"Unmake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very pretty bit of strategy and came very near being successful. The plan was neatly frustrated by one of those apparent accidents of war which make or unmake men, according as they are ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... call statesmanship to-day is not) has been outgrown. Let us not be startled by the statement. The highest art of politics is to recognize existing facts. No thinking person will deny that the policies of the past are powerless to-day. We cannot, if we would, unmake the history of the last ten years. Tempora mutantur, et mutamur in illis. Or, as a distinguished and eloquent son of Tennessee lately paraphrased this old maxim: 'The world moves, and takes us along with it, whether we will ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... conjurers, or priests of the country, till they had thrown the whole community into confusion. — Then the assembly proceeded to try them as impious impostors, who represented the Almighty as a trifling, weak, capricious being, and pretended to make, unmake, and reproduce him at pleasure; they were, therefore, convicted of blasphemy and sedition, and condemned to the stale, where they died singing Salve regina, in a rapture of joy, for the crown of martyrdom which ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... Martineau, had sympathy and admiration for us, the revealed lawlessness came as an astonishment, because it seemed to upset all sorts of pretty theories about democracy. The doctrinaires had worked out to perfection the idea that a people who could freely make and unmake their own laws would, for that plain reason, respect the laws. Of course, a people who had laws thrust upon them from above would hate them and disobey them. But a democracy ...
— The Conflict between Private Monopoly and Good Citizenship • John Graham Brooks
... occasionally have such reminiscent thought; it makes us less pessimistic and gives life to strive and spirit and hope. We cannot unmake human nature, but can certainly improve conditions by self-denial, earnest thought, and ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... Sir, that a House of Commons is to the people as a Creature is to its Creator[107]?" To this question, said Dr. Johnson, I could have replied, that—in the first place—the idea of a CREATOR must be such as that he has a power to unmake or ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... their digestions so that they never can enjoy a square meal. It isn't the money; it's the trouble of their lives how to get rid of that. It is the notoriety, the power that they are out for. In Carleton's case, it is to feel himself the power behind the throne; to know that he can make and unmake statesmen; has the keys of peace and war in his pocket; is able to exclaim: Public ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... but he kept it all to himself, and would not instruct the children of Israel in its mysteries. All the writers upon alchymy triumphantly cite the story of the golden calf, in the 32nd chapter of Exodus, to prove that this great lawgiver was an adept, and could make or unmake gold at his pleasure. It is recorded, that Moses was so wroth with the Israelites for their idolatry, "that he took the calf which they had made, and burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... and confusion of face, the acceptance of what He wishes to give, and the praise of Himself, the Giver. This is true of all visions without exception: we can contribute nothing towards them—we cannot add to them, nor can we take from them; our own efforts can neither make nor unmake them. Our Lord would have us see most clearly that it is no work of ours, but of His Divine Majesty; we are therefore the less able to be proud of it: on the contrary, it makes us humble and afraid; for we see that, as our Lord can take from us the power of seeing what we ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... the government nearest us is that of the State. The political divisions which we have considered are subject to the State, holding their powers as grants from its government. The State can make and unmake them, and we owe them obedience because the State has commanded it. As we sometimes express it, the sovereignty or supreme sway of these local divisions resides in ...
— Elements of Civil Government • Alexander L. Peterman
... us We'll not be afraid. No Power can unmake us Save that which has made. Nor yet beyond reason Or hope shall we fall— All things have their season, And ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... to your own account, you will protect your tailoress and unmake your country. I am sorry for your dilemma," ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... thought there are some which we can make and unmake at our pleasure; there are others which come and go without our wish; there is also a third class which is of the very essence of our thinking, and which dominates our conceptions. We find that all our ideas of limits, sorrows and weaknesses presuppose an infinite, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... why doesn't some one think of something to do that will vary the monotony of this routine existence? We rise in the morning, make a toilet, go to her Majesty, make a toilet, breakfast, read to her Majesty, make a toilet, dine, walk with her Majesty, sup, unmake a toilet and go to bed! Of all the awful existences I really believe ours has become the ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... fail in her efforts to dissolve the Union. They all thought as Rodney did—that the Northern people belonged to an inferior race, that there was no fight in them, and that the States having made the nation could unmake it whenever they felt like it. He learned also, to his no small indignation, that his father did not stand as high in the estimation of his neighbors as he might have done if he had not expressed his opinions with so much freedom. As he was about to ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... mischief of thus suffering society to repose on conventions which the human will had made, lay in the corollary that the human will is competent at any time to unmake them, and also therefore to devise all possible changes that fell short of unmaking them. This was the root of the fatal hypothesis of the dictator, or divinely commissioned lawgiver. External circumstance ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... at length, "I can't explain it, but I do feel that there is a difference—that it is not wrong to make such a distinction. It is in us already made, and we can't unmake it. I know that I feel everything you have said about him, and I am very, very glad that you too have forgiven him and are his friend. But it would have been horrible if you had felt for him ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... certainty of his existence, and the immutability of his power; and all other Bibles and Testaments are to him forgeries. The probability that we may be called to account hereafter, will, to reflecting minds, have the influence of belief; for it is not our belief or disbelief that can make or unmake the fact. As this is the state we are in, and which it is proper we should be in, as free agents, it is the fool only, and not the philosopher, nor even the prudent man, that will live as if there were ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... very far from the negro, and says things about him that are not pretty. There are six million negroes, more or less, in the States, and they are increasing. The American, once having made them citizens, cannot unmake them. He says, in his newspapers, they ought to be elevated by education. He is trying this, but it is likely to be a long job, because black blood is much more adhesive than white, and throws back with annoying persistence. When the ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... The Plague's grim spectre stalk from shore to shore. Proceed, brave BALFOUR, whom no flouts appal, Collect stupidities and do them all. Uneducate our men, unplough our land, Bid heathen temples rise on every hand; Unmake our progress and revoke our laws, Or stuff them full of all their banished flaws. Let light die out and brooding darkness reign, And in a word call Chaos back again. Then, as we perish, we can shout with glee, "Hail, hail to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 5, 1892 • Various
... life of the others. He had not known why they were set apart for unusual experiences, but to-night he dared to think. With the words of the wise men still in his ears—the rulers who could make and unmake—he knew that no other boy had ever heard the praise and promise he had heard. He knew they thought they were giving words to one who would be a leader in the years to come—and this first night under the peace of ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... agriculture and commerce. Even granting equal understanding and experience, the tradition of the race must count for much; and it would seem that at every stage of growth, boys and girls alike should feel the impulse to imitate men who have an instinct to make and unmake, to trade and carry. It is no justification of existing conditions to say that the men now in the teaching profession lack these qualities; if they do, let us get rid of them and have real men. And for purposes of political life, does it not seem strange ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... was one of them. Whether he made a success or a failure of life, he would do it with a conscientious use of opportunities, good or bad. An eye that is trained to detect the values of circumstances, and a hand that is quick to adjust them, have produced the mental forces that make or unmake the race. ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... the same time, no shred of responsibility to any organ of the State, they are a deadly peril. The chief of these men are more powerful to-day than any Minister. Nay, they do, as I have said (and it is now notorious), make and unmake Ministers, and they may yet in our worst hour ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... the fact of the deed, but for its motive. And the lover knows the motive. He has the key to the life. He knows his beloved, not as she is, but "as she was born to be." His lips press and his arms enfold not her so much as the ideal of her, and unless she unmake herself, he cannot unlove her. "To judge a man by the fruit of his actions," says Professor Edward Howard Griggs, "it is necessary to know all of the fruit, which is impossible. You can only know what he eternally must be if you catch the aspect of his soul ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... receptions of Caesar, and be wholly uninfluenced by what he saw there of kings, princes, ambassadors, hostages, and delegates, suitors all of them from every known land, waiting humbly the yes or no which was to make or unmake them? As mere assemblages, to be sure, there was nothing to compare with the gatherings at Jerusalem in celebration of the Passover; yet when he sat under the purple velaria of the Circus Maximus one of three hundred and fifty thousand spectators, he must have been visited by the thought ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... priesthood is the prince of this world. It has nothing in Christ. Meekness and charity have divine 270:24 authority. Mortals think wickedly; consequently they are wicked. They think sickly thoughts, and so become sick. If sin makes sinners, Truth and Love alone can 270:27 unmake them. If a sense of disease produces suffering and a sense of ease antidotes suffering, disease is mental, not material. Hence the fact that the human mind alone 270:30 suffers, is sick, and that ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... book to be really tasted—not thrust aside because crammed down—no, it would not be desirable, as I was going to say, we should only do double mischief. We are not sent into the world to mould people, but to let them mould themselves; and the internal elasticity will soon unmake all the shapes that just now seem to form under my fingers ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with the obsession of the mind by ideas which cannot be obliterated by any effort of the will and steadily refuse to make way for others. But what I desire to point out is that if Gautama was equally confident that he could "make and unmake" ideas—then, since he had resolved self into a group of ideal phantoms—the possibility of abolishing self by volition ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... terrors o'ertake us We'll not be afraid. No power can unmake us Save that which has made. Nor yet beyond reason Or hope shall we fall— All things have their season, ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... is as follows: His father was a respectable tanner in the neighbouring town, who, wishing to make his son a gentleman, sent him to college. Having never been at college myself, I cannot say whether he took the wisest course; I believe it is more easy to unmake than to make a gentleman; I have known many gentlemanly youths go to college, and return anything but what they went. Young Mr. Platitude did not go to college a gentleman, but neither did he return one; he went to ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... a tool in the hands of that quiet, sallow-faced man who, by reason of his colossal wealth and huge financial resources, could even make and unmake dynasties. Oswald De Gex, the man who without nationality or patriotism pulled a hundred financial strings both in Europe and in America, held the sinister Doctor Moroni in his pay. I could discern that fact, just as I could ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... said Deodonato, "I unmake. Henceforth let men and maidens in my Duchy marry or not marry as they will, and God give ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... or National, so now some of the lumber barons used a part of the millions obtained by fraud to purchase their way into the United States Senate and other high offices. They, as did their associates in the other branches of the capitalist class, helped to make and unmake judges, governors, legislatures and Presidents; and at least one, Russell A. Alger, became a member of the President's ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... a lover of men, And turn abhorring as from fat slug or snake? Lives obstinate in me too Something the power of angels could not unmake?" ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... opinion upon a question which offers so many difficulties to the most experienced statesmen. The bank is a great establishment which enjoys an independent existence, and the people, accustomed to make and unmake whatsoever it pleases, is startled to meet with this obstacle to its authority. In the midst of the perpetual fluctuation of society, the community is irritated by so permanent an institution, and is led to attack it, in order to see whether it can ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... here to say that I wronged folk from whom a man within me cannot part. One is dead, and I have to seek her along another road. But you are living, breathing there! I made myself your foe, and now I wish that I could unmake what I made.... I was and am a sinful soul.... It is for you to say if it is anything to you, what I confess." He rose from the fire and moved once or twice the length of the place. At last he came and stood before the other. "It ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... confession from the prisoner, and have dishonored King Charles. This blow struck, he would recover Louviers, secure Normandy and the Seine, and then repair to Basel to begin another war—a theological war—to sit there as arbiter of Christendom, and make and unmake popes. At the very moment he had these high designs in view, he was compelled to cool his heels, waiting upon what it might please ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... so styled, as, by virtue of his high office, he possesses almost as much power as the most aristocratic ruler of any nation. Secondly, it would clearly demonstrate the sovereign power of the people; a people who could make and unmake an Emperor, would certainly be highly respected. Thirdly, the United States sends ambassadors to Germany, Austria, Russia, etc. According to international law, ambassadors have what is called the representative character, that is, they represent their sovereign by whom they are ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... exile, imprison, protect property or confiscate it, encourage one kind of enterprise and discourage another, facilitate immigration or obstruct it, improve communication or censor it, establish schools, build navies, proclaim "policies," and "destiny," raise economic barriers, make property or unmake it, bring one people under the rule of another, or favor one class as against another. For each of these decisions some view of the facts is taken to be conclusive, some view of the circumstances is accepted as the basis of inference and as ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... gives you an idea of the Majesty of God, who could in one short second turn it all into confusion. There is nothing to me more beautiful than the raising one's eyes to Heaven, and thinking with adoration who made this scene, and who could unmake it again.' ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that it may with due impact reach the pit. The opening scene expounds the situation. In the second Wentworth and Pym confront each other; the King surprises them; Wentworth lets fall the hand of Pym, as the stage tradition requires; as Wentworth withdraws the Queen enters to unmake what he has made, and the scene closes with a tableau expressing ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... out against the world and break it and unmake it. We are the army of the Unicorn from the Stars! We will trample it to pieces. We will consume the world, we will burn it away. Father John said the world has yet to be consumed by fire. Bring ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... the United Kingdom because it is a sovereign body can make laws for every part of the British Empire, and can legally make or unmake any law, and establish, alter, or abolish any institution (including in that term the Constitution of the Canadian Dominion or of Victoria) existing within the limits of any country subject ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... touch my bell if I want anything. No—no tea, thank you," responded Bessie; and the waiting-woman felt herself dismissed. Bessie chose to make and unmake her toilette alone. It was easy to see that her education had not been that of a young lady of quality, for she was quite independent of her maid; but Mrs. Betts was a woman of experience and made allowance for ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... behind the scenes at the fountainhead of great events. Power! power! The absolute power of the soldier in the saddle, with premier and government and all the institutions of peace only a dim background for the processes of war! Opposite her was a man who could make and unmake not only generals but even the destinies of peoples. By every sign he enjoyed his power for its own sake. There must be a chief of the five millions, which were as a moving forest of destruction, and here was the chief, his strength reflected ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... then, That made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man; And, to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place Did then adhere, and yet you would make both: They have made themselves, and that their fitness now Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... and instruct and carry us into the kingdom of heaven in spite of ourselves; their labours call for response and correspondence. What about those who are now leaving childhood behind and will be in the front ranks of the coming generation? Their influence will make or unmake the religion of their homes, and what they will be for the whole of their life will depend very much upon how they ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... His father had been insane when he made the will, had repented afterward, but had been unable to unmake it; his only son Arthur Ranger, now head of the family, owed it to the family's future and to its two helpless and oversentimental women to right the wrong. A complete case, a clear case, a solemn mandate. Interest and duty were synonymous—as ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... pleasures depends on the senses and that with the modification or cessation of the senses it is changed or comes to an end. In other words (for this doctrine like most of the Buddha's doctrines is at bottom ethical rather than metaphysical) the saint can make or unmake his own world and triumph over pain. But the theory of sensation may be treated not ethically but metaphysically. Sensation implies a duality and on the one side the Buddha's teaching argues that there is no permanent ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... it what it is, and may unmake it again," replied the general. "The earthquake is the father of the desert, as the Indians say; and it may some day become the father of a more ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... other hand, the real Church—it might be of but 200 men—was confronting the Kirk of the malignants, and alone was genuine. The State did not make and could not unmake 'the Trew Church,' but was bound to establish, ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... iv. p. 215. There is a curious letter of the queen's written to a bishop of Ely, and preserved in the register of that see. It is in these words: "Proud prelate, I understand you are backward in complying with your agreement: but I would have you know, that I, who made you what you are, can unmake you; and if you do not forthwith fulfil your engagement, by God I will immediately unfrock you. Yours, as you demean yourself, Elizabeth." The bishop, it seems, had promised to exchange some part of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... the sons of noblemen in which he will forget it," said the friar bitterly; "where they teach disloyalty to princes and unmake men to make machines—and the mainspring is at Rome. Gentle women are won to believe in them by the subtle polish of those who uphold them, and the marvelous learning by which their teachers fit themselves for office. And among them are men noble of character and true of conscience—but bound, ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... to be safeguarded against error, though her infallible utterances would seem incredibly few, if summed up and presented to the more ignorant of her critics. She also claims to derive from her Founder legislative power by which she can make decrees, unmake them or modify and vary them to suit different times and circumstances. She rightfully claims the obedience of her children to this exercise of her authority, but such disciplinary enactments, by their very nature variable and modifiable, do not and cannot ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... he was always adventurously ready to unmake plans, but it flustered him to be called on to remake them. "Eh—what? Now—at once? But Gaines was to have gone with us, and how on earth are we to get at him? He telephoned me that, as the visit was given up, he should ride out ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... and through; Five lines lasted sound and true; Five were smelted in a pot Than the South more fierce and hot. These the Siroc could not melt, Fire their fiercer flaming felt, And their meaning was more white Than July's meridian light. Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, Nor Time unmake what poets know. Have you eyes to find the five Which five ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... attempt to find him," said Curran. "Colette has her own ideas, but she has kept back all the details that make or unmake a case. She is so sure of her instincts! No doubt they ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... a statesman a phrase will often make or unmake his future. In the height of the slavery excitement and while the enforcement of the fugitive-slave law was arousing the greatest indignation in the North, Mr. Seward delivered a speech at Rochester, N. Y., which stirred the country. In that speech, while paying due deference to the Constitution ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... verses in the wind, Time and tide their faults may find; All were winnowed through and through, Five lines lasted good and true ... Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, Nor time unmake what poets know. Have you eyes to find the five Which five ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... the Union, who make and unmake constitutions, and upon whose will hang the destinies of our governments, can transmit their supreme authority to no successors save the coming generation of voters, who are the sole heirs of sovereign power. ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VIII.: James A. Garfield • James D. Richardson
... thee! God forbid! No. I am amused to think my humor can make or unmake such a villain as thou, therefore dost thou go scot-free—understand me aright—I take thy failure as an omen of my future greatness—'tis this thought that renders me indulgent, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the ordinary Japanese has a way of speaking of the Government doing this or that as if the Government were irresistible power. Average Japanese do not yet conceive the Government as something which they have made and may unmake[44]. But is it likely that they should, parliamentary history, the work of their betters, being as short as it is? It is not whithout significance that the Chambers of the Diet are ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... Light on the posy.' Here we clearly see the influence of the past upon the present. But, to employ a figure of speech, the fly-paper beckons to the insect toothsomely, and, thinks he; 'Shall I give it a try? Shall I? Shall I give it a try?' The future is in his own hands to make or unmake. The past, the voice of Providence, has counselled him: 'Leave it alone, leave it alone, little fly. Go away from there.' Does he heed the warning? Does he heed it, ladies and gentlemen? Does he? Ah, no! He springs into the air, ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... spiritual energies, indestructible instincts, infinite memories that are not ours; that its life, from minute to minute, goes on by a process of combustion, the explosion of untamable forces, and that we—we—unmake the work of millions of aeons in a moment, that we charge it with our will, our instincts, our memories, so that there's not an atom of our flesh unpenetrated by spirit, not a cell of our bodies that doesn't hold some spiritual germ of us—so that we multiply our souls in our bodies; and ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... mere sake of rushing—is the primitive home, the power of heaven upon earth to slip away from among us? Let us not build outsides which have no insides, let us not put a face upon things which has no reality behind it. Beware lest we make the confusion that we need the suffrage to help us unmake; lest we tear to pieces that we may patch again. Crazy ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... "the Duke peremptorily accosted Coventry, 'Who made you Lord Keeper, Coventry?' He replied, 'The King.' Buckingham replied, 'It's false; 'twas I did make you, and you shall know that I, who made you, can, and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did I conceive that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself, by rendering up the seals to his Majesty.' Then Buckingham, in a scorn and fury, flung from him, saying, 'You shall not keep it ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... "King" Plummer was a passionate man who had lived a rough life, close to the ground, and full of primitive emotions. And the threats he expressed in words were such as these: "They shall pay for it!" "I helped put that husband of hers where he is, I helped make him, and I can help unmake him; and, by thunder, I will do it, too!" In the hour of his wrath he hated Jimmy Grayson, and his head was filled with sudden schemes. He would "teach the man what it was to play the King of the Mountains for a sucker," and, still raging, ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... and purpose of a machine save man's mind. So, then, whatever relation man might have toward a machine, this stands sure: he will ever be able to stand before it and say: 'I am thy master. I can change thee, make thee better or worse. I made thee. I can unmake thee. If thou dost accomplish such mighty works, more honor to the mind which ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... Germans, in congress assembled, and looking about them for a means of intercommunication, might indeed agree to accept Italian then and there as an international compromise. But congresses don't make or unmake the habits of everyday life; and the growth or spread of a language is a thing as much beyond our deliberate human control as the rise or fall of ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... out, father spake: "This Bundle of Sticks you can't break; Take them singly, with ease, You may break as you please, So, dissension your strength will unmake." ...
— The Baby's Own Aesop • Aesop and Walter Crane
... slavery within the State, there is no other possible mode by which this can be effected so speedily as by prompt admission. The will of the majority is supreme and irresistible when expressed in an orderly and lawful manner. They can make and unmake constitutions at pleasure. It would be absurd to say that they can impose fetters upon their own power which they can not afterwards remove. If they could do this, they might tie their own hands for a ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... the great Percy family which had put him on the throne; that the Percies would never be satisfied with what Henry would do for them; and that Henry would hate and distrust them on the ground that those who had made a king could unmake one as well. And this prophecy was fulfilled. Uniting with the Scots under Douglas, with the Archbishop of York, with Glendower, who was seeking to reestablish the independence of Wales, and with Mortimer, the natural successor of Richard, {155} the Percies raised the standard of revolt. What might ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... foundation upon which our Constitution rests being the people—a breath of theirs having made, as a breath can unmake, change, or modify it—it can be assigned to none of the great divisions of government but to that of democracy. If such is its theory, those who are called upon to administer it must recognize as its leading principle the duty of shaping their measures so as to produce the greatest good ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... continued the war against us. The matter turned out well, and now the said cachil who went from here is returning, in the capacity of ambassador of his people, petitioning that their king be sent to them, whom they promise to receive as such, and to make and unmake for us. I do not know what Governor Don Juan Nino de Tabora will do. What I know is, that the Dutch do not like any of these agreements and friendships that we are making with the Ternatans; but ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... strain With each hard hand a vassal ocean's mane; Thou skilled by Freedom and by gret events To pitch new states ez Old World men pitch tents. Thou taught by fate to know Jehovah's plan, Thet man's devices can't unmake a man. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... gash in the dying gladiator's side. Man, in his deepest degradation, in his most hardened depravity, is still a rational intelligence; and though he should continue to sin on indefinitely, through cycles of time as long as those of geology, he cannot unmake himself; he cannot unmould his immortal essence, and absolutely eradicate all his moral ideas. Paganism itself has its fluctuations of moral knowledge. The early Roman, in the days of Numa, was highly ethical in his views of the Deity, and his conceptions ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... said; "the gods that make men and unmake them shall reward you. Ye have been faithful to him whom the gods have set over you. To the brave shall be the spoils; my sons shall lade themselves with all their hearts may desire. Now tell me ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... Vicar of Christ must ever to the world seem like Antichrist, and be stigmatized as such, because a resemblance must ever exist between an original and a forgery; and thus the fact of such a calumny was almost one of the notes of the Church. But we cannot unmake ourselves or change our habits in a moment. Though my reason was convinced, I did not throw off, for some time after,—I could not have thrown off,—the unreasoning prejudice and suspicion, which I cherished about her at least ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... succeed the one which had just collapsed—one of those modern edifices, all, whatever may be the name with which they are decorated, tainted with the same original weakness—"What the majority has made, the majority has the right to unmake." In fact—as somebody said in a speech—a perpetually provisional arrangement Under these ephemeral forms of rule, our national inferiority in face of other stable and far-sighted governments is flagrantly evident. The sense of duty wears away, devoted service is never given without ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... charity of God; the boundless love by which all things consist; and, like all love, becomes more rich by spending, and glorifies himself by giving himself away; and has sworn by himself—that is, by his own eternal and necessary character, which he cannot alter or unmake—'This is the new covenant which I will make with my people. I will write my laws in their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and I will dwell with them, ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... can really help one much to fortune, however much they help one to fame. Such a question is almost too dreadful, and though I have asked it, I will not attempt to answer it. I would much rather consider the question whether if the newspapers can make an author they can also unmake him, and I feel pretty safe in saying that I do not think they can. The Afreet once out of the bottle can never be coaxed back or cudgelled back; and the author whom the newspapers have made cannot be unmade by the newspapers. They ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... answered Montreuil; "and whenever you embrace the offer of my friendship made to you more than two years ago,—whenever, too, your ambition points to a lofty and sublime career,—whenever to make and unmake kings, and in the noblest sphere to execute the will of God, indemnifies you for a sacrifice of petty wishes and momentary passions,—I will confide to you schemes worthy of your ancestors ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the people are subjects, helpless, powerless, bound to obey laws made by superiors—while in the republican, the people are citizens, individual sovereigns, all clothed with equal power, to make and unmake both their laws and law makers, and the moment you deprive a person of his right to a voice in the government, you degrade him from the status of a citizen of the republic, to that of a subject, and it matters very little to him whether his monarch be an individual tyrant, as is the Czar ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... strengthen these safeguards by extending the presidential term to six years, and making the President re-eligible only after an interval of six years more. But all our national experience goes to show that the more difficult it is for a mere majority of the people to make or unmake the authority which sets a final sanction upon the execution of the laws, the greater will be the safety of the public ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... two miles, and while the boy made ready the team to take us over, the honest, intelligent farmer gave us a few sketches from his life history. His daughter wished him to don his better coat, but he replied that he had never been able to think that clothes could make or unmake a gentleman. He also observed that early adversity had been the greatest boon he had ever received, as, had he never failed in his city trading projects, he never would have come to the country, or have enjoyed his present health and happiness. He was a good patriot, and eagerly asked the ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various |
