense in general, therefore, cannot be much increased by them, though ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... trained observers writing a responsible account of a scene that had just happened before their eyes, more than a majority saw a scene that had not taken place. What then did they see? One would suppose it was easier to tell what had occurred, than to invent something which had not occurred. They saw their stereotype of such a brawl. All of them had in the course of their lives acquired a series of ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... disgrace, must be accepted with caution. There is no evidence to show he was in intellect anything like the budding genius his father deemed him; as to conduct and manner of life, his carriage was exactly what the majority of youths, brought up in a similar fashion, would have adopted. There must have been something in the young man's humours which from the first made his father apprehensive as to the future, for Cardan soon came to see that an early marriage would be the surest safeguard for Gian Battista's future. ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... deaths as exceptionally high (higher than that of England) in several Australian Colonies, in the Balkan States, in Russia, the Netherlands, the German Empire, Denmark, and Norway, though in the majority of these lands the birth-rate is very low. On the other hand, the natural increase by excess of births over deaths is below the English rate in Austria, in Hungary, in Japan, in Italy, in Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, and Ontario, though ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... the transfer roll. This occupied such a position that as each succeeding impression was applied to the plate it fell so that the guide dot would fall about the centre of the C of CENTS. Consequently, the vast majority of these stamps show a conspicuous dot of color in the position indicated. The stamps without the colored dot are, usually, those from the extreme left vertical row of the sheet. On this same value—the 5c—we have ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... wind blow over me, as if after a feverish journey on a heated road, I had suddenly stepped into a cool, dark cavern. And, looking out from the brilliant visions in which I was plunged, I found myself already entered within the gates of Pere la Chaise—the city of the dead, of the vast majority to which I was to go over in fulfilment of my great idea. I wandered among the graves, and read the epitaphs, the reiterated dreary expressions of disappointment and despair, that the deceased had been passively ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... make it; but it was denied that a treaty sacrificing the Loyalists and making the concessions involved had been authorized; in consequence of which an express vote of censure was passed by the Commons by a majority of seventeen. The Earl of Shelburne, the Prime Minister, forthwith resigned in consequence of this vote of censure, and it was nearly three months before a new Administration could be formed; and during this administrative interregnum ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... stopped and waited till a clear ten feet ahead permitted another painfully slow forward motion. Still my passenger had no word to say but kept staring ahead though she could see nothing before her except the trunkladen rearend of a tottery ford long past its majority. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... of a false theory. That of a true one is very different, as may be well seen by the progress of opinion on the subject of Natural Selection. In less than eight years "The Origin of Species" has produced conviction in the minds of a majority of the most eminent living men of science. New facts, new problems, new difficulties as they arise are accepted, solved or removed by this theory; and its principles are illustrated by the progress and conclusions of every well established branch of human knowledge. It is ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... a rule, most children learn the majority of the letters incidentally by the end of the first year, it often happens that some remain ignorant of the alphabetical order until they come to use the ...
— How to Teach Phonics • Lida M. Williams
... no doubt but that the majority of the great landholders in England, as well as the Highland chiefs, continued, through the reign of William and Mary, disposed to high Tory views; and that had not the popular cry of the Church being in ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... Home, and met a great many people of all kinds, fashionable women with a passion for the bizarre and unconventional, women of gentle breeding and no social pretence, who worked to support themselves; idle women, ambitious women, restless women; but the majority formed part of the floating circles domiciled in apartments and at the great hotels—people who wintered in New York and were a part of its social and civic life to that extent, but whose duties and responsibilities for the metropolitan ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... been considered a fool before the flood, by the majority of mankind, and had been condemned as a false teacher and despised as a man of wild ideas. Now he is laughed at by his son as a fool, and condemned as a sinner. Noah was sole governor of the Church and State, and ruled his own household with tireless care and ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... much longer, they must give up selling it. For if selling game becomes the rule, and not the exception (as it seems likely to do before long), good-bye to sport in England. Every man who loves his country more than his pleasure or his pocket—and, thank God, that includes the great majority of us yet, however much we may delight in gun and rod, let any demagogue in the land say what he pleases—will cry, "Down with it," and lend a hand to put ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... can detect a parallel between the relation of Cooper to America and that of Scott to Scotland. Scott was as hearty a Scotchman as Cooper an American: but Scott was a Tory in politics and an Episcopalian in religion; and the majority of Scotchmen are Whigs in politics and Presbyterians in religion. In Scott, as in Cooper, the elements of passion and sympathy were so strong that he could not be neutral or silent on the great questions ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... Thus he visited Windsor, Marlborough, Bath, Oxford, Salisbury, Devizes, Gloucester, Worcester, Warwick, Leicester, Doncaster, York, Cambridge, and many other places, so that he probably saw a great deal more of England than the majority of men in his position. Thus, too, he learned much about the country and about all branches of rural economy. He had not yet seriously given himself to literature, although his third work was published in 1656, An Essay on the First Book of T. ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... cut a way through the lines of wire entanglements, and to sever the electric cables connecting the innumerable ground mines with the forts. Volunteers were invited to step six paces to the front, and in the majority of cases the entire regiment appealed to advanced six paces with the precision and promptitude of a parade evolution. Under such circumstances there was, of course, but one thing to be done, and that was for each captain to choose a certain number ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... had been noted for her beauty, and even now, in spite of middle-age and somewhat faded features, the latter the result of the struggle she had undergone to reestablish herself in the world, she was still considered buxom and fair to look upon by the majority of men. She carried her head high and with a coquettish air which plainly showed she had by no means ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... other sensitive persons, asked angrily what right a Cabinet Minister had to take sides in a purely local affair. But the partiality of the official world grew flagrant. The Mayor of Bursley openly proclaimed himself a Federationist, though there was a majority on the Council against him. Even ministers of religion permitted themselves to think and to express opinions. Well might the indignant Old Guard imagine that the end of public decency had come! The Federationists were very ingenious individuals. They contrived to ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... if I could, but I must think of the majority. This sort of malignant disease must be cut out. Two of the three offenders are young men; they were leaving at the end of this term. They will leave, instead—to-day. The third boy is much younger. Because of his youth, I have ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... for the immense majority of Frenchmen, a minute description of some part of the machinery of banking will be as interesting as any chapter of foreign travel. When a tradesman living in one town gives a bill to another tradesman elsewhere (as David was supposed to have done for Lucien's benefit), the transaction ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... Being then in Mexico in the execution of my office of procurator-syndic of the town of Coatzacualco, I posted to that place in order to be present at the election of agents, and after a violent contest, Captain Marin and I were elected by the majority. On our arrival in Mexico, we found that two of the oydors had died of pleurisies, and that the factor Salazar had acquired so complete an ascendancy over the others that they followed his advice ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... is another, but in order to bring this matter before the board, I nominate Mr. James E. Irwin, the Boy Orator of the Woodruff District, and the new white hope, f'r the job of teacher of this school, and I move that when he shall have received a majority of the votes of this board, the secretary and prisidint be insthructed to enter into a contract with him ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... of human existence, whether public or private, are so closely allied to architecture that the majority of observers can reconstruct nations and individuals, in their habits and ways of life, from the remains of public monuments or the relics of a home. Archaeology is to social nature what comparative anatomy is to organized nature. A mosaic tells the tale of a society, as the skeleton ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... sentiment, where that sentiment is unimpassioned; but we much doubt whether there has ever occurred a single example of a jury convicting a person in whose favor the sympathy of a whole community was warmly and earnestly expressed. Of such sympathy Captain Wilde had none; for to the great majority he was known only as the exciseman, and as such was an object of hostility. Not that this hostility at any time took the form of insult and abuse,—for we are proud to say that outside of the large towns such disgraceful exhibitions of feeling are unknown,—but it left ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... of the market-place, contemptuously indifferent to the tyranny of public opinion, with the fixed principle in his mind—almost his only fixed principle—that the majority is always wrong, Remy de Gourmont goes upon his way; passionately tasting, like a great satin-bodied humming bird, every exquisite flower in the garden of human ideas. The wings of his thoughts, as he hovers, beat so quickly as to be almost invisible; and thus it is that in reading him—great scholar ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... he half feared that the earth would gape and swallow such a reckless perverter of patent facts. Even the judge in the city; and was eventually invited to represent a Dorsetshire constituency in Parliament in the Radical interest. He was returned by a large majority; and, having a loud voice and an easy manner, he soon acquired some reputation both in and out of the House of Commons by the popularity of his own views, and the extent of his wife's information, which he retailed at second hand. He made his maiden speech in the House unabashed the first ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... and futile place, and proceeds to do so in the most fantastic manner. The inhabitants of that country who remain at their work and continue to pay their rates are expected to be in a condition of wild enthusiasm and delight at the adventure.—My own impression is, that the majority of people take no more than a tepid interest in these forlorn adventures, and are but imperfectly convinced of the sanity of the adventurers; and this is the more particularly noticeable when the quest is for something so intangible and unmarketable ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... not long to seek for a rival. A certain Siwald, of most illustrious birth, related with lamentation in the assembly of the Swedes the death of Frode and his queen; and inspired in almost all of them such a hatred of Halfdan, that the vote of the majority granted him permission to revolt. Nor was he content with the mere goodwill of their voices, but so won the heart of the commons by his crafty canvassing that he induced almost all of them to set with their hands the royal emblem on his head. Siwald had seven sons, who were such ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... is down!" ran mournfully from man to man, and though some fought on with intrepid bravery, the majority were thrown into disorder ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... men be tried and troubled exceedingly, it is because, while they think about their troubles and distress themselves about their fears, they do not say, 'Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night?'" Elihu's reason was right in the majority of cases. The great cause of the Christian's distress, the reason of the depths of sorrow into which many believers are plunged, is this—that while they are looking about, on the right hand and ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... work on surgery, says, "synovitis, in the great majority of cases, arises from the effects of rheumatism, gout, eruptive fevers, syphilis, scrofula, and ...
— Report on Surgery to the Santa Clara County Medical Society • Joseph Bradford Cox
... protection to some four million additional Americans. Stabilization of living costs and the halting of inflation protected the value of pensions and savings. A broad program now helps to bring good homes within the reach of the great majority of our people. With the States, we are providing rehabilitation facilities and more clinics, hospitals, and nursing homes for patients with chronic illnesses. Also with the States, we have begun a great and fruitful expansion in the restoration of disabled ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... previously had been married and domiciled. Prosecuted for bigamy, the defendants relied upon their Nevada decrees; and won the preliminary round of this litigation; that is, Williams I,[56] when a majority of the justices, overruling Haddock v. Haddock, declared that in this case, the Court must assume that the petitioners for divorce had a bona fide domicile in Nevada, and not that their Nevada domicile was a sham. "* * * each ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... ways of exclusive thought and practices in which the best men he knew were walking. The only religious thinkers with whom he had come in contact gave up a large class of human activities and the majority of human souls to the almost exclusive dominion of the devil. As far as Toyner knew he was alone in the world with his new idea. He had none of that vanity and self-confidence which would have made it easy for him to hold to it. It did not appear to him reasonable that he could ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... fair of the Pymantoning County Agricultural Society was in its second day. The trotting-matches had begun, and the vast majority of the visitors had abandoned the other features of the exhibition for this supreme attraction. They clustered four or five deep along the half-mile of railing that enclosed the track, and sat sweltering in the hot September sun, on ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... in a business men's restaurant, Truletta Burrows had acquired a certain chicness enabling her to twist a remnant of chiffon or straw into a creation and wear it in impressive contrast with her baby-blue eyes and Titian-red hair. In the majority of cases where a girl has neither family nor finances she must seek a business situation in order to win a husband. Trudy went after her game in ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... the low land skirting the rivers on either side. Soon the wolves came pouring down from the wooded bluff, and engaged in a furious conflict with the dogs. As the men ran up, a few of the wolves in their desperation charged them and endeavoured to break through, but the great majority, cowed by the clamour and fierce assault, crouched to the earth and received their death blow unresistingly. Some took to the water, but coracles had been sent down to the point the evening before, and they were speedily slain. ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... an interviewer at the close of the convention that "it was not the least happy of the incidents of the election that Mr. Strathmore had been chosen by a majority so decided, since it indicated clearly the wishes of the church;" and he used his influence to prevent any attempt to induce the House of Bishops to oppose the choice of the convention. As soon as the matter was settled he called ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... said Rollo. 'I am trying to fancy what the presents will be. Of course, since we ask the Senate and House of Representatives to the wedding, every man of them will send you a piece of plate; probably the majority of them will be teakettles. As I do not drink tea, it hardly concerns me much; but they will be very convenient for you. The arrangement of them for inspection is a matter of some difficulty;I would suggest a pyramidal scaffolding on which they might be all disposed with very striking effect; indeed ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... and under all circumstances, it is only by force that anything can be done; but power is mostly in bad hands, because baseness is everywhere in a fearful majority. ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... elephant. These facts make it probable that these animals are living representatives of a group which existed at a distant epoch of the world's history, and which possessed a structure partaking of the character of the two great orders—Rodentia and Pachydermata—now so widely distinct in the majority of forms. ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... him was a small share in the St. Kitts property of Messrs. Sherwood Brothers, a small share in the London business of the same firm, and a small sum of ready money—these things to be his when he attained his majority. His mother and sister, who lived in a little country house down in Huntingdonshire, were modestly but securely provided for, and Will might have gone quietly on with his studies till he could resolve upon a course in life. But ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... light, while the outline of the upper part could scarce be made out. Eastern as the scene was, the actors were for the most part English. Although the crowd that promenaded the terrace was composed principally of men, of whom the majority were in uniform of one sort or another, the rest in evening dress, there ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... confetti that we might otherwise have escaped. A good many bouquets were flung at our little R——-, and at us generally. . . . . This was what is called masking-day, when it is the rule to wear masks in the Corso, but the great majority of people appeared without them. . . . . Two fantastic figures, with enormous heads, set round with frizzly hair, came and grinned into our carriage, and J——- tore out a handful of hair (which proved to be sea-weed) from one ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a people with so little self-control; and their crimes are, in a large majority of cases, the results of some passionate impulse rather than of a matured determination to do wrong. It is by no means uncommon to find that your butler or your coachman has taken to his bed ill of a rabbia, as they call it—a fit of passion, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... from the scene gave him his chance. It happened that the Government under the leadership of Mr. Smith, and, it was understood, on the personal instruction of Lord Salisbury, were pressing forward the Tithes Bill. They had an overwhelming, well-disciplined majority, and being pledged up to the hilt to carry the Bill, the issue seemed certain. Through a whole week Sir William led the numerically-overpowered Opposition, fighting the Bill at every step. The hampered Government ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of these events, a marriage was celebrated between the second son of Nadir and a princess of the imperial house of Timur; and the succession of festivities that attended these nuptials gave a color of joy to scenes which abounded with misery; but the majority of the inhabitants of Delhi appear to have been of a light and dissolute character. We are indeed told by an Indian author that numbers regretted the departure of the Persians. The drolls and players of the capital began, immediately after ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... loftiest act of devotion of which a human being is capable. It is not wonderful, then, that the usual effect of appeals for peace made by neutrals is to produce mingled exasperation and amusement among the belligerents. To the great majority of Europeans our civil war was a shocking spectacle, and the persistence of the North in carrying it on a sad proof of ferocity and lust of dominion. To the great majority of those engaged in carrying it on the struggle was a holy one, in which ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... ever allowed it, and why, if Mr. Dundas must marry again (but they thought he might be quiet now), he had not taken a stranger, instead of one who had been mixed up as it were with his other wives—but seeing that her day was passed, the majority, as has been said, held that she was in the right to take what she could get, and to marry even as a third wife was better than not to marry at all. And then the neighborhood knew Sebastian Dundas, and knew that although he had been foolish and unfortunate ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... glance at him. He became suddenly interesting to her. She was at the age of dreams and speculations. From being merely an ordinary young man with rather more ease of manner than the majority of the young men she had met, he developed in an instant into something worthy of closer attention. He took on a certain mystery and romance. She wondered what sort of girl it was that he loved. Examining him in the light of this new discovery, she found ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... provision even for their own future, still less recognizing any duty to their country or to posterity to produce economically and regulate their expenditure wisely so as to carry forward a surplus. As far as this majority is concerned we might yet be living among rocks and trees, without shelter, lacking sure supplies of food, with fig leaves to cover our nakedness. And to-day the same conditions obtain. How many persons are to be found among one's acquaintance ...
— Creating Capital - Money-making as an aim in business • Frederick L. Lipman
... In the majority of instances I have had largely to rewrite these Fairy Tales, especially those in dialect, including the Lowland Scotch. [Footnote: It is perhaps worth remarking that the Brothers Grimm did the same with their stories. ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... a coarse man of business; when, as a fact, he is neither one nor the other, but an admirable romantic orator and romantic actor. He has one power which is the soul of melodrama—the power of pretending, even when backed by a huge majority, that he has his back to the wall. For all mobs are so far chivalrous that their heroes must make some show of misfortune—that sort of hypocrisy is the homage that strength pays to weakness. He talks foolishly and yet very finely about ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... that love early—the baby-love, whom one never marries, and then the faithful service. Probably it happens so with the majority of men; for it is, I think, especially to the artist nature that it comes thus late. Living so vividly within the circle of its own experience, by its very constitution so necessarily egoistic, the latter, more particularly in its early years, is always a Narcissus, ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... incredible to those who have not personally witnessed this phoenomenon, that a government detested and despised by an immense majority of the nation, should have been able not only to resist the efforts of so many powers combined against it, but even to proceed from defence to conquest, and to mingle surprize and terror with those sentiments of contempt and abhorrence which it ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... during the day of the battle, a majority were those contact machines. They had to fly through a frightful storm of their own as well as the enemy's artillery fire, and they succumbed to chance blows from ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... burst of laughter at this, and the majority insisted that the guide should give in, while a few, who were fond of excitement, suggested that the two should be allowed to fight it out, but this the guide refused to do; and when his comrade, the second guide, stepped forward and said he would join those who wanted to remain, ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... English grammars which can properly be said to be now in use, a very great majority agree in ascribing to nouns three cases, and three only. This, I am persuaded, is the best number, and susceptible of the best defence, whether we appeal to authority, or to other argument. The disputes of grammarians make no small part of the history of grammar; and in submitting ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... particular sanction of nature. They are produced in astonishing excess over males, and may, accordingly, be admitted as dominant to the male; but the well-proven law that the minority shall always control the majority will relieve our minds from a fear which might otherwise ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... for any man by birth a common citizen to be set upon the throne, except in case the royal family be totally extinct. Blases, upon receiving the royal power, gathered together the nobles of the Persians and held a conference concerning Cabades; for it was not the wish of the majority to put the man to death. After the expression of many opinions on both sides there came forward a certain man of repute among the Persians, whose name was Gousanastades, and whose office that of "chanaranges" (which would be the Persian term for general); his official province lay on the very ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... is ordinarily not supposed to trouble himself very much about theology, but to leave that as the special prerogative of the ministers. This was certainly true of the great majority of the lay members of Plymouth Church. At the same time they were by no means indifferent to theology. They could not be so long as Mr. Beecher was pastor, and Dr. Abbott's positive opinions on theological questions, while not obtruded, were never hidden. It must be remembered, ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold
... thousand-mile gauntlet. There are slaves in Illinois—it has never been declared a free state—but these are held almost exclusively in the more southern counties. North of the river the settlers are largely from New England, and the majority of them hate slavery and are ready to ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... substantial changes it promised, the President's order provoked surprisingly little public opposition. Its publication coincided with the convening of the special session of a Congress smarting under Truman's "do-nothing" label. In this charged political atmosphere, the anti-administration majority in Congress quietly sidestepped the President's 27 July call for civil rights legislation. To do otherwise would only have added to the political profits already garnered by Truman in some important voting areas. For the same reason congressional ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... A good majority sits in the house, Enough to give us independence still, Then what eventuates without our land We care not so we grasp ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... dressed my foot had succeeded in remembering that the majority of men were neither cowards nor dishonest. He was considerate of me and of the orderlies under him. But alongside was a scowl. A poor fat bandsman with a lame foot was not excused from marching the next day. The orderly who had mislaid the iodine was scalped. ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... State conventions and served on National and State Committees; they were employed as political speakers and organizers; and they were elected and appointed to official positions. Various State and county conventions declared in favor of enfranchising women, the majority of the legislators advocated it, and there is reason to believe that in those States where an amendment to secure it was submitted, individual Populists very ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... crowded with excited men and women as Kelley came back up the walk. One or two congratulated him on his escape from sudden death, but the majority resented him as "the hired bouncer" of the ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... are still strong enough to throw everything into confusion by resisting at once the Crown and Commons. Proud nobles reply by rebellion, come down southwards with ignorant Popish henchmen at their backs; will restore Popery, marry the Queen of Scots, make the middle class and the majority submit to the feudal lords and the minority. Elizabeth, with her 'aristocracy of genius,' is too strong for them: the people's heart is with her, and not with dukes. Each mine only blows up its diggers; and there are many dry eyes ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... to have it now determined that for all future time any State, or any cluster of States, that may attempt to coerce or bully a legal and constitutional majority by the threat of secession, shall be met with the answer: "You don't go out of this Union unless you are strong enough to fight your way out." I want to have the armed heel of the country crush the serpent head of secession, now and forever, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... rise from its bed and flood the dry and arid wastes of old Sahara. Her voice and that of the Socialists, their lawyers and their press, sounded in vain. A solid battery of capitalist papers, legal lights, private detectives and other means—particularly including the majority of the priests and clergy—swamped the man and damned him and doomed him from the first word ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... brain pass more than two inches outwards; and on another specimen, also the right hemisphere, it proceeded for four-tenths of an inch outwards, and then extended downwards, as far as the lower margin of the outer surface of the hemisphere. The imperfect definition of this fissure in the majority of human brains, as compared with its remarkable distinctness in the brain of most Quadrumana, is owing to the presence, in the former, of certain superficial, well marked, secondary convolutions which bridge it over and connect the parietal ...
— Note on the Resemblances and Differences in the Structure and the Development of Brain in Man and the Apes • Thomas Henry Huxley
... starry heavens, the mighty ocean, the tender flower. The impression, whether the object belongs to the domain of nature or art, may be a merely sensuous one; and if it stops there, as it certainly does for the majority of people, it ranks without doubt far below productions where the aesthetic element is only used to stimulate and heighten the appeal to the mind or the feelings. But if it extend beyond, and makes the sensuous impression but the parting link to the contemplation of ideal, abstract beauty, without ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... of Surrey and Kent, they use the iron road which rushes them all unprepared into the city of the saint-martyr. But who will maintain that all those who formed the motley throng of the medieval pilgrimages came with their minds properly attuned, and who is prepared to say that because the majority of modern pilgrims consummate their aim by using the convenience of the railway they are less devout than Chaucer's merchant, serjeant-at-law, doctor of physic, and the rest who rode on horseback—the most convenient, rapid, and comfortable method ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home |
