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Impoverish   Listen
verb
Impoverish  v. t.  (past & past part. impoverished; pres. part. impoverishing)  
1.
To make poor; to reduce to poverty or indigence; as, misfortune and disease impoverish families.
2.
To exhaust the strength, richness, or fertility of; to make sterile; as, to impoverish land.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Impoverish" Quotes from Famous Books



... Soon she will come to count our sheep, our cattle, To portion out the Alps, e'en to their peaks, And in our own free woods to hinder us From striking down the eagle or the stag; To set her tolls on every bridge and gate, Impoverish us, to swell her lust of sway, And drain our dearest blood to feed her wars. No, if our blood must flow, let it be shed In our own cause! We purchase liberty More cheaply far ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... to state as a fact, that when my father for the second time refused his baronetcy, I, as eldest son, gave the casting vote against myself, not to impoverish my four younger brothers,—all now gone before me to the better world,—and that, for reasons mentioned above, I certainly could not take it now. Let this suffice as my reply to some ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... a king hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which in plain terms, is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears. A pretty business indeed for a man to be allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a year for, and worshipped into the bargain! Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine

... diseases. The rapid wealth which hundreds in the community acquire in trade, or by the incessant expansion of our population and arts, enchants the eyes of all the rest; this luck of one is the hope of thousands, and the bribe acts like the neighborhood of a gold mine to impoverish the farm, the school, the church, the house, and the very body and feature of man."—"While the multitude of men degrade each other, and give currency to desponding doctrines, the scholar must be a bringer of hope, and ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... greatest beauty, with its comradeship in many fields—these will lift woman by the very soaring quality of her innermost self to spiritual heights that few have attained. Then the coming of eagerly desired children will but enrich life in all its avenues, rather than enslave and impoverish it as do ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger

... inefficiency and danger. But the general public are not free from a modicum of this shame, and have to thank themselves if they are maimed and killed, because they descend on railways for compensation with a ruthless hand; (shame to Government here, for allowing it!) and still further, impoverish their already over-taxed coffers. Compensation for injury is just, but compensation as it is, and has been claimed and awarded, is ridiculously unfair, as well as ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... abuse. Such Popes as Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII had broken up the States of the Church that they might endow their children and their nephews. The nepotism of such as these never had any result but to impoverish the Holy See; whilst, on the other hand, the nepotism of Alexander—this Pope who is held up to obloquy as the archetype of the nepotist—had a tendency rather to enrich it. It was not to the States ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... world outside would decidedly gain. If Rome would but consider herself under a sort of moral responsibility to impart as well as receive, and would liberally dispose of so many of her master-pieces as would not at all impoverish her, buying in return such as could be spared her from abroad, and would thus enrich her collections by diversifying them, she would render the cause of Art a signal service and earn the gratitude of mankind, without the least prejudice to her own permanent well-being. ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... the Stewards, the Usurers, the Lawyers, and the Merchants, and the richest of the whole was to obtain it, because the more you have the more you shall crave, is the epidemic curse of the street. The Stewards were rejected at the first offer, lest they should impoverish the whole street, and, as they had raised their palaces on the ruins of their masters, lest they should in the end turn the princess out of her possession; then the dispute arose between the three others; ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... bituminous coal industry is an illustration. The people have a vital interest in the conservation of their natural resources; in the prevention of wasteful practices; in conditions of destructive competition which may impoverish the producer and the wage earner; and they have an equal interest in maintaining adequate competition. I therefore suggest that an inquiry be directed especially to the effect of the workings of the antitrust laws in these particular fields to determine ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Herbert Hoover • Herbert Hoover

... used that expression, sir, but I am speaking merely in a technical sense. I mean to say, that, whether by mistake or otherwise, you are exercising a power which you don't lawfully possess, and that the effect of that is to impoverish the estate, and, by so much as it benefits you, to ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... sources of ruin to the Scottish church, both connected with its relation to a powerful aristocracy. One was the extraordinary extent to which its high offices were used as sinecures for the favourites, and the sons of favourites, of nobles and of kings. This did not tend to impoverish the church; on the contrary, it made it an object to all the great families to keep up the wealth on which they proposed that their unworthy scions should feed. 'In proportion to the resources of the country the Scottish clergy were probably the richest in Europe.'[8] But the wealth, ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes

... treasure; but he denied it altogether, would not admit it, and offered to clear himself by ordeal. King Harald would not have this, but laid on the bishop a money fine of fifteen marks of gold, which he should pay to the king. The bishop declared he would not thus impoverish his bishop's see, but would rather offer his life. On this they hanged the bishop out on the holm, beside the sling machine. As he was going to the gallows he threw the sock from his foot, and said with an oath, "I know no more about King Magnus's treasure ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... which at present he thought fit to keep private. The innocent Creature, who never suspected his Intentions, was pleased with his Person; and having observed his growing Passion for her, hoped by so advantageous a Match she might quickly be in a capacity of supporting her impoverish'd Relations. One day as he called to see her, he found her in Tears over a Letter she had just receiv'd from her Friend, which gave an Account that her Father had lately been stripped of every thing by an Execution. The Lover, who with some Difficulty found out the Cause of her Grief, took ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... sakes, as he hath-done." Stafford expressed much compassion for the French in the plight in which they found themselves. "Unhappy people!" he cried, "to have such a King, who seeketh nothing but to impoverish them to enrich a couple, and who careth not what cometh after his death, so that he may rove on while he liveth, and careth neither for doing his own estate good nor his neighbour's state harm." Sir Edward added, however, in a philosophizing vein, worthy of Corporal Nym, that, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... us; I refer to slavery. I'm not defending slavery, I'm glad it's done, but we had lived under a government that guaranteed to protect our rights and property. No matter if slavery was wrong—was it right for one-half of the people of a country to insist the other half impoverish themselves—give up ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... dislocated by the Continental System and hand-labour was being largely replaced by the new power-looms and improved spinning machinery, the outlook would have been hopeless, had not our great enemy allowed us to import continental corn. This device, which he imagined would impoverish us to enrich his own States, was the greatest aid that he could have rendered to our hard-pressed social system; and readers of Charlotte Bronte's realistic sketches of the Luddite rioting in Yorkshire may imagine what would ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... of his office. When foreign ambassadors or princes came to Brussels it was made incumbent on the nobles to maintain the honor of their king, who himself always dined alone, and never kept open table. Spanish policy had devised a still more ingenious contrivance gradually to impoverish the richest families of the land. Every year one of the Castilian nobles made his appearance in Brussels, where he displayed a lavish magnificence. In Brussels it was accounted an indelible disgrace to be distanced by a ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... and all your People neglected their Employments; we, with such Trumpery as these, have drawn away the Wealth of your Indian Mines; we sell our Ware in your Country, and carry your Money back to our own; By which Means we inrich our own Country, and impoverish yours: Of all the Treasures that come into Spain, you enjoy only the Name; for while you are busy in Chimera's, our Industry drains all the Treasure from you; and take this with you, that all Projects must end like the Searches for the Philosopher's ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe

... carbon, that extractive matter, which, according to the experiments of Saussure, Davy, and Braconnot, gives fertility to the soil. The social plants which almost exclusively predominate in the steppes, are monocotyledons; and it is known how much grasses impoverish the soil into which their fibrous roots penetrate. This action of the killingias, paspalums and cenchri, which form the turf, is everywhere the same; but where the rock is ready to pierce the earth this varies according as it rests on red sandstone, or on compact limestone ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... because the blood of my subjects is too precious to me, and because it is my first duty to shed it only for their honor and security. The population of Berlin is only a victim of the war, while the instigators of the hostilities between France and Prussia have escaped. But I will humiliate and impoverish the court-aristocracy, who dared to oppose me, and make them beg their ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... tendeth to impoverish and beggar a man. The Drunkard, says Solomon, shall come to poverty. {49b} Many that have begun the world with Plenty, have gone out of it in Rags; through drunkenness. Yea, many Children that have been born to good Estates, have ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan

... mother is the most precious type of common individual a community can have, and to let a woman on the one hand earn a living as we do, by sewing tennis-balls or making cardboard boxes or calico, and on the other, not simply not to pay her, but to impoverish her because she bears and makes sacrifices to rear children, is the most irrational aspect of all the evolved and chancy ideas and institutions that make up the modern State. It is as if we believed our civilization existed ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... coffee-house, roused me from my lethargy, I believe I should have seen myself reduced to my last farthing without the least emotion. Father Castel was a madman, but a good man upon the whole; he was sorry to see me thus impoverish myself to no purpose. "Since musicians and the learned," said he, "do not sing by your scale, change the string, and apply to the women. You will perhaps succeed better with them. I have spoken of you to Madam de Beuzenval; go to her from me; she is ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... found that Gilfoyle's first intention was to impoverish the rich, elimousinate their wives, and put an end to luxury. It astonished her how furious he got when he read of a ball given by people of wealth, though a Bohemian dance at Webster Hall pleased him very much, even though some of the costumes made ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... was added the wanton profusion of the Court in other expenses, and the external parade and brilliancy, which, if they impoverish, often dazzle and gratify the people, was exchanged for familiar entertainments, which gave rise to frequent jealousies among the nobles, and tended to lower that sense of awe and respect for royalty among ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz

... of their masters to burn and to pillage, to lay waste and to destroy; they did not slaughter, by their schemes, over a million of free men and another million of slaves; they did not make widows and orphans without numbers; they did not impoverish the land, and lay upon their subjects burdens which would crush them into very dust. Nothing of all this. That is not the way in which the Church abolished slavery. The Popes sent bishops and priests into those countries where slavery existed, to enlighten the minds of the masters, and convince ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... moth. Clinging to my finger, the living creature was of such delicate beauty as to impoverish my stock of adjectives at the beginning. Its big, pursy body was covered with long, furry scales of the purest white imaginable. The wings were of an exquisite light green colour; the front pair having a heavy costa of light purple that reached across the back of the head: the ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter

... costly monuments erected at the same periods to the kings or nobles of other European states. In later times, on the other hand, as the piety of the Venetians diminished, their pride overleaped all limits, and the tombs which in recent epochs, were erected for men who had lived only to impoverish or disgrace the state, were as much more magnificent than those contemporaneously erected for the nobles of Europe, as the monuments for the great Doges had been humbler. When, in addition to this, we reflect that the art of ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... now quite know what to do. He certainly did not wish to impoverish the Church by marrying Miss Mackenzie without any fortune. But might it not all be a trick? That she had been rich he knew, and how could she have become poor ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... During this time the corpse is kept in the house, enclosed in a coffin made of the hollowed trunk of a Durion, and the whole space between the coffin and the body is filled with pounded camphor, for the purchase of which the family of the deceased Rajah frequently impoverish themselves. The camphor oil is collected by incisions at the base of the trunk, from which the clear balsamic juice is ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... life," said Sampson sorrowfully; "but life is not the only good thing a man may be robbed of by those who steal his life-blood, and so impoverish and water the contints of the vessels of ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... seem like a spiritual force? Lodestone can impart its qualities to hard steel without the impairment of its own power. There is a giving that does not impoverish, and a withholding that does ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren

... this deplorable condition is, as I have noticed (and as Judge Methuen has, too), that the human eye is diminishing in size and fulness, and is losing its lustre. By as much as you take the God-given grace of fancy from man, by so much do you impoverish his eyes. The eye is so beautiful and serves so very many noble purposes, and is, too, so ready in the expression of tenderness, of pity, of love, of solicitude, of compassion, of dignity, of every gentle mood and noble inspiration, that in that metaphor ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... Also they were borrowing money from Marija, and eating up her bank account, and spoiling once again her hopes of marriage and happiness. And they were even going into debt to Tamoszius Kuszleika and letting him impoverish himself. Poor Tamoszius was a man without any relatives, and with a wonderful talent besides, and he ought to have made money and prospered; but he had fallen in love, and so given hostages to fortune, and was doomed to ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... insufficient for my support. If Congress does not increase the pay of officers serving here, I should still be willing to return, in the expectation that my private interests would justify a measure which would otherwise be certain to impoverish me. ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... centers empires fix? 'Tis toil world-wasted to toil in mines. Were all the isles gold globes, set in a quicksilver sea, all Mardi were then a desert. Gold is the only poverty; of all glittering ills the direst. And that man might not impoverish himself thereby, Oro hath hidden it, with all other banes,—saltpeter and explosives, deep in mountain bowels, and river- beds. But man still will mine for it; and mining, dig his doom.— Yoomy, Yoomy!—she we seek, lurks not in the ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... number to throw themselves into the hands of Chance in one way or another, & which, under the direction of a wise Legislature, may be made to subserve their best interests. The monies raised by lotteries cannot impoverish the community—as they are not sent abroad, but only taken out of one pocket and ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 1: Curiosities of the Old Lottery • Henry M. Brooks

... the miserable Condition of Ireland, and to manifest your sincere desire to assist with some Care and Judgment in the Cure; but you cou'd as well remove Mountains by your Faith, as the Ills we groaned under, by so adequate a Remedy, as your impoverish'd ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous

... was done for the sake of the slave, to secure his liberty or to establish his rights; but they believed most devoutly that it was done solely and purposely to injure the master, to punish the rebel, and to still further cripple and impoverish the South. It was, to them, an unwarrantable measure of unrighteous retribution inspired by the lowest and ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... by any tie upon the invisible world, or at least upon the supernatural world, had decayed, and unless this painful void were filled up by some supplementary bond in the same direction, a condition of practical atheism must take place, such as could not but starve and impoverish in human nature those yearnings after the infinite which are the pledges of all internal grandeur. But this dependency could not be replaced by one of the same vicious nature. Into any new dependency a new element must be introduced. The sense of insufficiency would be renewed in triple strength ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... other scale. It is impossible to tell whether, in making this proposal, Ieyasu had already conceived the extraordinary scheme which he ultimately carried out. It would appear more probable, however, that his original policy was merely to impoverish the Toyotomi family by imposing upon it the heavy outlay necessary for constructing a huge bronze Buddha. Many thousands of ryo had to be spent, and the money was obtained by converting into coin a number of gold ingots in the form of horses, which ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... measure of advantage that the deliverers would gain from these things if not destroyed, but it is an awful war doctrine that refuses to discriminate between the immediate and the eventual, the direct and the indirect, the important and the negligible advantage that would impoverish posterity to get a dime in cash. No military advantage is sufficient motive for such wanton ravishment. It ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... who has once been under the hands of a quack is for ever after prone to dabble in drugs, and poison himself with infallible prescriptions, so the client of the pettifogger is ever after prone to embroil himself with his neighbors, and impoverish himself with successful lawsuits. My readers will excuse this digression into which I have been unwarily betrayed; but I could not avoid giving a cool and unprejudiced account of an abomination too prevalent in this excellent city, and with ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... State and national taxation. So far from being "necessary and proper" that the bank should possess this power to make it a safe and efficient agent of the Government in its fiscal operations, it is calculated to convert the Bank of the United States into a foreign bank, to impoverish our people in time of peace, to disseminate a foreign influence through every section of the Republic, and in war to endanger ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson

... allowed erosion, that great enemy of agriculture, to impoverish and, over thousands of square miles, to destroy our farms. The Mississippi alone carries yearly to the sea more than 400,000,000 tons of the richest soil within its drainage basin. If this soil is worth a dollar ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot

... his brethren in their calamities; but contrary to nature, to law, to religion, reason, and honesty, he fell in with the heathen, and took the advantage of their tyranny, to pole, to peel,5 to rob and impoverish ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... could still find some with well-worn shoes. But the need not being urgent, she hates to impoverish the old man who hath lost so much. For it seems he made some heavy bets upon Lord Cornwallis reducing the southern Colonies and entering Philadelphia in triumph. And even now he is sure the King will never ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... upper row of soldiers, machine-made men. See the trumpets, I can almost hear their blast, and see the dust and life-blood of degrading, cruel wars, which impoverish and grind into filth the entire afflicted human race, though there are very excellent people of wealth, were there to wisely co-operate. There is some promise in this reading. If rich men could become active benefactors—see the little banners—wars would at once end, and the Christ ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara

... He doometh barely to win their daily bread. Some He maketh Lords and Captains, and others Recluses, who abstain from the world and aspire but to Him, for He it is who saith, 'I am the Harmer with adversity and the Healer with prosperity. I make whole and make sick. I enrich and impoverish. I kill and quicken; in my hand is everything and unto Me all things do tend.' Wherefore it behoveth all men to praise Him. Now, especially thou, O King, art of the fortunate, the pious, of whom it is said, 'The happiest of the just is he for whom Allah uniteth the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... was a bishop of more than local celebrity. Like Langton, the archbishop, he withstood the demands which the papacy and Henry III. made in their endeavours to impoverish the Church in England. For this opposition the king removed him temporarily from the post of Chancellor of the Realm, a position he held from 1226 to 1240. His "fame rests more upon his repute as a statesman faithful ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette

... from Albert's lived a man of the highest caste, my friend Agelan. He was planning to kill one hundred tusked pigs in the near future, which would raise him to the highest caste far and wide, but would also impoverish him for the rest of his life. He lived quietly and comfortably, like a country squire, surrounded by his relatives and descendants. He seemed fond of good living, and his wife was an excellent housekeeper. In the midst of a somewhat ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... effect upon her, that from that time forward, he had no occasion to exhort her to the performance of works of mercy; both husband and wife gave themselves up to them with emulation, and devoted themselves to them until their deaths. The husband's charity shows us that almsgiving does not impoverish; but that, on the contrary, God increases, even sometimes by miracles, the property of such as give liberally; and the conversion of Lucchesio's wife shows that the spirit of interest and avarice, covered by pretence of economy, renders piety ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... bleak blue eyes. He had a great amount of intellectual capacity, of that peculiar kind which raises a man from throne to throne and lets him die loaded with honours without having either amused or enlightened the mind of a single man. Wilfrid Lambert, the youth with the nose which appeared to impoverish the rest of his face, had also contributed little to the enlargement of the human spirit, but he had the honourable excuse of being ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... this kindly but most temperate regard smiled into her eyes, chatted easily on any topic suggested, and appeared entirely satisfied; but was all the while conscious of a growing need which, denied, would impoverish his life, making it, brief even as he deemed it to be, an intolerable burden. But on this summer afternoon hope was in the ascendant, and he saw no reason why the craving of all that was best and noblest in his nature should not ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... are men of peace, and only want our own property restored to us. If we can not succeed in convincing others of our rights, there is no help for it. Plenty of powder will be shot away to no purpose—plenty of efforts without result, and expenditure which only tends to impoverish. There is no race so little qualified to make progress, and to gain civilization and culture in exchange for capital, as the Slavonic. All that those people yonder have in their idleness acquired by the oppression ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... above your reach. She is at least your equal in the world, and her independence neither rests upon your consent, nor can it be prevented by your arms. In short, you spend your substance in vain, and impoverish ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... should have abode with them, and have been content to share with his brethren in their calamities; but contrary to nature, to law, to religion, reason, and honesty, he fell in with the heathen, and took the advantage of their tyranny to poll, to rob, and impoverish his brethren. ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan

... then, I ride to Commandant Raynal for a week's leave of absence; then, armed with Picard's certificate, shall proceed to my uncle and ask him to lend the money. His estate is very small compared with Beaurepaire, but he has always farmed it himself. 'I'll have no go-between,' says he, 'to impoverish both self and soil.' He is also a bit of a misanthrope, and has made me one. I have a very poor opinion ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... you've been used to riches, luxuries, all your life! And I—why, I've helped impoverish you! I've been spending your money. A ship-load of blacks, against you? My God! I'd have cut ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... them by an extensive variety of plants, augmenting the number of their cattle, whether intended for subsistence or reproduction, and improving the breed by a mixture of races well assorted, procuring a greater quantity of manure, varying their culture so as not to impoverish the soil, and separating their lands by inclosures, which obviate the necessity of constantly employing herdsmen to tend ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... with telling weight upon the poor independent planters. Moreover, the arbitrary rule of Governor William Berkeley, the corruption of the Assembly, the heavy and unjust taxes and the frequent embezzlement of public funds conspired to retard the advancement of the middle class and to impoverish its members. ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... I choose to risk my money it is my own affair. I have no family to impoverish. And all business is a risk, a species of gambling. You stake your money against the demand for a certain line of goods, red, we will say. The ball rises and lo, it is white, but you whistle 'better luck ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... (which is often the case,) the land adjoining to be unoccupied, he merely makes a lane through the wilderness, not half of which will produce a crop, on account of its being shaded by the adjoining woods: which not only exclude the sun, but impoverish the land by drawing the nourishment from the plants to the adjoining trees. To obviate this, and many other inconveniences, it would be far better to lay out settlements, where the face of the country would admit ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher

... two Spirits—towering, gigantic Genii—who attend on man: one the Absorbing, the other the Imparting, Spirit. Both are active, energetic, untiring. The former, if it gains access to the soul, commences at once to narrow and impoverish it; while the latter enlarges and makes the soul rich. Herein is explained the old enigma which a dying man ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... contribute like the rest; and that if this law had then been in force they would not have gone to war with King Ladislaus, or the Duke Filippo, both which enterprises had been not through necessity, but to impoverish the citizens. The excitement was appeased by Giovanni de' Medici, who said, "It is not well to go into things so long past, unless to learn something for our present guidance; and if in former times the taxation ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli

... embellishment of Ceylon, or with any undertaking for the permanent improvement of the island. Unlike the Gangetic race, who were the earliest colonists, and with whom originated every project for enriching and adorning the country, the Malabars aspired not to beautify or enrich, but to impoverish and deface;—and nothing can more strikingly bespeak the inferiority of the southern race than the single fact that everything tending to exalt and to civilise, in the early condition of Ceylon, was introduced by ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... the property-owners as a class are useless idlers who impoverish the workers and who shamelessly spend their whole income on demoralising luxuries. "The idlers and non-workers produce no wealth and take the greater share. They live on the labour of those who work. Nothing ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... character properly belongs to religious constructions. The historic religions, with all their faults, have had this; it certainly belongs to the religious sentiment, when it truly flowers, to have this; and we impoverish our spirit if we allow a religion of the future without it. What then is the duty of criticism here? To take the practical point of view, to applaud the liberal movement and all its works,—its New Road religions of the future into the bargain,—for ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... been incumbent also in relaxed degree upon those who work with their hands; and we have but to walk through the classical department of the Louvre or the British Museum to be reminded how those qualities of temperance and the like did but enhance, could not chill or impoverish, the artistic genius of Greek workmen. In proportion to what we know of the minor handicrafts of Greece we shall find ourselves able to fill up, as the condition of everyday life in the streets of Plato's City of the Perfect, a picture of happy protected labour, "skilled" to ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... adj.; weaken, enfeeble, debilitate, shake, deprive of strength, relax, enervate, eviscerate; unbrace, unnerve; cripple, unman &c. (render powerless) 158; cramp, reduce, sprain, strain, blunt the edge of; dilute, impoverish; decimate; extenuate; reduce in strength, reduce the strength of; mettre de l'eau dans son vin[Fr]. Adj. weak, feeble, debile|; impotent &c. 158; relaxed, unnerved, &c. v.; sapless, strengthless[obs3], powerless; weakly, unstrung, flaccid, adynamic[obs3], asthenic[obs3]; nervous. soft, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... accepting the earnings of others? Suppose this parliamentary plan to fail, and fail it must, for there were no hopes that I could honestly retain my seat, to what other means could I resort? While I continued to indulge in wild and extravagant schemes of enriching myself, by which I did but impoverish others, ought I to require of Olivia to partake of my folly, and its consequences? Had I nothing but the cup of wretchedness to offer, and must I still urge her to drink? Was it not my duty rather to tear myself at once away from her; and place some insurmountable ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... have been more humane to govern the people justly, to render them happy, to excite and favour industry and commerce, and to let men enjoy in safety the fruit of their labours, than to crush them under a despotic yoke, to impoverish them by foolish wars, to reduce them to beggary, in order that luxury may be satisfied, and then to erect splendid buildings, which can contain but a very small portion of those, who have been rendered miserable? Religion has ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... obliged them to levy whatever sums he had occasion for: not that he had the least spark of avarice in his nature, but his hatred to Augustus, who had by his injustice made him become his enemy, was so great, that it extended to all those of his country, so far, as to humble and impoverish the once opulent inhabitants, making them not only support his numerous army, but laid on them besides many unnecessary imposts, which he divided among his soldiers, so that they were all cloathed in gold and silver, and every private man had the appearance of a general, ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... better excuse. He knew, were emancipation granted, that years must elapse before the negro could be trained to the responsibilities of freedom, and that those years would impoverish the South. It appears to have been forgotten by the abolitionists that all races upon earth have required a protracted probation to fit them for the rights of citizenship and the duties of free men. Here was a people, hardly emerged from the grossest ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... even had he — nothing but the few cobwebs spun from his own brain. It is true, we are rich or poor according to what we are, not what we have. But what a man has produced, is not what he is. He may even impoverish his true ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... pleasures, art, and religion under the head of play, and by that epithet condemning them, as a certain school seems to do, to gradual extinction as the race approaches maturity. But if all the useless ornaments of our life are to be cut off in the process of adaptation, evolution would impoverish instead of enriching our nature. Perhaps that is the tendency of evolution, and our barbarous ancestors amid their toils and wars, with their flaming passions and mythologies, lived better lives than are reserved to our ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana

... reproach with one of frank apology. "If I see a man whose face I like, I speak to him. Surely Nature does not flash that subtle sense of magnetism for nothing. If I am to live fully, then must I infuse into my insular existence the electric spark of sympathetic friendship. Why impoverish my existence by a lost opportunity? If I had not alighted that day upon the lake and waited for you to come through the trees—" he fell suddenly quiet, knocking the ashes from his pipe upon the ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... the deepest, most unbounded gratitude for my benefactress; but there was nothing abject in it. I knew that giving did not impoverish her; that the food I ate was not as much to her as the crumbs that fell from my mother's table; that the room I occupied was but one in a suite of elegant apartments; yet this did not diminish my sense of obligation. It lightened it, however, of its ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... the preaching of the Gospel, a true and faithful pastor will take care of the poor. Where the Church is, there must be the poor, for the world and the devil persecute the Church and impoverish many ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... paper tickets purporting to represent property to the value of two thousand one hundred and fifty- three dollars, and this property he was entitled to receive on the further payment of four hundred and fifty-eight dollars. Not wishing, however, to impoverish these rashly-benevolent Samaritans, and reflecting, perhaps, that he had already spent one hundred dollars, for which he had as yet received nothing but 'certificates,' he selected a hundred of those that promised the most valuable articles, and sent them ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... Extortion, Rapine and Injustice, which are branded with Infamy in Books, often give a Man a Figure in the World; while several Qualities which are celebrated in Authors, as Generosity, Ingenuity and Good-Nature, impoverish and ruin him. This cannot but have a proportionable Effect on Men, whose Tempers and Principles are equally ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... accomplishments—perhaps I didn't look in the right places for any of those—but I've found something I wouldn't trade for all the others. It is all I have to bequeath you, dear. But the beautiful part of this bequest is, I don't have to die to enrich you with it, nor do I have to impoverish myself to give it away. I just whisper something in your ear—and then you go and see if it ...
— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin

... kind of person who is to direct Irish legislation more efficiently than the educated class, who unanimously object to Home Rule as detrimental to the interests of both countries, and as likely to further impoverish poor Ireland. The men who now represent the 'patriotic' party will feather their own nests. They care for ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... with art. It is purposed to be the holy dwelling-place of God, but I can so abuse it as to make it the agent of degradation. Instead of hallowing the life it will debase and impoverish it. ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... offerings to beggar spirits as well as to their own relatives. If any great misfortune happens to a man, he thinks he must have neglected or offended some dead relative, or perhaps one of these beggar spirits; and will impoverish himself for years, to atone for it by a great feast. They are very much afraid of the spirits, and build their houses with intricate passages, and put up screens, to keep them from seeing what happens; and they especially avoid openings north and south, as they think the spirits ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton

... that its lands had been alienated on terms unfavourable to the Church. William hesitated long on this condition, and tried to persuade Anselm to waive it; but the letters of the future archbishop show that his conscience was deeply engaged and would not permit him to agree to anything that would impoverish his see, and the king must have yielded in the end. The third condition was, that Anselm should be allowed to continue in the obedience of Pope Urban II, whom he had already acknowledged in Normandy. This must also have been a disagreeable condition to the king. The divided state of Christendom, ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... will now be available, and a very sensible relief will be afforded to the flocks of sheep that had been withdrawn from them, and pent up on inadequate ranges of pasture—a circumstance which indeed has tended materially to impoverish the flocks and keep up the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various

... the national being, but if it dominates it, it will impoverish its life. How little Sparta has given to the world compared with Attica. Yet when national ideals have been created they assume an immeasurably greater dignity when the citizens organize themselves for the defense of their ideals, ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell

... that mortals need "not be weary 79:30 in well doing." It dissipates fatigue in doing good. Giving does not impoverish us in the service of our Maker, neither does withholding enrich us. 80:1 We have strength in proportion to our apprehension of the truth, and our strength is not lessened by giving 80:3 utterance to truth. A cup of coffee ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... employee can know what the employer is saying to him. The working man handles things. The professional man plies words. I learned things first and words afterward. Things can enrich a nation, and words can impoverish it. The words of theorists have cost this nation billions which must be ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... independent of all others; and if, notwithstanding her steady devotion to her own progress, she can scatter such rich alms among her sisters, it should be remembered that her charity is of the sort that does not impoverish, but "blesseth him that gives and him ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... mark with some ceremony the extremes of human existence—birth and death. Both events are honored with feasting, drinking, dancing, and firing; and the descendants of the dead sometimes impoverish, and even ruin themselves, to inter a venerable parent ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... prisoner was condemned to banishment and to pay a fine. The place of banishment (which he was apparently allowed to select outside certain limits) was Marseilles. The amount of the fine we do not know. It certainly was not enough to impoverish him. ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... has not become extinct, but survives under more benignant aspects, exhibiting itself in efforts to enlighten, fertilize, and enrich the country which their wasteful ardour before did so much to disturb and impoverish. The heads of the Buccleugh and Elliot family now sit in the British House of Lords. The descendant of Scott of Harden has achieved a world-wide reputation as a poet and novelist; and the late Sir James Graham, the representative of the Graemes of Netherby, on the English side of the border, ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... Here he co-operated with Henry Clay; and the result of his eloquence and wisdom on those great principles of political economy was the adherence to a policy—against great opposition—which built up New England and did not impoverish the West. Where would the towns of Lowell, Manchester, and Lawrence have been without the aid extended to manufacturing interests? They made the nation comparatively independent of other nations; they enriched ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... the Buyers and Sellers are Enemies to the Peace and Freedom of the Commonwealth. For indeed the necessity of the People chose a Parliament to help them in their weakness. Hence when they see a danger like to impoverish or enslave one part of the people to another, they are to give warning and so prevent that danger. For they are the Eyes of the Land: and surely those are blind eyes that lead the People into Bogs to be entangled in Mud again, ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... sovereigns, his neighbors, he imported the same loyal spirit. "Certain of his council used to tell him," reports Joinville, "that he did not well in not leaving those foreigners to their warfare; for, if he gave them his good leave to impoverish one another, they would not attack him so readily as if they were rich. To that the king replied that they said not well; for, quoth he, if the neighboring princes perceived that I left them to their ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... Forsyth said, "we can't let you impoverish yourself at this rate. What have you said to your benefactor, Tata? What are you ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells

... most of us is that, in our efforts to sell ourselves for selfish ends or for the most dollars, we impoverish our own lives, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... Henry of England was considered a connection above the fortunes of the king of Troubadours. But in the issue, instead of Rene deriving any splendour from the match, he was involved in the misfortunes of his daughter, and repeatedly obliged to impoverish himself to supply her ransom.... Among all his distresses, Rene feasted and received guests, danced, sang, composed poetry, used the pencil or brush with no small skill, devised and conducted festivals ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... methods equally irresistible by guilt and innocence: let the man thus driven into exile, for having been the friend of his country, be received in every other place as a confessor of liberty; and let the tools of power be taught in time, that they may rob, but cannot impoverish." In 1761, Dr. Lucas was elected representative for Dublin. He died in 1771, and a statue to his honour is erected in the Royal Exchange ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... save the situation. He discovered that until prices had fallen fifty points neither of them had been in the market to any significant extent; and that, to avert the appalling calamities which seemed imminent, both were ready if necessary to impoverish themselves or to take unusual risks of so doing. He learned the real causes of the panic, so far as these were not hidden from Merriman and Waters themselves, and when at last the two men decided what should ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... Tories, who, as we have said, have eventually found their advantage in the democratic movement. Cobbett fought for the cause of the agricultural labourer, trodden under foot by squires and parsons. Owen believed that the grasping capitalist, with his steam machinery, would further degrade and impoverish the working classes. Godwin, who is merely mentioned by Mr. Stephen, was a peaceful anarchist, who proposed 'to abolish the whole craft and mystery of government,' to abandon coercion and rely upon just reasoning, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... dispart, sever, rend, smash, shatter, shiver, splinter, batter, burst, rupture, crack; infringe, violate, disobey, transgress, trespass; communicate, disclose, divulge, tell, impart, broach; discipline, tame; bankrupt, impoverish, ruin. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... occupation was the separating of citizens from their coin and valuables. Preferably this was done by weird and singular tricks without noise or bloodshed; but whenever the citizen honored by their attentions refused to impoverish himself gracefully his objections came to be spread finally upon some police station blotter ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... has invariably resulted from economic conditions, as in the case of the Protestant Reformation, when the gold sent to Rome through the shameless sale of Indulgences, threatened to impoverish the whole of Northern Europe, and Princes broke allegiance to the Priesthood in ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck

... that the black man should leave us, even if he wanted to. It would impoverish us in no small degree and cripple us in our advancement. He is the natural laborer of the South, and has added, as we shall see, immensely to its prosperity since the war, and he is to be one of the chief factors in securing the future wealth of the country. These reasons ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various

... madness," he said, "it is a thing that must not even be discussed. She is twenty-two years old—she is a child—she is irresponsible—she does n't, she can't, know what she is doing. She proposes to impoverish herself, to condemn herself to a convent for life, and, so far as one can see, without the slightest vocation. ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... crystallized. He was sixty years old; seasoned and uncompromising in the pursuit of his one ideal, the independence of the South. His arguments were the same which he had used in 1844, in 1851: the North would impoverish the South; it threatens to impose a crushing tribute in the shape of protection; it seeks to destroy slavery; it aims to bring about economic collapse; in the wreck thus produced, everything that is beautiful, charming, distinctive in Southern life will be lost; let ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... he liked, and they felt themselves to be slaves, bound down by the dulness of the Longestaffe regime. His freedom was grand to their eyes, and very enviable, although they were aware that he had already so used it as to impoverish himself in the midst of ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... hear you exclaim! And, so, if you wish, you may construe my behavior, since I reply—"Science first, science last!" To have been deprived of the means to pursue my experiments at this time would have been, I believed, to impoverish the world. For not even science could reveal to me that my life's work was destined to perish amid the ashes of ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer

... inquiry. Where men are numerous and land and tools are scarce, labor is comparatively unproductive; and it is highly productive where land and tools are plentiful. There is no doubt that crowding the world full of people, without providing the world with capital in a proportionate way, would impoverish everybody whose income depends ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark

... crop which greatly impoverishes the ground. To peel is to impoverish soil, as "oats, rye, barley, and grey wheat," but ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... administered as to produce a tolerable degree of national comfort and development for a season; while a Constitution perfect in its theories and principles, may be so maladministered as to corrupt and distract, impoverish and demoralize, a people. And yet, I agree with an old patriot of the past century who said, "There is no foundation to imagine that the goodness or badness of any government depends solely upon its administration. ...
— Government and Rebellion • E. E. Adams

... of the pope and the papal court served greatly to impoverish the citizens; and they had suffered yet more visibly by the depredations of hordes of robbers, numerous and unsparing, who infested Romagna, obstructing all the public ways, and were, sometimes secretly, sometimes, openly, protected by the barons, who often ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... not in three days declare the riddle. And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they said unto Samson's wife, Entice thy husband, that he may declare unto us the riddle, lest we burn thee and thy father's house with fire: have ye called us to impoverish us? is it not so? And Samson's wife wept before him, and said, Thou dost but hate me, and lovest me not: thou hast put forth a riddle unto the children of my people, and hast not told it me. And he said unto her, Behold, I have not told it my father ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various

... of those adventures are generally such as these: first, that they stock-starve the tradesman, and impoverish him in his ordinary business, which is the main support of his family; they lessen his strength, and while his trade is not lessened, yet his stock is lessened; and as they very rarely add to his credit, so, if they lessen the ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... horses where two are enough; or when, as in 1831, Irish agriculture employed 1,131,715 workmen to produce a value of thirty-six million pounds sterling, while that of Great Britain(341) produced one hundred and fifty millions a year, and employed only 1,055,982 workmen, these causes are as sure to impoverish the country, as the waste of the Spaniards in supporting such an army of clergy and servants. Of course, the temptation to waste wealth on parks is greater than to waste it in vegetable gardens! The probability ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... station in the very province in which mouldered away the last lowly dwelling-place of his line,—by lineage high above most nobles, in position below most yeomen. He had learning; he had genius: but the studies to which they were devoted only served yet more to impoverish his scanty means, and led rather to ridicule than to honour. Not a day but what I saw on his soft features the smart of a fresh sting, the gnawing of a new care. Thus, as a boy, feeling in myself ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... nor they that were the favourites of the monarch. There were no droughts and floods and plagues and fires and premature deaths in those days of Yudhishthira devoted to virtue. And it was only for doing agreeable services, or for worshipping, or for offering tributes that would not impoverish, that other kings used to approach Yudhisthira (and not for hostility or battle.) The large treasure room of the king became so much filled with hoards of wealth virtuously obtained that it could not be emptied even in a hundred years. And the son of Kunti, ascertaining the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... unstrung, At Babylon upon the willows hung; Yours sounds aloud, and tells us you excel No less in courage, than in singing well; While, unconcern'd, you let your country know They have impoverish'd themselves, not you; 10 Who, with the Muses' help, can mock those fates Which threaten kingdoms, and disorder states. So Ovid, when from Caesar's rage he fled, The Roman Muse to Pontus with him led; Where he so sung, that we, through pity's glass, See Nero milder than ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... crowning ideal is to do nothing himself, to squander without measure or care, and to have as many as possible work for his own personal profit, without asking who they are and how they live. A system that slowly but surely must demoralize and impoverish every nation to the core, even the richest and the strongest. A system that gives peace to none and can bring none to the highest possible grade of development and happiness. A system by which at least ninety per cent of the national ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... to Spain, Quevedo had stopped in Cuba, where he had heard the complaints of the enraged colonists, who declared that unless his mad campaign against his fellow-countrymen was stopped Las Casas would ruin the island, impoverish them all, and destroy every source of revenue. It was thought that Diego Velasquez paid Quevedo to controvert the representations of Las Casas and to plead the cause of the colonists at Court. As he was a man of considerable weight and an excellent preacher, Velasquez hoped he ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... mentioned does produce a veritable 'garden of the Lord.' God send you the same, dear. And now, sit well back, and lower your veil. Ah, I remember, you don't wear them. Wise girl! If all women followed your example it would impoverish the opticians. Why? Oh, constant focussing on spots, for one thing. But lean back, for you must not be seen if you are supposed to be still in Cairo, waiting to go up the Nile. And, look here"—the doctor put his ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... into exile, for having been the friend of his country, be received in every other place as a confessor of liberty; and let the tools of power be taught in time, that they may rob, but cannot impoverish[912].' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... in the conflict that is being waged in this country today. On the one side are the allied hosts of monopolies, the money power, great trusts and railroad corporations, who seek the enactment of laws to benefit them and impoverish the people. On the other side are the farmers, laborers, merchants, and all others who produce wealth and bear the burdens of taxation. The one represents the wealthy and powerful classes who want the control of the Government to plunder the people. The other ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck

... upon the scene looks a succession of dwelling-houses, a gray-walled convent or two, one of the stateliest palaces of Rome—now let out in apartments and hiding in obscure rooms the last two impoverished descendants of a proud race that helped to impoverish Rome—one or two more prosperous palaces, and a venerable church, looking like a sleepy watchman of Zion suffering the enemy to do as it will ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... say, Frank, is, I would not limit individual desire in any way. What right has society to punish us unless it can prove we have hurt or injured someone else against his will? Besides, if you limit passion you impoverish life, you weaken the mainspring of art, and narrow ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... shillings, for the indigent: and these alms were soon appropriated to the use of the church, which derived, from the redemption of sins, an inexhaustible source of opulence and dominion. A debt of three hundred years, or twelve hundred pounds, was enough to impoverish a plentiful fortune; the scarcity of gold and silver was supplied by the alienation of land; and the princely donations of Pepin and Charlemagne are expressly given for the remedy of their soul. It is a maxim of the civil law, that whosoever cannot pay with his purse, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... receiving any appropriation from him we constructed hunting-theatres and race-courses at every point where he wintered or expected to winter. They were all torn down without delay and apparently the sole purpose of their being called into existence was to impoverish us. ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio

... majesty's government will at length allow the colonists to use freely the natural productions of their country, and to increase to the utmost its artificial ones; that they will, permit them to call their own energies, their own resources, into life and action, and no longer impoverish them by rendering them the prey of richer colonies, and what is still more absurd and vexatious, of foreigners; that they will, in fine, grant them the free unrestricted enjoyment of those privileges which the bounty ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... nation are inordinate vanity in their appearance, causing them to impoverish themselves for the sake of gorgeous clothes, and gambling. They gamble to an excessive degree, heaping debt after debt upon their heads. Both these vices have caused an active legislation. Gold embroidery has been abolished on the uniforms of the army officers, and Prince Danilo has already ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... inches. Thirdly, we may graft our flower of romance on a European stem, and enjoy ourselves as much as the European novelists do, and with as clear a conscience. We are stealing that which enriches us and does not impoverish them. It is silly and childish to make the boundaries of the America of the mind coincide with those of the United States. We need not dispute about free trade and protection here; literature is not commerce, nor is ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... universally conceded, that the cultivation of tobacco will ruin a country. Let any one take a survey of lower Virginia, and he cannot help coming to the conclusion, that it not only impoverishes the land, but if followed up for a number of years, will be very apt to impoverish the children of those who engage in its cultivation. Tobacco, say its advocates, is a very profitable crop,—if by profit is meant a large return in money, without reference to any thing else—granted. Much money has been and will be made by cultivating it, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... consequence, to detect many such gross misstatements as those with which the apologists of the disastrous revolution effected in Sutherland have attempted to gloss over the ruin of that country. In other parts of the Highlands, especially in the Hebrides, the failure of the kelp trade did much to impoverish the inhabitants; but in the Highlands of Sutherland the famine was ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... over, to bury with their dead or destroy at the grave more or less property which may or may not have belonged to the deceased persons. Among some of the American Indians this was carried to such an extent as utterly to impoverish all the relatives, who, in fact, seem to have accumulated wealth solely for the purpose of funereal display. By a few tribes, like the Natchez, human sacrifice—forcibly of slaves, voluntarily on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... by the earth with which he deals may be briefly summed up: He should look upon himself as an agent necessarily interfering with the operations which naturally form and preserve the soil. He should see that his work brings two risks; he may impoverish the accumulation of detrital material by taking out the plant food more rapidly than it is prepared for use. This injurious result may be at any time reparable by a proper use of manures. Not so, however, with the other form ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... that property be gained by her own industry or by any other lawful means, can give alms, out of that property, without asking her husband's permission: yet such alms should be moderate, lest through giving too much she impoverish her husband. Otherwise she ought not to give alms without the express or presumed consent of her husband, except in cases of necessity as stated, in the case of a monk, in the preceding Reply. For though the wife be her husband's equal in the marriage act, yet in matters of housekeeping, the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... bas-reliefs which one buys in Florence, or, if the colors are undimmed by age, like Persian enamel. In some of the temples which I visited, the colorings had been ruthlessly obliterated by coats of whitewash, but in those communities where Hinduism is still a living force, the inhabitants frequently impoverish themselves in order to provide the gold-leaf with which the interiors of the shrines are covered, just as the congregations of American churches praise God with carven pulpits and windows ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... a family into the world if you are so poor," said Miss Wilson severely. "Can you not see that you impoverish yourself by doing so—to put the matter on ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... note of urgency in times like the present, when, as the result of the havoc of the war, destitution is widespread over Europe. Now obviously these advisers do not mean to recommend something which will impoverish the world next year and the year after and the benefit of which will accrue only in a distant future: it is the immediate urgency of the world's needs which is rather the substance of their case. Nor would it be right to conclude ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson

... certain degree of heat, and could only flourish in the neighborhood of the sea, were insensibly exploded by industry and experience. [98] 4. The cultivation of flax was transported from Egypt to Gaul, and enriched the whole country, however it might impoverish the particular lands on which it was sown. [99] 5. The use of artificial grasses became familiar to the farmers both of Italy and the provinces, particularly the Lucerne, which derived its name and origin from Media. [100] The assured supply of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... men to claim their constitutional rights: bloodshed would almost certainly have followed. But the leaders of the militant women ordered (and were obeyed) that no attacks on life should be part of the Woman's militant programme. Property might be destroyed, especially such as did not impoverish the poor; but there were to be no railway accidents, no sinking of ships, no violent deeds dangerous to life. At the height and greatest bitterness of militancy no ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... spite of the obstinacy of the metal thread; to avoid making the perforation larger than necessary, for this makes the work clumsy; to make each succeeding line lie closely beside the last one, for the surface must be of solid gold, and if the ground showed through in places it would impoverish the effect. ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie

... must be prime and paramount because all other organs depend upon it: it provides them with nourishment for preservation and improvement, and it punishes them—if they do not mind the laws of normality—by withholding its gifts, or by presenting these gifts in the form of poisons that impoverish, hinder and degenerate the system of organs. Uncleanliness is surely one of the chief ways in which physiological thoughtlessness is exhibited, and due punishment will inevitably ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison

... that to Burden, to Bond, to Tax, to Tribute, to Impoverish, to Grind, to Pillage, to Oppress, to Afflict, to Plunder, to Vampire the Life Labouring to Create ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... now, as he told me, out of his mind, he had leisure for other projects to enrich himself; and he was determined to begin by reforming certain abuses, which had long tended to impoverish the royal treasury. I was at a loss to know whither this preamble would lead: at length, having exhausted his oriental pomp of words, he concluded by informing me that he had reason to believe he was terribly cheated in the management of his mines at Golconda; that they were rented from him by ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... the Union, if any mode of enforcing a compliance with its requisitions could be devised. The suffering States would not long consent to remain associated upon a principle which distributes the public burdens with so unequal a hand, and which was calculated to impoverish and oppress the citizens of some States, while those of others would scarcely be conscious of the small proportion of the weight they were required to sustain. This, however, is an evil inseparable from the principle ...
— The Federalist Papers

... brought together to spin the raw cotton grown in the State, to consume the provisions which the farmers raised, thus diversifying their employment and increasing their profits. "Would any man tell me," shouted the orator, his eyes blazing, and his arms uplifted, "that this would impoverish the country—would make paupers of the people? To increase the places where the laborer may sell his labor would never make him a pauper. Be controlled," said he, "in the administration of government and in all other things, by the improvement of ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... deprivation, and limit the extent of their gatherings to a bare competency. With men, most unquestionably, such an annual division, unless they were perfect, would derange the whole course of affairs, and speedily impoverish any community in which it might be attempted. I always prefer to take away a considerable quantity of honey from my stocks, which have too generous a supply, and to replace it with empty combs suitable for the rearing of workers; as I find ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... and flavourless and uneatable, "like a Banbury cheese, nothing but paring." Now, the influence of a woman's intelligence on the male intellects about her is as the churn to the cream: it can either enrich and utilise it, or impoverish and waste it. It is not too much to say that it almost invariably, in the present decadence of the salon and parrot-jabbering of the suffrage, has ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... precious stimulus for my courage and a convenient soothing draught for conscience. Even had all been plain sailing, I do not hint that I should have drawn back. Smuggling is one of the meanest of crimes, for by that we rob a whole country pro rata, and are therefore certain to impoverish the poor: to smuggle opium is an offence particularly dark, since it stands related not so much to murder, as to massacre. Upon all these points I was quite clear; my sympathy was all in arms against my interest; and ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... of what is useful or pleasurable and to keep them busy upon ropes of sand and things that are a weariness to the flesh. That extravagance is truly sinful, and a very silly sin to boot, in which we impoverish mankind and ourselves. It is another question for each man's heart. He knows if he can enjoy what he buys and uses; if he cannot, he is a dog in the manger; nay, if he cannot, I contend he is a thief, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... very much impoverish the meaning and narrow the sweep of these great and penetrating words, if we understand by 'losing one's life' only the actual surrender of physical existence. It is not only the martyr on whose bleeding brows the crown of life is gently placed; it is not ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... Try!—not you. I meant to do my duty by you, and in due time to impoverish myself by paying for your articles—nearly a hundred pounds, sir. But don't expect it. I'm not going to waste my hard-earned savings upon a worthless, idle fellow. Lawyer! Pish! You're about fit for a shoeblack, sir, or a carter. You'll ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn

... Cappy's passion for wringing a profit, by ingenious means, from apparently barren soil where no profit had ever hitherto burgeoned. At heart Cappy was a speculator; only the fact that he was a prudent and careful speculator had conduced to enrich him rather than impoverish him. ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... might overreach another, or make haste to undersell his rival, or seize some advantage of him, or plot some profit to his loss. Nine-tenths of the railroads, which in the old times had ruinously competed, and then, in the hands of the Accumulation, had been united to impoverish and oppress the people, fell into disuse. The commonwealth operated the few lines that were necessary for the collection of materials and the distribution of manufactures, and for pleasure travel and the affairs of state; but ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells

... a more active use of the individual faculties. And vice vers, all errors in finance and taxation which obstruct the improvement of the people in wealth and morals, tend also, if of sufficiently serious amount, positively to impoverish and demoralize them. It holds, in short, universally, that when Order and Permanence are taken in their widest sense for the stability of existing advantages, the requisites of Progress are but the requisites of Order in a greater degree; those of Permanence merely those of Progress ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill



Words linked to "Impoverish" :   pauperize, enrich, bankrupt, worsen, ruin, impoverishment, decline, disestablish, smash, pauperise, break, beggar



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