"Subserve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Camp Douglas, upon his appearance in the Temple, assigned two chief reasons for the recent action of the Supreme Council. First and most important was, the obvious inadequacy of the Order of American Knights to subserve the purpose for which it was instituted, in consequence of the subordination of the military to the civil department. And, second, the disclosure in St. Louis had rendered the Order liable to intrusion by spies, an embarrassment to be avoided only by alteration of signs, grips, passwords, and ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... substantial truth and importance of No. 90, as I have had from so many of my friends, from those who, from their cautious turn of mind, I was least sanguine about. I have not had one misgiving myself about it throughout; and I do trust that what has happened will be overruled to subserve the great cause ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... details of social life. This external and scientific perfecting of the mechanism of external life is a phenomenon we are to a great extent witnessing today. But in a deeper sense this tendency can be of no true or lasting value if it cannot be made to subserve the biological and spiritual development of the human organism, individual and collective. Our great problem is not merely to perfect machinery, to produce superb ships, motor cars or great buildings, but to remodel the race so that it ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... threatening gestures made at the same time by many snakes, that their hissing,—the rattling of the rattle-snake and of the tail of the Trigonocephalus,—the grating of the scales of the Echis,—and the dilatation of the hood of the Cobra,— all subserve the same end, namely, to make them appear terrible ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... more effectually to serve either the Author of your existence, or the father of lies. You made a profession of religion in order to serve yourselves. You designed nothing more nor less than to make a profession of religion subserve your business, profession or avocation; or else, give you character and notoriety in the world. Here now is the principle of self-love, selfishness, self-aggrandizement, prompting men to attach themselves to the ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... character of Knox and of the work he achieved cannot be misread. In himself he stands as the pre-eminent type of the religious reformer—dominated by his one transcendent idea, indifferent or hostile to every interest of life that did not subserve its realization. He is sometimes spoken of as a fanatic; but the term is hardly applicable to one who combined in such a degree as Knox, the shrewdest worldly sense with an ever-ready wit and a native ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... understood rule with them all. Learning was, indeed, in demand, and the chief scholars, especially the chief Hebraists and rabbinists, of the assembly, were much looked up to: there might be references also to the fathers and to councils; no kind of historical lore but would be welcome: only all must subserve the one purpose of interpreting Scripture; and fathers, councils, and whatnot, could be cited, not as authorities, but only as witnesses. This understanding as to the determination of doctrine by the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... electrical appliances that cause the whirl of bright machinery, that turn night into day, and make thought travel swift as the wings of the wind! Consider the influence of chemistry, biology, and medicine on material welfare, and the discoveries of the products of the earth that subserve man's purpose! And the central idea of all this is man, who walks upright in the dignity and grace of his own manhood, surrounded by the evidence of his own achievements. His knowledge, his power of thought, {7} his moral character, and his capacity for living a large ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... existence; and a fresh act of magnetisation can recall it, or something indistinguishable from it, into manifest activity again; so that it, or its equivalent, can once more interact with the rest of material energies, and be dealt with by physicists, or subserve the uses of humanity. Until that time of re-appearance its existence can only be inferred by the thought of the mathematician: it is indeed a matter of theory, not necessarily recognised as ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... been, my condition. Then I read Esau's seeking the blessing, "carefully with tears," that I had also long dwelt upon as my condition. Here, too, was a vivid thought, that he sought the lost blessing to subserve self, instead of glorifying God. Here the bright star of hope pierced through the cloud. Is it possible that I can go with confidence to that Father who has so long borne with this unbelieving, doubting, rebellious child? Why has he not cut off ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... and difficulty attends the subject of ancient punctuation; nor could any satisfactory account of the rules and exceptions that have been gathered from existing MSS. be given, which should subserve the intention of this work. Generally speaking, though with frequent exceptions, the most ancient books have no separation of words, or punctuation of any kind; others have a separation of words, but no punctuation; in some, every word is separated from the following one by a point. In ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... indulged in by judicious husbandry. These chemical conditions admit of too many possible failures, in balancing even the smallest patch of ground, to justify experiments in the direction named. Seeds also subserve the important subsidiary purpose of supplying food for many birds and animals, more ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... repaid my care by an affection that cheered my home and made my life happy. That is all gone. The years that remain to me on earth may not be very long; but by God's mercy I hope to accomplish a service to mankind before I die, and to subserve the vengeance of Heaven upon the fiends who have murdered my poor child in the spring ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... earliest secondary epoch were similar in general structure to those now living, but exhibit slight differences in their vertebrae, nasal passages, and one or two other points. The guinea-pig has teeth which are shed before it is born, and hence can never subserve the masticatory purpose for which they seem contrived, and, in like manner, the female dugong has tusks which never cut the gum. All the members of the same great group run through similar conditions in their development, and all their parts, ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Lincoln to give his official countenance to such men as Lane and Blunt in Kansas, but such necessity was thought to exist. I suppose that a great statesman should use in the best way he can the worst materials as well as the best that are within his reach, and, if possible, make them all subserve the great purposes he has ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... relieved his swelling heart by a string of observations partly rhetorical, partly zoological. He devoted to horrible plagues every square inch of the peddler, enumerating more particularly those interior organs that subserve vitality, and concluded by vowing solemnly to put a knife into him the first fair opportunity. "I'll teach the rogue to—" Sell you ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... possession of an all-sufficient resource. Against whatever might befall he had a set-off in his imaginative creations, a compensation derived from his art that never failed him, because there he was supreme. It was the world he could bend to his will, and make subserve to all his desires. He had otherwise, underneath his exterior of a singular precision, method, and strictly orderly arrangement in all things, and notwithstanding a temperament to which home and ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Englishmen from either (as they used to do) reprobating the Americans as abettors of and trucklers to the barbaric institution, or else (as they have been doing of late) from inventing half-sincere excuses for that same institution, to subserve partisan feelings. As matters stand at present in the United States, there appears to be only one contingency which would again rouse into a fierce flame the glowing embers of pro-Southern sentiment among Englishmen, and restore Southerners to the position of angels ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... (which was that of the New Testament, however convenient it may be for my critics to deride it as fanatical and not Christian,) cultivation of mind and erudition were classed with worldly things, which might be used where they pre-existed, (as riches and power may subserve higher ends,) but which were quite extraneous and unessential to the spiritual kingdom of Christ. A knowledge of the Bible was assumed to need only an honest heart and God's Spirit, while science, history, and philosophy were regarded as doubtful and dangerous auxiliaries. But ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... and perfect will of God, this, which is the essence of religion, is an end in itself, the highest end which we can conceive. It cannot be sought as a means to an ulterior end without being at once destroyed. This is an end, or rather the end in itself, which culture and all other ends by right subserve. And here in culture, as in pleasure, the great ethic law will be found to hold, that the abandoning of it as an end, in obedience to a higher, more supreme aim, is the very condition of securing it. Stretch the idea of culture, and of the perfection it aims at, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... pride of race will grow and increase in the Bantu as it has done in the Negroes in the Southern States of America, and elsewhere. General education, so far from hindering the growth of nationalism and racialism seems in some sort to subserve and foster that growth; witness the strident self-assertion of the newly-constituted little nations in Europe, and the cult of "Nationalism" in South Africa to-day. It is natural for birds of feather to flock together and screech together, and in the same way throughout mankind particular ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... collectively and in detail, a thing more comprehensive, more beautiful, more generous and coherent than it is to-day seemed to him the fundamental intention of all nobility. He believed more and more firmly that the impulses to make and help and subserve great purposes are abundantly present in the world, that they are inhibited by hasty thinking, limited thinking and bad thinking, and that the real ennoblement of human life was not so much a creation as a release. He lumped the preventive ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... prerogatives of her charge, did not quit the Queen for a single moment. She was present with her on every occasion at the sittings of the Junta, and, under pretext of familiarising her with politics, she herself penetrated every state secret. The Princess well knew how to make etiquette subserve her purpose, to maintain it to the utmost, modify or slacken it according to her interests. She understood what kind of concessions the genius of the Spanish nation demanded, and also what reforms it permitted. She judged at a glance ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... is a notable phenomenon throughout the monads as precursive of striking change. It appears to subserve the purpose of the more facile acquisition and digestion of food at a crisis. And this augmented the difficulty of discovering further change; and only persistent effort enabled us to discover that with comparative rareness there appeared a form in an amoeboid state that was unique. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... providing the means of higher education: whatever the cost may be, we must realise that the time has come to put our educational house in order and to establish and organise our system of higher education so that it will subserve each and every interest of the State. This can only be effected in so far as the nation as a whole realises the need for the better education of the children, and takes steps to secure that this shall be provided, ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... the nation will be the aim and boast of those who prize their local interests above the good of the nation, and millions upon millions will be abstracted by tariffs and taxes from the earnings of the whole people to foster speculation and subserve the objects ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... knowledge, so much play of mind; but these could not save it. It must needs be that men should act in sects and parties, that each of these sects and parties should have its organ, and should make this organ subserve the interest of its action; but it would be well too that there should be a criticism, not the minister of those interests, nor their enemy, but absolutely and entirely independent of them. No other criticism will ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... these men has been to exalt regal power and prerogative upon the ruins of aristocracy, and the neck of the people. Arguments, and those by no means of a frivolous description, have been brought to prove, that a most subtle and deep-laid scheme was formed by them, in the beginning of the reign, to subserve this odious purpose. It has been supposed to have been pursued with the most inflexible constancy, and, like a skiff, when it sails along the meandering course of a river, finally to have turned to account the most ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... in every case and upon any theory, employ. He must, that is, suppress much and omit more. He must omit what is tedious or irrelevant, and suppress what is tedious and necessary. But such facts as, in regard to the main design, subserve a variety of purposes, he will perforce and eagerly retain. And it is the mark of the very highest order of creative art to be woven exclusively of such. There, any fact that is registered is contrived a double or a treble debt to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... same spider, at the same time, two distinct bands of silk, of which one was a deep golden-yellow, the other a bright silver-white; while, if both threads ran together, there was formed a band of light yellow from the union of the two. Thinking such a difference must subserve some use in the economy of the insect, I made a more careful examination of its webs. At first sight these resembled those of most geometrical spiders, in being broad, rounded, nearly vertical nets; but they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... truth that to man's moral relations, or, in other words, the developing and perfecting in him of that Divine image in which he is made,—all things else, joy, beauty, life itself, are of account only to the degree in which they are consciously used to subserve that higher life. His ultimate standard of value to which everything, alike in art and in social and political relations, is referred, is—not success, not enjoyment, whether sensuous, sentimental, or aesthetic, but—the measure in which may thereby ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... Three Thousand pounds purchased an annuity of L210 a year for Vivien Warren. That investment would save Vivie from becoming at any time penniless and dependent, and consequently would subserve the same purpose for her cousin and agent, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... not show dark through the port D. They might, of course, be shown by dotted outlines, but they would not appear to such advantage, and on this account it is permissible where artistic effect is sought, the object being to subserve the shading to making the mechanism and its operation clearly and ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... hand, the words constituting the arthavada form a separate group of their own which refers to some accomplished thing[214], and only subsequently to that, when it comes to be considered what purpose they subserve, they enter on the function of glorifying the injunction. Let us examine, as an illustrative example, the injunctive passage, 'He who is desirous of prosperity is to offer to Vayu a white animal.' All the words contained in this passage are directly connected with the injunction. ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... its success, are respectfully invited to meet at Corinthian Hall in the city of Rochester on the 20th of April, for the purpose of devising, maturing, and recommending such a course of associated action as shall best subserve for the protection of their interests and of society at large, too long invaded and destroyed by legalized intemperance. Feeling that woman has hitherto been greatly responsible for the continuance of this vice by encouraging social drinking, and by not sufficiently exerting her influence ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of Edwards and Leibnitz, in our opinion, only reflect dishonour and disgrace upon the cause they are intended to subserve. It is better, ten thousand times better, simply to plant ourselves upon the moral nature of man, and the irreversible dictates of common sense, and annihilate the speculations of the atheist, than to endeavour to parry them off by such invented quibbles and ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... twenty centuries, is singularly like that of Lucretius. The Roman poet knew fewer facts than are familiar to our men of science, and was far less able to analyse one puzzle into a whole group of unexplained phenomena. He had besides but a feeble grasp upon those discoveries which subserve the arts of life and practical utility. But as regards absolute knowledge—knowledge, that is to say, of what the universe really is, and of how it became what it seems to us to be—Lucretius stood at the same point of ignorance as we, after the labours of Darwin and of Spencer, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Jomini calls "the sterile glory" of fighting battles in order to win them. If navies, as all agree, exist for the protection of commerce, it inevitably follows that in war they must aim at depriving their enemy of that great resource; nor is it easy to conceive what broad military use they can subserve that at all compares with the protection and destruction of trade. This Sir George indeed sees, for he says elsewhere, "Only on the principle of doing the utmost injury to an enemy, with a view to hasten the issue of war, can commerce-destroying be justified;" ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... in human hearts unseen The Healer dwelleth still, And they who make His temples clean The best subserve His will. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... subordinates play of mind to the practical business of English and Irish Catholicism, and lives. It must needs be that men should act in sects and parties, that each of these sects and parties should have its organ, and should make this organ subserve the interests of its action; but it would be well, too, that there should be a criticism, not the minister of these interests, not their enemy, but absolutely and entirely independent of them. No other criticism will ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... jesters, but as, on the whole, the greatest humorist whose jokes have come down to us in an authentic and unmutilated form. Almost alone among professional jokers, he made his merriment—rich, natural, fantastic, unbridled as it was—subserve the serious purposes of his life and writing. Each joke was a link in an argument; each sarcasm ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... month or six weeks at a time, and brought with them their own carriages and the necessary grooms and coachmen. It is only on very rare occasions that such houses could be even half filled to-day; and they dwarf, rather than subserve, the only possible life that a reasonable man could live in them. Blenheim impresses a visitor as though it were built for giants. Alfred Montgomery, when staying for the first time at Eaton, could not, on coming downstairs, find his way to the breakfast ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... this great compensation cannot at every instant balance its beam on every individual centre, and dispense with an under dog in every fight; we know that the parts must subserve the whole; we have faith that our time will come; and if it comes not at all in this world, our lack is a bid for immortality, and the most promising argument for a world hereafter. 'Though He slay me, yet will I ...
— Memories and Studies • William James |
