"Two-edged" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." Yet another of them says, "The word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword." And Isaiah says, in the name of the Servant of the Lord, "He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of His hand hath He hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in His quiver hath He ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... the young men with whom they are brought in contact, realise their responsibility in all they say and do? Do they ever reflect that the beauty and charm which they possess are weapons with which God has endowed them,—weapons which may have more power in the battle of life than a two-edged sword? Laugh and be merry—enjoy the sunshine of your youth; it is a sin to see a young thing sad; but never, never, as you value your womanhood, speak a slighting or irreverent word against God's great laws of righteousness, ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... with his sword as he did so, and cut off a piece of his scalp together with his fingers. And Peter cried out and exhorted Artasires to kill the most unholy of all men. And Artabanes, seeing Gontharis leaping to his feet (for he reclined close to him), drew a two-edged dagger which hung by his thigh—a rather large one—and thrusting it into the tyrant's left side clean up to the hilt, left it there. And the tyrant none the less tried to leap up, but having received a mortal wound, he fell where he was. Ulitheus then brought his sword down upon Artasires as if ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... broad leathern belt, secured by a brass buckle; to one side of which was attached a sort of scrip, and to the other a ram's horn, accoutred with a mouthpiece, for the purpose of blowing. In the same belt was stuck one of those long, broad, sharp-pointed, and two-edged knives, with a buck's-horn handle, which were fabricated in the neighbourhood, and bore even at this early period the name of a Sheffield whittle. The man had no covering upon his head, which was only defended by his own thick hair, matted and twisted together, and scorched ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... have lost my life, and go to a manifest hell beneath the earth; but in vain have I labored in the task of piety toward men. O! O! O! O! and now the pain, the pain comes upon me, loose unhappy me, and let death come to be my physician. Destroy me, destroy the unhappy one—I long for a two-edged blade, wherewith to cut me in pieces, and to put my life to an eternal rest. Oh unhappy curse of my father! the evil too of my blood-polluted kinsmen, my old forefathers, bursts forth[50] upon me; nor is it at a distance; and it hath come on me, wherefore, I pray, who am nothing guilty of these ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... with his glowing eye fixed on the rampart, where the brilliant form of Zelinda might be seen, with a two-edged spear, ready to be hurled, uplifted by her snow-white arm, and raising her voice, now in encouraging tones to the Mussulmans in Arabic, and again speaking scornfully to the Christians in Spanish. At last Fadrique exclaimed, "Oh, foolish being! she thinks to daunt me, ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... spake like a Dragon; and on the other side, what sighs and groans burst from Christian's heart. I never saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant look, till he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with his two-edged sword: then indeed he did smile ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... testimony poured forth from the Spirit Cuts like a two-edged sword; And hypocrites now are most sorely tormented Because they're ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... him (and it was evening ere she finished all she had to tell him) how that, on another occasion, Dick was out after grislies with a hunter, who had somehow allowed himself to be caught by a bear, and would have been torn in pieces had not Dick come up with his great two-edged sword—having fired off his rifle without effect—and, with one mighty sweep at the monster's neck, cut right through its jugular vein, and all its other veins, down to the very marrow of its backbone; in fact, killed it at one blow—a feat which no one had ever done, or had ever ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... of my friend, KISSLEBURGH, city editor of the Troy Times, who, up to the present time, if this coot knows herself, hain't bin into the hiway robbin' bizziness, not by a long shot. But, my friends and feller citizens, old VAN is sharper that a two-edged gimlet. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... man, with all the irresistible infinite attractions that a man may have for a woman—the subtle drawing of the lodestone for the passive iron—had come into her life. Doubly sweet it was to her intense, young virgin soul, in that it first revealed the dawning of that two-edged bliss which makes a heaven or a hell of earth—of earth, which owes its ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... Thessalonians: "I pray GOD your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." {34a} The same distinction is marked in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "The word of GOD is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit." {34b} It is thus that we understand the contrast which S. Paul enforces between things of the spirit and things of the soul. "The natural man,"—i.e., the psychical ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... to dwell on their address in the use of fire-arms and of their two-edged daggers. Armed only with the latter weapon, they were often known, during their long and heroic struggle for independence, to leap their horses over the Muscovite bayonets, stab the soldiers, and break ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... salient; cusped, cuspidate, cuspidated[obs3]; cornute[obs3], cornuted[obs3], cornicultate[obs3]; prickly; spiny, spinous[obs3], spicular; thorny, bristling, muricated[obs3], pectinated[obs3], studded, thistly, briary[obs3]; craggy &c. (rough) 256; snaggy, digitated[obs3], two-edged, fusiform[Microb]; dentiform[obs3], denticulated; toothed; odontoid[obs3]; starlike; stellated[obs3], stelliform[obs3]; sagittate[obs3], sagittiform[obs3]; arrowheaded[obs3]; arrowy[obs3], barbed, spurred. acinaciform; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... cried. 'Justice is a slippery dame, and hath a two-edged sword in her hand. We may have enough of justice in our character as rebels to give us a surfeit of it. I would fain overtake these robbers that we may relieve them of their spolia opima, together with any other wealth which they may have unlawfully amassed. My learned ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... church catechism, and also, indeed, if it were possible, a slave Bible. If these heaven-blinded negro enlighteners persist in their pernicious plan of making Christians of their cattle, something of the sort must be done, or they will infallibly cut their own throats with this two-edged sword of truth, to which they should in no wise have laid their hand, and would not, doubtless, but that it is now thrust at them so threateningly that they have no choice. Again and again, how much ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... straight, two-edged sword. The word is of Italian origin and first came into use in the sixteenth century. In an adaptation of a thirteenth-century Chanson it is out of ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... Kings, I will do my best. Only blame us not if the end of this matter is other than these advisers of yours expect. Prophecies are two-edged swords to play with, and I do not believe that a race of fighting men like the Fung will fly and leave you triumphant just because a stone image is shattered, if that can be done in the time and with the means which we possess. Meanwhile, I ask that you should ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... and liberal gift, because unrestricted and given in a spirit of confidence—would not lead to the renewal of agitation in Ireland by Mr. O'Connell. It might be well for him to reflect that agitation was a two-edged sword. Being conformable to justice and not contrary to principle, he hoped the measure proposed would pass ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... knowing thoroughly the more patent side of public affairs; armoured by the tradition of a culture demanded by leadership; inspired by ideas, but always the same ideas; owning no master, but in servitude to her own custom of leading, she had a mind, formidable as the two-edged swords wielded by her ancestors the Fitz-Harolds, at Agincourt or Poitiers—a mind which had ever instinctively rejected that inner knowledge of herself or of the selves of others; produced by those foolish practices of introspection, contemplation, and understanding, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... do. (e) They then having departed said this; and after this the son of Aetion grew, and because he had escaped this danger, the name of Kypselos was given him as a surname derived from the corn-chest. Then when Kypselos had grown to manhood and was seeking divination, a two-edged 85 answer was given him at Delphi, placing trust in which he made an attempt upon Corinth and obtained possession of it. Now the ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... on horseback, the chief weapon used being a spear with a stout two-edged blade. A horse must be thoroughly trained to this sport, and must possess great fleetness of foot, as the boar is a very rapid runner. The time chosen for the hunt is at daybreak, as the boar has ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... junction of this forest path and the main road the hill men fell in behind like ghosts. They were brown, medium-sized men, dressed in cotton trousers and blouses. They were without shoes or hats and were armed with a medley of weapons, from modern rifles to the big, two-edged sword with which their ancestors fought. Save under the leadership of the priest, they were said not to be good fighters, but with him to spur them on they became veritable demons, hurling themselves upon the enemy with a recklessness only possible to religious fanatics. So fiercely had they ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... himself, this quoting prices to a man who has just bought. The temptation is always to name a very low rate, perhaps even to go below your lowest selling price, for the purpose of making the man feel that you would have been a better man to buy from, but this is a two-edged sword, and I have not cared to handle it. I concluded it would ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... of the present state of things when men are free to write as they do of the women of their own nation. Every word of censure flung against them is two-edged, and wounds those who condemn as much as those who are condemned; for surely it need hardly be said that men hold nothing so dear as the honor of their women, and that no one living would willingly lower the repute of his mother or ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... showed that their interrogations were irrelevant to any business before the court, or that entered into the ridiculous charges against her. General questions were proposed to her on points of casuistical divinity; two-edged questions, which not one of themselves could have answered, without, on the one side, landing himself in heresy (as then interpreted), or, on the other, in some presumptuous expression of self-esteem. Next came a wretched Dominican, that pressed her with an objection, which, ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... are described as "a flame of fire," but His bride sees them "like doves beside the water brooks." In Revelation "His voice is as the voice of many waters . . . and out of His mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword." To the bride, His lips are as lilies, dropping liquid myrrh, and His mouth most sweet. The countenance of the risen SAVIOUR was "as the sun shineth in his strength," and the effect of the vision on ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... education. By the end of the year she was addressing Hamilton in words of very fairly assumed affection, but not until she had written to Greville, with a certain haughty desperation, "If you affront me, I will make him marry me." The threat was two-edged, for Hamilton intended Greville to be his heir; but the latter probably gave little heed to a contingency he must have thought very unlikely for a man of fifty-six, who had passed his life in the world, and ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... between Church and State for supremacy over the whole body politic. "The Reformation," said Grotius, "was not brought about by synods, but by kings, princes, and magistrates." It was the same eternal story, the same terrible two-edged weapon, "Cujus reggio ejus religio," found in the arsenal of the first Reformers, and in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... would be a two-edged sword, that might cut too keenly on the wrong side," reflected the submarine boy. "Millard would be sure to claim that I was assaulting him. It would look like that, too, and I'd probably get a thumping from the crowd, while Millard slipped away. Then he would be warned that he ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... loosely—yet, owing to its weight, closely—on his shoulders. This was gathered in at the waist by a broad leathern belt, studded with silver ornaments, from which hung a short dagger. A cross belt of somewhat similar make hung from his right shoulder, and supported a two-edged sword of immense weight, which was quite as strong, though not nearly so long, as that which he had forged for Glumm. It was intended for a single-handed weapon, though men of smaller size might have been constrained, in attempting to wield it, to make use of both hands. The youth's lower limbs ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... endless facilities for fraud and for the evasion or defeat of justice, turning a law case into a game in which chance and skill had often vastly greater influence than substantial merits. Lord Brougham probably in no degree exaggerated when he described great portions of the English law as 'a two-edged sword in the hands of craft and of oppression,' and a great authority on chancery law declared in 1839 that 'no man, as things now stand, can enter into a chancery suit with any reasonable hope of being alive at its termination if ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... the chiefs hastily aroused were unarmed, save for a spear there or a sword here—Thrasymedes gives to Diomede his two-edged sword, his shield, and "a helm of bull's hide, without horns or crest, that is called a skull-cap (knap-skull), and keeps the heads of strong young men." All the advanced guard were young men, as ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... king, how shall I weep for thee? What shall I speak from heart that truly loves? And now thou liest there, breathing out thy life, In impious deed of death, In this fell spider's web! Yes woe is me! woe, woe! Woe for this couch of thine unhonorable! Slain by a subtle death With sword two-edged, which ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... purpose," said Gualtieri. "Yes, I am satisfied a brilliant future is in store for you. You are a genius such as Germany has not seen heretofore, for you are a political genius, and you may just as well confess that Germany greatly lacks politicians who are able to wield their pen like a pointed two-edged sword, to strike fatal blows in all directions and obtain victories. Germany has already fixed her eyes upon you, and even in England your name is held in great esteem since you published your excellent translation of Burke's work on the French Revolution. The political pamphlets you have ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... of the bed, on a little column, hung a trophy of arms, consisting of a visored helmet, a twofold buckler made of four bulls' hides and covered with plates of brass and tin, a two-edged sword, and several ashen ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... should I deny it?" he replied, and added in his most ingratiating manner another of his two-edged compliments. "Your ladyship is the model chatelaine. No happening in your household can escape your knowledge. His lordship is ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... disasters. Sometimes from this continued irritation, with the resulting inflammation, and sometimes from change of structure of the kidney by fatty degeneration, comes the failure to perform its proper function. Then, with this two-edged sword of disaster, the urea, which becomes a poisonous element, and should be removed, is retained in the system, while the albumen, which is essential to healthy blood, is filtered away through ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... slung over his shoulder was of ivory; the sword that hung by his side had a golden hilt and a two-edged 5 blade inlaid with a cross of gold that glittered like the lightning of heaven. His shoes, from the knee to the tip of the toe, were embossed with gold worth three hundred cattle; and his stirrups also were ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... a two-edged thrust, for Trix was decidedly an old girl, and Tom was generally regarded as a hapless victim. Trix turned red; but before she could load and fire again, Emma Davenport, who labored under the delusion that this sort of skirmishing was ill-natured, ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... may be asked—Was it the act of a benevolent Deity to entrust this terribly two-edged weapon of liberty to our unskilful hands, in which it was bound to work so vast an amount of injury? And this opens up the larger and more general question, Must we, in view of the facts of life, surrender the idea of the Divine benevolence? It is quite true that the evidence ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... have elapsed Of darkness, but the third is yet entire. So they; then each his dreadful arms put on. To Diomede, who at the fleet had left 300 His own, the dauntless Thrasymedes gave His shield and sword two-edged, and on his head Placed, crestless, unadorn'd, his bull-skin casque. It was a stripling's helmet, such as youths Scarce yet confirm'd in lusty manhood, wear. 305 Meriones with quiver, bow and sword ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... thirty years of age,—as active and thrifty a little woman as could be found any where within the domains of this cruel system of oppression. Slavery is like a two-edged knife, cutting both ways. It not only destroys the black, but demoralizes and ruins the white race. Those who hold slaves are usually indolent, proud, and inefficient. They think it a disgrace to work by the side of the negro, and therefore will allow things ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society
... mischief mortals bend their will, How soon they find fit instruments of ill! Just then Clarissa drew with tempting grace A two-edged weapon from her shining case: So ladies in romance assist their knight, Present the spear, and arm him for the fight. He takes the gift with reverence, and extends The little engine on his fingers' ends; This just behind Belinda's neck he spread, As o'er the fragrant steams she bends ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... just before reaching that point, it blisteringly passed through and through both of Stubb's hands, from which the hand-cloths, or squares of quilted canvas sometimes worn at these times, had accidentally dropped. It was like holding an enemy's sharp two-edged sword by the blade, and that enemy all the time striving to wrest it out ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... come. And it is only by faith in the common people, not in their politicians, that I dare look forward and hope that the instrument— blunt and one-sided though it be now—may yet become mighty and two-edged and sharp, a sword in the hand of a giant—of one whose balances are those of justice, not of power. But I shan't see it, Tumulty; it won't be in my day. If America had come in, I should! That ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... Blackana, and he told me that Satan feared that which was sharper than a two-edged sword more than a large number of professing Christians not filled with the ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... held. The people were daily losing confidence in the superstitions of Romanism. The barriers of prejudice were giving way. The word of God, by which Luther tested every doctrine and every claim, was like a two-edged sword, cutting its way to the hearts of the people. Everywhere there was awakening a desire for spiritual progress. Everywhere was such a hungering and thirsting after righteousness as had not been known for ages. The eyes of the ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... two-edged policy of this crafty monarch, foreign nations were crippled in the number of their subjects, and his own were greatly multiplied. He particularly petted these renegado strangers. But alas for the deep-laid schemes of ambitious princes, and ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... fixed on each side the blade, and you have an idea of the Saw-fish. This strange Shark is said to be as strong as it is fierce. It kills its prey by tearing them open with side blows from its sharp, two-edged saw. Its big mouth is fitted with a great many rows ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... imperfect ways to the divine, and the souls of the churches were to become guides along those paths. For this purpose they must themselves have for their leader the being who has in his right hand seven stars. "And out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength." This sword is also found in the Mysteries. The candidate for initiation was terrified by a flashing sword (cf. p. 18). This indicates the situation of one who wishes ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... it is at first so little and so ridiculous, envy often escapes the hand of discipline. Yet the homely saying is a true one that "they which play with the devil's rattles will be brought by degrees to wield his sword," and the force of a nature given up to envy is truly a two-edged sword from the bottomless pit, cutting both the fiend who smites and ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... things!—it would be the delightful task of man's thoughts to disentangle that. Already Bruno had measured the space which Bacon would fill, with room, perhaps, for Darwin also. That Deity is everywhere, like all such abstract propositions, is a two-edged force, depending for its practical effect on the mind which admits it on the peculiar perspective of that mind. To Dutch Spinosa, in the next century, faint, consumptive, with a naturally [150] faint hold on external things, the theorem that God was in all things whatever, annihilating ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... And if that were true, Ross could be the first to suffer in playing a waiting game. Well, air was not the only thing he could cut off from here, though it had been the first and most important to his mind. Ross hesitated. Two-edged weapons cut in both directions. But he had to force a countermove from them. He pulled another switch. The control cabin, the whole of the ship, was ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... the skins was finished he was set to work with some of the old men making lances. These were formidable weapons, at least twelve feet long, an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, ending in a two-edged blade made of flint, elk horn or bone, and five or six inches in length. The wood, constituting the body of the lance, had to be scraped down with great care, and the prisoner toiled over ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... beauty; and if her heart was not in that prayer she put up just now, she is a grand actress also. This is a beastly trade of ours, hunting down and trapping the unwary. Sometimes I feel no better than a sleuth-hound, and that girl's eyes went through and through me a while ago like a two-edged dirk." ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... his two-edged knife in his hand. But as he rushed, Ulysses smote him on the breast with an arrow, and he fell forwards. And when Amphinomus came on, Telemachus slew him with his spear, but drew not the spear from the body, lest some one ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church
... cloth of the tent, on the spot where he happens to be, and just large enough to admit him. He glides through like a phantom, without making the least grain of sand creak beneath his tread. He is perfectly naked, and all his body is rubbed over with oil; a two-edged knife is suspended from his neck. He will squat down close to your couch, and, with incredible coolness and dexterity, will gather up the sheet in very little folds, so as to occupy the least surface possible; then, passing to the other ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... said the voice of Leou inwardly, "the position you have chosen is a desperate one, and we of the Upper Air who are well disposed towards you find the path of assistance fringed with two-edged swords." ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... the dazed Quasimodo, threw her across his saddle, and at the moment when the terrible hunchback, recovering from his surprise, rushed upon him to regain his prey, fifteen or sixteen archers, who followed their captain closely, made their appearance, with their two-edged swords in their fists. It was a squad of the king's police, which was making the rounds, by order of Messire Robert d'Estouteville, guard of the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... with Catholicism on the religious side, and his alienation from its intellectual method, which makes Newman's apologetic such a two-edged weapon. In attempting to defend Catholicism, he has gone far to explain it. To the historian, there is no great mystery about the growth and success of the Western Catholic Church. Christianity was already a syncretistic religion in the second ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... court and to sit as a chamber are two distinct things. This double function constitutes supreme power. The Long Parliament, which began in November 1640, felt the revolutionary necessity for this two-edged sword. So it declared that, as House of Lords, it possessed judicial as well ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... quarry with a two-edged sword; one edge is what they say, the other what they leave unsaid; and both edges are often keen. What they say generally has a foundation of truth with a superstructure of gilded staff. You must knock over the staff and examine the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... me a vial of little red pills about the size of beet seeds, with explicit directions as to how to take them. If I exceeded the dosage prescribed I endangered my life, for these pellets were of a high potency. They were little two-edged swords which ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... not give up working for God, and sit down in despair, because she was thus tried. One day, just before leaving for a great West-End Meeting, in which God made her words as a sharp two-edged sword, she wrote this to one of ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff
... A knight, riding a headless horse, and wearing a chain armor, with a triangular shield flung behind his back, and a two-edged sword. ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... been forced upon him he would have been a syndicalist as against Socialism and all the doctrines of the State—that monstrous entity, that factory of officials, human machines. His reason approved of the mighty effort of the cooperative groups, the two-edged ax of which strikes at the same time at the dead abstractions of the socialistic State, and at the sterility of individualism, that corrosion of energy, that dispersion of collective force in individual frailties,—the great source of modern wretchedness for which the French Revolution ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... surprised, then, at all, at what is said against Abolitionists by the North, for they are wielding a two-edged sword, which even here, cuts through the cords of caste, on the one side, and the bonds of interest on the other. They are only sharing the fate of other reformers, abused and reviled whilst they are in the minority; ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the means to the war-worn Greeks to break Neptune's stone bonds of the Dardanian city, the tall tomb shall be made dank with Polyxena's blood, who as the victim succumbing 'neath two-edged sword, with yielding hams shall fall forward a headless corpse. Haste ye, a-weaving the woof, O ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... itself the sword. We may recall as a parallel, and possibly a copy of our text, the great words of the Epistle to the Hebrews which speak of the word of God as 'living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.' And we cannot forget the magnificent symbolism of the Book of Revelation which saw in the midst of the candlestick one like unto a Son of Man, and 'out of His mouth proceeded a sharp, two-edged sword.' That image ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... frost, The world is bitter cold to-night, The moon is cruel and the wind Is like a two-edged ...
— Helen of Troy and Other Poems • Sara Teasdale
... the feuds into which they were divided, few of the feasters wore any defensive armour, except the light goat-skin buckler, which hung behind each man's seat. On the other hand, they were well provided with offensive weapons; for the broad, sharp, short, two-edged sword was another legacy of the Romans. Most added a wood-knife or poniard; and there were store of javelins, darts, bows, and arrows, pikes, halberds, Danish axes, and Welsh hooks and bills; so, in case of ill-blood arising during the banquet, there ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... remarkable figures before her, no longer wondered at the slight esteem in which the Marquise held Lucien's good looks. And when conversation began, when intellects so keen, so subtle, were revealed in two-edged words with more meaning and depth in them than Anais de Bargeton heard in a month of talk at Angouleme; and, most of all, when Canalis uttered a sonorous phrase, summing up a materialistic epoch, and ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... tribe were these, and brothers, gigantic in stature, Huge as Goliath of Gath, or the terrible Og, king of Bashan;[45] 755 One was Pecksuot named, and the other was called Wattawamat. Round their necks were suspended their knives in scabbards of wampum,[46] Two-edged, trenchant knives, with points as sharp as a needle. Other arms had they none, for they were running and crafty. "Welcome, English!" they said,—these words they had learned from the traders 760 Touching at times on the coast, to barter, and chaffer for peltries.[47] Then in their native ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... not all. He must use the Word of the Lord as a sword. "The Word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and of spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." How will the hearers like that? The preacher must not ask that, he must use the Word as it is given him, ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... Quita herself found a perverse satisfaction, unworthy of her best moments, in thus emphasising her indifference to her husband's presence; ignoring, with characteristic heedlessness, the fact that a two-edged weapon is an ill thing to handle: and Lenox, accepting her unspoken intimation au pied de la lettre, steeled himself ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... my Maker's image. 'Tis something to say that, in these godless days. I've allus kept my foot on the world, the flesh, an' the Devil so tight as the best Christian in company; an' if that ban't a record for a stone, p'raps you'll tell me a better. Your two-edged tongue do make me feel sometimes as though I did ought to go right away from 'e, ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... his right hand seven stars; and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword; and his countenance was as the sun shineth in ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... live and creep on earth have the power of imitative speech. Therefore will I praise thee, and hymn forever thy power. Thee the wide heaven, which surrounds the earth, obeys; Following where thou wilt, willingly obeying thy law. Thou holdest at thy service, in thy mighty hands, The two-edged, flaming, immortal thunderbolt, Before whose flash all nature trembles. Thou rulest in the common reason, which goes through all, And appears mingled in all things, great or small, Which, filling all nature, is king of all existences. Nor ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... with despair at his utter and absolute impotence. Nature is God, Anna, and the greatest artist of us all a pigmy. When I think of those ateliers of ours, the art jargon, the decadents with their flamboyant talk I long for a two-edged sword and a minute of Divinity. To perdition with ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the little player was poised above the strings for a single vibrating moment, during which she stood in a listening attitude. Then, with the sweep of three slender fingers, the lion's scream cut the air like a two-edged sword. ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... weak and inept. The weapon they had received was two-edged. Sometimes they cut themselves; again they caught it by the blade, and those with whom they fought seized the hilt and made terrible slaughter. Then, too, they were not always wise—which was a sore fault, but not their own. Nor were they always brave, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... to take an oath to that purpose. Rich, the solicitor-general, was sent to confer with More, then a prisoner, who kept a cautious silence with regard to the supremacy: he was only inveigled to say, that any question with regard to the law which established that prerogative was a two-edged sword; if a person answer one way, it will confound his soul; if another, it will destroy his body. No more was wanted to found an indictment of high treason against the prisoner. His silence was called malicious, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... thathad he married any but one of the hated Nevilles, I had been patient. But for themthat they and their descendants should enjoy the right and honours of my ancestors, goes through my heart like a two-edged dirk. And this girlI detest her!'And I answered, for my heart kindled at her words, that her hate was ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... antecedently have been expected of a volume writ by many men at many different eras, yet all superintended by one master mind; of a volume meant for every age, and nation, and country, and tongue, and people; of a volume which, as a two-edged sword, wounds the good man's heart with deep conviction, and cuts down "the hoary head of him who goeth on ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... thus of the agent—"It is our doorkeeper, our balm, our honey, oil, urine, maydew, mother, egg, secret furnace, oven, true fire, venomous dragon, Theriac, ardent wine, Green Lion, Bird of Hermes, Goose of Hermogenes, two-edged sword in the hand of the Cherub that guards the Tree of Life.... It is our true secret vessel, and the Garden of the Sages in which our sun rises and sets. It is our Royal Mineral, our triumphant vegetable Saturnia, and the magic ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... that there were some elements of truth and excellence, and even of grandeur, in the religion and civilization of the republics of Greece and Rome; and it is reprehensible, because it is a one-sided and unjust procedure, in so far as it withholds part of the truth. This species of argument is a two-edged sword which cuts both ways. The prevalence of murder, and slavery, and treachery, and polygamy, in Greece and Rome, is no more a proof that "the religions of the pagan nations were destructive of morality" (Watson, vol. i. p. 59), than the polygamy of the Hebrews, the falsehoods and ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... broad, brown, upturned throat there projected the white haft of a knife driven blade-deep into his body. Giant as he was, the man must have gone down like a pole-axed ox before that terrific blow. Beside his right hand a most formidable horn-handled, two-edged dagger lay upon the floor, and near it a ...
— The Adventure of the Red Circle • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Nature affirms then it will be what I believe." This dynamic conception of the sexual impulse, as a force that, under natural conditions, may be trusted to build up a new morality, obviously belongs to an indefinitely remote future. It is a force whose blade is two-edged, for while it strikes at unselfishness it also strikes at selfishness, and at present we cannot easily conceive a time when "there is no self"; we should be more disposed to regard it as a time when there is much humbug. Yet for the ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... most heartily disliked the room itself,—its vague perfumes, its subdued violet coloring, the faces of the grinning idols, which seemed to meet his gaze in every direction, the pictures of those fierce-looking warriors who brandished two-edged swords at him from the walls. They belonged to the period when Japanese art was perhaps in its crudest state, and yet in this uncertain atmosphere they seemed to possess an extraordinary vitality, as though indeed they were prepared at a moment's notice to leap from their frames and ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... ye, young County C.! That two-edged blade is big, Sir! That Dragon's so spiky, he well might be "Some Egyptian porcupig," Sir, (As the singer of Wantley's Dragon says, In his quaint and curious story.) If this Dragon he slays, he shall win men's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... Slavery? And shall we treat with the Confederate authorities on this basis? No; while we will gladly treat with States and people desiring to return to the Union, with Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet brandishing over our heads the two-edged sword of Slavery and disunion, we will, in the emphatic words of General Jackson, "negotiate only from the mouths of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... out a wild and explosive oath. He knew this man was playing on his vanity, jealousy, and hatred for some purpose not yet apparent, but he found it impossible to close his mind to the whisperings of the plotter. He welcomed the spur of Steelman's two-edged tongue because he wanted to have ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... finds, but the likest substitute is trimmed and balanced and poised to that ideal. One man I know has evolved very nearly the weapon of Umslopogaas. It is almost straight, lapped at the butt with leather, amazingly springy, and carries a two-edged blade for splitting and chopping. If his Demon be with him—and what artist can answer for all his moods?—he will cause a tree to fall upon any stick or stone that you choose, uphill or down, to the right or to the left. ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... came the interesting chronology of the warrior archbishops, warriors of coat-of-mail and two-edged sword, the conquerors who, leaving the choir to the meek and humble, mounted their war-horses and thought they were not serving God unless during the year they added sundry towns and pasture lands to the goods of the Church. They arrived in the ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... winter time. The wind is sharp as a two-edged sword, the snow-flakes chase each other; it seems as though it had been snowing for days and weeks, and the snow lies like a great mountain over the whole town, like a heavy dream of the winter night. Everything on the earth is hidden away, only the golden cross of the church, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Isora, blushingly; and, extricating herself from me, she showed me a small two-edged dagger, which she wore carefully concealed between the folds of her dress. I looked over the bright, keen blade, with surprise, and yet with pleasure, at the latent resolution of a character seemingly so soft. I say with pleasure, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... once so to be. Mr. Buchanan and Southern statesmen of ultra views, aided by a few Northern politicians, were infatuated enough to suppose that the two-edged sword of popular sovereignty that was sheathed in the Kansas bill, was to be wielded by the Federal administration, and not by the people of Kansas, and made to cut but one way and that way in favor of slavery. And they were equally infatuated when they found that they could not force ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton
... clad themselves in their terrible arms. To Diomede, Thrasymedes, firm in war, gave his two-edged sword, because his own was left at the ships, and a shield. Upon his head he placed his bull's-hide helmet, coneless, crestless, which is called cataityx,[348] and protects the heads of blooming youths. And Meriones gave a bow, quiver, and sword to Ulysses, and put upon his head a casque of ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... namely, yams, fowls, palm-wine in calabashes, fish, some boxes made of split cane, monkey and snake skins, with other trifling articles; for pieces of iron hoop, a few inches long, which we afterwards found they made into two-edged knives, by beating them between stones, until they succeeded, in shaping the blade to their purpose, when they fitted it into a wooden handle, from four to six inches in length. In the first instance, however, they evinced considerable doubt and timidity, as they did riot venture to come alongside, ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... behind the battle-clouds. And ever, through the clamour of the strife, I heard the ceaseless wailing of a child, And the sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, endless Sobbing of a reft and broken woman. "Shall it be Peace or War?" A two-edged sword Could cut no sharper than the gentle voice Of Him who bowed with sorrow at the sight Of man destroying man for sake of gain. I waited, breathless, for the warrior's word. But no word came. His heart was with his men. ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... first cut with the cradle on one side of the field, when the machine is dragged into the open place. Here it enters the standing grain, cutting off its heads with the utmost accuracy as it moves. Forks beneath prepare the way, and a rapid vibratory motion of a great number of two-edged knives effect the object. The stalks of the grain can be cut as low or as high as one pleases, but it is usually thought best to take only the heads. Afterward the standing straw is burned, ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... But that argument is two-edged. For instance, am I to consider it the exception or the rule, when I am told that you, a journeyman tailor, are able to correct ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... turn to think of it. So she sent only a little formal line in answer to his note, making no reference to the likelihood of seeing him on deck or anywhere else. It looked cold and cruel enough to her, that note, like a little knife she was sending him; but it was a two-edged knife, with which ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... go with whomsoever of the Achaeans that woo her in the halls is the best man, and gives most bridal gifts. But behold, as for this guest of thine, now that he has come to thy house, I will clothe him in a mantle and a doublet, goodly raiment, and I will give him a two-edged sword, and shoes for his feet, and send him on his way, whithersoever his heart and his spirit bid him go. Or, if thou wilt, hold him here in the steading and take care of him, and raiment I will send hither, and all manner of food to eat, that he be not ruinous to thee ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... scaffold which was covered with new broadcloth. On the elevation stood the executioner, a German, with broad shoulders, dressed in a red kubrak and on his head a cowl of the same color; he carried a heavy two-edged sword; with him were two of his assistants with naked arms and ropes at their girdles. There were also a block and a coffin covered with broadcloth. In Panna Maryia's tower, the bells were ringing, filling the town with metallic sounds ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... of equal value with anything that "Britannicus" ever wrote.[83] The importance of these indications may be overestimated. But they do mean that there were those bold enough to make fun. A decade or two later ridicule became a two-edged knife, cutting superstition right and left. But even under the terribly serious Puritans skepticism began to avail itself of that weapon, a weapon of which ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... standing on the front seat of the "Comet" on the lookout for help, saw something that made her blood turn cold. A band of fierce looking young men in Japanese costume was approaching on the run. The leader was brandishing a short knife with a two-edged glittering blade and the others flourished sword canes. Billie was thankful that Miss Campbell was too much occupied at that moment in assuring the poor mother that her child was not injured to notice this murderous looking company. Komatsu had quietly placed himself beside the car, faithful ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... bindings of dingy red, to match the sash about his waist. From the sash was suspended an otter skin pouch, containing bullets and patches, nipple wrench and turn-screw, a bit of dry tow, an oiled rag, and all the indispensables for rifle cleaning; while into it were thrust two knives—one a broad two-edged implement, with a stout buck-horn haft, and a blade of at least twelve inches—the other a much smaller weapon, not being, hilt and all, half the length of the other's blade, but very strong, sharp as a razor, and of surpassing temper. While he was fitting all these in their proper places, and ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... the fight; he spake like a dragon; and on the other side, what sighs and groans burst from Christian's heart. I never saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant look, till he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with his two-edged sword; then indeed he did smile, and look upward; but 'twas the dreadfulest ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... were the sword and spear. The former were two-edged and on the average about 3 ft. long. The hilts were often elaborately ornamented and sometimes these weapons were of considerable value. No definite line can be drawn between the spear proper and the javelin. The spear-heads which have been found ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... but how?" Wilmore queried. "You can't be always hanging about the courts, waiting for the chance of defending some poor devil who's been wrongfully accused—there aren't enough of them, for one thing. On the other hand, you can't walk down Regent Street, brandishing a two-edged sword and ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... confused. The lawyer's eloquence overpowered him. He felt guilty. Josephine saw his simplicity, and made a cut with a woman's two-edged sword. "Sir," said she coolly, "do you not see it is an affair of money? This is his way of saying, Pay me handsomely for so ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... and looks out upon the sea, that great battle comes up before him. The Norman hosts disembark; first come the archers in short tunics, with bows as tall as themselves and quivers full of arrows; then the knights in coats of mail, with long lances and two-edged swords; Duke William steps out last from the ship, and falls foremost on both hands. His men gather about him in alarm, but he says, "See, my lords, I have taken possession of England with both my hands. It is now mine, and ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... Glaymore, or great two-handed sword, and afterwards the two-edged sword and target, or buckler, which was sustained on the left arm. In the midst of the target, which was made of wood, covered with leather, and studded with nails, a slender lance, about two feet long, was sometimes fixed; it was heavy and ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... I prefer a curved one that has a draw cut. It has also an aesthetic element and doesn't look like a meat saw, which can't be said of Mr. Jones's saw that seduced Dr. Morris from church. For heavy and steady work I much prefer a carpenter's sharp hand saw. A two-edged saw is an abomination devised by conscienceless manufacturers for the seduction ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various
... employing the useful firm of Mesdames Grundy & Rumour; giving them also whispers of how poor little Blanche was half engaged to him—if she could bring him to her feet she would love him; if not, she would make her revenge tell. He should not wed Vaura Vernon, if a woman's tongue sharp as a two-edged sword could cut their lives apart. She would be content to repeat the little act of barter that the young man did for Marguerite with Mephistopheles, for Lionel's love. She had learned and practised society's creed, and paid ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... The memory of such delightful sayings encouraged her to be extravagant. She thought that perhaps he would find her ankles worth a moment—if she took pains with them. Anyhow, he was worth dressing for. James never noticed anything—or if he did, his ambiguity was two-edged. "Extraordinary hat," he might say, and drop his eyeglass, which always gave an air of finality to comments of the sort. But her shopping done, for Lancelot's sake, life stretched before her a grey ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... praise; Since thee the great Universe, rolling on its path round the world, obeys:— Obeys thee, wherever thou guidest, and gladly is bound in thy bands, So great is the power thou confidest, with strong, invincible hands, To thy mighty ministering servant, the bolt of the thunder, that flies, Two-edged like a sword, and fervent, that is living and never dies. All nature, in fear and dismay, doth quake in the path of its stroke, What time thou preparest the way for the one Word thy lips have spoke, Which blends with lights smaller and greater, which ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... hint of your intentions get abroad. Whatever you do, don't write a word to that Carr friend of yours; he's as sharp as a two-edged sword. As well let things be done privately; it is ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... around the room sixteen pictures illustrating scenes in his life. The lower six are in grisaille. The ceiling is painted in fresco. The next or fourth room contains the family history, illustrated by twenty-one fresco paintings. In the small cabinet off this room are, among other things, atwo-edged sword with the Buonarrotti arms. In the fifth room, No. 74, Michael Angelo, aMadonna in relief, on marble. 77, acast in bronze of 74, by Jean Bologna, by whom is also 81, abust of Michael Angelo. Sixth room (the Library), large frescoes, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... before—in the next place—It is written, that there shall be a two-edged sword in the hand of the saints. But the saints have but two swords—Was there a sword or shield found among ten thousand in Israel? Then let Israel use his fists, say I, the preacher! For this man hath shed ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley |
