"Positive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lived had a positive action upon Godefroid. The laws which regulate the physical nature under relation to the atmospheric environment in which it is developed, rule also in the moral nature. Hence it follows that the assembling together of condemned prisoners is one of the greatest of social ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... swelling with hatred and revenge, he formed the idea of another association, which was to consist of men resolved to overthrow the confederation of the Rhine, and to drive the French entirely out of Germany. This society, whose object was more real and positive than that of the first, soon swallowed up the other; and from these two was formed that of the Tugendbund, ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... said Caesar, speaking of the Germans. Pillage brings no shame. This desire of gain, this positive and realistic tendency is one of the motives which the brusque and prodigious economic expansion of Germany has promoted in the most ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... in this country," said Sir Brian Newcome, crushing his egg-shell desperately, "is dreadful, really dreadful. We are on the edge of a positive volcano." Down went the egg-spoon into its crater. "The worst sentiments are everywhere publicly advocated; the licentiousness of the press has reached a pinnacle which menaces us with ruin; there is no law which these shameless newspapers respect; no rank which is safe from their ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and party feeling, eventually loses its original spirit, and sinks into a mere lifeless mechanism, worked with a view to private ends—a mechanism which not merely fails of its first purpose, but is a positive hindrance ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... years and eight months old. As to the profession we have overwhelming evidence that it took place on the 3rd of November, 1536, and her entrance in the convent a year and a day earlier. To begin with, we have the positive statement of her most intimate friends, Julian d'Avila, Father Ribera, S.J., and Father Jerome Gratian. Likewise dona Maria Pinel, nun of the Incarnation, says in her deposition: "She (Teresa of Jesus) ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... instinct is reason. They are the negative and positive of mental volition. The man who retains the animal gift of unreasoning divination, preserving that clear power against the handicaps which mind training and education impose, is necessarily psychic, or, as they say ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... two-thirds its population, with a small army and no navy worthy of the name, can successfully rule fifty million people of alien race and religion, half the world away, and keep them loyal and contented, that nation has, it seems to me, a positive genius ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... of psychic ambivalence and ambitendency, as so nicely developed by Bleuler,[17] here shows itself in marked degree. There is both the positive and the negative tendency toward the performance and execution of these activities and reactions which are necessary for the living of a life of a high or low degree of efficiency, so that the ticquer is obsessed by the problem of "to ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... more than surprised at the effect his piece of information had on Tom Swift. Though the young inventor had all along suspected Andy of having the missing plans, yet there had been no positive evidence on this point. That, coupled with the fact that the red-haired bully had not been seen in the vicinity of Shopton lately, had, in a measure, lulled Tom's suspicions to rest, but now his ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... journey. People have often been suffocated in their beds before they awoke. But it was hardly likely a body would be completely burnt to ashes as this was assumed to be, though nobody seemed to see it at the time. And how positive the surgeon was too, about those bits of bone! Why he should have been so, nobody can tell. I cannot help saying that if it has ever been possible to find pure stupidity incarnate, it was in that jury of Carriford. There existed in the mass the stupidity ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... information on Florentine affairs to the Milanese court; but his pay had been small, notwithstanding his pains to write full letters, and he had lately been apprised that his news was seldom more than a late and imperfect edition of what was known already. Now Ser Ceccone had no positive knowledge that Tito had an underhand connection with the Arrabbiati and the Court of Milan, but he had a suspicion of which he chewed the cud with as strong a sense of flavour as if it ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... body moves around the earth without falling on it, by this law. We say in dynamic philosophy, that bodies move in the direction of least resistance, and that we can positively understand; but what force per se is, we do not know. It is always better for us to explain phenomena by positive known laws and motions, than by any that rest ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... had been committed, whence his Britannic majesty ordered a declaration to be published, in justification of the motives which induced this expedition. In this declaration it was stated, "that the king had received positive information of the determination made by the ruler of France to occupy with a military force the territory of Holland, for the purpose of excluding Great Britain from her accustomed channels of continental communication; of inducing or compelling ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... against Mary, who called aloud for more help, and made her sit down till it came. Her resolution, however, was not to be altered; a stubbornness, wholly foreign to her genuine character, now made her stern and positive; and Mary, who thought her submission indispensable, cried, but did ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... that the best results had been obtained by keeping all power in the hands of the Prophet, Seer and Revelator, and of those whom he might appoint to work with him. Joseph F. Smith, at a meeting of the Presidency, was even more positive. No good, he said, could come of publishing the affairs of the community to the people of it; those affairs were purely the concern of the Prophets; the Lord revealed His will to the Prophets and they were ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... opinion on earth even while it shams to be praying to God? And there is a close connection which the history of every age has illustrated between formal religious profession and the love of money, which is the vice of the Church. Again, the promise of rewarding openly naturally leads on to the positive exhortation to make ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... footing there. It is 'the way of holiness,' not only because holiness is in some sense the goal to which it leads, but still more, because only holy feet can tread it, holy at least in the travellers' aspiration and inward consecration, though still needing to be washed daily. One is positive—it is 'the simple' who shall not err therein. They who distrust themselves and their own skill to find or force a path through life's jungle, and trust themselves to higher guidance, are they whose feet will ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... ought not to contemn the word, yet hath it not that respect given to it which the sacrament hath, at which we are uncovered, so that this veneration given to the sacrament must be somewhat more than profanatio,—I answer, as honour both in the positive and negative sense, has various degrees, and according to the more or less immediate manifestation of divine ordinances to us, so ought the degrees of our veneration to be intended or remitted; which is not so to be understood ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... throat, "you imagine me to have a daughter. You're positive of it. You even visualize her so well, that you remember something about how you were ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... and her light hand for cakes and pastry, her delicious scones and crisp short-cake, must have been remembered with regret by the recusant Joe, and may have had something to do with his anxious claims. Mrs. Baxter forgot her beloved iteration; her monotonous voice roused into positive animation as she verbally weighed ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the small Japanese knife was in its sheath during the afternoon; indeed, the footman said it was there, to the best of his belief, at midnight. Then, again, a small drawer in Sir Alan's writing-table had been wrenched open whilst you were alone in the room. On this point the footman was positive. Near the drawer rested the sword from which its viperish companion had been abstracted. Had not the butler found Sir Alan's body, still palpitating, and testified beyond any manner of doubt that you were apparently sleeping in the library, ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... for some time back, especially since the late Kur-Baiern's illness, understood that Austria, always eager for a clutch at Baiern, had something of that kind in view; but his first positive news of it was a Letter from Duchess Clement (date, JANUARY 3d), which, by the detail of facts, unveiled to his quick eye the true outline, extent and nature of this Enterprise of Austria's; Enterprise which, he could not but agree with Duchess Clement, was one of great concernment ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... whose influence over the mind of the Empress she so much feared; and as the ladies of the household of her Imperial Majesty were themselves eager to be rid of the rivalry of Madame de Lajanski, and endeavored to excite still more the jealousy of her Imperial highness, a positive order was demanded from the Emperor, and Madame de Lajanski was sent back from Munich to Vienna. The Empress obeyed without complaint, but knowing who had instigated the blow, cherished a profound resentment against her Majesty the Queen of Naples. The Empress ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... subject very different opinions from those which prevail in many quarters. We believe in the essential healthfulness of literary culture, and in the invigorating power of sound knowledge. Emphatically do we believe that our common schools have been in the aggregate a positive physical benefit. We are confident, that, just to the degree that the unseen force within a man receives its rightful development, does vigorous life flow in every current that beats from heart to extremities. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... only this negative character, and as though to be let alone were necessarily and in itself a good thing. But others have truly and forcefully shown, first, that to be let alone may sometimes be a doubtful blessing, and, secondly, that liberty has a further and positive aspect not less important than the negative. Sir J. F. Stephen, in his Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, vigorously criticizes Mill's negative theory. Matthew Arnold in Culture and Anarchy (a work which well repays perusal at the present time) pours delightful but destructive ridicule upon "our ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... Island had commissioned hers 'to join in any measures to secure American rights;' in Massachusetts, various towns had pledged themselves to maintain any declaration on which Congress might agree; and Virginia had given positive instructions to her delegates that Congress should make a declaration of independence. These proceedings were accompanied with declarations respecting a reservation to each colony of the right to form its own government, in the adjustment of the power universally ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... thought very positive upon this point, I think I am right, but feel that I may be wrong. Tavernier says that Shah Jahan was obliged to give up his intention of completing a silver ceiling to the great hall in the palace, because Austin de Bordeaux had been killed, and no ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... Gordon's absence, Bernard had frequent colloquies with his friend's wife, whose irresponsible prattle amused him, and in whom he tried to discover some faculty, some quality, which might be a positive guarantee of Gordon's future felicity. But often, of course, Gordon was an auditor as well; I say an auditor, because it seemed to Bernard that he had grown to be less of a talker than of yore. Doubtless, when a man finds himself united to a garrulous wife, he naturally learns to hold his tongue; ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... nor Mr. Germaine could make any positive complaint of my conduct. But they were both thoroughly uneasy about me. After anxious consideration, my step-father arrived at a conclusion. He decided that the one chance of restoring me to my better and brighter self was to try the stimulant ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... modest, cautious, simple, sincere. Nothing was for show, for self-love; there was no rhetoric, no declamation, no triumphant "I told you so," but the plain statement of a clear-headed honest man, who knows that he is handling one of the gravest subjects that interest humanity. His positive instructions were full of value, but the spirit in which he taught inspired that loyal love of truth which lies at the bottom of ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the most desirable thoughts those which are definite, clear, deep, logical, profound, strong, precise, impressive, original, significant, explicit, luminous, positive, suggestive, comprehensive, and practical. Resolutely avoid all thoughts which are uncertain, recondite, obscure, immature, unimportant, shallow, weak, visionary, absurd, vague, extravagant, indefinite, ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... I have proof positive that he and Meigs and Hendricks drafted it. And all this fine-haired engineering ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... that the twelfth article of the treaty as it now stands contains a positive obligation, "in consideration of the extension acquired by the boundaries of the United States," to pay to the Mexican Republic $12,000,000 in four equal annual installments of three millions each. This obligation ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... is—generally acknowledged—a certain high-born, well-bred look about the poise of my shapely head which gains for me more than a mere passing notice. My manners are pronounced "charming," and by many—those who like me—charmingly faultless. So, after all, in spite of this lack of a positive style of beauty, I am what might be termed a "social success." But it is a social success which I have slowly gained, with much labor, and its duration is somewhat uncertain. I am just beginning to be sure of myself, although ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... regard to atmospheric electricity. It was formerly uncertain whether the electrostatic potential would increase by rising from the surface of the earth to more elevated region of the atmosphere or not, and also whether the potential in a normal—that is, cloudless—state of the atmosphere was always positive or sometimes negative. Sir William Thomson found by exact methods of measuring that the increase of the potential with elevation is very important, and values about 100 volts per meter. That fact is proved by many other observers, especially lately by Mr. F. Exner, at Vienna, who found an increase ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... While? was answered by Mrs. George Bass (Ills.) who declared it to be "a positive influence for good"; it was called by Mrs. Grace Wilbur Trout (Ills.) "a step toward full suffrage"; by Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton (Ohio) "a help to other States." Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch described "the chances opened by the Illinois law." It was the consensus ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... her hodman to build them. The man perplexed with too much thinking remembered the girl's innocent, ignorant readiness to stamp the world's stuff anew after the forms of her own pitying thought, with a positive thirst of sympathy. The deep poetry and ideality at the root of him under all the weight of intellectual and critical debate leapt towards her. He thought of the rapid talk she had poured out upon him, after their compact of friendship, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... opportunities for shielding themselves. In Owen was found, in place of his father's impressibility, a larger share of his father's pride, and a squareness of idea which, if coupled with a little more blindness, would have amounted to positive prejudice. To him humanity, so far as he had thought of it at all, was rather divided into distinct classes than blended from extreme to extreme. Hence by a sequence of ideas which might be traced if it were worth ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... said Toff, with dignity. "I am happy to be able to meet it with a positive reply. My master is expected ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... As the Indians who arrived yesterday had a number of spare horses, we thought it probable they might be willing to dispose of them, and desired the chief to speak to them for that purpose. They declined giving any positive answer, but requested to see the goods which we proposed to exchange. We then produced some battle-axes which we had made at fort Mandan, and a quantity of knives; with both of which they appeared very much pleased; and we ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... Morgana, for mere negations there is no remedy; but for positive errors, even for gambling, it ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... Temptations, which his Maker knew he would shortly be exposed to, and overcome with; and all his Posterity, had they been tried one by one, would, it seems, have failed as he did, Page 72. If all this does not amount to something equal to a positive Assertion, that God willed the Fall of Adam, and in Consequence of it, the Guilt and Desert of eternal Death, which is said to be thence derived, to all his prosperity, I do not know what is, or can be equal to it; and indeed all this, and much more, may easily be resolved into the Doctrine of ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... then be seen that under the veil of mythology lies a solid reality, that a floating superstition holds in solution a positive truth. ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... these frightful passages, these infamous laws of war, because the bible is the word of God. As a matter of fact, there never was, and there never can be, an argument, even tending to prove the inspiration of any book whatever. In the absence of positive evidence, analogy and experience, argument is simply impossible, and at the very best, can amount only to a useless agitation of the air. The instant we admit that a book is too sacred to be doubted, or even reasoned about, we are mental serfs. It is infinitely absurd to suppose that a god would ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... no need now of urging Jacob to undertake the mission; since he had what seemed like positive information of his father's whereabouts, he would have gone in the direction of the besieged fort whether General Herkimer so desired, ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... such islands of actively growing male tissue can frequently be found, he states, in the degenerating ovaries of female birds which have put forth male plumage. Sir John Bland-Sutton, referring to the fact that the external conformation of the body affords no positive certainty as to the nature of the internal sexual glands, adds (British Medical Journal, Oct. 30, 1909): "It is a fair presumption that some examples of sexual frigidity and sex perversion may be explained by the possibility that the individuals concerned may possess sexual glands opposite ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... for assuming that a given human being of any race or sex cannot reach normal, human development if he is granted a reasonable chance. This is, of course, denied. It is denied so volubly and so frequently and with such positive conviction that the majority of unthinking people seem to assume that most human beings are not human and have no right to human treatment or human opportunity. All this goes to prove that human beings are, and must be, woefully ignorant of each other. It always startles ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... occasion in these unhappy people's country are too obvious to mention. Let us make their case our own, and consider what we should think, and how we should feel, were we in their circumstances. Remember our blessed Redeemer's positive command—to do unto others as we would have them do unto us;—and that with what measure we mete, it shall be measured to us again. And we intreat you to examine, whether the purchasing of a negro, either born here or imported, doth not contribute to a further importation, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... was very bad—and it must be borne in mind that, throughout all this experience, his physical condition was one of ebb—and he was in considerable distress by reason of the negligence, the positive ill-treatment even, he received from his wife and step-children. His wife was vain, extravagant, unfeeling, and had a growing taste for private drinking; his step-daughter was mean and over-reaching; and his step-son had conceived a violent ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... it was known that Richard was dead. The universal belief was that he was murdered. There were various rumors in respect to the manner in which the deed was perpetrated. The account most precise and positive states that a man named Exton, who had heard the remark of the king, repaired at once to the castle of Pontefract, accompanied by eight desperate men, all well armed, and gained admission to Richard's room while he was at table. ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... conscientious holder of the Establishment principle might be perhaps equally unable to avail himself of services so restricted. We can at least see how each, in turn, might lodge an alternate protest,—the one against the positive exclusion of religion by the State, the other against its positive introduction. But if, according to Chalmers, the State, aware of the difficulty, tenders its endowment and builds its schools 'simply as an expression of its value for a good secular education,' ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... and provoked at this. We had given Pomona positive orders not to leave the place, under any pretense, while we were gone. If necessary to send for anything, she could go to the fence, back of the barn, and scream across a small field to some of the numerous members of old John's family. ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... knew you 'd never give up. They even handicapped you—started you wrong, to be sure it would take time, to be positive of ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... intention of following them unless the flames were actually roaring up the block between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. She felt quite positive that ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... quick sharpness, divining, I am positive, the strides I was making in my education, and poured himself whisky from his private bottle. This hit me for a moment on my thrifty side. He had taken a ten-cent drink when the rest of us were drinking five-cent drinks! But the ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... predecessors and disciples, but the pictures of Fra Angelico, of Verrocchio, of Filippo Lippi, of Botticelli, the painters of that fifteenth century which, as Pater has told us, "can hardly be studied too much, not merely for its positive results in the things of the intellect and the imagination, its concrete works of art, its special and prominent personalities with their profound aesthetic charm, but for its general spirit and character, for the ethical qualities of which it is a ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... never have done this consciously—of that I am positive. But it was betrayed in every line of her face, and my anxious ear caught it in every word she uttered as to the doings of the Johnson party. Doubtless she did not realize how naturally and closely I would associate ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... echoes, gloomily reverberative, into every dell and labyrinth of the Pirna Country;—intended to strike a deeper damp into them, thinks he. [Retzow, i. 67.] But Imperial Majesty was mindful, too; and straightway sent Browne positive order, "Deliver me these poor Saxons at any price!" And in the course of not quite a week from Lobositz, there arrives a confidential Messenger from Browne: "Courage still, ye caged Saxons; I will try it another way! Only you must hold out till the 11th; on the 11th stand to your tools, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... assured that that negative accord of which he spoke will amply suffice. We must strive to widen it, that it may embrace the majority of the intelligent faithful; that it may even reach the Hierarchy. He will see that positive accord will ripen in it, mysteriously, as the seed of life ripens in the decaying body of the fruit. Yes, yes, the negative accord is sufficient. The feeling that the Church of Christ is suffering is sufficient to unite us in the love of our Mother, and to move us ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... lays stress upon the technical skill which results from the close copying of nature, and by virtue of which Furini must be styled a good painter, whether or not a great one: and though he has never underrated the positive value of technical skill, we do not feel that in this third page of the "parleyings" he gives to the inspiring thought as high a relative place as in his earlier works. The old convictions reappear at pages 182-3 of vol. xvi., when he asserts the ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... impatient jerk I know he has argument ready for some one. I have felt him start as a sudden recollection or a new idea shot through his mind. I have felt grief in his hand. I have felt his soul wrap itself in darkness majestically as in a garment. Another friend has positive, emphatic hands which show great pertinacity of opinion. She is the only person I know who emphasizes her spelled words and accents them as she emphasizes and accents her spoken words when I read ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... fall on a Tuesday. So Gillian averred as she walked up the hill with Jasper and Mysie. It seemed a climax to the diversion she and Jasper had extracted from it in private, both wearing Punch's spectacles for the nonce, and holding such aberrations as proof positive. Mysie, on the other ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and vestigial structures of animals are in themselves proof positive of a natural history of change. The few illustrations can be reinforced by countless examples offered by every group of living animals. If such structures have not evolved naturally by degenerating from more efficient counterparts in ancestors of earlier times, and if they have been specially ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... gives you to drink. He gilds his pill always, and he always gilds it with himself. The general characteristics of his Essays have been indicated, and it is worth while inquiring what they teach, what positive good they have done, and why for three centuries they have charmed, and still continue ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... I to know? Your instructions to me were positive. Don't monkey with curtain till bell rings. When bell rings, if down, pull her up; if up, pull her down. I'm ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... suggestions and advice were consequently very valuable to us but, not having been to the northward of the Great Slave Lake, he had no knowledge of that line of country except what he had gained from the reports of Indians. He was of opinion however that positive information on which our course of proceedings might safely be determined could be procured from the Indians that frequent the north side of the lake when they came to the forts in the spring. He recommended my writing to the partner ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... business—why didn't he put in so many hours a day there, instead of leaving it to managers? Why didn't he interest himself in local affairs?—work at something? Already he had all the appearance of a man who is inclined to slackness—and in that case, mused Collingwood, his money would do him positive harm. But he had no thoughts of that sort about Nesta Mallathorpe: he had seen that she was of ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... could give back to a modern man, tortured by a thousand perplexities of knowledge of which they never dreamed, the reality of Christ which they possessed? And then the answer came—not suddenly, but as a still small voice slowly growing louder, more positive, more intense—Live the Life. Try to do some at least of the things that Jesus did. Seek through experience what can never come through ratiocination. Be a Francis; then it may be thou shalt think like him, ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... Seal,[3] and Stanley Secretary for the Colonies, after much trouble. Last year a positive pledge was given to Stanley that he should not meet Parliament again but as Secretary of State. It was not, however, specified who was to make room for him. The Cabinet settled that it should be Goderich, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... experimenter in the mechanic arts will find himself face to face with the problem as to whether he had better make immediate practical use of the knowledge which he has attained, or wait until some positive finality in his conclusions has been reached, He recognizes clearly the fact that he has already made some definite progress, but sees the possibility (even the probability) of still further improvement. Each particular case must ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... take for the aga to drink the wine, and made my arrangements accordingly. I told my master that it was my intention to leave him, as I had an offer to go into business with a relation at Zante. My master, who could not well do without me, entreated me to stay; but I was positive. He then offered me a share of the business if I would remain, but I was not to be persuaded. Every rap at the door, I thought that the aga and his janissaries were coming for me; and I hastened my departure, which was ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... that no state, without being soon exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness. But although this relative proportion may be uniform, the influence of the army over the rest of the society will vary according to the degree of its positive strength. The advantages of military science and discipline cannot be exerted, unless a proper number of soldiers are united into one body, and actuated by one soul. With a handful of men, such a union would be ineffectual; with an unwieldy host, it would be impracticable; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... and yet how could she be sure? He might have gone out to the road and be sitting beside it. A vivid recollection of tramps sitting beside that very road, as she had been driving past, came over her. She became quite positive that he was out on the road, and a terror of the road was over her. She looked behind her, and the sunny gleam of an open field came through the trees. The field was shaggy with blue asters and golden-rod gone to seed, and white tufts of immortelles. Charlotte stared ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... this remark turns upon the negative character of happiness,—the fact that pleasure is only the negation of pain, and that pain is the positive element in life. Though I have given a detailed proof of this proposition in my chief work,[1] I may supply one more illustration of it here, drawn from a circumstance of daily occurrence. Suppose that, with the exception of some sore or painful spot, we are physically in a sound and healthy ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... habits of our pets and try to give them coops and food as much like nature as possible. My flying squirrels were given soft feed in place of the usual hard-shelled nuts. Consequently their teeth grew so long that they were a positive deformity. We finally liberated them but before they could get to a place of safety one of them was caught and killed by a chicken. The poor little creature was so fat from overfeeding and lack of exercise that he had all but lost the power of using ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... followed, into the little dining room, where the lamp shone and the tea table stood looking very hospitable. David made some proposition of going back to the hotel and Norton; but Matilda was very urgent that he should not, and Miss Redwood very positive on the same subject; and to Matilda's surprise David made no great opposition. He sat down quietly enough. Meanwhile the housekeeper took off Matilda's wrappings and examined her with ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... little. But he did it, and without any great fatigue. It was not until Otter was seen stemming a heavy current that his vast strength could be measured. Here, indeed, his stunted stature was a positive advantage, for it offered the less surface for the water ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... sure of much more than he already knew. Again and again he clinched his hands in the office and on the street. He would not wrong the woman he loved. He would not accept the verdict of other people. He would have positive knowledge of his ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... the old gentleman; 'I was quite positive that Rebecca could manage him when she got him. She would make him walk straight. I knew her; she was a great girl. Every morning I went to see her to inquire how things were coming on, and she told me one day that Mr. Bridges had proposed to her, and that she had accepted him, and that it was ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... not a positive term. It denotes the absence rather than the presence of something. It is the perceived privation of good, the shadow where the light ought to be. "The devil is a vacuum," as a friend of mine once remarked to the no small bewilderment of a group of ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... code of ten primary and forty-eight secondary commandments, worded as prohibitions, but equivalent to positive injunctions, inasmuch as they blame the neglect of various active duties. The ten primary commandments are called Pratimoksha and he who breaks them is Parajika,[861] that is to say, he ipso facto leaves the road leading to Buddhahood and ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... "He, a prisoner; and we, all marching away! But I remember now, we always suspected prisoners had been taken at Targai. And positive proofs of Lord Ingleby's death were difficult to—well, don't you know—to find. I mean—there couldn't be a funeral. We had to conclude it, because we believed him to have been right inside the tunnel. He must have got clear after all, before Airth sent the flash, and getting in with the first rush, ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... with nervous dread. He had passed a sleepless night, riding in person to every Den of the Klan and issuing positive orders that no white ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... remember, that not only does he infer, suspect, and surmise, but he actually asserts (page 154), "there was poison in the house," because three out of five patients admitted into a ward had puerperal fever and died. Have I not as much right to draw a positive inference from "Dr. A.'s" seventy exclusive cases as he from the three cases in the ward of the Dublin Hospital? All practical medicine, and all action in common affairs, is founded on inferences. How does Dr. Meigs know that the patients he bled in puerperal fever would not have all got well ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... process of elimination was as rapid if not as radical as in the case of the men. She was unconsciously ridding herself of all that hampered and made her unfit. From the soft feminine tissue, intricacies of mood and fancy were being obliterated. Rudimentary instincts were developing, positive and barbaric as a child's. In the old days she had been dainty about her food. Now she cooked it in blackened pans and ate with the hunger of the men. Sleep, that once had been an irksome and unwelcome break between the pleasures of well-ordered days, was a craving that she satisfied, unwashed, ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... the force by which Life is made.... How curious it seems! the true evil things are our good things. Our thoughts of duty and goodness and chastity, those are the things that need to be altered and put aside; these are the barriers to true goodness.... I foresee the positive denial of all positive morals, the removal of all restrictions. I feel I do not know what 'license,' as we should term it, may not truly belong to the perfect state of Man. When there is no self surely there is no restriction; as we see there is none in Nature.... May we ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... signals of distress, and our long-boat, was sent off with a good supply of water, and plenty of fish and other refreshments: And, as the long-boat could not be wanted, the cockswain had positive orders from the commodore to return immediately. But next day proving stormy, and the boat not appearing, we much feared she was lost, which would have been an irretrievable misfortune to us all. We were relieved, however, from ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... Vindicated, the design of which is to present the doctrine of Divine decrees in such a light as will obviate the usual objections to the Calvinistic view, he says: "Certain things God brings to pass by a positive agency. Others he simply permits to come to pass. And let it be remarked, permission and approbation do not, by any means, mean the same thing." Again: "Does any one ask what is the difference between bringing to pass, and permitting to come to pass? I answer: God brought to pass the ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... shut the port, and made a complete circuit of the camp. I looked into each of the three shuttlers. I found nothing that could offer the least positive clue to the fate of ...
— Attrition • Jim Wannamaker
... larger than the kingdom of Narsymga, since it marches with all Bengal, and is at war with her; and it marches with all the kingdom of Pegu and with the MALLACA Sea. It reaches to the kingdom of Cambaya, and to the kingdom of Dakhan; and they told me with positive certainty that it extends as far as Persia. The population thereof is light coloured, and the men are of good physique. Its king has much treasure and many soldiers and many elephants, for there are numbers of these in this country. (My informants) know this ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... He engaged likewise in theological controversy, and wrote two books against the Arians: "Just Prejudices against the Arian Hypothesis," and "Modern Arians Unmasked." Another of his works is "Natural Theology; or, Moral Duties considered apart from Positive; with some Observations on the Desirableness and Necessity of a Supernatural Revelation." This was the last book that he published. He left behind him "The Accomplished Preacher; or, an Essay upon Divine Eloquence," which was printed after his death ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... there is a lesson in all this for all of us. The lesson is one that we sometimes had to learn the hard way over the past few years. But we did learn it. That lesson is that even potentially destructive forces can be converted into positive forces when we know how to channel them, and when we use common sense and common decency to create a climate ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... associates there were many to adopt with readiness a theory which saved them from the trouble and expense of a scrupulous conscience. With Bruce this infidelity was rather the decay of faith than the growth of positive disbelief. He had dipped with a kind of wilful curiosity into Strauss's Life of Jesus, and other books of a similar description, together with such portions of current literature as were most clever in sneering at Christianity, or most undisguised ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... when this anecdote was told of him. "It was with him and Tom," he said, "as it was with an old laird and a pet servant, whom he had indulged until he was positive beyond all endurance." "This won't do!" cried the old laird, in a passion, "we can't live together any longer—we must part." "An' where the deil does your honor mean to ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... of this is shown in the religious experience known as conversion. To the convert, conversion means the profound acceptance of a mighty spiritual truth. It means positive knowledge taking the place of doubt or indifference. Conflicting ideas are no longer present in his consciousness. Pent-up energies are released. He wants to do things. His soul is fired with overmastering impulses to action. ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton
... her was of a very different kind from those which had preceded it. Those who had formerly attacked her had questioned only a part of her doctrines. A school was now growing up which rejected the whole. The Albigenses, the Lollards, the Lutherans, the Calvinists, had a positive religious system, and were strongly attached to it. The creed of the new sectaries was altogether negative. They took one of their premises from the Protestants, and one from the Catholics. From the latter they borrowed the principle, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... argued the case with him. This resulted in his being summoned before the next faculty meeting. When asked whether he knew who the perpetrators of the outrage were, he declined to answer, not because he had positive knowledge but because he felt morally certain in regard to them. A few weeks later, after he had gone into the country to teach school for the winter, he received word that he had been suspended. Indignant ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... from Henri. "He's sneaking up behind our fellows, I feel sure. From what I've seen of this Max, this German, I feel positive that he'll think of escape last of all. To do him bare credit, he'll consider his own safety only when he's done his worst to our people. Let's push on! We've got to ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... that the Burgundians were so fond of liberty that they bore the figure of a cat upon their banners. It is well known that the arms of Gruyere are a Grue on a scarlet field, and this circumstance alone has evidently given rise to the anonymous author's conjecture. His opinion not only has no positive proof to support it, but has no color of probability ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... told to set up our aid-post in a deep nulla there, and wait on events. A report came from our air-folk that five thousand Turks were on Juber Island, opposite Huweslet. We moved steadily forward to the attack, steadily but unbelievingly. Unbelief rose to positive derision, for as we topped a slight brow we gave a target no artillery could have resisted, yet nothing happened. 'It's a trap,' said Fowke darkly; 'he's luring us on.' Why should John lie doggo in this fashion? Nevertheless ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... the worst of it," said a positive voice. "There isn't a girl in school who knows what she thinks on any subject as clearly as Betty knows ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... very sapiently, knowing as yet nothing of the uses, or even of the names, of the different stores that I was delivering and receiving. The boatswain was with me, of course: but notwithstanding that I had positive orders not to let the men stray away from the duty they were performing—as this official told me, after we had done almost everything that we had come on shore to perform, that he must borrow two of the men to go up with him to the storekeeper's private house, to look out for some strong fine ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... too the fullness of joy had now blazed out. It was a settled thing, signed and sealed; he had twenty thousand francs a year. In the sound of his laugh, in the fuller voice with which he spoke, in his way of looking at the others, his more positive manners, his greater confidence, the assurance given by money was ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... The Norman invasion, on the other hand, was of the nature of a plantation. I will make the difference between the various forms of invasion apparent presently. There have been, too, flocks of immigrant refugees at various times. We have the most positive evidence that long before the dawn of written history the processes of invasion and colonization had been going on in Britain. In all these invasions, historic and prehistoric, with one important exception, no strange or new racial stock was ...
— Nationality and Race from an Anthropologist's Point of View • Arthur Keith
... of her husband, and had many piquant adventures. Prince Metternich was devoted to her one season, and when Lent put an end to festivity, he visited her privately in the morning, that he might not incur the Emperor's displeasure. Napoleon's animosity had now become marked and positive. On one occasion, when three of his ministers met accidentally at her house, he heard of it, and asked petulantly how long since had the council been held at Madame Recamier's? He was especially jealous of foreign ministers, and treated with so much haughtiness any who frequented her salon, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... civilians from the rear the expected profits of civil trade. Hundreds of sutlers and traders were waiting at Nashville and Chattanooga, greedy to reach Atlanta with their wares and goods, with, which to drive a profitable trade with the inhabitants. I gave positive orders that none of these traders, except three (one for each separate army), should be permitted to come nearer than Chattanooga; and, moreover, I peremptorily required that all the citizens and families resident in Atlanta should go away, giving to each the option to go south or ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... cannot tell any one," said Heidi in so positive a tone, and with a look of such trouble on her face, that the grandmother felt full of pity ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... feel the same degree of brightness to be dark. That the action of the inner light is responsible for the differences becomes clear if, while the negative after-image is still visible, we darken the eye with the hollowed hands. Then at once in the dark field of vision the positive facsimile of the window appears, woven by the activity of the blood which reproduces the ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... English nobles had France for a fighting ground, French cities to plunder, and French captives to hold for heavy ransoms, they were content to let matters go on quietly at home. But that day was over. Through the bad management, if not through the positive treachery, of Edmund, Duke of Somerset, the French conquests had been lost. Henry VI, a weak king, at times insane, sat on the English throne (S295), while Richard, Duke of York, a really able man and a descendant of the Mortimers (see table, p. 161), was, as many believed, ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... the young leddies very keen-like, and asked if it was for certain that the marriage was to be between Miss Mannering and young Hazlewood; and I answered him that it was for positive and absolute certain, as I had an undoubted right to say sae; for my third cousin Jean Clavers (she's a relation o' your ain, Mr. Glossin, ye wad ken Jean lang syne?), she's sib to the houskeeper at Woodbourne, and she's tell'd me mair than ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... no positive information about Tacitus' family, but his education, political career, and marriage into a distinguished house, prove that he belonged to a family of station. The first person of the name we know ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... a positive dissolution of Partnerships between subjects of the contending nations. Every Partnership is dissolved by the extinction of the business for which it was formed.[48] By a declaration of War, the respective subjects ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson
... trifling payment in advance; but he could not get a doit. Should we be violating secrecy too much if we suggested that George Bertram had had some slight partial success even when he had no such positive claim—some success which had of course been in direct opposition to ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... whistle in the distant fields beyond the golden waves of wheat and the woods that looked blue above the vines. I have thought of the clamours of mankind, of the oven-like cities, of the problems which perplex the age, and my insight has grown clearer. Yes, I am Positive that one of the great curatives of our evils, our maladies, social, moral, and intellectual, would be a return to the soil, a rehabilitation of the work of the fields." In these characteristically ardent words one of the noblest Frenchmen of ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... ship of war, never having seen any thing of the sort before, than I had about any thing; therefore I felt greatly mortified at being too late, and I began to try the experiment of bribing the gatekeeper, who had positive orders not to let any one pass after that hour. My friend Neale, seeing it in vain to remain there, took another course, and said he would get a boat to see the launch, if he could not get into it; but as I had set my heart ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... belief of Christians everywhere in the early years of the second century, can we trace the evidence further back? In answering this question, we are brought face to face with the Gospels. But first it must be noted that the positive evidence for such a subject must, in the nature of the case, be much more limited than the evidence for the Resurrection. The Apostles were primarily witnesses of what they themselves had seen. There are two persons, and two only, from whom we could reasonably expect to hear the truth about ...
— The Virgin-Birth of Our Lord - A paper read (in substance) before the confraternity of the Holy - Trinity at Cambridge • B. W. Randolph
... those who were lodged in sheds. We had inspected the Cairo army and the Cairo navy, and had also seen all that Cairo had to show us of its own. We were thoroughly disgusted with the hotel, and retired on the second night to bed, giving positive orders that we might be called at half-past two, with reference to that terrible start to be made at half-past three. As a matter of course we kept dozing and waking till past one, in our fear lest neglect on the part of the watcher should entail on us ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... all my heart for it to come to pass? Or say I admit it—I should need to unroll my life before you to make you understand. No, there's no such thing as absolute truth. If there were, the finest subtleties of existence would be lost. There is neither positive truth nor positive untruth; life is not so coarse-fibred as that. And only the grossest natures can be satisfied with a blunt yes or no. Truth?—it is one of the many miserable conventions the human brain has tortured itself ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... religion was not to be neglected; on the contrary, every facility would be given for the voluntary endowment of theological professorships; but the attendance at these lectures would not be compulsory, for the fundamental principle of the measure would be the avoidance of all interference, positive or negative, in all matters affecting the conscience. The right honourable baronet went on to state that there was already an academical institution at Belfast for the Presbyterians of the north ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... cowboy novel. Happy Hawkins tells his own story with such a fine capacity for knowing how to do it and with so much humor that the reader's interest is held in surprise, then admiration and at last in positive affection. ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... in order that himself might incur no risk. The two who had successfully traded were commended and rewarded; the one who allowed his talent to lie idle was condemned and punished for his unfruitfulness, although no positive dishonesty was laid ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... home, who had lived for years in the atmosphere of appreciation that surrounds success; their movements were observed in the newspapers; their names stood for wide interests, big concerns. They had known the satisfaction of a positive importance, not only in their community but in their country; and they had come to England invested as well with the weight that is attached to a public mission. It may very well be that they looked for some echo of what they were accustomed to, ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... their description of the symptoms is always of the vaguest character, while in general the name given to the disease by the shaman expresses only his opinion as to the occult cause of the trouble. Thus they have definite names for rheumatism, toothache, boils, and a few other ailments of like positive character, but beyond this their description of symptoms generally resolves itself into a statement that the patient has bad dreams, looks black around the eyes, or feels tired, while the disease is assigned such names as "when they dream ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... more still, the little anxiety which he displayed for any other kind of success, had rendered him the object of more than one lady's ambition. But there was in the bent of his life something too positive for him to consent that even the love of a woman should find a place there unconditionally. Among the hearts which seemed ready to bestow themselves upon him, he calculated which was the particular one whose good-will was best supported by money, useful relations, and other social ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... towards establishing an epoch in fiction, and it places it beyond a doubt that we have in Mr. Cable a novelist of positive originality, and of the ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... fancy or invention; he describes reality, takes everything straight from life, and describes it with amazing faithfulness and artistic harmony. He was the first Russian writer to look on Russian life from a positive instead of from a negative ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... in pursuit of them Don Juan de Morales Valenzuela, with two caracoas, to the islands called "Orejas de Liebre," on January 2, 1663; but on the fourth of the same month he received a new and more positive order from the captain-general, dated October 11, that without delay or any excuse he must abandon Zamboanga. At sight of this, Bobadilla warned Morales that the withdrawal must be made, as was done on the seventh—as promptly as possible fulfilling the said imperious mandate, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... Bereavement and separation take nothing from it, but, on the contrary, they illustrate and enforce our obligations. For since we must needs die, and are as water that is spilled upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again, such a death as this amounts to positive happiness by the side of a contrasted experience in the joyless, hopeless death of a child, or friend. But without further preface, I ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... youth should conform to them, but where a trifling deviation from them would not be considered as an act of delinquency publicly reprehensible. The latter to things, where any compliance with them becomes a positive offence. The Quakers, in consequence of the vast power they have over their members by means of their discipline, lay a great stress upon the latter. They consider their prohibitions, when duly watched ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... him, and had been for so many years, that they made on him no impressions of comparison. But his baby was one and one only. Any change in it was not only in itself a new experience, but brought into juxtaposition what is with what was. The changes that began to mark the divergence of sex were positive shocks to him, for they were unexpected. In the very dawn of babyhood dress had no special import; to his masculine eyes sex was lost in youth. But, little by little, came the tiny changes which convention has ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... C.W. Adams was the incumbent of the post; but, following it, came Colonel S.H. Wattles[964] and things went rapidly from bad to worse. The grossest corruption prevailed and, in the midst of plenty, there was positive want. Throughout the winter, cattle-driving was indulged in, army men, government agents, and civilians all participating. It was only the ex-refugee that faced starvation. All other folk grew rich. ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... at matters in a cheerful light. The two young subalterns were in high spirits, and the party were more lively than they had been since the first outbreak of the mutiny. All had felt severely the strain of waiting, and the reality of danger was a positive relief after the continuous suspense. It was much to them to know that the crisis had come at last, that they were still all together and ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... they often flatly contradict one another, medical experts do not stand very high in popular repute; nevertheless, it is a positive fact that a single medical expert is worth half Scotland Yard in the detection and prevention of crime. Thousands of rivals in love, disagreeable husbands, dangerous political agitators, harsh masters and mistresses, rich uncles, and people of that sort, would be popped off with ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... International des Poids et Measures (BIPM) in Sevres, France. The BIPM averages data collected from more than 200 atomic time and frequency standards located at about 50 laboratories worldwide. UTC is the basis for all civil time with the Earth divided into time zones expressed as positive or negative differences from UTC. UTC is also referred to as "Zulu time." See the Standard Time Zones of the World map ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... From the positive, that is, the progressive point of view, there is also a boundary. Such actions under one form of government are political activities, and under the opposite form of government are also political activities. But these are not questions of political principle. ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... by nature a fighting man, one who took a positive joy in battle, and like an old Norseman, seemed to think that thus only could a man decorously die. This amazed me, a peaceful person who loves quiet and a home. Still, I gave way, partly to please him, partly because I hoped that we might discover something of interest, ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... Scoffing will not sustain a man in his solitude, when he has nobody to scoff at; and disbelief is only a bottomless tub, which will not float me across the dark river. If Infidels intend to convert the world, they must give us some positive system of truth which we can believe, ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... by its hands, a common test of their powers, I had been told; but to this M. C—— objected, referring everything of this tangible nature to future occasions. In fine, I could get nothing during three or four visits, but pretty positive assertions, expressions of wonder that I should affect to doubt what had been so often and so triumphantly proved to others, accounts physical and moral, like the one of which I had been the subject myself, and which did not admit of either ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the faith of it, whether it relates to the right of property itself, or to the evidence by which that right may be substantiated, though it may appear to us "flatly absurd and unjust," to overrule such a decision is an act of positive injustice, as well as a violation of law, and an usurpation by one branch of the government upon the powers of another. An example will illustrate this position. In the case of Walton v. Shelley (1 Term Rep. 296), in 1786, the King's Bench, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice, decided that a ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... queer," said the teacher to himself. "Now, let me think what I did with them. Yes, I put them in the glass, I am positive of it!" ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... in the present state of our knowledge. That an influence is exerted in some way, is clear from the difference in our feelings in dry and wet weather: it has been supposed, however, that the effects on the nervous system are not produced by an accumulation of positive or of negative electricity, but by the combination of the two producing dynamic electricity. While these points are undergoing discussion, we have an opportunity of bringing before our readers the results of investigations ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... have him detained below. A short history of this man will convince you that he ought to be nowhere but on his farm. He, in the first place, is a professed enemy to subordination, and has an utter aversion to discipline. He is positive, and prefers his own opinion to even the general's, because he was in the service last war. He is not possessed of one qualification that distinguishes a gentleman, nor has he genius or education. His whole study ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... conducted in the modern languages. The ancient tongues are used only in comments on the ancient writers. The great productions of Athenian and Roman genius are indeed still what they were. But though their positive value is unchanged, their relative value, when compared with the whole mass of mental wealth possessed by mankind, has been constantly falling. They were the intellectual all of our ancestors. They are but a part of our treasures. Over what tragedy could ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... out a positive negative. 'I leave Col to his guesses. He'd have been prophesying fire the works before ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... each comes from its own distinctive nature. If you should say, 'By some contrivance this can be removed,' such an opinion argues folly. Every root within the moral world has its own nature predetermined; loving remembrance and forgetfulness, these have their nature fixed and positive; so likewise age, disease, and death, these sorrows, who can escape by strategy? If you say, 'Water can put out fire,' or 'Fire can cause water to boil and pass away,' then this proves only that distinctive natures may be mutually destructive; but nature in harmony produces living ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... adopted, it was determined to report to the King, and at the same time to announce to him as a positive fact that there existed in the neighbourhood a cacique called Dobaiba, whose territory had rich gold deposits, which had till then been respected because he was very powerful. His country extended along the great river which we have elsewhere mentioned. According to common ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... comparative in both clauses with quanto and tanto; the more recent writers, such as Tacitus and Sallust, used the comparative with them in, at least, one clause. We find in the Annals these ablatives of quantus and tantus, as if their real force was not known, used with the positive in both clauses. A European putting into Latin: "the more closely he had at one time applied himself to public business, the more wholly he gave himself up to secret debaucheries and vicious idleness;" would think his ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... like him, of course," gasped Anne, wondering if she were telling the literal truth. Certainly she did not DISlike Billy. But could the indifferent tolerance with which she regarded him, when he happened to be in her range of vision, be considered positive enough for liking? WHAT was ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... avocations which tax at once the brain and the sinews are not quite enough for any child to labor statedly and steadily?" The consent of guardian or parent he thought a fraud against the child that could be averted only by the positive command of the State specifically limiting ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... recollections connected with it that made him regard it with personal affection. Norman, too, could not bear to lose it; he had not entirely conquered his reluctance to pass that spot in the High Street, and the loss of the alley would be a positive deprivation to him. Almost every native of Stoneborough felt strongly the encroachment of the brewer, and the boys, of course, carried the sentiment ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... it quite wonderful how well they played their part in conversation with so small a stock of words. There is much pliability of meaning, however, in an interjection; and in company, where there are always several persons who are anxious to be heard, it is a positive virtue. In Miss Constantia's intonation of her favourite 'impossible!' it seemed to me that there mingled a dash of sadness, a kind of musical and melancholy cadence, which was followed by an unconscious absence of mind, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... more valuable in respect of positive information, and especially in supplying an account of the incident taken from the lips of the Emperor himself. The Prince was without his great predecessor's ability, but was much more amiable and sincere. He was, moreover, a friend of both the parties concerned, and he impartially ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... Parkinson, of the junior class, seeing that the order was a positive one, had the good sense to obey. He "hardened" the funny-bone of either arm against the punching bag to the tune of jeering laughter from the rest of the squad. That was Coach Luce's way of dealing with ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... campfire site, Barby and the boys had excavated Pirate's Field under Tony's direction. They had unearthed positive evidence that pirates had landed there. The most vital evidence was the remains of a logbook, once the log of the bark Maiden Hand, sunk by the woman pirate Anne Bonney off the island of Clipper Cay ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... two directions. He got primarily from the great reformer his transforming insight of the immense importance of personal faith for salvation, and secondly he was impressed—almost overwhelmingly impressed in his early years—with the awful reality and range of the principle of positive evil in the universe, upon which Luther had insisted with intensity of emphasis. His feet, however, were set upon the track which seemed to him to lead to light by the help which he got from the other line of reformers. Schwenckfeld made him feel the impossibility ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... should recognise the grandeur and originality of Berlioz's music before France, it is doubtful whether the German nature could ever fully understand a soul so French in its essence. It is, perhaps, what is exterior in Berlioz, his positive originality, that the Germans appreciate. They prefer the Requiem to Romeo. A Richard Strauss would be attracted by an almost insignificant work like the Ouverture du roi Lear; a Weingartner would single out ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... suspicion of the other while they waited for darkness to fall that they might try to slip through the cordon of watchers. One of the at least, was unknown. If he could make a get-away, and leave no witness behind, there would be no proof positive that he was one of the rustlers. The situation ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... positive luxury at times," Redford answered, "to be able to indulge in absolute candour. We cannot last the session. You pulled us through our last tight corner, but we shall part, I suppose, on the New Tenement Bill, and then we shall ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim |
