"Unsettle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was wiser than the fiery captain of the horse. It has been common to censure Hannibal for neglecting to march on Rome after the battle of Cannae. But his dazzling triumph did not for a moment unsettle his clear judgment. He knew that his forces were unequal to the task of storming a walled city garrisoned by a population of fighting men. An attack which he had made on Spoletium had proved the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... wrong notions the Allies still entertain about Caliphate are a sufficient indication of the effects of the work of this official delegation. The result of these wrong notions is the present settlement and this unjust settlement will unsettle the world. They know ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... that; but anybody may outlive anybody for that matter. Anyway, there's no chance of any of these schemes coming to pass while we are young enough to care, even if they ever do; and if they unsettle us now, it would be ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... may be feared, supply something else—the unlucky settlement of Abbotsford stood in the way. Legally, it is true or at least probable, this settlement might have been upset; but the trustees of Mrs. Walter Scott would probably also have felt bound to resist this, and leave to unsettle could only have been obtained on the humiliating and even slightly disgraceful plea that the granter, being practically insolvent at the time, was acting beyond his rights. It seems to have been ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... were settled, and Mrs. Starling made no attempt to unsettle them; on the other hand, she fell into a condition of permanent unrest which I do not know how to characterize. It was not ill-humour exactly; it was not displeasure; or if, it was displeasure at herself, but it was contrary ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... her pretty head mournfully. "No. He says it would unsettle me, and they would be always worrying round, and he wants peace and quietness—but, oh, Miss Patch, they loved me so, it must have nearly broken their hearts! And—and I love them so, I feel sometimes I can't bear it, I can't, I can't. I feel I must run away ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... strong hold of the minds and hearts of the people of both sections. For more than two generations the Union had been held sacred, beyond all other earthly blessings. It was an object of the first magnitude to unsettle this ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... children shall know thereof." If Winthrop should succeed in bringing the work to perfection, Brewster begs him to remember his wife and children. "I mean if this my work should miscarry by wars of the Indians, for I may not remove it till it be perfected, otherwise I should so unsettle the body by removing sun & moon out of their settled places, that there would then be no other afterworking." Once more he inculcates secrecy, and for a most comical reason: "For it is such a secret as is not fit for ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... a time. "Not unless I send for you, Wulf. Our meeting has given me much pleasure, and I shall be the happier for it, but for a time our talk of the past and present will unsettle me and stir up afresh regrets and longings. Therefore, it were best that you come not again until I ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... restraining this or any other citizen of the State of Maine from adopting proceedings within the British limits (as claimed) calculated to infringe the authority and jurisdiction of this Province and to disturb and unsettle the minds of that portion of its inhabitants residing in the disputed territories until the question in dispute be brought to a final settlement Greely shall ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... on, copiously greasing the joint of his inconsistency with words; while the boy listened silently, his eyes fixed on the horse, his mind seething. It was all lost eloquence; no array of words could unsettle a belief of Jean-Marie's; and he drove into Fontainebleau filled with pity, horror, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... haffet squattle; There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle, Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle, In shoals and nations; Whaur horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... destroying municipal organization it is clearly good in its result—as in Great Britain, Sweden, Germany; ... but having served this function, it seems to me that Royalty (unless it could again become elective) has done its work, and ought not to be regretted.... On doctrinaire grounds, either to unsettle it where it works well, or to desire to enforce it where it has violated its pledges and forfeited all claims to love and devotion, seems to me a ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... property of the city, which lay beyond it. It cannot be said that our friend was any warm patron of literature or education, though he had not neglected the schooling of his nephews. Letters seemed to him in fact to unsettle the mind; and he had never known much good come of them. Rhetoricians and philosophers did not know where they stood, or what were their bearings. They did not know what they held, and what they did not. He knew his own position ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... across her forehead again. "George has a wonderful opinion of your cleverness, you know. And that is why I have always wished you and the vicar could be brought together. I have—yes, I own to it—I have been afraid sometimes you were a little unsettled about religion, and that it might unsettle Georgie, too. But I knew if you once met the vicar that would all be set right. As I often say to George, let anybody just see Dr. Nevington and then they will begin to have an inkling of all they miss in not ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... To unsettle the existence of a God, it is only necessary to ask a theologian to speak of Him; as soon as he utters one word about Him, the least reflection makes us discover at once that what he says is incompatible with the ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... sure of Chilian. So much study, and reading, and college talk, and the new theories, and what they called discoveries, were enough to unsettle one's faith, and she feared for him. Younger children than Cynthia had gone through the throes of conviction—she had herself, and she longed to see her ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... itself. As regards what is new to us, a definition will sometimes dilute a difficulty, and help us to swallow that which might choke us undiluted; but to define when we have once well swallowed is to unsettle, rather than settle, our digestion. Definitions, again, are like steps cut in a steep slope of ice, or shells thrown on to a greasy pavement; they give us foothold, and enable us to advance, but when we are ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... county convention, and preferred to serve on the committee on credentials, and leave to others the more showy work of membership in the committee on resolutions. He believed in education, provided it did not unsettle things. He had a good deal of Latin and some Greek, and lived on a farm rather than in a fine house in the county seat because of his lack of financial ability. As a matter of fact, he had been too strictly ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... nor dispute the value and importance of those laws according to which the world is ordinarily governed. We admit that the suspension of any one of these laws, except perhaps on some signal occasion of miraculous interposition, would go far to unsettle and derange the existing economy. But "natural laws"—whether viewed individually or collectively, and whether considered as acting independently of each other, or as mutually related and interdependent—cannot afford ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... change of any sort is immoral, as tending to unsettle men's minds, and hence their custom and hence their morals, which are the net residuum of their "mores" or customs. Wherefrom it should follow that there is nothing so absolutely moral as stagnation, except for this that, if perfect, it would destroy all mores whatever. So ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... decided him in returning to Gershom, and at the hopes he might be cherishing with regard to Miss Langden, and of both motives and hopes she was afraid. She was afraid that disappointment awaited him, and that the end of it would be to unsettle him again, and to disgust him with the life ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... Foul in its birth and fatal in its issue. Tyrannic act, incendiary speech, Recklessly rend the subtly woven tissue That binds Society's organs each to each. Strong Toiler, deft Auxiliar, stalwart Warder, Your hour has struck, your tyrants face their doom, But let hot haste unsettle temperate order, And Hope's bright disc will feel eclipse's gloom. This is a lying spirit, sly and sinister, Its promise false, its loud incitements vain. Not to your true advantage shall it minister, Mere Goblin Gold its glittering show of Gain: Spectre ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... would have it, you had locked your bedroom, and taken away the key. I went into my own to unsettle the bedclothes, as usual, and give the bed the appearance of having been slept in. Now, a variety of circumstances concurred to bring about the dreadful scene through which I was that night to pass. In the first place, I was literally overpowered with fatigue, ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... To unsettle the idea of God, is to dry up its source the stream of the veritable progress of modern society; it is to attack the foundations of liberty, justice, and love. The material conquests of civilization would serve thenceforward only to hasten the decomposition ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... Least, I don't know if he was pious, fur he didn't go to church, but he'd his own thoughts o' things, an' he was steady, an' kep' himself to himself. He niver telled me his thoughts o' things—he said it 'ud unsettle me like—but he taught me reading; an' mother, she liked his coming constant to see us. As fur as I knows, he was a good man; but I tell ye, Johnnie, that man had a will—whatsoever thing Dan'el McGair wanted, that thing he ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... Who brought me to myself? She did! How? By her confidence in me; that gave me my strength. I knew that night, as well as I know that I am sitting here, that we could not go on the way we had been going with safety. I knew also that it all rested with me. For me to unsettle her love for your father during his lifetime would have been damnable. Only one thing was left—flight—That I took and that you must take. Turn your eyes, Phil, and look at her. She saved me from myself; she will save you from yourself. Do you suppose that anything but purity, ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the reader that I am only an experimenter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle anything as true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts to me are sacred; none are profane. I simply experiment—an endless seeker, with no Past ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... on! Through seas of inky air Roll on! It's true I've got no shirts to wear; It's true my butcher's bill is due; It's true my prospects all look blue - But don't let that unsettle you! ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... other ages which look steadier. That is a virtually invariable opinion of such men. The comparison with other ages is generally fallacious, yet the fact is real for each age. Many things tend in this age to unsettle moral solidity. Some of them are peculiar to this time, others are not. But one of the great influences which the Bible is perpetually tending to counteract is stated in best terms in an experience of Henry M. Stanley. It was on that journey to Africa when ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... Molly is frightened, but evidently braced for action; Mr. Potts is defiant; Lady Stafford is absolutely convulsed with laughter. Already filled with a keen sense of the comicality of the situation, it only wanted her husband's face of indignant surprise to utterly unsettle her. Therefore it is that the one embarrassment she suffers from is a difficulty in refraining from an ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... must know the enemy and realize his purpose; second, we must be armed to meet him and defend ourselves, that we may stand before him and conquer. He is a terrible, mighty foe, says Peter, and is the god of this world. He has more wisdom and more deceptive snares than all men, and can so blind and unsettle reason that it will ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... "are divided among the firms in London, Paris, Vienna, and Frankfort, and it would be impossible for them to be combined and used to unsettle the markets of the world. But Mr. —— could do this and prevent ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... not?' cried the other exultingly. 'Not only does it bowl over the Established Church and Protestant ascendency, but it inverts the position of landlord and tenant. To unsettle everything in Ireland, so that anybody might hope to be anything, or to own Heaven knows what—to legalise gambling for existence to a people who delight in high play, and yet not involve us in a civil war—was a grand policy, Kearney, a very grand policy. Not that I expect a young, ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... ear to the bold speeches of the philosophers, who loudly proclaimed their sufferings and their rights; and, in short, that the age would not pass away without the occurrence of some great outburst, which would unsettle France, and change the course of ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... don't let us talk about anything more that is disagreeable. I do not want to say anything about Julia. You have taken your way—and I do not mean to unsettle you in it; but Julia is in another line, and I cannot have you interfere with her. I am very sorry it is so,—but it is not my doing. I cannot help it. I do not want ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... to say that when a lady had read a chapter of her Bible in the morning, and consulted her cook-book, she had done as much literary work as was good for her. Too intimate an acquaintance with books, he always said, was apt to unsettle the views, and the best judgment a woman can have, I am sure, is the opinion of the gentlemen of ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... oppressed by gloomy presentiments. "I have been too long making war in Africa," said he; "the bullets of Europe know me no longer." On falling he said to General Boudet, "Conceal my death; it might unsettle the troops." The soldiers had perceived it and rushed forward to avenge him. Kellermann arrived at the same instant, urged forward by one of those sudden inspirations which mark great generals; hurling his dragoons upon the Austrian ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... "you have done wisely in confiding to me alone your most exciting discovery. Unless we know more, we must not unsettle the others by speaking of it; for it appears to me quite possible that these words were penned long ago on some distant shore, where, by this time, the unhappy stranger may have perished miserably. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... only hold together what you are unsettling, and what, but for us, would go to pieces in all directions. We are not your enemies, not a bit of it. We say to you, go forward, progress, you may even unsettle things, that is, things that are antiquated and in need of reform. But we will keep you, when need be, within necessary limits, and so save you from yourselves, for without us you would set Russia tottering, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... immigration resulting from the World War. Then came the cotton boll weevil in the summers of 1915 and 1916, greatly damaging the cotton crop over considerable area, largely in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida, and threatening greatly to unsettle farming conditions in the year 1917.[17] There followed then the cotton price demoralization and the low price of this product during subsequent years. The unusual floods during the summer of 1915 over large sections in practically the same States further aggravated the situation. The negroes, moreover, ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... Rio Seco was a popular hero. His services were so recent that the President-Dictator quailed before the obvious charge of political ingratitude. Great regenerating transactions were being initiated—the fresh loan, a new railway line, a vast colonization scheme. Anything that could unsettle the public opinion in the capital was to be avoided. Don Jose bowed to these arguments and tried to dismiss from his mind the gold-laced portent in boots, and with a sabre, made meaningless now at last, he hoped, in ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... I must part with dear Margaret," she said to herself. "It will not do to have the two together. Alec may possibly attempt to impress his opinions on her mind, and may unsettle it should he fail to do more permanent injury; or, even should he keep them to himself, her sweet disposition, and other attractive qualities, may win his heart, while she may give her's in return, and I am sure that his father would never consent to his ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston
... carefully the works of Collins and Shaftesbury, which were well suited to unsettle his religious belief. At the time of this interview, he was really a doubter, though not avowedly opposed to religion. The fact shows the necessity of using care in selecting books to be read, and the danger of tampering with ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... alike; and where one alone must speed, what shall become of the rest? Hero was beloved of many, but one did enjoy her; Penelope had a company of suitors, yet all missed of their aim. In such cases he or they must wisely and warily unwind themselves, unsettle his affections by those rules above prescribed,— [5856]quin stultos excutit ignes, divert his cogitations, or else bravely bear it out, as Turnus did, Tua sit Lavinia conjux, when he could not get her, with a kind of heroical scorn he bid Aeneas ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... an outspoken man, and true to those who have used you well. You could do him no good, and you might do harm to others, and unsettle simple minds, by going on about him among ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... did not appear auspicious to Gard. If Deming got the run of Villa Elsa, he would unsettle things, interfere with his own work. Jim was a good boy but he played hob with study. And he was just the kind of flashy, ignorant Yankee who would prove to Villa Elsa what it claimed about the race. He would disgust the Buchers with his ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... near to the close of my career; I am fast shuffling off the stage. I have been perhaps the most voluminous author of the day; and it is a comfort to me to think I have tried to unsettle no man's faith, to corrupt no man's principle, and that I have written nothing which on my ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... he eagerly hungered for every scrap of news which was brought to the Palace, Captain Murray hearing nearly everything, and readily responding to the boy's questions, though he always shook his head and protested that it would do harm and unsettle him. ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... differences in every situation and every problem, and shrank from the common denominator and the underlying principle, he fell into step with his friends. As an Irishman, who had married into an Irish Catholic family, it was desirable that he should adopt no theories in America which would unsettle Ireland. He had learnt to teach government by party as an almost sacred dogma, and party forbids revolt as a breach of the laws of the game. His scruples and his protests, and his defiance of theory, were the policy and the precaution of a man conscious of restraints, and not entirely free in ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... and dressing up at a party is that they make away with so much valuable time of the players who are out of the room, and unsettle those who are left in. It should be the first duty of every one taking part in acting at parties to decide quickly on the subject or word, and to perform it quickly. Many and many a party has been spoiled by the slowness of the actors outside. ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... birds, the wary and cautious manner of their approach, the nice modulations necessary to "call" them successfully, and the reckless sweep with which they seem to throw aside all fear, and rush into the very jaws of death,—all these combine to unsettle the nerves and aim ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... foundation of thy soul, as God hath laid him in the church for "a sure foundation that whoso believeth in him may not be ashamed." Whatever besides a soul be established on, though it appear very solid, and the soul be settled and fixed upon it, yet a day will come that will unsettle that soul and raze that foundation. Either it shall be now done in thy conscience, or it must be done at length, when that great tempest of God's indignation shall blow from heaven "against all unrighteousness of men," in the day of accounts. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... prudence taking steps towards eventually withdrawing from St. Mary's, and I was not confident about my permanent adhesion to the Anglican creed; but I was in no actual perplexity or trouble of mind. Nor did the immense commotion consequent upon the publication of the Tract unsettle me again; for I fancied I had weathered the storm, as far as the Bishops were concerned: the Tract had not been condemned: that was the great point, and ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... Molly, I was comin' to Rosebud and yourself too; but as you've been so unmannerly, I'll keep these points till another time. By the way, when you write to Rosebud, not a word about all this. It might unsettle the darlin' with her lessons. An' that reminds me that one o' my first businesses will be to have her supplied wi' the best of teachers—French, Italian, Spanish, German masters—Greek an' Hebrew an' Dutch ones too if the dear child wants 'em—to say nothin' o' dancin' an' drawin' ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... Mother, that I am about to confide the story of my soul. When you asked me to write it, I feared the task might unsettle me, but since then Our Lord has deigned to make me understand that by simple obedience I shall please Him best. I begin therefore to sing what must be my eternal song: "the Mercies ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... captain, his military pride reviving a little, to unsettle his last convictions of duty. "Did you open your columns, and charge your ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... asked why, on Lamarck's theory, if serpents wanted more legs they could not have made them, the answer is that the attempt to do this would be to unsettle a question which had been already so long settled, that it would be impossible to reopen it. The animal must adapt itself to four legs, or must get rid of all or some of them if it does not like them; ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... though it would be disagreeable, an' I should be sorry to have you put to that inconvenience. But the wind and the water may unsettle the foundation o' your house, the chimney bein' on the outside, an' no support to it. Even that would not certainly put you in danger, as the frame would likely float. But I knew, ef sech a thing should happen, an' you here alone, you would be very much frightened, an' ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... say nothing of this to his wife in the meantime. Why unsettle her? But he had reckoned without the sudden upward leap his spirits made, once his decision was taken: the winter sky was blue as violets again above him; he turned out light-heartedly of a morning. It ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... himself that such feelings were not those of unmingled joy. He had almost lost all inclination to escape from among this people, and now these two, by the very associations which their presence recalled, were likely to unsettle him again, possibly to his own peril and undoing. Anyway, he resolved to say nothing as to the incident of ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... and finally, following the divine Plato among the sages at a humble distance, comes the prosaic and unfashionable Paley, and says in his precise way: that 'this vice has a tendency, which other species of vice have not so directly, to unsettle and weaken the powers of the understanding; as well as, I think, in a greater degree than other vices, to render the heart thoroughly corrupt.' True; and, once admitted and fostered, it eats like a canker, and ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... "believe me, monarchy, even at the present day, is of the greatest social and political value. Unsettle it in the public mind, and you unsettle the basis of government and the sacredness of property; everything else goes with it. The hereditary principle has in its keeping all that makes for stability, continuity, and tradition; nothing can adequately ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... except that it is against you? Why impede the circulation of books which take religious views opposite to your own? Why forbid your children and scholars the free perusal of poems or tales or essays or other light literature which you fear would unsettle their minds? Why oblige them to know these persons and to shun those, if you think that your friends have reason on their side as fully as your opponents? Truth is bold and unsuspicious; want of self-reliance is ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman |
