"Prepossess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Therefore, it is Iphicrates who will profit by all I can invent, and as his ambition will owe everything to me, our future is sure. I will go and take my time to confirm the princess in her error, and, the better to prepossess her mind, skilfully show her the agreement of the words of Venus with the predictions of the celestial signs which I told her I have cast. Be it your part to go and get our six men to hide themselves carefully in their boat behind the rock, and make them wait quietly for the time when the princess ...
— The Magnificent Lovers (Les Amants magnifiques) • Moliere
... his practical ingenuity in getting the boat off a dam, and perhaps still more signally in quieting some restive hogs by the simple expedient of sewing up their eyes. In the first trip the great emancipator came in contact with the negro in a way that did not seem likely to prepossess him in favour of the race. The boat was boarded by negro robbers, who were repulsed only after a fray in which Abe got a scar which he carried to the grave. But he saw with his own eyes slaves manacled and whipped at New Orleans; and though his sympathies were not far-reaching, the actual sight ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... this state, and while he was doggedly conscious that his association with Jim did not prepossess Mrs. Peyton or her brother in his favor, and that the former even believed him responsible for Susy's unhallowed acquaintance with Jim, that he drifted into one of those youthful escapades on which elders are apt to sit in severe but not ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... at ease, And 'twas agreed the lucky thought to seize That like a chambermaid he should be dress'd, And then proceed to execute the jest, Attend upon the wily, wedded pair, And offer services with modest air And downcast eyes; the husband on her leer'd, And in her favour prepossess'd appear'd, In hopes one day, to find those pleasing charms Resign'd in secret to his longing arms. Such pretty cheeks and sparkling eyes he thought, Had ne'er till then his roving fancy caught; ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... the first something so engaging, so obliging, that you feel attracted towards them as towards a friend, whilst an air of unbecoming haughtiness gives to the second a dark, forbidding countenance which certainly does not prepossess in their favour. Yet I have often been duped by Frenchmen, and never by Spaniards—a proof that we ought ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... face. The accounts of Joseph's bravery and good qualities; his voice, too musical to halloo to the dogs; his bravery in riding races for the gentlemen of the county, and his constancy in refusing bribes and temptation, have something affecting in their naivete and freshness, and prepossess one in favour of that handsome young hero. The rustic bloom of Fanny, and the delightful simplicity of Parson Adams are described with a friendliness which wins the reader of their story; we part with them with more regret than ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... political power. Burke had never looked with any favour on these projects. His experience of the sentiment of the populace in the two greatest concerns of his life,—American affairs and Indian affairs,—had not been likely to prepossess him in favour of the popular voice as the voice of superior political wisdom. He did not absolutely object to some remedy in the state of representation (Corr. ii. 387), still he vigorously resisted such proposals as the duke of Richmond's in 1780 for manhood suffrage. The general ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... is but three days. If there be any thing more in particular resembling the Copy which I imitate (as the Curious Reader will soon perceive) I leave it to show it self, being very well satisfy'd how much more proper it had been for him to have found out this himself, than for me to prepossess him with an Opinion of something extraordinary in an Essay began and finished in the idler hours of a fortnight's time: for I can only esteem it a laborious idleness, which is Parent to so inconsiderable a Birth. I have gratified the Bookseller in pretending an occasion for ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve |
