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Afflict   Listen
verb
Afflict  v. t.  (past & past part. afflicted; pres. part. afflicting)  
1.
To strike or cast down; to overthrow. (Obs.) "Reassembling our afflicted powers."
2.
To inflict some great injury or hurt upon, causing continued pain or mental distress; to trouble grievously; to torment. "They did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens." "That which was the worst now least afflicts me."
3.
To make low or humble. (Obs.) "Men are apt to prefer a prosperous error before an afflicted truth."
Synonyms: To trouble; grieve; pain; distress; harass; torment; wound; hurt.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Afflict" Quotes from Famous Books



... it not afflict you, that your power Is circumscribed. Much liberty, much error! The narrow path of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... I do not wish that; besides, every now and then my reason tells me that these troubles and anxieties of mine are utterly without foundation; that whatever I write is the legitimate growth of my own mind, and that it is the height of folly to afflict myself at any chance resemblance between my own thoughts and those of other writers, such resemblance being inevitable from the fact of our common ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... that try us: afflictions are what afflict us; and, under this showing, Grace was both tried and afflicted by the sudden engagement of her brother. When the whole groundwork on which one's daily life is built caves in, and falls into the cellar without one moment's warning, it is not in human nature to pick one's self up, ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... away. Then, to their utter amazement, this seeming harpy spoke to them, reminding them of their cruelty in driving Prospero from his dukedom, and leaving him and his infant daughter to perish in the sea; saying, that for this cause these terrors were suffered to afflict them. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... Des Granges were early missionaries of the London Society; the Rangoon brethren were Baptists; the others were Church of England chaplains. Sacramentarianism and sacerdotalism had not then begun to afflict the Church of India. There were giants in those days, in Bengal, worthy of Carey and of the one work in which all were the ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... convince the ignorant, while a string of medicines is set forth, of such unrivalled excellence, that no disease is protected from their action; the panacea of Paracelsus is rivalled, and every calamity that can afflict the body, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, is at once relieved. "Vegetable Powders," "Botanical Syrup," "Bilious Pills," "Jaundice Bitters," "Eye Waters," ointments, &c. &c. are proclaimed as veritable specifics by these ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... puissance, either to mooue warres abroad, or sufficientlie to defend themselues against forren forces at home: as manifestlie was perceiued; when the Danes and other the Northeasterne people, being then of great puissance by sea, began misserablie to afflict this land: at the first inuading as it were but onelie the coasts and countries lieng neere to the sea, but afterwards with manie armies they entred into the midle parts of the land. And although the English ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (1 of 12) - William the Conqueror • Raphael Holinshed

... with me, I will goe seeke the King, [Sidenote: Come, goe] This is the very extasie of Loue, Whose violent property foredoes[4] it selfe, And leads the will to desperate Vndertakings, As oft as any passion vnder Heauen, [Sidenote: passions] That does afflict our Natures. I am sorrie, What haue you giuen him any hard words ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... came home from the field all spoke of the unusual and exhaustive heat of the weather, for it was now one of those periods of unseasonable sultriness which from time to time afflict our spring season, as on April 19, 1775, when the wheat stood high enough above ground to bend before the breeze, and the British soldiers fell down beside the road, overcome by heat in their rapid flight from the "embattled ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... Adam in the garden, all was peace and harmony among and between all created beings and things. After the fall, strife, contention and war ensued, as much among the beasts, cattle, etc., as with the posterity of Adam; and continues so to the present time. Why should God thus afflict them for another's crime, if they were free and innocent of that crime? God told Adam, on the day of his creation, "to have dominion over everything living that moveth upon the earth:" but to Noah, after the flood, he uses very different language; for, while he told Noah to be ...
— The Negro: what is His Ethnological Status? 2nd Ed. • Buckner H. 'Ariel' Payne

... make everybody see just what we see, and, until we try in vain, think we can. I had very peculiar feelings in relation to you when your dear husband was, for a time, parted from you. I knew God would never afflict you so, if He had not something beautiful and blissful to give in place of what He took. And what can we ask for that compares for one instant with "the almost constant felt presence of our Saviour's sympathy and support"? Our human nature would like to have the earthly ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... The evils which afflict the Southern States can only be removed or remedied by the united and harmonious efforts of both races, actuated by motives of mutual sympathy and regard; and while in duty bound and fully determined to protect the rights of all by every constitutional ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... powers of light and the powers of darkness. By leading Eve astray, Satan brought sin and death upon mankind. As the gods of the heathen, the demons are the founders and maintainers of idolatry; as the "powers of the air" they afflict mankind with pestilence and famine; as "unclean spirits" they cause disease of ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... consideration, in the first place, that the affair costs about one hundred and fifty dollars apiece, takes two days of time, uses up a week's strength, all to get an experience of some very disagreeable sensations, which could not afflict a man in any other case. It is no wonder, then, that gentlemen look up to the mountain, lay their hands on their ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... Reason thus with life: If I do loose thee, I do loose a thing That none but fooles would keepe: a breath thou art, Seruile to all the skyie-influences That dost this habitation where thou keepst Hourely afflict: Meerely, thou art deaths foole, For him thou labourst by thy flight to shun, And yet runst toward him still. Thou art not noble, For all th' accommodations that thou bearst, Are nurst by basenesse: Thou'rt by no meanes valiant, For thou dost feare the soft and tender forke Of ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God? He here brings two passages from the prophets together in one. As to the first, Jeremiah says, xxv.: "Behold, I send my judgments upon the city which is called by my name; and if first of all I afflict my dearly beloved children who believe on me, who first of all must suffer and past through the fire, do ye who are my enemies, ye who do not believe, suppose that ye shall escape punishment?" So in chap. xlix. he says: "They whose judgment was not to drink ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther

... a little to afflict the traveler's unaccustomed nerves, and he soon found himself pleasurably absorbed in contemplation of the novel surroundings. The boat was nearing the Norfolk landing when his eyes fell on a dog, held in leash by a young ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... more like a triumph. I know that as I watched her one evening knitting in the corner, following what was said with intense enjoyment, uttering her little bird-like cries, I thought how few of the things that could afflict me had power to wound her, and how little she had to fear. I do not think she wanted to take flight, but yet I am sure she had no dread of death; and when she goes thitherward, leaving the little tired and withered frame behind, it will be just as when the crested lark springs ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Fate, Love's object, and cold Jealousy, Delight me, and torment, content me, and afflict. The insensate boy, the blind and sinister, The loftiest beauty, and my death alone Show to me paradise, and take away, Present me with all good, and steal it from me, So that the heart, the mind, the spirit, and the soul, Have joy, pain, cold, ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno

... probably afflict many noble, wealthy, contented, and unsuspecting husbands, by convincing them of their own dishonour, and the unpardonable disloyalty of their wives: And, secondly, Because it will be for ever impossible to confine a woman from being guilty of any kind of misconduct, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... afflict any widow, or fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting

... that the right to vote, hold office, and sit on juries in the Territory of Utah be confined to those who neither practice nor uphold polygamy. If thorough measures are adopted, it is believed that within a few years the evils which now afflict Utah will be eradicated, and that this Territory will in good time become one of the most prosperous and attractive of the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes • Rutherford B. Hayes

... of the Anglo-Americans. This may be readily understood: for the fact is, that no causes are sufficiently general to exercise a simultaneous influence over the whole of so extensive a territory. One portion of the country always offers a sure retreat from the calamities which afflict another part; and however great may be the evil, the remedy which is at ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... their opposition to his cause and interest. As also, that we have not duly searched into our own sins, and especially the malignancy of our own hearts: by means whereof, the Lord is highly provoked to permit such evil instruments not only to afflict and oppress us, but also to retard the success of his own work; and that we have not impartially or sincerely mourned over these sins in our own hearts and lives, which hinder our own personal, and so have influence to impede national reformation, ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery

... mortality, such as tuberculosis, cancer, syphilis, diabetes, and the extensive array of so-called contagious diseases of children, are continually increasing, in spite of doctors, hospitals, sanatoria, hydros, hygienics, asylums, nostrums and serums, and continue to afflict humanity, taking their ghastly toll in daily thousands, despite the vaunted but theoretical ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... take her rightful place in the world, that the British Government is here; and the welding hammer in the hand of the Government is the co-operative movement." In his opinion it is the panacea of all the evils that afflict India at the present moment. In its extended sense it can justify the claim on one condition which need not be mentioned here; in the limited sense in which Sir Daniel has used it, I venture to think, it is an enthusiast's exaggeration. Mark ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi

... the mischief, as much as Pharaoh was for the plagues in Egypt, which history of Pharaoh seems, by the bye, to be intended as a lesson to all future tyrants. He 'set taskmasters over the Israelites to afflict them with burdens; and he made them build treasure cities for him; he made them serve with rigour; he made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service of the field; he denied them straw, ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... itself will do good. At present Sa Leone finds it cheaper to import salt from England than to lay out a salina, and to make an article of commerce which finds its way into the furthest interior. Immigration, I repeat, is the sole panacea for the evils which afflict the Lioness Range. ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... scepticism, doubt, infidelity, heresy, false doctrine, and all manner of similar evils. Those nations which prefer religion to worldly prosperity present a different scene; and he points to Spain and Italy—poor in this world's goods, but rich in faith—the only evils which afflict them being the neighborhood ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille

... were formed afterward and have grown in strength since, and to-day the troubles that afflict our country chiefly may be said to arise from the dangerous excess of party ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... with no more weighing of luggage, fussing over checks, or packing of traps to afflict us. What a heavenly sense of freedom it gives one, to have nothing but an independent shawl-strap!' said Matilda, as they settled themselves in a vacant car, and stowed ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... without action, tranquil, without fault, without taint' (Svet. Up. VI, 19); 'This great unborn Self, undecaying, undying' (Bri. Up. IV, 4, 25)—from all these texts it appears that Brahman is essentially free from even a shadow of all the imperfections which afflict all sentient and non-sentient beings, and has for its only characteristics absolutely supreme bliss and knowledge. How then is it possible that this Brahman should form the purpose of becoming, and actually become, manifold, by appearing in the form of a world comprising various sentient ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... afflict Buster?" he said, doubtfully; then—because at that moment Edith banged into the room to show her shuddering mother a garter snake she had captured—he added, with complacent subtlety, "as for food, I, personally, prefer a dinner of herbs with an interesting ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... find the siege raised, and these demonstrations of fraternity less formal, but the show and the menace of military force are scarcely less apparent. Those who maintain that France is not fit for liberty, need not afflict themseves with the idea that there is at present more liberty in France than her people know how ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... Eyre into the French language. I thought it better to consult you before I replied. I suppose she is competent to produce a decent translation, though one or two errors of orthography in her note rather afflict the eye; but I know that it is not unusual for what are considered well-educated French women to fail in the point of writing their mother tongue correctly. But whether competent or not, I presume she has a right to translate ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... question was addressed to him. Alexey Sergeitch called him a philosopher, and positively respected him; at table the dishes were handed to him first, after the guests and master and mistress. 'God has afflicted him,' Alexey Sergeitch used to say; 'such is His Divine will; but it's not for me to afflict him further.' 'How is he a philosopher?' I asked him once. (Janus didn't take to me; if I went near him he would fly into a rage, and mutter thickly, 'Stranger! keep off!') 'Eh, God bless me! isn't ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... swore. "Come back and leave the gentleman to make the discovery for himself. I dare swear it will not afflict him overmuch. He has abandoned her sorely since they came; not a doubt of it but that he is weary of her. At least he need not know I lent her horses. Let him think she fled a-foot, when he ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... he to the white cat, "how will it afflict me to leave you, whom I love so much! Either make yourself a lady, or make me a cat." She smiled at the prince's wish, but ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)

... not that which is especially commendable in Religious life, as S. Antony has already told us, and as is also said in Isaias[497]: Is this such a fast as I have chosen, for a man to afflict his soul for a day? Strictness of observance is, however, made use of in Religious Orders for the subjection of the flesh; but if such strictness is carried out without discretion there is danger lest it should come to naught, as S. Antony says. Hence one Religious Order is not superior to another ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas

... undone, because he is perhaps unwilling to separate from his old servant? Well, let us await the return of his friendship; forget these conspirators, who affright me. If they give up hope, I shall thank Heaven, for then I shall no longer tremble for you. Why needlessly afflict ourselves? The Queen loves us, and we are both very young; let us wait. The future is beautiful, since we are united and sure of ourselves. Tell me what the King said to you at Chambord. I followed ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... every one to agree with him in the selection which he has made. We all have our favorites in past history as well as in modern politics, and few lists would precisely duplicate each other. So the only thing which would seriously afflict the editor with a sense of having made a bad blunder would be, if some one should detect a really gaping chasm, a neglect to treat somewhere among the lives some important item of our national history falling within the period which the series ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... about, wringing his hands for grief. But Aja said to himself, with joy: Ha! this was all I wanted, if only it be true. And he said to the King: O King, it will be time enough to afflict thyself for her death or for mine, when we have actually died. But count me, in the meantime, as thy son-in-law: and be under no anxiety as to the fate of thy ancestors. For I will guarantee their good condition: and this very night, I will rid thee of the evil ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain

... Wretch that I was, I cried, "Thou didst leave to Lazarus at least the crumbs and the pitiful dogs, but to me thou hast left nothing, and I myself am less in thy sight even than a dog; and Job thou didst not afflict until thou hadst mercifully taken away his children, but to me thou hast left my poor little daughter, that her torments may increase mine own a thousandfold. Behold, then, I can only pray that thou wilt take her from the earth, so that my grey head may gladly ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold

... was like to weep for compassion of her and drawing near to her, said, 'Madam, afflict not yourself; your peace is at hand.' The lady, hearing this, lifted her eyes and said, weeping, 'Good man, thou seemest to me a stranger pilgrim; what knowest thou of my peace or of my affliction?' 'Madam,' ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... too gay on any account," she would say to herself. "It would be tempting Providence to hurl mother and me down, and afflict us again as He used ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... what you have made yourself, and I have always rejoiced that you are as you are, fresh, untrammelled, without many prejudices which afflict other ladies, and free from bonds by which they are cramped and confined. Of course such a turn of character is subject to certain dangers ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... earlier editions) in which the author speculates on the causes of dreams; avers that never any man had such a dream as he had on the tenth of December; and prays the God of Sleep to help him to interpret the dream, and the Mover of all things to reward or afflict those readers who take the dream well or ill. Then he relates that, having fallen asleep, he fancied himself within a temple of glass — the abode of Venus — the walls of which were painted with the story ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... has pleased God so to chastise and afflict me that I am compelled to depart from your Excellencies and to follow the path He has pointed out to me, I praise Him in that His punishment is meted out to me in mercy and not according to my sins; my absence and inability ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven

... had many opportunities of observing its effects upon the Indians; for the Camanches, although naturally a hardy race, partly from their mode of life, and partly from the fact that few of them are of pure Indian blood, are subject to very many of the same ailments that afflict ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman

... when rage shall come to afflict thy soul; * Be patient when calamity breeds ire; Lookye, the Nights are big with child by Time, * Whose pregnancy ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... dear Miss Clinton, you will not say so; do not be so cruel; you will distress me greatly, I assure you. I am very much deficient in firmness, and your cruelty will afflict me ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... nor kin have they! Nor friends nor kin my ransom pay! My wrongs afflict me—yet far more For faithless friends my heart is sore. Oh, what a blot upon their name, If I ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... Providence, designed for our happiness, has become, either through ignorance, or want of self-control, the chief cause of the various diseases and sufferings, which afflict those classes who have the means of seeking a variety to gratify the palate. If mankind had only one article of food, and only water to drink, though they would have less enjoyment in eating, they would never be tempted ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... family, where I have not even a log hut to put my head into, and whether ground for burial, will depend on the depredations which, under the form of sales, shall have been committed on my property. The question then with me was, Utrum horum? But why afflict you with these details? Indeed, I cannot tell, unless pains are lessened by communication with a friend. The friendship which has subsisted between us, now half a century, and the harmony of our political principles ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... which Means Death most commonly ensues; not but in other Distempers which are epidemical, you may find among 'em Practitioners that have extraordinary Skill and Success in removing those morbifick Qualities which afflict 'em, not often going above 100 Yards from their Abode for their Remedies, some of their chiefest Physicians commonly carrying their Compliment of Drugs continually about them, which are Roots, Barks, Berries, Nuts, &c. that are strung upon ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... to force himself in the sacred part of the temple to offer sacrifices, which was permitted to the priests alone; for which violation of the sacred laws of the realm, he was smitten with leprosy—the most loathsome of all the diseases which afflict the East. As a leper, he remained isolated the rest of his life, not even being permitted by the laws to enter the precincts of the temple to worship, or administer his kingdom. It was during his reign that the Assyrians ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... furnished with the costliest works of art; add to which the throng of your retainers, courtiers, followers, not in number only but accomplishments a most princely retinue; and lastly, but not least of all, in your supreme ability at once to afflict your foes and ...
— Hiero • Xenophon

... to represent these events and details that Isis established the Mysteries, in which they were reproduced by images, symbols, and a religious ceremonial, whereby they were imitated: and in which lessons of piety were given, and consolations under the misfortunes that afflict us here below. Those who instituted these Mysteries meant to strengthen religion and console men in their sorrows by the lofty hopes found in a religious faith, whose principles were represented to them covered by a pompous ceremonial, and under the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... come in hordes have brought with them their ignorance of hygiene and modern ways of living and that they are handicapped by religious superstitions is only too true. But they also bring in their hearts a desire for freedom from all the tyrannies that afflict the earth. They would not be here if they did not bear within them the hardihood of pioneers, a courage of no mean order. They have the simple faith that in America they will find equality, liberty and an opportunity for a decent ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger

... Cimmerian grot— But I, in town, well rid of all that bunkum, I like to think that Mahomet is not; He must sit on, now sweltering, now frozen, By many a draughty cliff and mountain holt, And, when rude fears afflict the Prophet's chosen, Gird on his arms and madly work his bolt, While round the heights the awful whispers run, "The bard of PUNCH ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 150, February 2, 1916 • Various

... new thing on sweet God sweet God well when Im stretched out dead in my grave I suppose 111 have some peace I want to get up a minute if Im let wait O Jesus wait yes that thing has come on me yes now wouldnt that afflict you of course all the poking and rooting and ploughing he had up in me now what am I to do Friday Saturday Sunday wouldnt that pester the soul out of a body unless he likes it some men do God knows theres always ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... with all others, should be taken to a physician. Get him right nervously, physically, first. He is out of harmony with himself and so cannot find harmony with others. When the condition of habitual bickering seems to afflict all the children in the family, it cannot be settled by attributing it to a mysterious dispensation of natural depravity. The probability is that the home life is without harmony and full of discord, that ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope

... lacerate the heart, break the heart, rend the heart; make the heart bleed; tear the heart strings, rend the heart strings; draw tears from the eyes. sadden; make unhappy &c. 828; plunge into sorrow, grieve, fash[obs3], afflict, distress; cut up, cut to the heart. displease, annoy, incommode, discompose, trouble, disquiet; faze, feaze[obs3], feeze (U[obs3].S.); disturb, cross, perplex, molest, tease, tire, irk, vex, mortify, wherret|, worry, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... have, and they pursue the transgressions of men and of gods: and these goddesses never cease from their dread anger until they punish the sinner with a sore penalty. Also deadly Night bare Nemesis (Indignation) to afflict mortal men, and after her, Deceit and Friendship and hateful ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod

... Do not afflict yourself, because you do not at all times realise a sensible confidence in God, and other consoling, happy states. Walk by faith, and not by sight, or positive perception of the good you crave. Let us, my dear E., be closely united, and walk together; not according to the way we might ...
— Letters of Madam Guyon • P. L. Upham

... not quite seven years old, when his preceptor, Cardinal (then Father) Glendel, explained to him the fable of Pandora's Box. He told him that all evils which afflict the human race were shut up in that fatal box; which Pandora, tempted by Curiosity, opened, when they immediately flew out, and spread themselves over the surface ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various

... dwells upon it, as if it were an irrefragable truth; urges it, as such, upon others; and thus endeavors with all its force, to make that practically true, which is one of the greatest stains in the American character; which is one of the greatest scourges that could possibly afflict the free colored people; and which, in itself, is essentially and unalterably false. For be the pertinacity of prejudice what it may, in asserting that the blacks of America never can be amalgamated in ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... Linda to try to 'horn in'—isn't that the Westernism—to our crowd," laughed Bess, when she heard of this. "The 'Riggs Disease' is not going to afflict us this summer, ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr

... resource, proportionally greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from Union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same Governments, which their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... or thoroughness. To follow close after; specifically to afflict or harass on account of adherence to a particular creed. ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins

... hart runawayes! Ile feare no coulours[11] to obteine my will, Though all the fiends in hell were opposite. Ide rather loose mine eye, my hand, my foote, Be blinde, wante senses, and be ever lame, Then be tormented with such discontent This resignation would afflict me with. Be blithe, my boy, thy life shall sure be done, Before the setting ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen

... of life, that I return to my quiet rooms, my old trees, my carelessly ordered garden, as a sailor floats into the calm waters of the well-known haven out of the plunge and surf of the sea. There is no strain here to torment me, no waste to afflict me. I do not have to spend reluctant hours in enjoyments which I do not enjoy; I am not overshadowed by the sense of engagements which I am bound to keep. Moreover, I can return to the beloved work which is unwillingly suspended in the bustle of town. I do not know why it is that I have so deep a ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... relieve the Imperial Parliament of some of its functions, select as an area of self-government a region where one part is divided against another by passions, and, if you will, by prejudices, more violent, and more deeply-rooted than those which afflict any other fraction of the United Kingdom, choose that other fraction where, ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... creature actually saw at Reinsberg, and in the Berlin environment at that date, would have had a value to mankind: but Bielfeld has adopted the fictitious form; and pretty much ruined for us any transcript there is. Exaggeration, gesticulation, fantastic uncertainty afflict the reader; and prevent comfortable belief, except where there is other evidence ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle

... "'Afflict' is a good word in this instance," said Mr. Winton. "It is painful to a man of experience to see you young fellows of such great promise come up and 'kick' yourself half to death 'against the pricks' of established business, parties, and customs, but half of you do it. ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... some outward reformation, both in my words and life, and did set the commandments before me for my way to heaven; which commandments I also did strive to keep, and, as I thought, did keep them pretty well sometimes, and then I should have comfort; yet now and then should break one, and so afflict my conscience; but then I should repent, and say I was sorry for it, and promise God to do better next time, and there got help again; for then I thought I pleased God as well as any man in England. Thus ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton

... account of its l'aving his sowl on 'arth, and departing with his corporeal part for the mansions of happiness, the Blessed Mary have mercy on him, whether here or there—but the captain was not the man to wish a fait'ful follower to afflict his own wife; and so I'll have not'in' to do with such a message, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... control of the government—or, rather, became himself the government. Under the name of a "republic" he erected a despotism and usurped powers such as no Russian autocrat would dare claim. Like the men of his sort who so often afflict republics in the equatorial regions of South America, he had no hesitation in confiscating the property and taking the lives, not only of such of his fellow-citizens as he thought dangerous to himself, but also of those whom he thought likely to become so. He made the public treasury his ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... cherished by heir descendants. When they were ready for sea, the whole congregation assembled themselves together, and observed a solemn fast, which concluded with prayer; and Robinson preached to them from Ezra viii, 21: 'Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river of Ahava, that we might afflict ourselves before our God, to seek of him a right way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our substance.' He afterwards addressed them in a deeply impressive speech, in which he earnestly deprecated all party spirit and bigotry, and exhorted them to be guided only by ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... afflict thee, with grief manifest, * Prepare thy patience and make broad thy breast; For of His grace the Lord of all the worlds * Shall send to wait upon unrest ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... acrimonious, yet he was pleased to find that these grievances were now more than ever become a kind of common-place bead roll of repetitions: of which their being so familiarly run over by the Baronet was sufficient proof: for a people that are continually talking of the evils that afflict them are not, as Sir Barnard and others have supposed, dead to these evils. The nation that remarks, discusses, and complains of its wrongs, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... say I am not put to the test. Magnetism, galvanism, electricity, are 'one form of many names.'{2} Without magnetism we should never have discovered America; to which we are indebted for nothing but evil; diseases in the worst forms that can afflict humanity, and slavery in the worst form in which slavery can cast. The Old World had the sugar-cane and the cotton-plant, though it did not so misuse them. Then, what good have we got from America? What good of any ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... the 10th day of the seventh month, there shall be a day of atonement,—ye shall afflict your souls, for whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people." This, of course, was artificial; but it was a type to represent the tried state which the virgins in the parable entered into on the tenth day of this seventh month, ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates

... every scullion-wench Grieve, nor the dairy-maid from sobs refrain; The sad postmistress, too, should feel the wrench, And the lone tweeny of her loss complain; Let one—let all afflict the listening spheres: Deplore, ye maids, his fate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various

... eighteen Dutch men-of-war are passed the Channell, in order to meet with our Smyrna ships; and some, I hear, do fright us with the King of Sweden's seizing our mast-ships at Gottenburgh. But we have too much ill newes true, to afflict ourselves with what is uncertain. That which I hear from Scotland is, the Duke of York's saying, yesterday, that he is confident the Lieutenant-Generall there hath driven them into a pound, somewhere towards ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... converted by the winds from moderately fertile, productive land to arid drifting sands. Narrow strips of forest planted as windbreaks make agriculture possible in certain regions by preventing destruction of crops by moisture-stealing dry winds which so afflict the central portions ...
— The Training of a Forester • Gifford Pinchot

... does not leave His work half done. If the work is half done, it is that we stop, not that He stops. Whoever comes to Him, however confusedly, or clumsily, or even lazily they may come, He will in no wise cast out. He may afflict them still more to cure that confusion and laziness; but He is a physician who never sends a patient away, or keeps him waiting ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley

... of each eager little voice, and a long step will have been taken toward doing away with the high-keyed voices and the all-talking-together habits that afflict so ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... colour over which are scattered patches of unpigmented coat. In these animals, in certain inflammatory skin eruptions, caused by the ingestion of harmful plants, the albinotic areas are alone affected. And with certain cutaneous diseases accompanied by constitutional disturbances which afflict cattle, the affection in the skin appears on the patches bearing white hairs, the other parts remaining apparently healthy. Such cases suggest that we should be more correct in regarding, not albinism as correlated ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... avoiding labor, and the overseer was constantly obliged to contend against such deception. In short, as far as I could ascertain from this gentleman, the negro was the embodiment of all earthly wickedness. Theft, falsehood, idleness, deceit, and many other sins which afflict mortals, were the especial heritance of ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... and easy, and began to plan schemes of life. Thus I went to bed, and in a short time waked and sat up, as has been long my custom, when I felt a confusion and indistinctness in my head, which lasted, I suppose, about half a minute. I was alarmed, and prayed God, that however he might afflict my body, he would spare my understanding. This prayer, that I might try the integrity of my faculties, I made in Latin verse. The lines were not very good, but I knew them not to be very good: I made them easily, and concluded myself to ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... this command to Moses, "Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, 'Jehovah commands: Let my people go that they may worship me. If you refuse to let them go, then I will afflict all your land with frogs; and the Nile shall swarm with frogs which shall go up and come into your house, into your sleeping chamber, upon your bed, into the houses of your servants, upon your people, and into your ovens and kneading-troughs; and the frogs shall come ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman

... will rule as thou didst decree, therefore, in some dim place of souls, I must bear these burdens of terror and of doom which I have bound upon the backs of others! Nay, it cannot be, for what power is there in all the universe that dares to make a slave of Oro and to afflict ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... worst maladies that afflict the female mind are indocility, discontent, slander, jealousy and silliness. These five maladies infest seven or eight out of every ten women, and it is from these that arises the inferiority of ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... am convinced; miserable being! Ah! remove her hence, before my uncle joins us; so terrible an object would inexpressibly afflict him. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... do? Why, only to redeem yourself, {thus} captivated, at the smallest price you can; if you can not at a very small rate, still for as little as you can; and do not afflict yourself. ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... always veil the skies, Nor showers immerse the verdant plain; Nor do the billows always rise, Or storms afflict the ruffled main. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... to the fact that Paul had failed to come in the preceding night from the mine. Seeming relieved rather than distressed, she had gone quietly to bed. No, it was neither the storm, his absence, nor any of the small miseries that afflict young wives. Poor Desdemona! The curtain was rising early on the tragedy which Bachelder foresaw. Already the glamour was falling from Paul to the tropics, where it rightfully belonged; this morning she was living her bitter hour, fighting down the ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... the heart, break the heart, rend the heart; make the heart bleed; tear the heart strings, rend the heart strings; draw tears from the eyes. sadden; make unhappy &c 828; plunge into sorrow, grieve, fash^, afflict, distress; cut up, cut to the heart. displease, annoy, incommode, discompose, trouble, disquiet; faze, feaze^, feeze [U.S.]; disturb, cross, perplex, molest, tease, tire, irk, vex, mortify, wherret^, worry, plague, bother, pester, bore, pother, harass, harry, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... no means confined to large cities. The Philadelphia press said nothing in behalf of the race. It was generally thought that freedom had not been an advantage to the Negro and that instead of making progress they had filled jails and almshouses and multiplied pest holes to afflict the cities with disease ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson

... and yet to be banished it and lose it? But what an incomparable loss is it to fall from an heavenly kingdom, which heart cannot conceive, and that for ever? In God's favour is life, and in his presence are rivers of pleasures for evermore. When your petty penny losses do so much afflict your spirits, what would the due apprehension of so great a loss do? Would it not be death unto you, and worse than death, to be separated from this life, to be eternally banished from the presence of his glory? If there should be no more punishment ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... shafts against the sex. Was it not, for example, in the grey beginning of days, was it not woman whose mortal taste brought sin into the world and all our woe? Was not that Pandora a woman, who liberated, from the box wherein they were confined, the swarm of winged evils that still afflict us? I will not remind you of St. John Chrysostom's golden parable about a temple and the thing it is constructed over. But I will come straight to the point, and ask whether this is truth the poet sings, when he informs us roundly that ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... he uttered, as the cathedral clock rang out the hour, and his boots threatened to stave in the floor. "If I stand this life much longer, I'll be shot! It's enough to take the spirit out of a fellow; to wear the flesh off his bones; to afflict him with nervous fever. What an idiot I was to let my lady mother put me here! Better have stuck to those musty old lessons at school, and gone in for a parson! Why can't Jenkins get well, and come back? He's shirking it, that's ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... answerable even to eternal punishment for crimes committed so long ago. It was, he said, also little agreeable to the notions he entertained of the infinite mercy of God, and therefore he chose rather to look upon such doctrines as errors received from education, than torment and afflict himself with the terrors which must arise from such a belief. But after he had once answered as well as he could these objections, Mr. Deval refused to harken a second time to any such discourses and was obliged to have recourse to harsh language to oblige ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... the gallop of a horse in the avenue, and soon after on the pavement of the court. Some hunter behind time, I thought, and, taking up my pen, I began extracting from the enormous volume the passage relating to the General Chapters of the Benedictines; but a new and more serious interruption came to afflict me; some one was knocking at the library-door. I shook my head with ill-humor, and I said "Come in!" in the same tone in which I might have said "Go away!" Some one did come in. I had seen, a few moments before, Madame de Palme taking her flight, feathers and all, ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet

... time of the Kings of Assyria, unto this day; Nehem. ix. 32. that is, since the time of the Kingdom of Assyria, or since the rise of that Empire; and therefore the Assyrian Empire arose when the Kings of Assyria began to afflict the inhabitants of Palestine; which was in the days of Pul: he and his successors afflicted Israel, and conquered the nations round about them; and upon the ruin of many small and ancient Kingdoms erected ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton

... the condition of Chinese medicine leaves the impression of the appalling stagnation and sterility that may afflict a really intelligent people for thousands of years. It is doubtful if they are today in a very much more advanced condition than were the Egyptians at the time when the Ebers Papyrus was written. From one point of view it is an interesting experiment, as illustrating the state ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler

... king heard the name of Heracles he would not let him strive in the contest any more. For the maiden Iole would not be given as a prize to one who had been mad and whose madness might afflict him again. So the king said, speaking in ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum

... upon our people, even as the wedge of fine gold which Achan took and hid in his tent, did mightily discomfit the host of Israel with the plagues of the Lord. For even as for the sin of Adam, we are all justly chargeable, so for the sins of one another, doth the justice of God afflict us, so that we may find our account in watching over our ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... found a fearful effect thereof, to the utter subversion both of kirk and policy, if God had not wonderfully watched over the same, and mightily foughen and defeat that army, by his souldiers the elements, which he made all four most fiercely till afflict them, till almost utter consumption. Terrible was the fear, peircing were the preachings, earnest zealous and fervent were the prayers, sounding were the sighs and sabs, and abounding were the tears, at that fast and general assembly keeped at Edinburgh, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... between Satan and the first woman,[428] and the discourse which the demon holds in company with the good angels before the Lord, when he talks to him of Job,[429] and obtains permission to tempt and afflict him. In the New Testament, it appears that the Jews attributed to the malice of the demon and to his possession almost all the maladies with which they were afflicted. In St. Luke,[430] the woman who was bent and could not raise herself up, and had suffered this for eighteen years, "had," ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... dreams;" he murmured, "Eternal Justice visit me for all! But afflict not her; spare thine angel for her ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... grandson. You will be astounded at the orders contained in this despatch, so different from those that I have given you hitherto, and that I considered, as it was, too liberal, but I have always submitted to the divine will, and the evils with which He is pleased to afflict my kingdom do not permit me any longer to doubt of the sacrifice He requires me to make to Him of all that might touch me most nearly. I waive, therefore, my glory." The Marquis of Torcy, secretary of state for foreign affairs, followed ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... is indeed sad—a prey to repining. Her heart, after receiving so many shocks, has almost succumbed to that the supremest, most painful suffering that can afflict humanity—the malady of melancholia. The word conveys but a faint idea of the suffering itself. Only they who have known it—fortunately but few—can comprehend the terror, the wan, wasting misery, endured by those ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... did not, and could not, suggest any remedy other than socialism, partly because the purport of my entire argument was that socialism, if realised, would not be a remedy at all; and partly because, for the evils that afflict society, no general remedy of any kind is possible. The diseases of society are various, and of various origin, and there is no one drug in the pharmacopoeia of social reform which will cure or even touch them all, just as there is no one drug in the pharmacopoeia of doctors ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock

... the most honourable function which can be intrusted to a man is unexampled in the history of civilised nations. It will astonish and afflict Europe as an unheard of crime, which hitherto the most perverse Governments have not dared to meditate. The First Consul is too well acquainted with sentiments of the Diplomatic Body accredited to him not to be fully convinced that every ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... the field I saw hundreds and thousands of mighty (demons) ranging on their cars, in various manoeuvres. And being furnished with variegated mail and standards and diverse ornaments, they delighted my mind. And in the conflict I could not afflict them by showers of shafts, but they did not afflict me. And being afflicted by those innumerable ones, equipped in weapons and skilled in fight, I was pained in that mighty encounter and a terrible fear seized me. Thereupon ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... know that I do not agree with some of them. But there is one thing in which I do agree with him, and that is, in his effort to benefit the human race, in his effort to do away with some of the evils that now afflict mankind. I sympathize with him in his endeavor to shorten the hours of labor, to increase the well- being of laboring men, to give them better houses, better food, and in every way to lighten the burdens that now bear upon their bowed backs. It may be that very little can be done ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... I say and all I hint not made Afraid? O then, stay by me! Let These eyes afflict me, cleanse me, keep me yet, Brave eyes and true! See how the shrivelled heart, that long has lain Dead to delight and pain, Stirs, and begins again To utter pleasant life, as if it knew The wintry days were through; As if in its awakening boughs ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... 4. They do not afflict young children in the day of atonement, but they coax them one or two years before, that they may be accustomed to ...
— Hebrew Literature

... fail any one of His Churches, or any one of us. Lo, said He, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. Nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ; neither battle nor famine, nor anything else in heaven or earth. All He wants is to educate us, because He loves us. He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. And because He is a God of love, He proves His love to us every now and then by blessing us, as well as by correcting us; else our spirits would fail before Him, and the souls which He has made. When He sees our adversity, He hears our complaint, He thinks ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... me and I can behave myself decently and keep outwardly calm and observe the conventions of life. Why can't he be decent? How can it comfort a man in love to throw away a splendid career, abandon a great income and vanish from the ken of all who love him? What madness is this with which the gods afflict him? Oh, I could tear ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... Looked, spake, simply touched, and went. Now old pain is fresh content, Proved content is unproved pain. Pangs fore-tempted, which in vain I, faithless, have denied, now bud To untempted fragrance and the mood Of contrite heavenliness; all days Joy affrights me in my ways; Extremities of old delight Afflict me with new exquisite Virgin piercings of surprise,— Stung by those wild brown ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... exact boundary between truth and falsehood, guilt and innocence, in the case of witchcraft, is not so easily settled as the sciolist in liberal philosophy imagines. Of course we all know that men and women could not travel through the air on broomsticks, or cause storms, or afflict cattle. Their innocence of the intention is not always so certain: their power over a nervous or weakly person, especially in bad health, might really, through the influence of imagination, produce the death threatened, and the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... what dreadful sound of death and flight Is this wherewith thou dost afflict our ears? But if there be no safety to abide The favour, fortune and success of war, Away in haste! Roll on, my chariot-wheels, Restless till I be safely set in shade Of some unhaunted place, some blasted grove Of deadly yew ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... thus cut short public woes and the Reformers' grievances. "The king has always desired peace," said the marshal; "he wishes it to be lasting; he has proved only too well, to his own misery and that of his people, that of all the evils which can afflict a state, the most direful is civil war. But what means this withdrawal, since the signing of peace at St. Germain, of the Queen of Navarre and her children, of the Prince of Conde, and so many lords and distinguished nobles, still separated ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... the belongings of the man who certainly was not her husband? And there were dreadful words in these letters which added much to the agony of her who received them,—words which were used in order that their strength might prevail. But they had no strength to convert, though they had strength to afflict. Then Mrs. Bolton, who in her anxiety was ready to submit herself to any personal discomfort, prepared to go to Folking. But Hester sent back word that, in her present condition, she would see nobody,—not even ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... strait captivity. To thee I open by My holy power The meadow radiant of Paradise, Brightest of splendors, dwelling-place most fair, That home most blessed, where thou mayst enjoy Glory and bliss to everlasting life. Suffer this people's cruelty; not long Can faithless men afflict thee sinfully With chains of torment by their crafty wiles. Straight will I send unto this heathen town 110 Andrew to be thy comfort and defense; He will release thee from thine enemies. Thou hast not long to wait; in very truth But seven and twenty days fulfil the time, When, sorrow-laden, thou ...
— Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew • Unknown

... to the governor, but still insists that he sets the royal edicts at naught; protects a host of coureurs de bois who are in league with him; corresponds with Du Lhut, their chief; shares his illegal profits, and causes all the disorders which afflict the colony. "As for me, Monseigneur, I have done every thing within the scope of my office to prevent these evils; but all the pains I have taken have only served to increase the aversion of Monsieur the governor against me, and to bring my ordinances into contempt. ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... misrepresentation of public men and public measures? The former was within the province of freemen; it was, indeed, their duty; the latter was inconsistent with moral rectitude, and tended to the destruction of freedom and to the production of every evil that could afflict a community." The speaker then described the Democratic Societies as "self-created, without delegation or control, not emanating from the people, or responsible to them; not open in their deliberations; not admitting any but those of their own political ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... has commanded it; that her husband has received a revelation authorizing him to take her into his household; that her children will be legitimate in the sight of God, and that eventually the civilized world will come to a joyous acceptance of the practice of polygamy. When the trials of her life afflict her and she finds no relentment in the world's disdain, she sees no avenue of retreat. To break the relation is to imply at once that it was not ordained of God, and to cast a darker ignominy upon her unfortunate children. ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins

... incidents of his journey, till he came to the finding of Cassim's body. "Now," said he, "sister, I have something to relate which will afflict you the more, because it is perhaps what you so little expect; but it cannot now be remedied; if my endeavours can comfort you, I offer to put that which God hath sent me to what you have, and marry you: assuring ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... is in Newcastle-on-Tyne this winter; sick, painfully not dangerously; with a surgical brother-in-law. Her meagre didacticalities afflict me no more; but also her blithe friendly presence cheers me no more. We wish she were back. This silence, I calculate, forced silence, will do her much good. If I were a Legislator, I would order ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Abdallah, 'do not afflict yourself; for though I must own there is no great faith to be put in the promises and oaths of so perfidious a queen, yet I must withal tell you that her power extends not to me. She knows it well herself; ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon

... Mogul emperor was rather the scourge than the benefactor of mankind. 1. If some partial disorders, some local oppressions, were healed by the sword of Timour, the remedy was far more pernicious than the disease. By their rapine, cruelty, and discord, the petty tyrants of Persia might afflict their subjects; but whole nations were crushed under the footsteps of the reformer. The ground which had been occupied by flourishing cities was often marked by his abominable trophies, by columns, or pyramids, of human heads. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... to intense lovers of France. Throughout M. Hallays' volume he acknowledges the courtesy of German officials, a fact to which I had borne testimony when first journalizing my own experiences. Certain aspects of enforced Germanization can but afflict all outsiders. There is firstly that obtrusive militarism from which we cannot for a moment escape. Again, a no less false note strikes us in matters aesthetic. Modern German taste in art, architecture and decoration do not harmonize with the ancientness ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... the idler, "that our usages with regard to vermin and reptiles might be so amended as to be more temperately diabolical; but please to remember that the gentle agonies with which we afflict you are wholesome and exhilarating compared with the ills we ladle out to one another. During the reign of His Pellucid Refulgence, Khatchoo Khan," he continued, absently dropping his wriggling auditor into the brook, "no less ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... read thirty-three to the Rand, six to Pretoria, and twenty-nine to the rest of the country. Arrived at that point, the Committee in South Africa had good hopes, not merely of arriving at a just settlement, but of arriving at an agreement between all the parties. I am not going to afflict the House with a chronicle of the negotiations which took place. They were fruitless. It is enough to say that there were good hopes that if the Progressive complaint, that the adoption of the census of 1904 did not allow for the increase ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... years before the first edition of "Science and Health," said: "Disease being in its root a wrong belief, change that belief and we cure the disease. By faith we are thus made whole. There is a law here which the world will sometime understand and use in the cure of the diseases that afflict mankind. The late Dr. Quimby, of Portland, one of the most successful healers of this or any age, embraced this view of the nature of disease, and by a long succession of the most remarkable cures, effected ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... child? Can language measure the depth, the height, the immensity, the bitterness of that grief? What shall we say that is not trite and commonplace—even unfeeling? Shall we be pagan, and say that "whom the gods love die young," or Christian, and remark that "God does not willingly afflict the children of men?" She has thought of that, she has heard it, alas! often before—but too often, ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... ago. The conversation of the Arabs is in the exact style of the Old Testament. The name of God is coupled with every trifling incident in life, and they believe in the continual action of divine special interference. Should a famine afflict the country, it is expressed in the stern language of the bible—"The Lord has sent a grievous famine upon the land;" or, "The Lord called for a famine, and it came upon the land." Should their cattle fall sick, it is considered to be an affliction by divine ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... God against such thoughts. You shall never go near that man again. Don't think of our one disappointment: think of all the blessings we enjoy. Never mind that wretched man's hate. Think of your wife's love. Have I not more power to make you happy than he has to afflict you, my adored?" These sweet words were accompanied by a wife's divine caresses; with the honey of her voice, and the liquid sunshine of her loving eyes. Sir Charles slept peacefully that night, and forgot his one grief and his one enemy for ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... warrior sitting down in bonds, That his great father's body might not want A peaceful, humble tomb? the Roman wife Teaching her lord how harmless was the wound Of death, how impotent the tyrant's rage, Who nothing more could threaten to afflict Their faithful love? Or is there in the abyss, 360 Is there, among the adamantine spheres Wheeling unshaken through the boundless void, Aught that with half such majesty can fill The human bosom, as when Brutus rose Refulgent from the stroke of Caesar's fate Amid the crowd of patriots; ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... salvation and reprobation are not arbitrary, mechanical, fickle, but are the interior and unalterable laws of the soul and of the universe. "Every devil," Sir Thomas Browne says, "holds enough of torture in his own ubi, and needs not the torture of circumference to afflict him." If there are, as there may be, two entirely separate regions in space, whose respective boundaries enclose hell and heaven, banishment into the one, or admission into the other, evidently is not what constitutes the essence ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... and she said, "There, whenever good friends quarrel, it is understood they were both in the wrong. Bygones are to be bygones; and when your time comes round to quarrel again, please consult me first, since it is me you will afflict." She left them together, and went and tapped ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade



Words linked to "Afflict" :   blight, affliction, tribulate, aggrieve, damage, strain, smite, visit, try, discompose, plague, grieve, afflictive, upset, stress, discomfit, disconcert, untune



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