"Nil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Moodu-kaduru (Ochrosia parviflora); Moodu-cobbe (Ornitrophe serrata); Moodu-murunga (Sophora tomentosa,) &c. &c. Amongst these marine shrubs the Nil-picha (Guettarda speciosca), with its white and delightfully fragrant flowers, is a conspicuous object on some parts of the ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... Capric.] And therefore it was aptlie spoken by a late poet, not beside this purpose: Reges atque duces dira impelluntur in arma, Imperimque sibi miserorum cde lucrantur. O cci, miseri, quid? bellum pace putatis Dignius aut melius? nempe hc nil terpius, & nil Quod magis human procul ratione recedat. [Sidenote: Ouid.] Candida pax homines, trux ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (4 of 12) - Stephan Earle Of Bullongne • Raphael Holinshed
... disturbing enough in itself, was rendered still more disquieting by the fact that, except for the Boy Scouts, England's military strength at this time was practically nil. ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... the Continent of Europe, and especially in the Latin countries, where class barriers are more formidable, the situation differs materially, and to the disadvantage of the girl. If she makes an overture, it is an invitation to disaster; her hope of lawful marriage by such means is almost nil. In consequence, the prudent and decent girl avoids such overtures, and they must be made by third parties or by the man himself. This is the explanation of the fact that a Frenchman, say, is habitually enterprising in amour, and hence bold and often ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... not be American craft but must be British ships in disguise. General Armstrong, writing from Paris, warned the Secretary of State not to expect that the embargo would do more than keep the United States at peace with the belligerents. As a coercive measure, its effect was nil. "Here it is not felt, and in ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... the whistle blew for No-side, the house had just finished scoring its fourteenth try. Six goals and eight tries to nil was the exact total. Dencroft's returned to headquarters, asking itself in a dazed way if these things could be. They saw that cup on their mantelpiece already. Keenness redoubled. Football became the fashion in Dencroft's. The play of the ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... now advance many steps, without spying eyes to track and denounce him. Her own helplessness struck her with the terrible sense of utter disappointment. The possibility of being the slightest use to her husband had become almost NIL, and her only hope rested in being allowed to share his fate, ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... omnibus aliis formis substantialibus [sc. materialibus] dicendum est non fieri proprie ex nihilo, sed ex potentia praejacentis materiae educi: ideoque in effectione harum formarum nil fieri contra illud axioma, Ex nihilo nihil fit, si recte intelligatur. Haec assertio sumitur ex Aristotele 1. Physicorum per totum et libro 7. Metaphyss. et ex aliis auctoribus, quos statim referam. Et declaratur breviter, nam fieri ex nihilo duo dicit, unum est fieri absolute et ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... difference,' replied Vandeloup, airily; 'I turned my acquaintances into friends long ago, and then borrowed money off them; result: my social circle is nil. Friends,' went on M. Vandeloup, reflectively, 'are excellent as friends, but damnable ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... "Lord"; while in more civilized communities such sayings are current as "talk of the Devil, and he will appear," with which we may also compare such expressions as "Eumenides" or "gracious ones" for the Furies, and other like euphemisms. Indeed, the maxim nil mortuis nisi bonum had most likely at one ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... he lisped, "I have just observed in yesterday's paper that money matters are in a bad way. There has been a crisis in the city, and your investments have sunk so low that your income will be practically nil." ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... act be foregone how shall we proceed? Thou knowest well all evidence that can be obtained anent every one implicated with that 'bosom serpent, Mary,' should be gotten wil or nil." ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... aliquod levamen Cladibus, si res caderent eadem Qua mora surgunt; sed humant repentes Alta ruinae. Nil diu felix stetit; inquieta Urbium currunt hominumq; Fata: Totq; vix horis jacuere, surgunt Regna quot annis. Casibus longum dedit ille tempus, Qui diem regnis satis eruendis Dixit: elato populos habent mo- menta ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski
... January, and thus far the opportunities for skating that had come to the young people of that section of country where Scranton was located, had been almost nil; which would account for the enthusiasm of the lads when Thad announced how rapidly the thermometer was giving promise ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... one) was triumphantly captured and preserved for dissection. The men shortly afterwards returned to town, having learnt all that they wanted to learn, and inflicted more damage than they had hoped to inflict. They were bombarded on the journey home, but their casualities were nil. ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... exemplified by Avicenna and his followers when they declared that that which is true in theology may be false in philosophy, and vice versa; and by Sanchez in his famous defence of the thesis "Quod nil scitur." ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... much time. A despatch-runner from Koodoosvaal got through the enemy's lines last night with some letters and this paper. No, no word of the Relief. His verbal news was practically nil. He goes out at midnight with some cipher messages. And, if you will let me have your reply to the advertisement with the returned paper by eleven at latest, I will see that it is sent." The rather peremptory tone softened—became persuasive; "You must build up the great ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... ad nos neque pertinet hilum, Quandoquidem natura animi mortalis habetur: Et, velut ante acto nil tempore sensimus aegri, Ad confligendum venientibus undique Poenis; Omnia cum belli trepido concussa tumultu, Horrida, contremuere sub altis aetheris auris; In dubioque fuit sub utrorum regna cadendum Omnibus humanis esset, terraque, marique: Sic, ubi non erimus, cum ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... KAPPA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA}: whereas the Judaical rites were abolished, whereupon Zanchius noteth,(193) that the Apostle doth not so much speak of things by-past, as of the very nature of all rites, Definiens ergo ipsos ritus in sese, dixit eos nil aliud esse quam umbram. If all rites, then our holidays among the rest, serve only to adumbrate and shadow forth something, and by consequence are unprofitable and idle, when the substance itself is clearly set ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... landmarks. They went over a waterless desert so rough that it would have been impossible to come down without seriously damaging a plane, and if a pilot had been forced to land his chance of getting back to our country would have been almost nil. Water bottles and rations were carried in the machines, but they were not needed, for the three pilots came home together after hitting the station buildings at Maan and destroying considerable material ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... box, anything rather than a living tongue. To a later race of stylists, who have gone as far as Samoa and beyond in the quest of exotic perfumery, Borrow would have said simply, in the words of old Montaigne, "To smell, though well, is to stink,"—"Malo, quam bene olere, nil olere." Borrow, in fact, by a right instinct went back to the straightforward manner of Swift and Defoe, Smollett and Cobbett, whose vigorous prose he specially admired; and he found his choice ill appreciated by critics whose sense of style demanded that a clear glass window ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... generously charged me "nil" for dues. I had letters for France from the highest authorities to pass the Rob Roy as an article entered for the Paris "Exhibition;" and when the douane and police functionaries came in proper state at Boulogne to appraise her value, and to fill ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... of my travels—a voyage of eight miles from Bedford perhaps—travelled twenty times before—every winding of the river, every church-spire, every country pot house and the quality of its beer, well known. No surprise at all. Nil admirari—I find that old Horace is a good fellow-traveller in England: so is Virgil. It is odd that those fellows living in the land they did live in should have talked so coldly about it. As to Alfred's book, I believe it has ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... mobility was very free in the badly comminuted cases. Crepitus was often loose, and of 'the bag of bone' variety. The result of local shock and consequent flaccidity of the muscles was to reduce the development of primary shortening; in some cases of severe comminution this was practically nil during the first day or two, when, with return of tone in the muscles, it sometimes became very considerable. Swelling of the limb was often very great, and vascular injury definitely far more common than in the fractures of civil practice, in consequence, no doubt, not only ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... Senor Pomponio de Vergara y Puyarola, that his labours need not be otherwise than purely formal. To every one of the intelligent queries on the part of a paternal government it had been his custom, therefore, to append the magic word NIL. Banking system—NIL. Meat export—NIL. Cotton industry—NIL. Agriculture—NIL. Canal traffic—NIL. Teak ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... marked in proportion to the severity and duration of the febrile phenomena, being slight or (nil) in febricula, and ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... the white colony—more exactly, 78 out of 250—had not reappeared, but the conditions for its re-appearance were highly favourable. The earth was all water, the vegetation all slime, the air half steam, and the difference between wet and dry bulbs almost nil. Thoroughly dispirited for the first time, I was meditating how to escape, when H. M. Steamship "Torch" steamed into Clarence Cove, and Commander Smith hospitably offered me a passage down south. To hear was to accept. Two ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... happiness, as freely as Cicero wrote about the dysentery which punished him, when, after he had resisted oysters and lampreys at supper, he yielded to a dish of beet and mallow so dressed with pot-herbs, ut nil posset esse suavius. Whatever men could say to one another or to their surgeons they saw no harm in saying to women. We have to remember how Sir Walter Scott's great-aunt, about the very time when Diderot was writing to Mademoiselle Voland, had heard Mrs. Aphra Behn's ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... progress of Western growth in its innumerable evidences of energy, we admit the truth of what the Roman poet said— nil mortalibus ardum est— that there is nothing too difficult for man. In the narrative of his exploration to the Mississippi in 1820, along with General Cass, Mr. Schoolcraft tells us how Chicago then appeared. "We found," says he, "four or five families living here." ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... (which scarcely could have happened) she would have felt small apprehension. Learned in the perils of the woods, heavy-booted, sturdy-legged, a native, like Joe Lorey, for example, would, she felt quite certain, have been able to effect her rescue. But the chances, she decided, were practically nil, with this untrained "foreigner" as her companion. She had been told that "bluegrass folks" were lacking in strong nerves and prone to panic if real danger threatened. Barefooted as she was, there was little she, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... and Des Moines have but confirmed me in my judgment that our delegated body always should meet in Washington. For local propaganda both were undoubtedly good, but for effect in securing Congressional action, absolutely nil. I believe in resuming our old plan of holding at least two conventions every year, one for the election of officers and for its influence upon Congress in Washington every winter; the other in whatsoever State we have constitutional ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... class. At the same time, although the first blow may daze a snake, it is some time before the final effect takes place, and the creature will wriggle about for some time after having been struck, while its energy is practically nil—that is to say, it merely lives without possessing any ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... nothing to count. The directions of attention and the simplicity or complexity of mental processes depend on the character of the external situation which the mind has to manipulate. If the activities are simple, the mind is simple, and if the activities were nil, the mind would be nil. The mind is nothing but a means of manipulating the outside world. Number, time, and space conceptions and systems become more complex and accurate, not as the human mind grows in capacity, but as ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... of this nonsensical hot-gospelling rant, Alderman and Sheriff STUART KNILL was elected Lord Mayor, while BEAUFOY MOORE was, so to speak, no MOORE, and, in fact, very much against his will and wish, was reduced to NIL. WILLY-KNILLY he had to cave in. Mr. Punch congratulates the Lord Mayor Elect, but still more does he congratulate the City Fathers on rising above paltry sectarianism, so utterly unworthy of time, place, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 8, 1892 • Various
... relative delineated with all those faults by which we must own that even our near relatives have been made imperfect. It is a general conviction as to this which so frequently turns the biography of those recently dead into mere eulogy. The fictitious charity which is enjoined by the de mortuis nil nisi bonum banishes truth. The feeling of which I speak almost leads me at this moment to put down my pen. And, if so much be due to all subjects, is less due ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... boy, since gone, after repeated importunities. You will, I trust, pardon this egotism. As you had touched on the subject I thought some explanation necessary. Defence I shall not attempt, Hic murus aheneus esto, nil conscire sibi—and "so on" (as Lord Baltimore [4] said on his trial for a rape)—I have been so long at Trinity as to forget the conclusion of the line; but though I cannot finish my quotation, I will my letter, and entreat you to believe me, gratefully ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... lack-lustre eyes rested but a moment on the schooner in the bay. He had not been long enough away from the world to be other than faintly interested in the arrival, and his recollections of the night before were nil. ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... named Francois Tonsard, commends himself to the attention of philosophers by the manner in which he had solved the problem of an idle life and a busy life, so as to make the idleness profitable, and occupation nil. ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... published 1811 page 197. After showing how well the Malvaceae are adapted for cross-fertilisation, he asks, "An id aliquid in recessu habeat, quod hujuscemodi flores nunquam proprio suo pulvere, sed semper eo aliarum suae speciei impregnentur, merito quaeritur? Certe natura nil facit frustra." Herbert 'Amaryllidaceae, with a Treatise on Cross-bred Vegetables' 1837.) But none of these distinguished observers appear to have been sufficiently impressed with the truth and generality of the law, so as to insist on it ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... the horrifying stimulus of that first visit to the wretches herded like animals outside of Paris, where every man thought he was drafted for death and did not care whether he was or not; where, in short, morale, so precious an asset to any nation in time of war, was practically nil. ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... a daughter of Nil the Lame? I thought your face was familiar! Why, I had my ears pulled by him ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... the 24th of July, the Russian Government sought to prevail upon Great Britain to proclaim its complete solidarity with Russia and France, and on the British Ambassador in St. Petersburg pointing out that "direct British interests in Servia were nil, and a war on behalf of that country would never be sanctioned by British public opinion," the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs replied that "we must not forget that the general European question was involved, ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... my good cousin Craiglethorpe," pursued Lady Geraldine, "and nil the little note-book, which will soon turn to a ponderous quarto. I shall have a copy, bound in morocco, no doubt, from the author, if I behave myself prettily; and I will earn it, by supplying valuable ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... up, the damage from the artistic point of view is almost nil; it simply calls for some work by carpenters ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... in reply to a question, particularly one asked using the '-P' convention. Most hackers assume this derives simply from LISP terminology for 'false' (see also {T}), but NIL as a negative reply was well-established among radio hams decades before the advent of LISP. The historical connection between early hackerdom and the ham radio world was strong enough that this may ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... silk: Its colors, ah, how vain The task to name the splendid hues that in that vest obtain! Go, view the rainbow and recount the glories of the sight And number all the radiances that in its glow unite, And then, when they are counted, with pride be it confessed They're nil beside the splendor of the Will J. ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... hora saepe ducentos, ut magnum, versus dictabat, stans pede in uno: cum flueret lutulentus, erat quod tollere velles; garrulus atque piger scribendi ferre laborem, scribendi recte; nam ut multum, nil moror.' ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... play are noteworthy. The great Demagogue was now dead, having fallen in the same action as the rival Spartan general, the renowned Brasidas, before Amphipolis, and whatever Aristophanes says here of his old enemy is conceived in the spirit of 'de mortuis nil nisi bonum.' In one scene Hermes is descanting on the evils which had nearly ruined Athens and declares that 'The Tanner' was the cause of them all. But Trygaeus interrupts ...
— Peace • Aristophanes
... "should now become your motto: "Inveni portum. Spes et fortuna valete; Nil mihi vobiscum est: ludite ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... do it; it will be done by a clerk at twenty-five shillings a week.' And, all this time, mind you, no disposition to soften all this official peculation by civility; no misgiving that the next wave of civilization may sweep nil these go-betweens and leeches out of the path of progress; no, the deputy-vice-go-betweens all scowled, as well as swindled: they broke my heart so, often I sat down in their antechambers and the scalding tears ran down my cheeks, at being pillaged of my time as well as ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... would often refuse to go lest he should "lose his parish," or it might be that the parish where he was asked to go was considered a "bad" parish compared with his own. Each parish {164} was thus considered as a sort of freehold, with a family cupboard bound to provide for nil ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... Dot's anger had wholly left her, but her fear remained. A terrible sense of responsibility was upon her, and she was utterly at a loss as to how to cope with it. Her influence over this man she believed to be absolutely nil. She had not the faintest notion how to deal with him. Lady Carfax would have known, she reflected, and she wished with all her heart that Lady Carfax ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... see why we should trouble ourselves about his 'worst.' He had his weaker side like all of us, the foolish part of his nature as well as the wise; but 'de mortuis nil nisi bonum' especially applies in such cases.—I remain, ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... double l, is treated as one letter in Spanish, and it has its own peculiar sound, nearly equivalent to ly in English; and therefore Miss Blanche's small hand would be called mah-nil-ya, which is not the capital spoken off. The name of all the islands is spelled in English with double p,—Philippine; but that is not Spanish, though the geographers have generally adopted that orthography. The Spanish name is Las ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... little above its confluence with the Euphrates. Chaldaean cities appear likewise to have existed at Hymar, ten miles from Babylon towards the east; at Sherifeh and Im Khithr, south and south-east of Hymar; at Zibbliyeh, on the line of the Nil canal, fifteen miles north-west of Niffer; at Delayhim and Bisrniya, in the Affej marshes, beyond Niffer, to the south-east; at Phara and Jidr, in the same region, to the south-west and south-east of Bismiya; ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... Sudan Type: military; civilian government suspended and martial law imposed after 30 June 1989 coup Capital: Khartoum Administrative divisions: 9 states (wilayat, singular - wilayat or wilayah*); A'ali an Nil, Al Wusta*, Al Istiwa'iyah*, Al Khartum, Ash Shamaliyah*, Ash Sharqiyah*, Bahr al Ghazal, Darfur, Kurdufan Independence: 1 January 1956 (from Egypt and UK; formerly Anglo-Egyptian Sudan) Constitution: 12 April 1973, suspended following coup of ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... nil (Convolvulaceae).—Seedlings of this plant were observed because it is a twiner, the upper internodes of which circumnutate conspicuously; but like other twining plants, the first few internodes which rise ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... Here we no sooner arrived than a host of Wakungu, lately returned from the Unyoro war, came to pay their respects to the king: they had returned six days or more, but etiquette had forbidden their approaching majesty sooner. Their successes had been great, their losses, nil, for not one man had lost his life fighting. To these men the king narrated all the adventures of the day; dwelling more particularly on my defending his wife's life, whom he had destined for execution. ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... un volcan souterrain, Grece qu'on connait trop, Sardaigne qu'on ignore, Cites de l'Aquilon, du Couchant, de l'Aurore, Pyramides du Nil, Cathedrales du Rhin! Qui ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... field, Reared on some stick, the tender corn to shield. Or if that semblance suit not every dale, Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel Despised nature suit them once aright, Their body to their coat, both now misdight. Their body to their clothes might shapen be, That nil their clothes shape to their body. Meanwhile I wonder at so proud a back, Whilst, the empty guts loud rumbling for long lack, The belly envieth the back's bright glee, And murmurs at such inequality. The back ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... curiosity-seeker. It is a little round hut of bark in a dark corner of the Egyptian enclosure. Mahomet Ali sits at the receipt of custom exchanging pleasantries with dusky flower girls whose home is by the orange market beyond the Kase el Nil, who know more French than English, and more deviltry than either; who sing "Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay," and know how to solicit backsheesh to perfection. The theatricals here are simplicity brought to perfection. It is said their language consists of only a hundred words. If you were to paint ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... rush down on every side to the water, in which stunted willow trees with myriad roots—like mangroves—find an amphibious existence. We passed through their groves, hooting as though we were leaving Liverpool, and out into the eau-de-nil ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... boy, since gone, after repeated importunities. You will, I trust, pardon this egotism. As you had touched on the subject I thought some explanation necessary. Defence I shall not attempt, 'Hic murus aheneus esto, nil conscire sibi'—and 'so on' (as Lord Baltimore said on his trial for a rape)—I have been so long at Trinity as to forget the conclusion of the line; but though I cannot finish my quotation, I will my letter, and entreat you to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... "Nil habuit Codrus. Quis enim hoc negat? et tamen illud Perdidit infelix totum nihil."—Juvenal, I. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... the draft executives report that the amount of willful delinquency or desertion has been almost nil. Several describe the strenuous efforts of the Negroes to comply with the regulations, when the requirements were explained to them, many registrants travelling long distances to report in person to the adjutant general of the state. 'The conviction resulting from ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... "De Mortuir Nil Nisi Bene!" exclaimed Thugut. "We are under many obligations to these excellent traitors, for they have enabled us to render the Hungarians submissive, just as the traitors who conspired here at Vienna two years ago enabled us to do the same thing to the population of ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... serves is the one that increases human efficiency, not the one that retards it. An education for honors, ease, medals, degrees, titles, position—immunity—may tend to exalt the individual ego, but it weakens the race, and its gain on the whole is nil. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... course of this volume, to speak of the departed; for the misgovernment of the Royal Society has not been wholly the result of even the present race. It is said, and I think with justice, in the life of Young, inserted amongst Dr. Johnson's, that the famous maxim, "DE MORTUIS NIL NISI BONUM," "appears to savour more of female weakness than of manly reason." The foibles and the follies of those who are gone, may, without injury to society, repose in oblivion. But, whoever would claim the admiration of mankind for their good actions, must prove his impartiality by ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... I know not; but the famous "De mortuis nil nisi bonum" always appeared to me to savour more of female weakness than of manly reason. He that has too much feeling to speak ill of the dead, who, if they cannot defend themselves, are, at least, ignorant of his abuse, will not hesitate, by the most wanton calumny, to destroy ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... This first marshalling of the atoms, on which all subsequent action depends, baffles a keener power than that of the microscope. When duly pondered, the complexity of the problem raises the doubt, not of the power of our instrument, for that is nil, but whether we ourselves possess the intellectual elements which will ever enable us to grapple with the ultimate structural energies of nature. [Footnote: 'In using the expression "one sort of living substance" ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... others spoke, and still those women listened. They were more intelligent than our audience of yesterday; and though they did not follow nearly all, they listened splendidly to the story-part of our message. In the meaning, as is often the case, their interest was simply nil. ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... sheer beauty; I want it for the tremendous panorama the sight of it unfolds in my mind. I imagine what happened from the hour the stone was mined to the hour it came into my possession. To me—to all genuine collectors—the intrinsic value is nil. Can't you see? It is for me what Balzac's La Peau de Chagrin would be to you if you had fallen on it for the first ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... natu maximus hres Corpore, progressus cm pubertatis ad annos Esset, res gessit multas iuueniliter audax, Asciscens comites quo spar sibi iunxerat tas, Nil tamen iniust commisit, nil tamen vnquam Extra virtutis normam, sapientibus ...
— Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9) - Henrie IV • Raphael Holinshed
... Lunch.—Nil, or perhaps I should say that I eat an apple or orange before each meal or a bit of turnip or ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... ducatos octo pro tribus tabulis ex nuce cornisate (?) ad continenda nomina librorum e per le cornise de tre banchi vechi ex nuce die supradicta; nil omnino restat habere ut ipse sua manu affirmat, computatis in his illis LX bononenis qui ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... non habent, nisi ab alijs nationibus mittatur, vel donetur eisdem. In hyeme, nisi diuites sint, lac iumentinum non habent. Millium cum aqua decoquunt, quod tam tenue faciunt, qud non comedere sed bibere possunt. Et vnus quisque ex eis bibit cyphum vnum vel duos in mane, et nil plus in die manducant. In sero vnicuique parum de carnibus datur, et brodium de carnibus bibunt. In state autem, quia tunc habent satis de lacte iumentino carnes rar manducant, nisi fort donentur eis, aut venatione aliquam bestiam ceperint, siue ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... the "Safeties" still improve, And their riders develope more skill; And it's oh! for the records of yesterday! To-morrow they'll all be nil! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... prophesied that "ef the washin' and ironin' warn't done reg'lar, nothin' would go well anywheres". This hitch in the mainspring of the domestic machinery had a bad effect upon the whole concern, but Amy's motto was 'Nil desperandum', and having made up her mind what to do, she proceeded to do it in spite of all obstacles. To begin with, Hannah's cooking didn't turn out well. The chicken was tough, the tongue too salty, and the chocolate wouldn't froth properly. Then the cake and ice cost more than Amy expected, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... saved themselves from enthusiasm; for, in opposition to Goethe, it was maintained that history would no longer kindle enthusiasm. No, in their desire to acquire an historical grasp of everything, stultification became the sole aim of these philosophical admirers of "nil admirari." While professing to hate every form of fanaticism and intolerance, what they really hated, at bottom, was the dominating genius and the tyranny of the real claims of culture. They therefore concentrated and utilised ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... preparations for leaving this fatal camp. The rain continued to fall heavily throughout the day, which could not under the circumstances, have increased the cheerfulness of the party. The Leader, however, closes the entry in his Diary with "Nil Desperandum" merely marking the day of the week ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... Egypt" was a silver-paved road, leading to adventure. The masts of native boats lying along the river bank were etched in black lines crowding one over another, on the lightly washed-in background of blue. Near by, the great Kasr-el-Nil bridge gleamed with colour and life like a rainbow "come alive"; and the Enchantress Isis looked as gay and inviting as a houseboat en fete for Henley regatta. She was smaller than the most modern of the Nile boats, for she had been ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... "the fact of the matter is, Mr. Rattar, that, as you yourself said, the direct evidence is practically nil, and one is forced to go a good deal by one's judgment of the people ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... was much of the bizarre about every thing I saw—but then the world is made up of all kinds of persons, with all modes of thought, and all sorts of conventional customs. I had travelled, too, so much, as to be quite an adept at the nil admirari; so I took my seat very coolly at the right hand of my host, and, having an excellent appetite, did justice to the good ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... papers, and the signing and counter-signing I had to go through before I could see that set of papers, and the extent of circumlocution and idiocy I had to encounter in a general way before I could complete my investigation. The result was nil; and after working like a galley-slave I found myself no better off than before I began my search. Your extracts from Matthew's letters put me on a new track. I concluded therefrom that there had been a marriage, and that the said marriage had been a deliberate act on the part of the ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... glasses and the "stationary waiter" looked through them. Finally, it will be remembered the "stationary waiter" left the room, casting a glance which indicated "let it be understood that all emoluments are mine, and that Nil is the reward of this slave." Still, Dickens wrote the book as a detective story; he wrote it as The Mystery of Edwin Drood. And alone, perhaps, among detective-story writers, he never lived to destroy his mystery. Here alone then among the Dickens novels it is necessary to speak ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... possibly be established by the police. The incident is regrettable, but the emergency was dealt with—in time. It represents a serious deficit, unfortunately, and your own usefulness, for the moment, becomes nil; but we shall have to look after you, I suppose, and hope for ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... winds, why call you hence away? Why make you breach betwixt my soul and me? Ye traitorous floods, why nil your floats delay Until my latest moans discoursed be? For though ye salt sea-gods withhold the rain Of all your floats and gentle winds be still, While I have wept such tears as might restrain The rage of tides and ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... economy, looked at the position of the Russian peasant simply from the point of view of capital, wages, and rent. He would indeed have been obliged to admit that in the eastern—much the larger—part of Russia rent was as yet nil, that for nine-tenths of the eighty millions of the Russian peasants wages took the form simply of food provided for themselves, and that capital does not so far exist except in the form of the most primitive tools. Yet it was only from that point of view that he considered every ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... fertur data forma triformis, Nam pars prima leo, pars ultima cauda draconis, Et mediae partes nil sunt ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... casuists, grave philosophers, who have written, not letters only, but whole tomes and voluminous treatises about nothing? Why should a fellow like me, who all his life does nothing, be ashamed to write nothing, and that, too, to one who has nothing to do but read it?" And so, with "ex nihilo nil fit," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... doubtless prompt you to tell me that no clergyman could be safe in his parish if he were to allow the opinion of chance parishioners to prevail against him; and you would probably lay down for my guidance that grand old doctrine "Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa." Presuming that you may do so, I will acknowledge such guidance to be good. If my mind were clear in this matter, I would not budge an inch for any farmer,—no, nor for any bishop, further than he might by law compel me! But my mind is not clear. ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... Ferdinand de Lesseps, when en route to Paris, kindly took charge of some cases of specimens for analysis. But the poorest stuff had been supplied to him by M. Marie; and the results, of which I never heard, were probably nil. The samples brought to England, by order of his Highness the Khediv, were carefully assayed. The largest collection was submitted to Dr. John Percy, F.R.S. Smaller items were sent to the well-known houses, Messrs. Johnston and Matthey, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... et carectarum nil quia per firmarium. Item pro eorum duspot (xij'd) nil, causa predicta. Item pro eorum forlot (iiij'd) nil, causa ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 20, March 16, 1850 • Various
... did not think at nil. I suppose you would have left me in ignorance forever, if I had not heard ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... writings. Such phenomena—the occasional occurrence of which I do not altogether deny, although I regard them as on the whole improbable as far as the sphere of my research is concerned—are not infrequently met with in history, but their effect upon civilisation was nil; they were presentiments, incomprehensible in their day, and for this very reason probably ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... under one year of age perish in the United States, according to estimates based on census figures. Outside of accidental deaths, which are but a small per cent., the mortality should be practically nil. It is natural for children to be well, and healthy children do not die. If an army of about 280,000 of our men and women were to perish in a spectacular manner each year it would cause such sorrow and indignation that a remedy would soon be found. But we are so accustomed ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... insontes Debita sceleri noxia poena, 30 At peruersi resident celso Mores solio sanctaque calcant Iniusta uice colla nocentes. Latet obscuris condita uirtus Clara tenebris iustusque tulit 35 Crimen iniqui. Nil periuria, nil nocet ipsis Fraus mendaci compta colore. Sed cum libuit uiribus uti, Quos innumeri metuunt populi 40 Summos gaudent subdere reges. O iam miseras respice terras Quisquis rerum foedera nectis. Operis tanti pars non ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... was heavy and sickening with the fumes of chloroform. They fairly sent my head a-reeling, but their effect upon the burglar seemed to have been nil. ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... first Montenegrin block-house, we were reminded of a ride which we once took to it, while our knowledge of the border dangers was nil. On that occasion we had cantered, innocently, straight towards it, and were amused to see its little garrison promptly turn out. A man came running towards us motioning us to halt. This unmistakable ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... by Day and Night, The Doctrine of the Stagirite, Proving it fixed beyond Dispute, In Ways that none could well refute; For if by Chance 'twas urged that Men O'er-stepped the Limit now and then, He'd show unanswerably still Either that all they did was "Nil," Or else 'twas marked by Indication Of grievous mental Degradation: Nay—he could even trace, they say, That ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... appreciably from a plane: something like the rippled surface of a lake. Such a universe might fittingly be called a quasi-Euclidean universe. As regards its space it would be infinite. But calculation shows that in a quasi-Euclidean universe the average density of matter would necessarily be nil. Thus such a universe could not be inhabited by matter everywhere ; it would present to us that unsatisfactory picture which we ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein
... the chances of Bristol's seeking me there; and, eager as I was to give them substance, found them but airy—ultimately was forced to admit them to be nil. ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... for his personal appearance, nor even for his writings, though they were excellent, but for his culture. A curious, clandestine little man with a warm heart despite the exterior. Owen had seen Harding's eyes nil with tears and his voice tremble when he recited a beautiful passage of English poetry; a passionate nature, too, for Harding would fight fiercely for his ideas, and his life had been lived in accordance with his beliefs. As the years advanced ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... what you once were, And I the same man still, You'd be the gainer by it, For you—you can't deny it— A most uncommon dunce were; My profit would be nil, If you were what you once were, And I the ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... he said, "that between me and the Unconditioned, the Absolute, scarcely a hair's breadth intervenes. To gasify metals, I only need to find the means of submitting them to intense heat in some centre where the pressure of the atmosphere is nil,—in short, in a vacuum." ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... A juicy pear or ladies' punch, hot, strong and sweet. Keep out the damp. You must laugh sometimes so better do it that way. Gravediggers in Hamlet. Shows the profound knowledge of the human heart. Daren't joke about the dead for two years at least. De mortuis nil nisi prius. Go out of mourning first. Hard to imagine his funeral. Seems a sort of a joke. Read your own obituary notice they say you live longer. Gives you second wind. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... elsewhere, but none, as he finally decided, likely to be useful to him at the present moment. For the amount of money that he required was large—larger, indeed, than he cared to verify with any strictness, and the security that he could offer, almost nil. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sentiment in special favour with the bearer of it. As a matter of course, allusive mottoes, like allusive arms, afford curious examples of medival puns. Igive a few characteristic examples:—"Vero nil verius" (nothing truer than truth, or, no greater verity than in Vere)—VERE; "Fare, fac" (Speak—act; that is, a word and blow)—FAIRFAX; "Cave" (beware)—CAVE; "Cavendo tutus" (safe, by ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell
... dangerous by the Scylla of Conventionality, and the Charybdis of License. The labour his writing cost him was enormous. "I shall never again make so great a sacrifice for the younger generation," he says in a letter, "I am amazed to note how insignificant, how almost nil is the effect produced, in comparison to the cost, in vitality to me. Or perhaps it is I who am in error. Perhaps one must have reached middle age, or the Indian Summer of life, must have seen much, heard much, felt and produced much and been much in solitude to receive in reading what I ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... see an intoxicated spook. Roger wouldn't believe me when I told him about it afterwards. He said I was drunk myself and that he heard me tumbling up the stairs to bed. Which is a lie. I did see it, and it was drunk. I heard it hiccough! I wouldn't say it was drunk if it wasn't. De mortuis nil nisi bonum, Quinny, and it would be a very dirty trick to slander a poor bogey that can't defend itself. It looked very like its descendant, Lord Middleweight, and it had the same soppy grin that he has when he thinks he's said something clever. ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... Bright's Travels through Lower Hungary or on Bright's Spanish authority, whatever that may have been. His knowledge of the strange history of the Gypsies was very elementary, of their manners almost more so, and of their folk-lore practically nil. And yet I would put George Borrow above every other writer on the Gypsies. In Lavengro and, to a less degree, in its sequel, The Romany Rye, he communicates a subtle insight into Gypsydom that is totally wanting in the works—mainly philological—of Pott, ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... fit—Imagination. It is the great defect, I think, of some of our best modern writers. They are marvellously FIT and terribly little NASCITUR. It is why I can never concede the highest palm in her craft to G. Eliot. Her writing is glorious—Imagination limited—Dramatism—nil! ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... Thus this name Gihon (Gaihun, Jikhun, G[e][o]n, &c.) that appears in North Armenia, again appears in connection with the Nile; while again the name "Nile" has wandered back to the confines of Persia, and one of the Euphrates branches is still called "Shatt-en-nil." The ancients, indeed, had very curious ideas about the Nile. Its real sources being so long undiscovered—no Speke or Grant having appeared—imagination ran wild on the subject. Not only so, but it is remarkable that the name Cush should have acquired both ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... Pyrrhic victory, Parthian dart, and Homeric laughter; quos deus vult and nil de mortuis; Sturm und Drang; masterly inactivity, unctuous rectitude, mute inglorious Miltons, and damned good-natured friends; the sword of Damocles, the thin edge of the wedge, the long arm of coincidence, and the soul of goodness in things evil; Hobson's choice, Frankenstein's ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... daughters, of whom one was the boy's invalid mother. The old lady, owing to her great age, was also virtually an invalid; so that both she and her daughter scarcely ever left their room, and hence their influence upon young Ernst's education and training was practically nil. His uncle, however, after an abortive attempt to follow the law, had settled down to a quiet vegetative sort of existence, which he regulated strictly according to fixed rules and methodical procedure; and these he imposed more ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... been laughed at for making so much of such a common thing as a wheel. Idiots! Solomon's court fool would have scoffed at the thought of the young Galilean who dared compare the lilies of the field to his august master. Nil admirari is very well for a North American Indian and his degenerate successor, who has grown too grand to admire anything but himself, and takes a cynical pride in his stolid indifference to ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... "Nil autem minus in imperfecto duce, quam festinationem temeritatemque, convenire arbitrabatur. Crebro itaque illa ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 190, June 18, 1853 • Various
... nil nisi bonum" is a principle of conduct dating back to Him who of old declared burial of the dead a corporal work of mercy. It is the mark, neither of the Christian individual nor nation, to disrespect a body nor desecrate ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... throughout Europe and in America. I think it better to correct the text by this notice than by a silent suppression, that it may remain a memorable instance of the danger incurred by the historian from forged documents; and a proof that multiplied authorities add no strength to evidence, when nil are to be traced ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli |
