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Quicken   /kwˈɪkən/   Listen
Quicken

verb
(past & past part. quickened; pres. part. quickening)
1.
Move faster.  Synonyms: accelerate, speed, speed up.
2.
Make keen or more acute.  Synonym: whet.
3.
Give life or energy to.  Synonym: invigorate.
4.
Show signs of life.
5.
Give new life or energy to.  Synonyms: animate, reanimate, recreate, renovate, repair, revive, revivify, vivify.  "This will renovate my spirits" , "This treatment repaired my health"



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"Quicken" Quotes from Famous Books



... a cold, reserved, proud, dull-looking man, whom art, in despite of nature, strove, and strove in vain, to quicken into a 'gay deceiver.' He is a grave man of pleasure—his first care being to provide for his exclusively personal gratifications. His dinner is a serious, solemn business, whether it be at his own table or at a tavern, which last he prefers—he orders it so that his repast shall ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... resistance; an effect is sometimes produced before the cause is perceived; and with all his talent for projects, his work is often accomplished before the plan is devised. It appears, perhaps, equally difficult to retard or to quicken his pace; if the projector complain he is tardy, the moralist thinks him unstable; and whether his motions be rapid or slow, the scenes of human affairs perpetually change in his management: his emblem is a ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... toned down to soft beauty. Of course it was the season for lovers and lovers' vows. Pepita walked a little more slowly to oblige Dick. She uttered an occasional murmur at their slow progress, but still did not seem eager to quicken her pace. Every step was taken unwillingly by Dick, who wanted to prolong the ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille

... They quicken their pace when they get into the churchyard, for already they see the field thronged with country folk; the men in clean, white smocks or velveteen or fustian coats, with rough plush waistcoats of many colours, and the women ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... voice, perfume, and flame enough to fill the whole sanctuary of Nature, even if more vast and mute than the desert in which we wandered. Had a globe been created for ourselves alone, we alone would have sufficed to people and to quicken it, to give it voice and language, praise and love for all eternity! And who shall say that the human soul is not infinite? Who, beside the woman he adores, before the face of Nature, and beneath the eye of God, e'er felt the limits of existence, or ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine

... speak to him. He had failed in the interval of any glimpse of their closer meeting; for the great tenor had sung another song and then stopped, immediately on which Madame Gloriani had made his pulse quicken to a different, if not to a finer, throb by hovering before him once more with the man in the world he most admired, as it were, looking at him over her shoulder. The man in the world he most admired, the greatest then ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James

... the hum of distant voices shouting, and the fear that the scene of bloodshed had already begun induced us to quicken our pace to a smart run. I never saw a man so deeply affected as was our poor guide, and when I looked at him I felt extremely anxious lest his state of mind should unfit him for ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... pleasure to call them. Her recent commands with respect to turbulent Venice were the subject of criticism among the circle outside the Piazza Gaffe. An enforced inactivity of the military legs will quicken the military wits, it would appear, for some of the younger officers spoke hotly as to their notion of the method of ruling Venezia. One had bidden his Herr General to 'look here,' while he stretched forth his hand and declared that Italians ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... among themselves, "Let us pursue them and spoil them." And they went out after him, great and little, leaving the gates open and shouting as they went; and there was not left in the town a man who could bear arms. And when my Cid saw them coming he gave orders to quicken their speed, as if he was in fear, and would not let his people turn till the Moors were far from the town. But when he saw that there was a good distance between them and the gates, he bade his banner turn, and ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... good. He will finish what you have begun. There is concerted action between the atomic mind of infinite substance and the mind of man, "and as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, so has he given the son the power to quicken whom ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.

... ye her? She hath wrought a good work on Me." These words, it has been well said, are "the charter of all undertakings which propose, in the name of Christ, to feed the mind, to stir the imagination, to quicken the emotions, to make life less meagre, less animal, less dull."[50] Do not let us speak as though the only friends of the poor were those who gave them oatmeal at Christmas, or who secure for them ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson

... God, and help us to see it and amend. We are good, and help us to be better. Look down upon Thy servants with a patient eye, even as Thou sendest sun and rain; look down, call upon the dry bones, quicken, enliven; re-create in us the soul of service, the spirit of peace; renew in us the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... itself to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as an angel from heaven, which, whilst consulting others, inquires still more of the oracle within itself, and uses instructions from abroad, not to supersede, but to quicken and exalt its own energies. I call that mind free which is not passively framed by outward circumstances, which is not swept away by the torrent of events, which is not the creature of accidental impulse, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... soon as nature began to quicken the little peonies began to pierce the soil. Standing at one end of the field and looking down the rows one could fairly see the little fellows burst forth from their long confinement and thrust their little red heads in serried ranks through the brown earth. They reminded one of line upon line ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... appendages tipped with fire! Those who were able turned and fled in terror, those who were too frightened to run fell on their knees and screamed for mercy, while one or two fell insensible from fear. Taking the squibs from his mouth, and giving one more startling yell, to quicken the fugitives, Sam made two strides to where Peter was hanging, cut the ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty

... us and subdue us with a spell, breathing tranquillity and noble thoughts. There must also be an element of magnificence in decay, of symmetry broken but not destroyed, a touch of delicate art and workmanship, to quicken the imagination and evoke the ghost of beauty haunting her ancient habitations. And beyond these things I think there must be two more qualities in a ruin that satisfies us: a clear connection with the greatness and glory of the past, with some ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... was she to whom he had given the best of which he had been capable—not a very noble or priceless best, he was willing to acknowledge, but a kind of guarantee of the future, the nucleus of fuller things. As he looked at her now his heart did not beat faster, his pulses did not quicken, his eye did not soften, he did not even wish himself away. Love was as dead as last year's leaves—so dead that no spirit of resentment, or humiliation, or pain of heart was in his breast at this sight of her again. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... common qualities which constitutes mediocrity, or at the balance of uncommon qualities which is divinity as in a Shakespeare, must leave in a cloud of blank incomprehensibleness those singular spirits who come from time to time to quicken the germs of strange thought and shake ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... startling gesture that accompanied it, disconcerted the bearers, and caused them for a moment to quicken their step, thus imparting an unmistakable shock ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... from its neighbour, and they crowd upon each other in unsocial rivalry, each trying to overtop the other. For this reason we see the great straight trunks rising a hundred feet without a branch, and carrying their domes of foliage directly up to where the balmy breezes blow and the sun's rays quicken. Lianas hurry up to the light and sunshine, and innumerable epiphytes perch themselves high up on ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... from ambition and from duty, from emulation and hope, from all the prospects which the beginning of life affords. If, dead to these calls, you already languish in slothful inaction, what will be able to quicken the more sluggish current of advancing years? Industry is not only the instrument of improvement, but the foundation of pleasure. Nothing is so opposite to the true enjoyment of life as the relaxed and feeble state of an indolent mind. He who is a stranger to industry, may possess, but he cannot ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... feeling that induced Martial to reveal a secret which might ruin the political fortunes of his house, rather than be suspected of an unworthy action? And still the thought of this grande passion which she had inspired in so truly great a man never once made her heart quicken its throbbing. ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... to lift the reins on the mare's back as a sign to her that the talk was over for the present, and to quicken her pace, when Cynthia put out her hand and laid it on his, and said with a certain effect of authority: "I shouldn't want you should give up your last ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... opinion of an Author's character from his writings, and there is no doubt that his tendencies can scarcely fail to betray themselves to a careful observer. But experience has generally taught him to curb or quicken his feelings according to the notions of the public taste, so that he often expresses the sentiments of others rather than his own. Hence a literary friend once observed to me that a man is very different from what his writings would lead you to suppose. I think there are certain indications ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... been expected; but now I quite enjoyed going in this mixed train, since I could the better observe the country than in the swifter Express. As I drew near the end of my journey, my pulses began to quicken with ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter

... if he ever hoped to do so. If she should think herself too good for him, he could let her go and make the best of his loss; but until he had really tested her he could not say that she despised his suit. The question was how to quicken events towards ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... much myself from the influences of letters and philosophy, that it is no far-off conclusion for me to arrive at, that my people must be proportionally benefited by an easy access to the same life-giving fountains. Whatever helps to quicken thought, and create or confirm habits of reflection, is so much direct service to the cause of humanity. I truly believe that there is no obstacle but ignorance, to prevent the world from attaining a felicity and a virtue, such as we now hardly dream of—ignorance ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... down closer to the surface. It is even to be considered if such a mass might not become nodal to the satellite's orbit, so that this passed through or above this point at various inclinations with its primary direction. If acting to bring down the orbit then this will quicken the speed and cause the satellite further on its path to attain a somewhat higher elevation above the surface. The lines most conspicuous in the telescope are, in short, those which have been favoured ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... fallen upon Mrs. Ford, she had felt a certain quiescence. And now it was a relief to have responsibility denied her. Like most weak persons, she was glad to step out of the current of life, now that it had begun to quicken into action. In emergencies, such persons are tacitly counted out; and they as tacitly consent to the arrangement. Even to the sensitive spirit there is a certain meditative rapture in standing on the quiet shore, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... travels, often as they were repeated, I listened to eagerly, the more so as they always led to accounts of Italy, and at last to a description of Naples. His otherwise serious and dry manner seemed on these occasions to relax and quicken, and thus a passionate wish awoke in us children to participate in the ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... at unnecessary length upon this part of my subject, yet I am anxious to quicken in you the conviction of what you cannot doubt, that our moral nature can be satisfied only with God's likeness. So is it now; so will it be for ever. The sweet peace which the believer enjoys in God here; the elevating delight he experiences ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod

... it with him to quicken whom he will, to wit, with saving grace, and to cast out whom he will, for their ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... long duration have enervated the spirit, rusted the armor, and blunted the swords of our men. Dulled to ease, when shall they be aroused? Is not the present the most auspicious moment to quicken their sinews of war?" ...
— Japan • David Murray

... precedes induction, and in the absence of clear knowledge, foolish and wild-eyed visionaries have posed as discoverers again and again. Yet bluster and audacity have their use, if only to stimulate the timid and the dilatory to quicken their pace and move forwards. For my part, however, if it be necessary to choose between the two, I should prefer to err with the slow and cautious rather than with the rash and over-bold; the former may for a while serve as a drag upon the chariot wheels of progress, ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... cried in the voice that men called insane because of its intensity, "your birthright is not gone. It lies in your own heart. Quicken your heart with love—and no matter what you have lost, nor what you have mourned in despair, in so much as you love shall it all be ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... from God and monarchy your town. What though your native kennel[101] still be small, Bounded betwixt a puddle[102] and a wall; Yet your victorious colonies are sent Where the north ocean girds the continent. Quicken'd with fire below, your monsters breed In fenny Holland, and in fruitful Tweed: And, like the first, the last affects to be 210 Drawn to the dregs of a democracy. As, where in fields the fairy rounds are seen, A rank, sour herbage rises on the green; So, springing ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... stealthy glance about him, cautious, concerned, the young man suddenly hurried down the street. He wanted no more parley with this loud-voiced avenging maiden. His fear came back upon him in double force, and he was seen to glance at his watch and quicken his pace almost to a run as though a forgotten engagement had suddenly come to mind. Miranda, scowling, stood and watched him disappear around the corner, then she turned back and began to pick raspberries with a diligence that would have astonished her ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... very naturally exist among kindred and contiguous tribes. When the advantages of a union had been appreciated by actual experience, the organization, at first a league, would gradually cement into a federal unity. The state of perpetual warfare in which they lived would quicken this natural tendency into action among such tribes as were sufficiently advanced in intelligence and in the arts of life to perceive its benefits. It would be simply a growth from a lower into a higher organization by an extension ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... guaranteed by the Constitution, and they owe no responsibility to any human power but their constituents. By holding the representative responsible only to the people, and exempting him from all other influences, we elevate the character of the constituent and quicken his sense of responsibility to his country. It is under these circumstances only that the elector can feel that in the choice of the lawmaker he is himself truly a component part of the sovereign power of the nation. With equal care ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Zachary Taylor • Zachary Taylor

... hairs, which thou dost ravish from my chin, Will quicken and accuse thee. I am your host: With robber hands, my hospitable favours ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... But this wretched brute in our field was moving at the pace proper to feeding time, and, judging by its deliberate sluggishness, it seemed to be inviting death. When the short pitter-patter of the terriers' feet sounded on the grass, Bunny made a clumsy attempt to quicken his pace; the leading dog plunged at him, and by a convulsive effort the rabbit managed to swirl round and get clear. Then the second dog shot in; then came one or two quick, nervous jerks from side to side; then the beaten ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman

... Scotch drink canna quicken, He cheeps like some bewilder'd chicken, Scar'd frae its minnie and the cleckin By hoodie-craw; Grief's gien his heart an unco kickin', ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... and managed to restrain the dying boy, who was endeavouring to throw himself out of his bed, whilst Spilett, taking his arm, felt his pulse gradually quicken. ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... my fathers!—if my name, Now humble, and unwed to fame, Hereafter burn upon the lip, As one of those which may not die, Linked in eternal fellowship With visions pure and strong and high— If the wild dreams which quicken now The throbbing pulse of heart and brow, Hereafter take a real form Like spectres changed to beings warm; And over temples worn and gray The star-like crown of glory shine,— Thine be the bard's undying lay, The murmur of his praise ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard

... sight we have some choice. We have some choice to refuse tastes or smells or touch. In hearing we have the minimum of choice. Sound acts direct upon the great affective centers. We may voluntarily quicken our hearing, or make it dull. But we have really no choice of what we hear. Our will is eliminated. Sound acts direct, almost automatically, upon the affective centers. And we have no power of going forth from the ear. We are always ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence

... the country; and the Council of the Indies, on learning the circumstance, had sent instructions to Panama to prevent the sailing of his squadron from that port. But the Spanish government, with more wisdom, countermanded the order, only requiring the functionaries to quicken their own departure, and take their place without loss of time ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... quicken, and his hand flew to his hilt again, but there was no need for him to act. There were terrible screams already rising from the seething twilight in front, as the stone-thrower was seized and trampled. He stayed a moment ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... the bright and rich years of his youth. His power of giving himself up to the search after absolute truth, and the contemplation of Supreme goodness, must have been increased by this same organization. But all this delicate feeling, this fineness of sense, did rather quicken the energy and fervor of the indwelling soul—the {ti thermon pragma} that burned within. In the quaint words of Vaughan, it was "manhood with a female eye." These two conditions must, as we have said, have made him dear indeed. And by a beautiful law of life, having that organ out of ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... them be suffered also to imitate the Pictures by hand, if they will, nay rather, let them be encouraged, that they may be willing: first, thus to quicken the attention also towards the things; and to observe the proportion of the parts one towards another; and lastly to practise the nimbleness of the hand, which ...
— The Orbis Pictus • John Amos Comenius

... to-night. It's your own home, shaped on your own personality through the years. It's a bit late. You've had a long hard day. You're tired. It's stormy. The wind and the rain chill you as you turn the corner. And you pull your coat a bit snugger as you quicken your steps and think of home, warmth and comfort, loved ones, and rest ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon

... wholly consumed, its place is supplied by another. All these circumstances are explained simply and naturally by the supposition that the young mango tree is taken as a representative of mangoes generally, that the dances are intended to quicken it, and that it is preserved, like a May-pole of old in England, as a sort of general fund of vegetable life, till the fund being exhausted by the destruction of the tree it is renewed by the importation ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... several pieces of oatcake in her hand, which she received with a loving smile; and they set out at a walking pace, which Andrew made no attempt to quicken. ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald

... cabin stood some distance, perhaps a quarter of a mile, back from the highway connecting the settlements. Along this main road a man was plodding wearily. All day he had been walking, and now as he neared home his steps began to quicken with anticipation of rest. Over his shoulder projected a double-barrelled fowling-piece, from which was slung a bundle of such necessities as he had purchased in town that morning. It was the prosperous settler, the master of the frame house, ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education

... boy—you might say an enemy. As unconcernedly as she could she got up, stretched herself with elaborate ease, and strolled off along the edge of the hill. Castracane followed her; she affected not to know it; but her heart began to quicken, and when he was close beside her she found that she had to ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... displacing or anywise obstructing their proper individuality. For they are never any the less themselves for having so much of his intelligence in them. Nay, more; whatever may be their peculiarity, whether wit, dulness, egotism, or absurdity, the effect of that infusion is to quicken their idiom, and set it free, so that they become all the more rightly and truly themselves. Thus what he gives them operates to extricate and enfranchise their propriety, and bring it out in greater clearness and purity. His intellectuality discovers them to us just as they are, and translates ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... after the commencement of the tragedy of Douglas, I took a ramble through the town to quicken my ideas by active motion. My spirits were good, with a certain glow of mind which I had already learned to depend upon as the sure prognostic of success. Passing a small and solitary school-house, where a light was burning dimly and a few people were entering ...
— Passages From a Relinquised Work (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... queen bee has proved herself a heroine in the hive. We need not fear that we depreciate ourselves when we extol the universe. Whether it be ourselves or the entire world that we consider great, still will there quicken within our soul the sense of the infinite, which is of the life-blood of virtue. What is an act of virtue that we should expect such mighty reward? It is within ourselves that reward must be found, for the law of gravitation will not swerve. They ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck

... in her chair: her hands hung down on either side of her; her eyes looked up drowsily at the ceiling. Prepared to see a person with an overburdened mind, the maid (without sympathy, to quicken her perceptions) saw nothing but a person on the ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... the crowd of insignificant types which largely composed the company and move in his direction, as though seeking him and desiring a meeting. Down there, in the main road, there would, at any rate, have been people about in case of trouble, while here—Brr—It was this anxiety that made him quicken his short step, his panting breaths, but in vain. As he looked round, in his fear of being followed, the strong, erect shoulders of the Nabob appeared at the entrance to the path. Impossible for the big man to slip away through one of the narrow passages ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... your schoole of Philosophy. For the natarall Philosophers doe teach, That it is common to all forcible flames to be quenched with dry things, and nourished with moiste: whereupon, euen blacksmithes, by sprinckling on of water, vse to quicken and strengthen their fire. For (say they) when fire is more vehement, it is stirred vp by colde, and nourished by moisture, both which qualities doe concurre in water. Item, water is wont to kindle skorching fires: because the moisture it selfe, which ariseth, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... that, when the Lord shall have been pleased to exercise my soul by the trial of faith and patience, he will make bare his arm, and send help. The fact that the applications for the admission of destitute orphans are so many, does both quicken me to prayer, and is also a great encouragement to me that the Lord will give me the desire of my heart, to provide another home for these destitute, fatherless and ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller

... while it retains that corruption on which it was founded, it appears to have in itself no principle of new life, and presents no hope of restoration to freedom and political vigour. That which the despotical master has sown, cannot quicken unless it die; it must languish and expire by the effect of its own abuse, before the human spirit can spring up anew, or bear those fruits which constitute the honour and the felicity of human nature. In times of the greatest debasement, indeed, ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... opened in one direction on a lane, in the other direction on the street. Jimmie Dale chose the direction of the lane, reached the lane, and, still stumbling and lurching, made his way along for a distance of possibly fifty yards; then, well clear of the neighbourhood of Foo Sen's, he began to quicken his pace—and twenty minutes later, frowning in disappointment, he was standing in front of Reddy Curley's liquor store, only to find that the place was ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... holding by the banisters, fancying every now and then that I heard a door open behind me, and yet my feet no more consenting to quicken their motion than if I had been pursued by a murderer in the nightmare. I at length got into the room, groped for a chair, and sat down. No more hurry now. O no! There was plenty of time; and plenty to do in it, for I had to wipe away the perspiration ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various

... deserve the name of a Church. It was simply a branch of the Civil Service of the State. But Wesley and his brother, and Whitefield and the rest, fully believed at first that they could do something to quicken the Church into a real, a beneficent, and a religions activity. Most of them had for a long time a positive horror of open-air preaching and of the co-operation of lay preachers. Most of them for a long time clung to all the traditional forms and even formulas amid ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... and if she had, it would have made no difference, as all the fire of youth seemed to have died out with Prancer years ago. But early associations are strong; and as the "horse scenteth the battle afar off," so did Prancer prick up his ears and quicken his pace at the spirit-stirring sounds of the fife and drum; and now he began to make an awkward attempt to dance sideways upon the points of his hoofs; and as he neared the brow of the hill, his excitement ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely

... journey. A company of merchants travelling through the country has always a drummer in their pay, who walks at the head of the party, and performs on his instrument continually, be the journey ever so long, for the purpose of animating the slaves to quicken their steps. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... and the loss of so many folk redeemed by Christ's death? You invoke God's anger, and you heap up tortures for yourself hereafter." Hugh was for free canonical election, with no more royal interference than was required to prevent jobbery and quicken responsibility. ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson

... hostile factions. The field of battle is simply the theater upon which the hostile factions decide by superior prowess, or numbers, or sagacity, the questions at issue. In these conflicts, right usually, but not invariably, triumphs, as it should always do. Revolutions quicken the conscience and intelligence of the people, and wars purify the morals of the people by weeding out the surplus and desperate members of the population; just as a thunderstorm ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... process, create a legal environment to encourage entrepreneurs, and enact a comprehensive tax overhaul. Reforms in the more politically sensitive areas of structural reform and land privatization are still lagging. Outside institutions - particularly the IMF - have encouraged Ukraine to quicken the pace and scope of reforms. GDP in 2000 showed strong export-based growth of 6% - the first growth since independence - and industrial production grew 12.9%. The economy continued to expand in 2001 as real GDP rose 9% ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... and the arguments for and against a future state; but now we all recognise two facts, that there IS a Divine Being, and there IS a future state, and we all equally agree that if we wrote our fingers to the bone, we could not throw any light upon the nature and conditions of that future state, or quicken our apprehensions of the attributes and essence of that Divine Being. Thus another part of literature has become also extinct, happily for our race; for in the time when so much was written on subjects which no one could determine, people seemed to live in a perpetual ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... It may be you stirred and hoped in the distant past, and the warmth to quicken you never came. Ambition may have fretted you. Indeed, now I think of it, there is something in the flavour of you, singularly suggestive of disappointed ambition. In literature, and more particularly in criticism, I can assure you I ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells

... the story take care of itself is the first rule of the Icelandic authors. If they have any emotion or sentiment of their own, it must go into the story impersonally; it must inform or enliven the characters and their speeches; it must quicken the style unobtrusively, or else it must be suppressed. The parts of the Sagas that are most touching, such as the death of Njal, and the parting of Grettir and his mother, though they give evidence of the author's sensibility, never allow ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... constraint allowed Were music to his ears and touched his heart; And when her eyes met his her rosy blush Told what her maiden modesty would hide. And at the dance, when her soft hands touched his The music seemed to quicken, time to speed; But when she bowed and passed to other hands, Winding the mystic measure of the dance,[3] The music seemed to slacken, time to halt, Or drag his limping moments lingering on. At length, after the dance, the beauties passed Before the prince, and each received ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles

... to him on this subject, in 1720: "What I said to you in mine, about the monument, was intended only to quicken, not to alarm you. It is not worth your while to know what I meant by it; but when I see you, you shall. I hope you may be at the Deanery towards the end of October, by which time I think of settling there ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... will minister to me as a wind. He will create an atmosphere in my life which will quicken all sweet and beautiful growth. And this shall be my native air. Gracious seeds, which have never awaked, shall now unfold themselves, and "the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." It was a saying of Huxley, that if our little island ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... the ways of humanity. Men were to be his books, his special branch of knowledge; and in order to graduate and take high honours in that school, I repeat, he could have had no better training. Not only had he passed through a range of most unwonted experiences, experiences calculated to quicken to the uttermost his superb faculties of observation and insight; but he had been placed in sympathetic communication with a strange assortment of characters, lying quite out of the usual ken of the literary classes. Knowledge and sympathy, the seeing eye and the feeling heart—were these nothing ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials

... came to where the land was level, and there were many trees, as oak and ash, and sweet-chestnut and wych-elm, and hornbeam and quicken-tree, not growing in a close wood or tangled thicket, but set as though in order on the flowery greensward, even as it might be in ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris

... turned up Kennington Park Road. She probably guessed that we were waiting for the omnibus and walked up the road in the direction in which it was going. Presently the omnibus would pass her, and there were you in full view on top keeping a vigilant look-out in the wrong direction. Then she would quicken her pace a little and in a minute or two would arrive at the Kennington Station of the South London Railway. In a minute or two more she would be in one of the electric trains whirling along under the street on which your omnibus ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman

... that they believ'd what I said to be true. No Man living will ever be able to make these Heathens sensible of the Happiness of a future State, except he now and then mentions some lively carnal Representation, which may quicken their Apprehensions, and make them thirst after such a gainful Exchange; for, were the best Lecture that ever was preach'd by Man, given to an ignorant sort of People, in a more learned Style, than their mean Capacities are able to understand, the Intent would prove ineffectual, and the ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... turmoil The passion and fire of art In him was soothed and quicken'd By her true sister heart; How future hopes had always Been for his sake alone; And now, what strange new feeling Possess'd ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens

... to quit Oxford, and this new goad did but quicken my departure. My preparations were soon made; and from some vague, and to myself undefined ideas, partly of expedition, and partly of letting the president, the college, and the whole university see that I, Hugh Trevor, was no ordinary person, a chaise and four waited my commands at ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... in the western wall of the range, and through this break flowed a stream that was very much like the Stikine, broad and shallow and ribboned with shifting bars of sand. David made up his mind that it must be the Firepan, and he could feel his pulse quicken as he started up it with Baree. He must be quite near to Tavish's cabin, if it had not been destroyed. Even if it had been burned on account of the plague that had infested it, he would surely discover the charred ruins of it. It ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... books of account, and began to piece figures together on backs of envelopes, using a shorthand of accounts such as a principal will use when he is impatient and not particular to a few pounds. A little wasp of curiosity was teasing Edwin, and to quicken it a comparison was necessary between the result of the first six months of that year and the first six months of the previous year. True, June had not quite expired, but most of the quarterly accounts were ready, and he could form a trustworthy estimate. Was he, with his ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... scarcely possible for the enemy to resist this triple assault. But unfortunately misunderstandings had arisen between the commander of the fleet, William von Blois von Treslong, and the admiralty of Zealand, which caused the equipment of the fleet to be most unaccountably delayed. In order to quicken their movements Teligny at last resolved to go himself to Middleburg, were the states of Zealand were assembled; but as the enemy were in possession of all the roads the attempt cost him his freedom and the republic its most valiant defender. However, there was no want of enterprising vessels, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... Tomkins, are you going to be all day on your journey? Quicken your movements, sir, or I will send a boatswain's mate after you with a rope's-end to freshen your way. ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... finished all her business, took a chair on the hearth opposite to her. Both were silent and motionless, except when Cynthy once in a while got up to readjust the sticks of wood on the fire. They sat there waiting so long that Fleda's anxiety began to quicken again. ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... forecast the manner of His working. He can call forth from the solitary sheepfolds the defenders of His word, as has ever been His wont, raising the man when the hour had come, even as He sent His son in the fulness of time. He can lead science on to deeper truth; He can quicken His Church into new life; He can guide the spirit of the age. We believe that the history of the world is the unfolding of His will, and the course of opinion guided in its channel by the Voice which the depths have obeyed from of old. Therefore we wait for His working, expecting no miracle, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... thought, suggested by his knowing how he should shiver to hear Aunt Betsy call him "Wilford," as she surely would if Katy did. Then he told her of his projected tour to Europe, and Katy felt her pulses quicken as she thought of London, Paris and Rome, as places which her plain country eyes might yet look upon. But when it came to their marriage, which Wilford said must be soon—within a few weeks—she demurred, for this arrangement was not in accordance with her desires. She should so much enjoy ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... was nevertheless much that seemed to us extremely pretty and picturesque about the game, we set to work—and here a certain Mr M. with his brother, Captain M., hot from the Great War in South Africa, came in most helpfully—to quicken it. Manifestly the guns had to be reduced to manageable terms. We cut down the number of shots per move to four, and we required that four men should be within six inches of a gun for it to be in action at all. Without four men it could neither ...
— Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells

... how she rolls," said Guerin, going back to his place again. Of a sudden she began to quicken her pace, as though the train had parted. She might be slipping—he opened the sand lever. No, she was holding the rail, and then he knew that they had tipped over Zero Hill. He cut her back a notch, but allowed ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman

... service. My great-grandfather Nicarchus used to relate, that the whole body of the people of our city were put in requisition to carry each one a certain measure of corn upon their shoulders to the sea-side near Anticyra, men standing by to quicken them with the lash. They had made one journey of the kind, but when they had just measured out the corn and were putting it on their backs for a second, news came of Antony's defeat, and so saved Chaeronea, for all Antony's purveyors and soldiers fled upon the news, and left them to divide ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... family of nations; to implore Him to grant to our armed defenders and the masses of the people that courage, power of resistance, and endurance necessary to secure that result; to implore Him in His infinite goodness to soften the hearts, enlighten the minds, and quicken the consciences of those in rebellion, that they may lay down their arms and speedily return to their allegiance to the United States, that they may not be utterly destroyed, that the effusion of blood may be stayed, and that unity and fraternity may be restored and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... listening in the heart of night—one and all were somehow aware that a portion of the great Name which first called them into being was about to issue from the sleep of ages once again into manifestation....Perhaps to quicken them into vaster life, perhaps to change their forms, perhaps to merge them all back into the depths of the original "word" of creation ... with the ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood

... on Sunday as well, although on that day divine service would of course also call upon us to assemble for common religious worship. Zollikofer, Hermes, Marezoll, Sturm, and others, turned our thoughts, in those delightful hours of heavenly meditation, upon our innermost being, and served to quicken, unfold, and raise up the life of the soul within us. Thus my life was early brought under the influence of nature, of useful handiwork, and of religious feelings; or, as I prefer to say, the primitive and natural ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel

... marched once more over his head. A further eternity was it until the clatter of hoofs on the courtyard stones and their thunder on the planks above him brought him the news that Tressan was riding home. He heard the hoofs quicken, and their loud rattle on the road that led down to the Isere, a half-mile away; and then, when the hoof-beats grew more distant, there came again the ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... attractive effect of one planet on the other for 450 years is to quicken its speed. The effect for the next 450 years is to retard. The place of Saturn, when all the retardations have accumulated for 450 years, is one degree behind what it is computed if they are not considered; and 450 ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren

... Schumann, and Mendelssohn, or an extended commentary, as in the symphonic poems of Liszt and the symphonies of Berlioz and Raff, the programme has a distinct value to the composer as well as the hearer. It can make the perceptive sense more impressible to the influence of the music; it can quicken the fancy, and fire the imagination; it can prevent a gross misconception of the intentions of a composer and the character of his composition. Nevertheless, in determining the artistic value of the work, the question goes ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... development to have Spiritual manifestations at my own home; and Joseph Caffray was so emphatic in his assertions of my extraordinary Spiritual capabilities, that I began to think that it was my duty to quicken these dormant powers and not to let them 'fust in me unused,' and if successful, when I had become fully 'developed,' I could offer myself to my fellow Commissioners as a corpus vile on which every experiment could be made, and at a ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... you to be very quiet and courageous about," was my husband's none too tranquillizing beginning. And I could feel my pulse quicken. ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... vice of excess is no foible of mine, Though liking and needing a glass of good wine, To help the digestion, to quicken the heart, And loosen the tongue for its eloquent part, But never once yielding one jot to excess, Nor weakly consenting the least to transgress. For let no intolerant bigot pretend My Temperance Muse would excuse or defend, As Martial ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... Hereward after incredible labors, and told him all, clearly and shrewdly. The man's manifest insanity only seemed to quicken his wit, and increase his powers ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... there wide awake and made no sign of displeasure, Torarin turned off at the first road that led westward to the sea. He flicked the horse with the slack of the reins and made it quicken ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof

... passing phase of thought it is interesting, but it solves no problems; it advances no truths. It resembles a whirlwind which helps to clear the air and drive away superfluous leaves, but it does little to quicken or expand ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander

... dwarf, but a gallant knight. At that moment his memory came back to him, and he knew he was Conal, one of the Knights of the Red Branch, and he remembered now that the spell of dumbness and deformity had been cast upon him by the Witch of the Palace of the Quicken Trees. ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... women. Trying to stir his feelings, he looked at Verotchka's beautiful figure, at her hair and the traces of her little feet on the dusty road; he remembered her words and her tears, but all that only touched his heart and did not quicken his pulse. ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... dusty July days came to a close, the pulse of Anzac seemed to quicken. Men went about their work with increased energy, the Cove was busier than ever, and life altogether in that sun-scorched, sordid spot seemed less burdensome. Staff officers walked about with unaccustomed ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie

... put on the trumpet again, and, having set the machine going, told me to press on a certain knob, at first gently, afterward as hard as I pleased. I did so, and found that the effect of the "skipper," as he called the knob, was to quicken the utterance of the phonograph in proportion to the pressure to at least tenfold the usual rate of speed, while at any moment, if a word of interest caught the ear, the ordinary rate of delivery was resumed, and by another adjustment the machine could be made to ...
— With The Eyes Shut - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... And that this kind of lesson be more easie and naturall than that of Gaza, who will make question? Those are but harsh, thornie, and unpleasant precepts; vaine, idle and immaterial words, on which small hold may be taken; wherein is nothing to quicken the minde. In this the spirit findeth substance to bide and feed upon. A fruit without all comparison much better, and that will soone be ripe. It is a thing worthy consideration, to see what state things are brought unto in this our age; and how Philosophie, even to the wisest, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... him that he see Rome and its Emperor. Paul has seen with the spirit's eye what we have seen since in history,—that he is to be the living link by which the electric fire of life should pass first from religious Asia to quicken this dead, brutish Europe. He knows that he is God's messenger to bear this mystery of life eternal from the one land to the other, and to unfold it there. And to-day has made real, in fact, this his inward confidence. To-day has put the seal of fact on that vision of his, ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale

... as in Doggerel Rhimes, Ecchos; or of Words, as in Punns, Quibbles; or of a whole Sentence or Poem, to Wings, and Altars. The final Cause, probably, of annexing Pleasure to this Operation of the Mind, was to quicken and encourage us in our Searches after Truth, since the distinguishing one thing from another, and the right discerning betwixt our Ideas, depends wholly upon our comparing them together, and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... advantage and pay us an unwelcome visit. "And indeed," thought I, "if my Master hides one thing from me, why not another? The stuff may indeed be stored with us: though I will not believe it without proof." The Commissioner would come, beyond a doubt. To discover my Master's absence would quicken his suspicions: to deny him ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... make money move more rapidly, and create a central market between borrowers and lenders for the sale of credit. While not creating more physical wealth directly, they add to the efficiency of wealth; they simplify and quicken the movement of nearly all commercial transactions. Banks perform incidentally a further service in developing better business methods in the community. They enforce promptness and exactitude in business dealings. In supplying credit to enterprises, banks are constantly passing ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... convenient marriage of pleasure with necessity, with which, says an ancient, the gods always conspire. To what end do we dismember by divorce a building united by so close and brotherly a correspondence? Let us, on the contrary, confirm it by mutual offices; let the mind rouse and quicken the heaviness of the body, and the body stay and fix the ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... upwards of a hundred of the Bornou troops speared by the Felatahs, and was following the steps of one of the Mandara officers, when the cries behind, of the Felatah horse pursuing, made both quicken their pace. His wounded horse at this juncture stumbled and fell. Almost before he was on his legs the Felatahs were upon him. He had, however, kept hold of the bridle, and, seizing a pistol from the holster, presented it at two of the savages who were pressing him with their spears. They ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... again, And the long line athwart the hill Shall quicken with the bugle's thrill, Thine own shall come to ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers

... production of certain bad works in the service of 'Moloch,' meaning, of course, L.N. Oh! and did anyone tell you how Harriet Martineau, in her political letters to America, set me down with her air of serene superiority? But such things never chafe me—never. They don't even quicken my pulsation. And the place we are passing the summer in is very calm—a great lonely villa, in the midst of purple hills and vineyards, olive-trees and fig-trees like forest-trees; a deep soothing silence. A mile off we have friends, and my dear friend Miss Blagden is in a villa half ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... gaze on Jemima with unaffected admiration and surprise. And, certainly, to use his phrase, since he had unbosomed himself to his better half—since he had confided in her, consulted with her, her sense had seemed to quicken—her whole mind ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... give his glory to Baal. It was needed, to arrest the nation in the fearful mechanical tendency it was assuming, whereby it was near denying the most holy and vital principles of its being; and it was needed, to warm and quicken the almost dead patriotism of the masses, and to educate them anew in the high and pure sentiments they had suffered to be forgotten, and, in forgetting which, many another ration has gone to irretrievable decay ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... is convinced of the justice and wisdom of the Socialist idea, when its inspiration has begun to quicken the pulse and to stir the soul, it is natural that one should desire to do something to express one's convictions and to add something, however little, to the movement. Not only that, but the first impulse is to seek the comradeship of other Socialists ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo



Words linked to "Quicken" :   resuscitate, perk up, stimulate, brisk up, brace, energise, whet, excite, energize, arouse, decelerate, revivify, come to, stir, intensify, vivify, repair, deepen, move, brisk, brisken



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