"Precept" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chronicle, and trace the remaining career of El Zagal. His short and turbulent reign and disastrous end would afford a wholesome lesson to unprincipled ambition, were not all ambition of the kind fated to be blind to precept and example. When he arrived in Africa, instead of meeting with kindness and sympathy, he was seized and thrown into prison by the caliph of Fez, Benimerin, as though he had been his vassal. He was accused of being the cause of the dissensions and downfall of the kingdom of Granada, and, the ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... sacrifices. The barbarians, whoever they were, who introduced this horrible law, commanded to put to death any man who had been consecrated to the God of the Jews, whom they called Adonai: and it is according to this execrable precept that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter, and that Saul wanted to sacrifice ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... of his own design, and in March of 1907 he built his first monoplane, to wreck it only a few days after completion in an accident from which he had a fortunate escape. His next machine was a double monoplane, designed after Langley's precept, to a certain extent, and this was totally wrecked in September of 1907. His seventh machine, a monoplane, was built within a month of this accident, and with this he had a number of mishaps, also achieving some good flights, including one in which ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... faculties, is improved by practice, and its advancement is hindered by submission to dictatorial decisions, as the memory grows torpid by the use of a table book. Some initiation is however necessary; of all skill, part is infused by precept, and part is obtained by habit; I have therefore shewn so much as may enable the candidate of criticism to discover ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... column in half an hour. She had an artist's pride in the finished work, however much she might dislike the thing in making, and she used to sail down to the press-room as soon as the paper was out, and, picking up the paper from the folder, she would stand reading her page, line upon line, precept upon precept, though every word and syllable was ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... year, and its rubrics plainly teach us that according to the mind of the Church the principal service of every Lord's Day should be the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Our Lord has also taught us by His example as well as by precept, that works of mercy, both spiritual and corporal, are lawful to be done on this day, and are ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... view. As for Giles Jackman, that stalwart "Woods-and-Forester" returned to his adopted land, accompanied by the faithful Quin, and busied himself in the activities of his adventurous career, while he sought to commend the religion of Jesus alike to native and European, both by precept and example, proving the great truth that "godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come." MacRummle, during the same period, spent much time in his study, writing for publication ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... delicate critical perception that the true business of literature is with narrative; in reasoned narrative, and there alone, that art enjoys all its advantages, and suffers least from its defects. Dry precept and disembodied disquisition, as they can only be read with an effort of abstraction, can never convey a perfectly complete or a perfectly natural impression. Truth, even in literature, must be clothed with flesh and blood, or it cannot tell its ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... their tenets, let us not adopt their errors; errors which would be infinitely more inexcusable in us, who, from the clearer views which revelation has given us, shall not have their ignorance or their doubts to plead. It were well if we availed ourselves of that portion of their precept, which inculcates the improvement of every moment of our time, but not like them to dedicate the moments so redeemed to the pursuit of sensual and perishable pleasures, but to the securing of those which are spiritual in their nature, ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... demonstrable from the first page of the Complete Accomptant, or Young Man's Best Pocket Companion) that a bow at church from them to such a man as Harley would have made the parson look back into his sermon for some precept ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... every one of you. But none of you can regret his terrible end so much as I do; for I feel that I am to some extent to blame for it. A certain wise man has said, 'Of the dead speak nothing but good;' and it is well to carry out this precept, so far as is possible. There are occasions, however, when the truth—the whole truth—must be told, even though it reflect discredit upon those who are gone; and this is one of them. I am sorry to be obliged to tell you that what really ailed Mr Purchas was—drunkenness! ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... duty, honor, and gratitude to be faithful to your trust; to support the dignity of your character on every occasion; and to enforce, by precept and example, obedience to the tenets ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... and people sow, such they shall reap at the hand of the just God. And then your many and great privileges, above the children of other people, will add weight in the scale against you, if you choose not the way of the Lord. For you have had line upon line, and precept upon precept, and not only good doctrine but good example; and which is more, you have been turned to, and acquainted with, a principle in yourselves, which others too generally have been ignorant of: and you know you may be as good as you please, without the fear of frowns and blows, ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... one another, in the form of a vote-catching resolution, with "law" to please the man of science, and "creational" to draw the orthodox. So I took refuge in that "thatige Skepsis" which Goethe has so well defined; and, reversing the apostolic precept to be all things to all men, I usually defended the tenability of the received doctrines, when I had to do with the transmutationists; and stood up for the possibility of transmutation among the orthodox—thereby, no doubt, increasing ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... answer, when found, is more prolific in results. Wealth, then, is treated only as one of the forces of civilization. Other interests than purely material ones occupy the first place. This matter-of-fact philosophy which, according to Bacon's precept, seeks to improve the conditions of life, bears in mind, that the most fruitful source of material development lies in intellectual development. It humbly recognizes that it is not the first-born of the family, and draws new strength from this avowal. From the moment ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... you think, because I'm a clerk, that I'm not one of the intellectuals. I'm a reading man, a thinking man. I read in a book—a high class six shilling book—this precept: Affirm your manhood. It appealed to me. Ive always remembered it. I believe in it. I feel I must do it to recover your respect after my cowardly behavior. Therefore I affirm it in your presence. ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... whole of his chequered career. "Give me a child of seven years old," had once declared the great Founder of the Society of Jesus, "and I care not who has the after-handling of him"; and in this case the Jesuit professors did not fail to carry out Loyola's precept. But his home life with his mother, whom he loved devotedly, and his course of study at the Jesuit school were suddenly interrupted when he was barely ten years of age, for the elder Tasso was anxious for his little son to join him in Rome, there ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... humoured, and, though whimsical, and often too high in her colouring of characters, and in the trifling business of the idle world,—yet I think she has principles, and a good heart,—[with a glow of conjugal tenderness.] but in a partner for life, Sidney, (you know your own precept, and your own judgment)—affection, capricious in its nature, must have something even in the external manners,—nay in the very mode, not only of beauty, but of virtue itself— which both heart and judgment must approve, or our happiness in that delicate ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... Law's stone table, To hold he scarce was able The first great precept fast, He kept ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... joy. Every one's heart glowed at seeing the son of a monarch whom they were accustomed to regard with veneration and love; and as people who lived in the habitual belief that to "fear God and honour the King" is a "united precept," every mark of respect and attachment was exhibited on both occasions. When his Royal Highness came the second time, as captain of the Pegasus, the homage, which had been paid to him at the first visit, as son of their sovereign, was mingled with respect to himself. ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... like this, with its high standard and far-reaching possibilities, can and will be answered. Christianity provides not only an appeal, but a dynamic. He Who bids, enables; He Who calls, provides. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is at once a precept, a promise, a provision, and a power. The religions of the world often tell us to "Be good," but it is left for Christianity to proclaim that "He died to make us good." As a result, the Christian can ...
— The Prayers of St. Paul • W. H. Griffith Thomas
... a supposed illustration of the Homoeopathic law found in the precept given for the treatment of parts which have been frozen, by friction with snow or similar means. But we deceive ourselves by names, if we suppose the frozen part to be treated by cold, and not by ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the civil power or to carry off their property or change their good customs which they have hitherto in that district which they inhabit." Innocent himself and several of his predecessors and successors are known to have had Jewish physicians. Example speaks even louder than precept, and the example of such men must have been a wonderful advertisement for the ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... cannot be ranked with superstition, because they regard only natural effects. They expect better crops of grain, by sowing their seed in the moon's increase. The moon has great influence in vulgar philosophy. In my memory it was a precept annually given in one of the English Almanacks, 'to kill hogs when the moon was increasing, and the bacon would prove ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... than the precept of the poet who was so admirably familiar with all matters agricultural; the sowing of the faselus must be commenced when the constellation of Bootes disappears at the set of sun, that is, in October; and it is to be continued until ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... it needs no words of mine to show, that a faithful history of the most Christian country in the most Christian times the world ever witnessed, would contain, fearful evidence of the cruelty of man setting at nought the above blessed precept. Nay, more—I question if, viewed in its entire fulness, there is any one single command in Scripture more habitually disregarded. Proverbs are generally supposed to be a condensation of facts or experiences. Whence comes "Every one for himself, and God for us all"? or, the more vulgar one, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... civilised government would be its eventual insensibility to the appeal of a "just war." Under any governmental auspices, as the modern world knows governments, the keeping of the peace comes at its best under the precept, "Speak softly and carry a big stick." But the case for peace is more precarious than the wording of the aphorism would indicate, in as much as in practical fact the "big stick" is an obstacle to soft speech. ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... I shook with an awful thunder of sound. ... Today I have been happy to tears, and in the blue afternoon on the cliffs with my mother, I shared "Endymion" and "Epipsychidion." ... I do not understand why silence is spoken of as a precept. To me it is the living attribute of God. ... How nobly scornful is Sir Aubrey De ...
— The Forgotten Threshold • Arthur Middleton
... in fear and trembling but had no sooner stepped before him than he also accosted me with the question: "So you write poetry?" I did not hesitate to make the admission. He commissioned me to write a poem on some high moral precept which I do not remember. The amount of condescension and affability which such a request coming from him implied can only be appreciated by those who were his pupils. When I finished and handed him the verses next day, he took me to the highest class and made me stand before the boys. ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... boasted of his conquests among the women, nor affected to entertain a contemptible opinion of the fair sex. He was generous, and was never afraid of obliging the ungrateful; remembering the grand precept of Zoroaster, "When thou eatest, give to the dogs, should they even bite thee." He was as wise as it is possible for man to be, for he sought to live ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... personal satisfaction little understood by the people of Alencon. The world owes a great deal to persons who take such pains to please it. In this there is certainly some accomplishment of that most difficult precept of the Gospel about rendering good for evil. This freshness of ablution and all the other little cares harmonized charmingly with the blue eyes, the ivory teeth, and the blond person of the ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... with the world, you will find that Lady Margaret has but expressed what by almost every body is thought: to neglect old friends, and to court new acquaintance, though perhaps not yet avowedly delivered as a precept from parents to children, is nevertheless so universally recommended by example, that those who act differently, incur ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... fig-tree? Why, the Lord will lop its boughs with terror; yea, the thickets of those professors with iron. I have waited, saith God, these three years; I have missed of fruit these three years; it hath been a cumber-ground these three years; cut it down. Precept hath been upon precept, and line upon line, one year after another, for these three years, but no fruit can be seen; I find none, fetch out the axe! I am sure THIS is the fig-tree, I know it from the first year; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the greatest works of fiction by an American. Early in his career he was the victim of that craze that covets the signatures and manuscript sentiments of persons who have achieved distinction, which later he did so much to foster by precept and practice. He was an inveterate autograph-hunter, and toward the close of his life he paid the penalty of harping on the joys of the collector by the receipt of a perfect avalanche of requests for autographs and extracts ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... related to diet; thinking, I suppose, that after the age of childhood, in ordinary cases, each person might regulate it best for himself. But from an almost entire abstinence from fermented liquors, he was, both by precept and example, a strenuous adviser. "He believed," says Miss Edgeworth, in her Memoirs of her Father, "that almost all the distempers of the higher classes of people arise from drinking, in some form or other, too much vinous spirit. To this he attributed the aristocratic disease of gout, the ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... solemnly to affirm on the field of battle her adhesion to this precept, though uttered by German lips. In defense of it, Portuguese will fight side by side with Englishmen, as they fought with them at Aljubarrota, side by side with Frenchmen, who fought with them at Montes Claros. Were it necessary to appeal to a motive less disinterested ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... nineteen volumes of this Miscellany, that the most effectual method of conveying instruction, or aiding the progress of knowledge, is by combining it with amusement; or, in other words by at once aiming at the head and heart. The world is already too full of precept upon precept; and a smattering of principles is too often found in the place of practice. How can this order of things be improved but by setting forth duties as innocent pleasures, sweetening utility with entertainment, and garnishing fact with fancy. A man need not study Adam Smith's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - No. 555, Supplement to Volume 19 • Various
... near Moscow in 1862; his two great works are "War and Peace" (1865-68) and "Anna Karenina" (1875-78); has written many works since, all more or less in a religious vein, and in the keenest, deepest sympathy with the soul-oppression of the world, finding the secret of Christianity to lie in the precept of Christ, "Resist not evil," and exemplifying that as the principle of his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... think, a familiar precept to educators, that children should not have their literature too much simplified for them. We are told that they like something beyond them, and that it is good for them to have a sense of mystery and power beyond the sense they ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... a share in the culinary government; but having shown on her first trial, too decided a leaning towards puddings and pancakes, her second essay was put off till she became more thoroughly penetrated with the value of the eternal precept utile dulci, which signifies that, before dessert it is requisite to ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... not so much facts, dates, and figures, as principles, ideas, and sentiments, which they endeavour to teach. The scholar is made familiar with what he is told by observation and experience whenever it is possible, for that is how Nature teaches. Precept, they say, is good, and example is better; but an ideal of perfection is ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... offices of dignity and emolument were bestowed upon Englishmen; upon men who lived here with reluctance, and but seldom—who had no sympathy with the country or its inhabitants—nay, who looked upon us, in general, with feeling of hostility and contempt; and who, by example or precept, rendered no earthly equivalent for the enormous sums that were drawn from a poor and struggling people. It is idle to say that these prodigious ecclesiastical revenues were not paid by the people, but by the landlord, who, if the people had not paid them, would have added them to ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the genuineness of the sentiment which dictated those words is therefore above suspicion. To work vigorously, to do well whatever he (or she) has to do, is a real pleasure to the Utopian child. Indeed his whole being is a living response to the familiar precept: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... "writhing in agony at the self same hour," and as dying on the same day when he, Mr. Gourlay, crossed over into the United States.—Statistical Account, vol. 2, p. 401. He was astray by exactly a week. By reference to the precept of the court, I find that Mr. Gourlay's trial took place on the day specified in the text—Friday, the 20th of August. He left the Province on the following day—Saturday, the 21st. The Duke's death took place ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... burn the house. These ideas took such hold of his imagination, that he often started up in bed and screamed aloud. But John was too sincerely religious to cherish a revengeful spirit. The wrong done to him was as great as one mortal could inflict upon another; but he had learned the divine precept not to render evil ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... stood so near to death that she seemed to have looked upon earth in the light of eternity. In that light, rank and title, with all their lofty associations and splendid accompaniments, faded away, while true nobleness, the nobleness which dwells in the Christian precept "Love your enemies—do good to those that despitefully use you," stood out in ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... by no means endure," returned Buddha, "be it the very truth of Heaven. Be comforted; thou shalt proclaim my doctrine to better purpose in other lands. Thou hast this time but a sorry account to render of thy stewardship; yet thou mayest truly declare that thou hast obeyed my precept in the letter, if not in the spirit, since none can assert that thou ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... she. "I do believe that even now my mother watches over her child, and every prayer she once breathed, every precept she once taught, will come more freshly home to my heart, when each place recalls some word or some look there heard and there watched. It is for your sake, Lorenzo, I would be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... a judge, should of all men be most careful to keep his skirts clear from the taint of such corruption. There are ample material rewards for those who serve with fidelity the Mammon of unrighteousness, but they are dearly paid for by that institution of learning whose head, by example and precept, teaches the scholars who sit under him that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. The amount of money the representatives of the great moneyed interests are willing to spend can be gauged by their recent publication broadcast throughout ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... it doth indeed appear from reference to the numerous works of the alchymists and magians yet extant, somewhat hastily and unjustly. For those books all unite in dwelling on the necessity of virtue, subdued passions and a clear mind, in order to become a fortunate and accomplished cabalist—a precept, by the way, not without its policy; for, if the disciple failed, the failure might be attributed to his own fleshly imperfections, not to any deficiency in the truth ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and read so as to assure a sharp analysis of character, thereby bringing the real qualities of the subject to the front, and believing, also, that the biographies of the noblest men only should be written for the young, since "example is more powerful than precept," the author sends forth this humble volume, invoking for it the considerate indulgence of critics, and the ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... Trent, session 13 [in D.—"3"] de reformat, chapter I, whose words, although they are very well worth reading, I omit on account of their length. It is not proper to go up into their houses, except when necessity requires it, keeping therein the evangelical precept (Luke x, 7 [wrongly cited as xx]): Nolite transire de domo in domum. For one will lose much in estimation, while their vices [in D.—"coldness"] do not make this a ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... Not even if they were "guilty of a skin," or ever so degraded, should we deem ourselves justified in reducing them to a state of servitude. This is NOT "the question before us." We are quite satisfied on all such points. The precept, too, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, was not altogether unknown in the Southern States before his letters were written. A committee of very amiable philanthropists came all the way from England, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... history of the two Apprentices, by representing a series of such scenes as naturally result from a course of Industry or Idleness, and which he has illustrated with such texts of scripture as teach us their analogy with holy writ. Now, as example is far more convincing and persuasive than precept, these prints are, undoubtedly, an excellent lesson to such young men as are brought up to business, by laying before them the inevitable destruction that awaits the slothful, and the reward that generally ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... would not ask an annual appropriation of more than half a million dollars for the purposes of dredging, deepening and diking it. But even as you cross it you learn that it is the Tiber or the Arno, the Elbe or the Po; and, such is the force of precept and example, you immediately get all excited and worked ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... theories of knowledge began to be questioned they had made an insistent appeal, and had come to be regarded as an essential prop to lend support to man's conviction of the reality of a life beyond the grave. A web of moral precept and the allurement of hope had been so woven around them that no force was able to strip away this body of consolatory beliefs; and they have persisted for all time, although the reasoning by which they were originally built up has been demolished ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... our love to God is to be unbounded—we are to love him with our whole heart, our whole soul, and our whole strength. The love which the precept commands us to bear to our neighbour, has affixed to it a direct limit and qualification—we are to love our neighbour as ourself; as it is elsewhere explained by the great commandment, that we must do unto him as we would that he should do unto us. Here there ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... eighteen months ago, however, severe restrictions were in vogue, and the warden declared that it was his belief and policy that men in prison should be taught by precept and illustration to regard themselves as dead to the world; that they should be held practically incommunicado, no visitors, letters at most but once a month, no conversation between prisoners—silence, solitude, suffocation in this terrible ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... tenant shall be bound to bring up and educate his children properly, according to his means and opportunities, by using every endeavour to allow of their attendance at schools where sound religious and secular knowledge may be acquired; and, by precept and example, otherwise training them up to be pious, industrious, and good members ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... Quixote saw a certain amount of reason in this; still, he asked his squire to do his utmost to restrain himself against any such rash impulse in the case of members of the knighthood. And Sancho Panza swore that he would keep this precept as religiously ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... noble, and aims so lofty, that not his country alone, but the whole of mankind, benefited by his work. It is no exaggeration to say that he has raised the standard of civilization, and the world to-day is undoubtedly better for both the precept and the ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... trespassing you are guilty of impertinence. This is obvious. And yet one of the chief activities of home-life consists in prancing about at random on other people's private lawns. What I say applies even to the relation between parents and children. And though my precept is exaggerated, it is purposely exaggerated in order effectively to balance the exaggeration in the ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... oblige all other fortunes to attend on and follow them like satellites; and on that account, therefore, the recent and marvelous successes of his brother Anne reflected on him all the brilliancy of those achievements. Moreover, as he had scrupulously followed the precept of concealing his mode of life, and of dispensing and diffusing his mental wealth, he was only known by the better sides of his character, and in his own family was accounted a very great man, a happiness which many sovereigns, laden with glory and crowned with the acclamations of a whole ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... same time, by a more secure navigation in an open sea. And next, as to the directions I have given for running into the latitude of 61 deg. or 62 deg. S. before any endeavour is made to stand to the westward. The reasons for this precept are, that, in all probability, the violence of the current setting from the westward will be thereby avoided, and the weather will prove less tempestuous and uncertain. This last circumstance we experienced most remarkably; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... that no probability exists of the passage of such an act by a majority of both Houses, either in the present or the next Congress. Surely under these circumstances we ought to be restrained from present action by the precept of Him who spake as man never spoke, that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," The day of evil may never come unless we shall ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... still with the silence that intensifies sound tenfold. Eustace thought he could not have had worse luck. His temptation was to hurry; common sense bade him hold himself in check. Panic urged him to risk everything, and make a bolt for it. But Bob's precept was ringing in his mind—there were two sides to the question; he might bolt, but where to in the dark? It was useless to dash headlong into trees and make for nowhere in particular. The plan was to get as far away as possible in the dark, unheard, so that by daylight ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... the Landgrave caution Luther's Catholic critics to be very careful in what they say about the heinousness of Luther's offense in granting a dispensation from a moral precept? Have they really no such thing as a "dispensation" at Rome? Has not the married relationship come up for "dispensation" in the chancelleries of the Vatican innumerable times? Has not one of the canonized saints of Rome, St. Augustine, declared that bigamy might be permitted if a wife ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... on a sheet of white paper, any characters may be engraven; these laudable endeavours, by which we may reasonably expect the rising generation will be greatly improved, render particularly due to you, any examples which may teach those virtues that are not easily learnt by precept and shew the facility of what, in mere speculation, might appear surrounded with a discouraging impracticability: you are the best judge, whether, by being made public, they may be conducive to your ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... tolerate the commission of crimes amongst them, which cry aloud to Heaven for vengeance, is more than we can comprehend. Had the priests devoted that time which they spent in exciting the passions and misleading the judgment of their flocks, in the inculcation of the divine precept of brotherly love—had they exercised that influence which they undoubtedly possess in calming the passions and enlightening the minds of their people—the condition of their country would now be widely different from what it is; and surely their bishops might have been ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... running to its crisis in the minimum of time, and their affections altogether pleasanter than anything of the kind they accuse us of having, as well as less lingering. But with their pills—well, we all know how our ills are nursed by medicine. Is it a relief that their precept is less tedious than their practice? It is good policy for us, perhaps, if our minds are to be under treatment from their books,—and it grows plainer every day that no person of mind can well escape from them,—that our bodies should continue subject to their boluses. Thus we ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... Conceive the distinct number of three, not divided nor separated by the intellect, but actually comprehended in its unity, and that a per- fect trinity. I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magick of numbers. "Be- ware of philosophy," is a precept not to be received in too large a sense: for, in this mass of nature, there is a set of things that carry in their front, though not in capital letters, yet in stenography and short characters, something of divinity; which, to wiser reasons, serve as luminaries in the abyss of knowledge, ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... it is not always so. Heavily weights on me at times the burdensome reflection that I cannot honestly say I am confident as to the exact shape of the once-seen, oft-regretted Cube; and in my nightly visions the mysterious precept, "Upward, not Northward," haunts me like a soul-devouring Sphinx. It is part of the martyrdom which I endure for the cause of Truth that there are seasons of mental weakness, when Cubes and Spheres flit away into ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... the presence of an offended Creator!—it was impossible—it was contrary to his nature and to the religion which he professed. How could he hope for the Divine assistance in his perilous undertaking, when he embarked on it, regardless of the precept to forgive ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... was much weaker, having only forty-two thousand, and of these some eight thousand were occupied in the siege of that place. Wurmser was a master of the old school, working like an automaton under the hand of his government, and commanding according to well-worn precept his well-equipped battalions, every soldier of which was a recruit so costly that destructive battles were made as infrequent as possible, because to fight many meant financial ruin. In consequence, like all the best generals of his class, he made war as far as possible a series of manoeuvers. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... week. We ask by what authority, and are very much mistaken if an examination of all the texts of the New Testament, in which the first day of the week or Lord's day is mentioned, does not prove that there is no divine or Apostolic precept enjoining its observance, nor any certain evidence from scripture that it was, in fact, so observed in the times of the Apostles. Accordingly we search the scriptures in vain, either for an Apostolic precept, appointing the first day of the week ...
— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign, from the Beginning to the Entering into the Gates of the Holy City, According to the Commandment • Joseph Bates
... law are conducted in nearly the same manner in the different states. The following is a sketch of the proceedings in an ordinary civil suit in a justice's court: The justice, at the request of the plaintiff, issues a summons, which is a writ or precept addressed to a constable of the town, in some states to any constable of the county, commanding him to summon the defendant to appear before the justice on a day and at an hour specified, to answer the plaintiff (naming ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... whole conduct before this superior faculty; wait its determination; enforce upon ourselves its authority; and make it the business of our lives, as it is absolutely the whole business of a moral agent, to conform ourselves to it. This is the true meaning of that ancient precept, reverence thyself." ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... never observed the commandment. I ask, however, when has their monastic fanaticism permitted them time and opportunity to perceive for once this law in their hearts, to become sensible of the example set them in their own human instinct, or even to read the precept in books or hear it preached? Poor, miserable people! Do you presume to think that God will make void this, love's commandment, so deeply and clearly impressed upon the heart, so beautifully and unmistakably illustrated in your own natures, and in the many written and ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... priuiledged, where the said officer or officers may not lawfully intromit or intermeddle, that then the Maior, shirifes, baylifes, and other head officers, or ministers, within euery such citie, borough, towne incorparate or place or places franchised, vpon a precept to them, or any of them, to be directed from the gouernour or gouernours, Consuls and assistants of the said fellowship, in number and forme aforesaid, vnder the common seale of the sayd fellowship and communaltie for the time being, shall and may attach and arrest the body or bodies of such offender ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... been a doubt of the truth of the proverb that example is better than precept, the behaviour of the young men and maidens of Pitcairn, after the wedding just described, would have cleared that doubt away ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... Waste' was his maxim, when I was not disposed to wait the natural development of events. By neglecting this precept, I have nearly sacrificed the lives of my best friends. Lawry, if you are going to be a steamboat man, let me give you this maxim for your government—'Haste ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... add that while there may be an honest difference of opinion regarding the efficacy of legislative enactments in overcoming or restraining the drink habit, there should be little doubt that a whole-hearted, persistent, precept-and-example effort of the medical profession exerted as individuals on their patients and the families of their patients, and as associations on the community at ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... sir, as a father, to consider whether the spirit which you manifested, in bring such unreasonable charges against me, be consistent with the directions given by St. Paul to Timothy, and also with the example and precept of him who loved his enemies and commanded his ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... yours would readily be granted, and the most obstinate even would be obliged to give way. Therefore, mighty lords, we have consented, for the honor of God, for the sake of the King, and in obedience to that precept of the Gospel, which you profess: 'Love not your friends only, but your enemies also', urgently to beseech you: Do away with this misery! Remember, that they are your Christian brethren, your neighbors; that they speak your own language; that you are one nation, friends, ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... faculty of digesting and arranging, as well as of retaining, has converted his mind into a mighty magazine of knowledge, from which, with the precision and correctness of a kind of intellectual machine, he pours forth stores of learning, information, precept, example, anecdote and illustration with a familiarity and facility not less astonishing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... teaching them to perform what was useful, and to esteem what was excellent. It was a principle with them that all men ought to know how happiness is attained, and in what virtue consists; but they neither trusted to precept nor example. They enforced by habit and practice, and in this the Romans followed the plan the Greeks had laid down, and, by that means, ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... they begged her to desist from it, (offering the services of their own blacks,) because the sight of a white person engaged in any labor was extremely injurious to the slaves; they deemed it very important that the negroes should be taught, both by precept and example, that they ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... three years entirely to its farther amendment. Horace has gone so far in recommending careful correction, that he figuratively mentions nine years as an adequate period for that purpose. But whatever may be the time, there is no precept which he urges either oftener or more forcibly, than a due attention to this ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... to name but a few titles typical of the various kinds of instruction offered as amusement. "To present to the young Reader a Little Miscellany of Natural History, Moral Precept, Sentiment, and Narrative," Dr. Kendall wrote "Keeper's Travels in Search of his Master," "The Canary Bird," and "The Sparrow." "The Prize for Youthful Obedience" endeavored to instill a love for animals, and to promote obedient habits. ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... tobacco. The sixth is "that you drink not between the taking of the fumes, as our idle and smoakie Tobacconists are wont"—there must be no alliance, in short, between the pipe and the cheerful glass. The tenth and last precept is "that you goe not abroad into the aire presently [immediately] upon the taking of the fume, but rather refrain therefrom the space of halfe an houre, or more, especially if the season be cold, or moist." The suggestion that ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... souls lifted up by the true Sublime, and, conceiving a sort of generous exultation, to be filled with joy and pride, as though we had ourselves originated the ideas which we read." Here speaks his natural disinterested greatness the author himself is here sublime, and teaches by example as well as precept, for few things are purer than a pure and ardent admiration. The critic is even confident enough to expect to find his own nobility in others, believing that what is truly Sublime "will always please, and please all readers." And ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... evident from hence, celebrated the feast of harvest, and that by precept; and though no vestiges of any such feast either are or can be produced before these, yet the oblation of the Primitae, of which this feast was a consequence, is met with prior to this, for we find ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... small hearers, desiring, like young colts in a field, nothing so little as anything steadying, paid as much attention to this "jaw" as to any precept not supported by cane or imposition. They made of it, indeed, a popular school joke, "Oh, go and write a little every day and boil yourself, you ass!" But it appealed, dimly, to the reflective quality ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... the sum of all duty; and in the measure in which we approximate thereto, we come to perfection. So, then, there are here just two points that I would briefly touch upon now—the one is the sublime precept of the text, and the other the all-sufficient motive enforcing it. 'Be ye imitators of God as'—because you are, and know yourselves to be—'beloved children,' and it therefore behoves you to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... here note with Reland, that the precept given to the priests of not drinking wine while they wore the sacred garments, is equivalent; to their abstinence from it all the while they ministered in the temple; because they then always, and then only, wore those sacred garments, which were laid up there from ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... withhold: Be some few errors pardon'd though observ'd: An humble author to implore makes bold. Thy kind indulgence, even undeserv'd, Should melancholy wight or pensive lover, Courtier, snug cit, or carpet knight so trim Our blossoms cull, he'll find himself in clover, Gain sense from precept, laughter from our whim. Should learned leech with solemn air unfold Thy leaves, beware, be civil, and be wise: Thy volume many precepts sage may hold, His well fraught head may find no trifling prize. Should ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... it be thought that, because the ultimate methods of work employed by painters vary according to the particular effects produced by each, there would be any difficulty in obtaining their collective assent to a system of elementary precept. The facts of which it is necessary that the student should be assured in his early efforts, are so simple, so few, and so well known to all able draughtsmen that, as I have just said, it would be rather doubt of the need of stating what seemed to them self-evident, than reluctance ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... more pleasing to watch than even grown-up persons. There is no one, therefore, who sees him without falling in love with him. But you'll say: 'why is he then beaten?' You really aren't aware that at home he has no regard either for precept or for heaven; that he comes out with things that never suggest themselves to the imagination of grown-up people, and that he does everything that takes one by surprise. The result is that his father and mother are driven to their wits' ends. But wilfulness is natural to young children. Reckless ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... of Emerson's is irradiated by a single precept that is worthy to stand by the side of that which Juvenal says came from heaven. How could the man in whose thought such a meteoric expression suddenly announced itself fail to recognize it as divine? It ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... common consent, the first duty of the educator is that of doing no harm: first do no harm, a precept also accepted in the practise of medicine. To obey it to the letter is, indeed, impossible, because every method of scholastic education is in some way prejudicial to the normal development of the child. But the educator ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... myriads of others in the world with whom, under proper circumstances and environment, he'd have been just as happy—often happier. Choice is a mystery, constancy a gamble, discontent the one best bet. It isn't pleasant; it isn't nice fiction and delightful romance; it isn't poetry or precept as it is popularly inculcated; it's the brutal truth about the average man.... And I'm going to find Stephanie. Have you ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... of celibacy. The sentence of the apostle pronounces that "the forbidding to marry is a doctrine of devils." WESLEY, who published "Thoughts on a Single Life," advised some "to remain single for the kingdom of heaven's sake; but the precept," he adds, "is not for the many." So indecisive have been the opinions of the most curious inquirers concerning the matrimonial state, whenever a great destination ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... and family; it is too manifest to be insisted upon how much the enjoyments of life would be increased. There would be so much happiness introduced into the world, without any deduction or inconvenience from it, in proportion as the precept of rejoicing with those who rejoice was universally obeyed. Our Saviour has owned this good affection as belonging to our nature in the parable of the lost sheep, and does not think it to the disadvantage of a perfect state to represent its happiness as ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... maintain among that gallant race a high sense of their purposes, their powers, and their position; to invigorate the principles which had made them the surest defenders of the throne in its day of adversity; and to fix in their minds by example, more effectual than precept, a solemn fidelity to the faith and to the freedom of their forefathers:—these were the objects which I proposed to myself, and which the loftiest intellect, or the amplest opulence, might be well employed in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... excellence of true religion, or they may remain in their present darkness. Let me ask you a question: Who will be answerable for the ignorance and crimes of the poor natives— they who have never had the light presented to them, or you who might, by your example and precept, have offered it to them ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... my uncle's precept, 'Be moderate.' Just now you were all confidence that the false guide would shew us a road to avoid Halifax; and now you are, without cause, suspecting that this gentleman will ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... But shall you on your knowledge find this way? Isab. I haue t'ane a due, and wary note vpon't, With whispering, and most guiltie diligence, In action all of precept, he did show me ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... was above six years of age before I understood either French or Perigordin ["Perigordin" is Montaigne's name for the dialect of his province, Perigord (Gascony)], any more than Arabic; and, without art, book, grammar, or precept, whipping, or the expense of a tear, I had, by that time, learned to speak as pure Latin as my master himself, for I had no means of mixing it up ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... even as your Father in heaven is perfect, we are bidden, and this terrible precept—terrible because for us the infinite perfection of the Father is unattainable—must be our supreme rule of conduct. Unless a man aspires to the impossible, the possible that he achieves will be scarcely ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... I have seldom or never written to you upon the subject of religion and morality; your own reason, I am persuaded, has given you true notions of both; they speak best for themselves; but if they wanted assistance, you have Mr. Harte at hand, both for precept and example; to your own reason, therefore, and to Mr. Harte, shall I refer you for the reality of both, and confine myself in this letter to the decency, the utility, and the necessity of scrupulously preserving the appearances of both. When ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... the Stra 'Now therefore the enquiry into religious duty' and concludes with the Stra '(From there is) no return on account of scriptural statement'— has, owing to the special character of the contents, a definite order of internal succession. This is as follows. At first the precept 'one is to learn one's own text (svdhyya)' enjoins the apprehension of that aggregate of syllables which is called 'Veda,' and is here referred to as 'svdhyya.' Next there arises the desire to know of what nature the 'Learning' enjoined is to be, and how it is to be done. Here there come ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... imagining the truth, so as to explain the divine jealousy implied in the precept of loving God exclusively and supremely, is, for all its patent limitations, the most generally serviceable. Treated as a strict equation of thought to fact, and pushed accordingly to its utmost logical consequences, ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... who attended the schools that he might learn how virtue and honour are to be acquired among virtuous men. But although he was so accomplished that at the age of seventeen or eighteen years he was, as it were, both precept and example to others, Love failed not to add his lesson to the rest; and, that he might be the better hearkened to and received, concealed himself in the face and the eyes of the fairest lady in the whole country round, who had come to the city in order to advance a ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... Hence the point of the enumeration of the list of kings and their origin is to serve as a deterring example to the Israelites never to appoint as king of Israel a man who came from another nation, in accordance with the precept in Deuteronomy (17,15), "Thou mayest not put a foreigner over thee, which is not ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... exclusive Chinese idea. We have also seen food placed by the side of newly-made Italian graves at Genoa and Pisa, and our Western Indians bury arms, clothing, and dried meats with the bodies of deceased warriors. It is known that reverence for parents is the leading moral precept of Chinese faith, and more than that, it is lived up to upon earth by all classes, and when these parents die they are addressed spiritually and reverentially as guardians. At the entrance of the temples there are always two large, gilded wooden figures or idols, considered ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... wondered, always appear, and triumph over the false; was that precept of morality secure for those who depended on it? And, as Fanny threatened, would he be sorry? But most assuredly he would, for three reasons—Savina, Fanny, and himself; there might, even, be two more, Helena and ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... little surprised and fluttered, but did not betray it; she had been taught self-command by example, if not by precept. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... earliest instruction had been such as we all receive. He had been taught to believe that there was an overruling power which would punish him if he did wrong, and reward him if he did right; or would, at least, be displeased in one case, and pleased in the other. The precept took primarily the monitory form, and first enforced the fact of the punishment or the displeasure; there were times when the reward or the pleasure might not sensibly follow upon good behavior, ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... given of them, the Motive of their Publication being only to encourage Virtue in both Sexes, by showing the Amiableness of it in real Characters. And if it be true (as certainly it is) that Example has more Efficacy than Precept, we may be bold to say there are few fairer, or more worthy Imitation.—The Sons and Daughters of the greatest Families may give additional Lustre to their Nobility, by forming themselves by the Model here presented to them; and those of lower Extraction, attain Qualities ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... thought at conflict with motherhood. Her breasts were the fountain of life; her babies clung to them, and grew large of limb. From her they learnt to speak; from her they learnt the names of trees and flowers and all things beautiful around them; learnt, too, less by precept than from fair example, the sweetness and sincerity wherewith such mothers, and such alone, can endow their offspring. Later she was their instructress in a more formal sense; for this also she held to be her duty, up to the point where other teaching became needful. By method ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... apprehension in life. It was not new to him; indeed it fully answered to the principles he had laid down for the future. He accepted it gratefully: "Life is a function, a ministry, a duty!" the words were a motto, a precept that should aid him ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... deserted mill rise from a growth of pine-trees. But I knew before I reached her what she would find; knew that her short dream of love was over, and that stretched amongst the weeds which choked the entrance to the old mill lay the dead form of the revered young minister, who, by his precept and example, had won not only the heart of this young maiden, but that of the whole community in which he lived ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... and noble principles, and seeks to elevate man to the highest perfection of which he could conceive. "And no greater praise can be given to a work of heathen morality than to say, as may be said of the ethical writings of Aristotle, that they contain nothing which a Christian may dispense with, no precept of life which is not an element of Christian character; and that they only fail in elevating the heart and the mind to objects which it needed Divine Wisdom ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... this point, a new author has just given us the following precept and criticism: "Never connect by or, or nor, two or more names or substitutes that have the same asserter [i.e. verb] depending on them for sense, if when taken separately, they require different forms of the asserters. Examples. 'Neither you nor I am concerned. Either ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... not adopt Locke's philosophy he at least paid the greatest tribute of regard to his goodness by following ever more closely his best precept, which is to the effect that to love truth for the sake of truth is an essential part of human perfection in this world, and the fertile soil on which is sown the seed ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... are injured only by the precept and example of those whom they love, respect, or admire; and the writer has no fear that his readers will love, respect, or admire Charles Whippleton or Ben Waterford, or that they will fail to condemn their errors and their vices. The author hopes and expects that his young ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... kid. I gave him excuse, I bore his abuse in every way that I could; I swore to prevail; I camped on his trail; I plotted and planned for his good. By day and by night I strove in men's sight to gather him into the fold, With precept and prayer, with hope and despair, in hunger and hardship and cold. I followed him into Gehennas of sin, I sat where the sirens sit; In the shade of the Pole, for the sake of his soul, I strove with the powers of the Pit. I shadowed him down to the scrofulous town; I dragged him ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... them acts with creative power upon the young mind, and awakens every germ of goodness within it. This invisible and incalculable influence of parental life acts more upon the child than all the efforts of education, whether by means of instruction, precept, or exhortation. If this be a true picture of the vast influence for good of the institution of marriage, what must be the moral degradation of that people to whom marriage is denied? Not content with depriving them of all the higher and holier enjoyments of this relation, by degrading ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... insignificance, if not of dishonour? For it was dishonour to live with a man she could not love, whether her heart cherished another image or was merely vacant. A dishonour to which innumerable women submitted, a dishonour glorified by social precept, enforced ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... bastard honesty,—by precept out of stupidity. There is no real conviction in it, begotten by thought." This little bit of criticism, harsh as it was, had the effect, and the Prime Minister became less ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... take their part in the new national life of awakened India. This training must be by contact with lives already devoted to Christ, more than by precept, for 'character is caught, ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... noted in this version. The singular refrain "I am God, thy God"—which does not appear at all in the received version—occurs ten times, being, as it were, a solemn ratification of the Divine sanction given at the end of each separate precept. If this be so, the first two commandments, as they are commonly reckoned, are here fused into one, and the tenth place is taken by a commandment which does not appear in the received ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... perhaps forgot, when he employed his always adventurous talents in so ambitious an attempt as a comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero: and, possibly, if it were a thing obvious and easy for every man to know himself, the precept had not passed for ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Ghirlandaio were reduced eventually to one, the boy having the good fortune to be chosen as one of enough promise to be worth instruction, both by precept and example, in the famous Medici garden. Here he was more at home than in a painting room, for plastic art was his passion, and not only had Lorenzo the Magnificent gathered together there many of those masterpieces of ancient sculpture which we shall see at the Uffizi, but Bertoldo, ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... and strong, and can make my way quite easily," insisted Garfield. "It is always better to right a wrong as soon as you discover it, and I would rather walk the four miles in the mud and rain than disappoint one of my scholars. Sometimes example is more powerful than precept, and if I am not careful to live an honest life before my pupils, they will not give much heed to what I say on such subjects. There is no rule like the golden rule, but he who teaches it must also live it, if he expects others to ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... have not written directly for them. You have issued two magnificent manifestoes, the second more guarded than the first; issue a third more guarded than the second, and you will take high rank in science, whose first precept is ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... forbade the sale of new wine, until the priest had proclaimed the festival of opening the casks. The early prevalence of the culture of the vine is likewise attested not only by the general adoption of wine-libations in the sacrificial ritual, but also by the precept of the Roman priests promulgated as a law of king Numa, that men should present in libation to the gods no wine obtained from uncut grapes; just as, to introduce the beneficial practice of drying the grain, they prohibited the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... was when Tom Wydeawake, ten years agone, Toil'd to arouse dull old Britain betimes, By example—he shouldered his rifle alone, By precept—he showered his letters and rhymes,— With bullets he peppered old Sherborne's hillside, With ballads and articles worried the Press,— The more he was sneer'd at, the stronger he tried, And would not be satisfied short ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... of its constituents are the subjects with which the parable deals, it would be childish trifling on the part of a Churchman to quote it as of authority against Nonconformists. In the same Bible stands the precept, "Come out from among them and be ye separate;" and the Nonconformist has as good a right, that is, no right at all, to quote it as of authority by itself against a Churchman. The matter cannot be settled, ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot |
