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Quicken   Listen
verb
Quicken  v. t.  (past & past part. quickened; pres. part. quickening)  
1.
To make alive; to vivify; to revive or resuscitate, as from death or an inanimate state; hence, to excite; to, stimulate; to incite. "The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead." "Like a fruitful garden without an hedge, that quickens the appetite to enjoy so tempting a prize."
2.
To make lively, active, or sprightly; to impart additional energy to; to stimulate; to make quick or rapid; to hasten; to accelerate; as, to quicken one's steps or thoughts; to quicken one's departure or speed.
3.
(Shipbuilding) To shorten the radius of (a curve); to make (a curve) sharper; as, to quicken the sheer, that is, to make its curve more pronounced.
Synonyms: To revive; resuscitate; animate; reinvigorate; vivify; refresh; stimulate; sharpen; incite; hasten; accelerate; expedite; dispatch; speed.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Quicken" Quotes from Famous Books



... Nicarchus used to relate, that the whole body of the people of our city were put in requisition to carry each one a certain measure of corn upon their shoulders to the sea-side near Anticyra, men standing by to quicken them with the lash. They had made one journey of the kind, but when they had just measured out the corn and were putting it on their backs for a second, news came of Antony's defeat, and so saved Chaeronea, for all Antony's purveyors ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... which is a matter of the first importance on such a trip. In the plan of Jules Verne, the bullet derives all its motion from the initial effort, and consequently slows down as it rises against the earth's attraction, until it begins again to quicken under the gravitation of the moon. Hence his voyage to our satellite occupied four days. As we could maintain the velocity of the car, however, we should accomplish the distance in thirteen hours at a speed of five miles a second, and more or less ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... the entrance. But, with the minister's appearance in the chamber, the agony of the deluded sufferer seemed to quicken, as if the sight of him who was the herald of mercy only added fresh fuel to his torments. Marian was fain to depart; her ears almost stunned with the cries and howlings of the demoniac. She withdrew in great agitation, her knees almost sinking under their burden. Hardly conscious ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... credited with passing it along their lines! The mountains take up their dying tones of sweet sounds, and answer it one to the other until the ear can no longer follow it through space. The ferns and rich foliage of the mountain side trail their long fingers in the water, and cluster and quicken among the crevices of the rocks. Recently the Laureate visited Ireland for the first time; hitherto this land of poetry had been to him but "the damnable country" of the politician. He came, he saw, but Killarney conquered; and he, like all ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger

... so fruitful of important reforms in our economic and industrial life or so full of significant changes in the spirit and purpose of our political action. We have sought very thoughtfully to set our house in order, correct the grosser errors and abuses of our industrial life, liberate and quicken the processes of our national genius and energy, and lift our politics to a broader view of the people's essential interests. It is a record of singular variety and singular distinction. But I shall not attempt to review it. It speaks for itself and will be of increasing ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson

... sort recompensed, for his discovery. To be ignorant of the value of a suit, is simplicity; as well as to be ignorant of the right thereof, is want of conscience. Secrecy in suits, is a great mean of obtaining; for voicing them to be in forwardness, may discourage some kind of suitors, but doth quicken and awake others. But timing of the suit is the principal. Timing, I say, not only in respect of the person that should grant it, but in respect of those, which are like to cross it. Let a man, in the choice of his mean, rather choose ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... dropsy coming on through a chill at first, or from exposure to cold. They contain the volatile principle, "sulphide of allyl," which is acrid and stimulating. If taken in small quantities, Onions quicken the circulation, and assist digestion; but when ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... parents, fond of luxurious living, gave with a view to increase their acquaintance for the sake of their business; not duly reflecting, that the part they suffered her to take in what made for their interest, would probably be a mean to quicken their appetites, and ruin the morals of their daughter, for whose sake, as an only child, they were solicitous to ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... stars. Or ever earth Was visited of Beatrice, we Appointed for her handmaids, tended on her. We to her eyes will lead thee; but the light Of gladness that is in them, well to scan, Those yonder three, of deeper ken than ours, Thy sight shall quicken." Thus began their song; And then they led me to the Gryphon's breast, While, turn'd toward us, Beatrice stood. "Spare not thy vision. We have stationed thee Before the emeralds, whence love erewhile Hath drawn his weapons on thee." As they spake, A thousand fervent wishes ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... as he urged his brothers to quicken their pace on their way to the cottage, "we have hardly heard any thing yet about buffaloes and grizzly bears, and other animals which are found in the woods and the prairie. Let us make haste, that we ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge

... must be at hand! Yet there was no sign of it, and over interminable hill and dale, through corn-fields, and over patches of woodland and meadow, the weary steed was urged on, slipping and sliding in the saturated soil. What was that sound which caused his horse to prick up his ears and quicken his pace with the instinct of danger? He heard it himself distinctly. It was the baying ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... with no very great difficulty on this occasion, and numbered it Nine. My own story came next, and was thus accidentally distinguished as the last of the series—Number Ten. When I dropped the two corresponding cards into the bowl, the thought that there would be now no more to add seemed to quicken my prevailing sense of anxiety on the subject of George's return. A heavy depression hung upon my spirits, and I went out desperately in the rain to shake my mind free of oppressing influences by ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... became of that book-mark until years later, after he was married, when I saw it in his family Bible, and then I could guess where it had been in the interval. I noticed also that he began to quicken his speed considerably, and to be inclined to walk farther each day, his explanation being that we were obliged to make up for lost time. I also noticed that he wrote more notes in his diary in shorthand, his knowledge of which I envied. He said ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... the launch in their chairs, she let him hold her hand, but she did not talk much at first; only now he understood her silences, and did not worry over them—so great a teacher is love to quicken the perception of man. ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... Bible and found the verse she had marked as a "promise" before leaving: "But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by the spirit that dwelleth in you." She saw now that this meant something besides the Resurrection, for the voyage, the climate, the food, and the rest had worked in her a miracle, ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... old gentleman was coming up Orchard Street on his roan mare, shaking the bridle, and tickling her flank with the whip as usual, though there was a perfect mutual understanding that she was not to quicken her pace, Janet happened to be on her own door-step, and he could not resist the temptation of stopping to speak to that 'nice little woman', as he always called her, though she was taller than all the rest of his feminine acquaintances. Janet, in spite of her disposition ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... commerce. Through its exchanges it distributed the food-supply, and thus not only preserved thousands from want but furnished leisure for others to study. It had a tendency to distribute the luxuries of manufactured {363} articles, and to quicken the activity of the mind by giving exchange of ideas. Little by little the mariners, plying their trade, pushed farther and farther into unknown seas, and at last brought the products of every clime in exchange for ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... to his son, as he lay in the parched weariness of his last illness, "give me a great thought, that I may quicken myself ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... repressive,—'conciliating,' it was her pleasure to call them. Her recent commands with respect to turbulent Venice were the subject of criticism among the circle outside the Piazza Gaffe. An enforced inactivity of the military legs will quicken the military wits, it would appear, for some of the younger officers spoke hotly as to their notion of the method of ruling Venezia. One had bidden his Herr General to 'look here,' while he stretched forth his hand and declared that Italians were like women, and wanted—yes, wanted—(their ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... jealous God, who will not give his glory to Baal. It was needed, to arrest the nation in the fearful mechanical tendency it was assuming, whereby it was near denying the most holy and vital principles of its being; and it was needed, to warm and quicken the almost dead patriotism of the masses, and to educate them anew in the high and pure sentiments they had suffered to be forgotten, and, in forgetting which, many another ration has gone ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... obstinate States of New England. It was the intention that Carleton should winter in Albany, Howe in New York, and Clinton at Rhode Island, that, with re-enforcements in the spring, they might be ready to attack New England on all sides. I hope every possible method will be used to quicken the new levies, and that the fortifications in the harbor of Boston will be in complete readiness. Much will depend ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams

... holding by the banisters, fancying every now and then that I heard a door open behind me, and yet my feet no more consenting to quicken their motion than if I had been pursued by a murderer in the nightmare. I at length got into the room, groped for a chair, and sat down. No more hurry now. O no! There was plenty of time; and plenty to do in it, for I had to wipe away the perspiration ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various

... and sum of repentance is a change of life. That sorrow which dictates no caution, that fear which does not quicken our escape, that austerity which fails to rectify our affections, are vain and unavailing. But sorrow and terrour must naturally precede reformation; for what other cause can produce it? He, therefore, that feels himself alarmed by his conscience, anxious for the attainment of a better ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... society in the past, and had greatly admired other ladies. Their voices had been sweet and low, as a woman's tones should be, and their glances gentle and kind, but not one of them had possessed the power to quicken my pulse or to disturb the quiet slumber of my heart; but this woman spoke to me as with authority from heaven. "My whole being," I murmured, "bows down to her by a constraint that I could scarcely resist, and no queen in the ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... their characteristic attitudes, or a story can be told; in fact, work can be made attractive in a hundred different ways. It must not show signs of having wearied the worker in the doing; variety and evidence of thought lavishly expended upon it will prevent this, and enthusiasm will quicken ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie

... was quicken'd To all plaint of mortal sorrow, And when next, the bitter north wind Lull'd, to gather strength and vigor, For a new exacerbation, Listening close, she caught the murmur, "Hush mein daughter! hush mein baby." Then she threw the door wide open, ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... set off, but very slowly, like men whose legs were of very little use to them, and I sent four of them three hundred yards ahead to scout, and the others followed pell-mell, walking at random and without any order. I put the strongest in the rear, with orders to quicken the pace of the sluggards with the points of their bayonets in ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... that walks erect. He is the only animal in whom old age brings a forward bending of the spine. The hanging head, which is the attitude of hopelessness, and which is caused to a very large extent by the mental attitude that goes with approaching old age, no doubt does a great deal to quicken physical decline. ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden

... perhaps, at unnecessary length upon this part of my subject, yet I am anxious to quicken in you the conviction of what you cannot doubt, that our moral nature can be satisfied only with God's likeness. So is it now; so will it be for ever. The sweet peace which the believer enjoys in God here; the elevating ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod

... flavourings and an odorous oven, and there was no end of savoury business to be at. I found myself glad of the interest of these others in the day and glad of the stirring in my lonely house. Even if their bustle could not lessen my own loneliness, it was pleasant, I said to myself, to see them quicken with interest; and the whole affair entertained my infinite leisure. After all, I was not required to be thankful. I merely loaned my house, cosey in its glittering drifts of turkey feathers, and the day was no more ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale

... kind is incident to every harvest on which human hopes are suspended. Bad auguries were also ascending from the unchaining of martial instincts. But that the Revolution, having ploughed its way through unparalleled storms, was preparing to face other storms, did but quicken the apprehensiveness of his love—did but quicken the duty of giving utterance to this love. Hence came the rapid composition of the poem, which cost less time in writing than in printing. Hence, also, came ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... on a cold night serves the double duty of stimulating the gastric juices to quicken action by its warmth and furnishing protein to the body to repair its waste. Pound to a paste a cupful of nuts from which the skin has been removed, add it to a pint of milk and scald; melt a tablespoon of butter and mix it with a like quantity ...
— The Suffrage Cook Book • L. O. Kleber

... kept coming, the nights would not be brief, and the days would not curtail their length nor quicken their pace. The ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... of Christian churches and congregations, heirs of Heaven and children of God, to preach the truth, to administer the rites of baptism, communion, and marriage, to dispense charities, and in every way to quicken and refine the religious life of individuals and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... capable—not a very noble or priceless best, he was willing to acknowledge, but a kind of guarantee of the future, the nucleus of fuller things. As he looked at her now his heart did not beat faster, his pulses did not quicken, his eye did not soften, he did not even wish himself away. Love was as dead as last year's leaves—so dead that no spirit of resentment, or humiliation, or pain of heart was in his breast at this sight of her again. On the contrary, he was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... and from the less painful scratch on the ribs I was losing blood; I could feel it welling under my shirt, and running warm down the hollow of my groin. Loss of blood, they say, will often clarify a man's eyesight and quicken his other faculties; or it may be that, as the morning sun ate up what remained of the fog, all around me—the bridge and the persons upon it, the trees up the valley, the river tumbling between—on a sudden grew distinct to the view. At any rate, in my memory, ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... humble prayer is that these incidents and experiences may prove a blessing and an inspiration that will quicken the faith of those in need whose help can come ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag

... your own home, shaped on your own personality through the years. It's a bit late. You've had a long hard day. You're tired. It's stormy. The wind and the rain chill you as you turn the corner. And you pull your coat a bit snugger as you quicken your steps and think of home, warmth and comfort, loved ones, and rest for body and ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon

... will surely quicken soon or late, The tardiest bird will twitter to a mate; So Spring must dawn again with warmth and bloom, Or in this world, or in the world to come: Sing, voice of Spring! Till I, too, blossom and rejoice ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... rather scared, out of the corner of hers. Decidedly he was a sulky boy—you might say an enemy. As unconcernedly as she could she got up, stretched herself with elaborate ease, and strolled off along the edge of the hill. Castracane followed her; she affected not to know it; but her heart began to quicken, and when he was close beside her she found that she had ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... are to perish with the using), after the commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have, indeed, a show of wisdom in will-worship and humility. For the meaning is: Since righteousness of the heart is a spiritual matter, quickening hearts, and it is evident that human traditions do not quicken hearts and are not effects of the Holy Ghost, as are love to one's neighbor, chastity, etc., and are not instruments through which God moves hearts to believe, as are the divinely given Word and Sacraments, but ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon

... some, who are as yet strangers to religion, how real and how noble its delights are—if I may engage my pious readers to glorify God for so illustrious an instance of his grace—and finally, if I may quicken them, and, above all, may rouse my own too indolent spirit to follow with less unequal steps an example, to the sublimity of which, I fear, few of us shall, after all, be able fully to attain. And that we may not be too much discouraged under ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge

... the boatswain's mates, &c., to quicken the hands after being piped up. The cry is well understood, though so contrary to the known ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... the kinks out of my legs, and to quicken, if possible, my circulation a little, which since the passage over the Channel had felt as if it was thick and green, I walked rapidly to the top of the Knockmeledown Mountains, getting a good view ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... thither, and Coward like, do you lose your Colours to 'em? are you sick o'th' Valentine? sweet Sister, come let's away, the Country will so quicken you, and we shall live so sweetly: Luce, my Ladies Cloak; nay, you have put me into such a gog of going, I would not stay for all the world; if I live here, you have so knock'd this love into my head, that I shall love any body, and I find my body, I ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont

... soon had some eight or ten poor sufferers in the wagons, and on their way to camp. The roads were rough, and their moans and cries gave evidence of intense agony. While still some miles from their destination, Bridget saw several rebels approaching, she ordered the drivers to quicken their pace, and endeavoured to urge her horse forward, but he baulked and refused to move. The drivers becoming alarmed, deserted their charge and fled to the woods, while the wounded men begged that they might not be left to the mercy of ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... left. The Doria Baltea is a small torrent which separates the town of Bard from the fort. Bonaparte, whose retinue was not very numerous, crossed the torrent. On arriving within gunshot of the fort he ordered us to quicken our pace to gain a little bridle-path on the left, leading to the summit of Mont Albaredo, and turning the town and ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... No. 7 bore a brass plate inscribed with the legend "W.D. Pitman, Artist." It was not a particularly clean brass plate, nor was No. 7 itself a particularly inviting place of residence. And yet it had a character of its own, such as may well quicken the pulse of the reader's curiosity. For here was the home of an artist—and a distinguished artist too, highly distinguished by his ill-success—which had never been made the subject of an article in the illustrated magazines. No wood-engraver had ever reproduced ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... call coffee; made by a black Seed boyld in water, which turnes it almost into the same colour, but doth very little alter the taste of the water [!], notwithstanding it is very good to help Digestion, to quicken the Spirits and to ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... to gaze on Jemima with unaffected admiration and surprise. And, certainly, to use his phrase, since he had unbosomed himself to his better half—since he had confided in her, consulted with her, her sense had seemed to quicken—her whole mind ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... frequently breathing deep sighs like the hissing of snakes, and twanging the strings of their large bows. And then they observed a cloud of dust raised by the hoofs of the steeds belonging to Jayadratha's army. And they also saw Dhaumya in the midst of the ravisher's infantry, exhorting Bhima to quicken his steps. Then those princes (the sons of Pandu) with hearts undepressed, bade him be of good cheer and said unto him, 'Do thou return cheerfully!'—And then they rushed towards that host with great fury, like hawks swooping down on their prey. And possessed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... here to ignore oppositions, but to reconcile them. Oppositions are divinely appointed. I do believe that their distance can not be increased with safety to the economy of the world. But love is the tropical equator. His fiery currents are able to quicken and vivify the whole globe. They circulate equally at the arctic and antarctic extremities. The work that we are doing in common is not unfavorably affected by oppositions. The poles are God's anointed ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... laughed. His stolidity had been slow to quicken, but his eyes were now hot and he had altogether ceased ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... five or six, but now they had diminished the distance, when the two lads, with their pieces at their shoulders, stepped boldly forward, with the result that the Malays broke and fled, their leader first; and out of bravado Tom Long fired a shot over their heads to quicken their steps, while Bob burst into a ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... well, then paused. The sun was just lifting over the peaks. The ranch house was in black shadow. No man with Roger's capacity for work could be lonely with that work at hand. No man with Roger's fine imagination could have failed to have felt his pulses quicken at the sudden conception of the desert's wonders that flashed before his mind as his outward eye took in the sunrise. He saw in flashing panorama the desert's magnificent distances, its unbelievable richness of ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... turn tail, And pay for one as I do, or go without. But it pleases me, my Lady says, he shall be my husband, Then I shall need give money no longer: for faith if he Be negligent, I'le ring him a Peal to quicken him to his duty. Thus marry'd once, I'le doe like other wives That make their husbands drudge for ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne

... true Whig tradition is to keep abreast of the movement which they would willingly restrain, and do nothing to quicken, but it is difficult for a man of Hartington's temperament to make the sacrifice of ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... night long, ready and pointed at my heart; a hand upon the door, a step behind me, and I should have rolled over dead at their feet. So it will be if even now they are waiting for me outside; but, if not, I know where to go, where already it is broad daylight, where the wide open space will quicken and enhance every ray, and the broad river multiply the sun by a million facets of living fire. It is not the light that will fail me, there; and as I have served others, so also will I serve myself, and it may be with better fortune ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung

... within. O Lord, thou knowest the cause. After all I have heard, seen, tasted, and handled of the word of life, I am still of myself an empty vessel, unable to speak a good word, or think a good thought. Great are thy tender mercies, O Lord. 'Quicken me according to thy word; turn thou away my eyes from beholding vanity, and quicken me in thy way: then shall I run in the way of thy commandments when thou hast enlarged ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... the people I heard a lady who was stepping into her carriage say to a friend, "I have just come from 'The Artistic Joke,' and the crowd is even worse there. They have had to close the doors because the supply of catalogues was exhausted." This soon caused me to quicken my pace, and hastening down the street to my own Exhibition, I found the police standing at the doors and the people being turned away. The simple explanation of this was that so great had been the public demand that ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... until that mystery was cleared and his father's innocence established. It was for this reason that he seemed even to himself to grow more hard, more harsh, more silent and aloof, until at last he had come to believe that no fair face had the power to arouse his interest or to quicken his pulse. ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... opens the way for God to quicken into activity a spiritual capacity through which He educates a man in spiritual things ...
— The Church, the Schools and Evolution • J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant

... hotel. The young refugee was nervous and uneasy, and watched with the utmost diligence for an opportunity to slip away. As they were crossing a street, a hack, approaching rapidly, caused Mr. Grant to quicken his pace in order to avoid being run over. Noddy, burdened with the weight of the carpet-bag, did not keep up with him, and he was obliged to fall back to escape ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic

... can be said on the necessity of insisting on historical veracity, it has to be borne in mind that inaccuracy is not the only pitfall which lies in the path of the expounder of truth. History is not written merely for students and scholars. It ought to instruct and enlighten the statesman. It should quicken the intelligence of the masses. Whilst any tendency to distort facts, or to sway public opinion by sensational writing of questionable veracity, cannot be too strongly condemned, it is none the less true that it requires not merely a touch of literary genius, but also a lively and ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... women often evinced the weakness of giddy youth rather than the cold deliberation of profligate manhood. Thus in his veriest vices there was a spurious amiability, a seductive charm; while in the graver affairs of life the intellectual susceptibility of his nature served but to quicken his penetration and stimulate his energies, and Hastings might have said, with one of his Italian contemporaries, "That in subjection to the influences of women he had learned the government of men." In a word, his powers to attract, and his capacities to command, may be guessed ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... proper nail and his cane in its allotted corner. He chooses a particular walk, where he may take his prescribed number of turns without interruption, for he would prefer suffering a serious inconvenience rather than be obliged to quicken or slacken his pace to suit the speed of a friend who might join him. My uncle Simon was a character of this cast. I could take it on my conscience to assert that, every night for the forty years preceding his death, he had one foot ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... head. A further eternity was it until the clatter of hoofs on the courtyard stones and their thunder on the planks above him brought him the news that Tressan was riding home. He heard the hoofs quicken, and their loud rattle on the road that led down to the Isere, a half-mile away; and then, when the hoof-beats grew more distant, there came again the echo ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... From the ship, the smoke of the torments of the boiling whale is going up like the smoke over a village of smithies; and to windward, a black cloud, rising up with earnest of squalls and rains, seems to quicken the ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... farmhouses. Such meetings are almost their only recreations, for hunting is less attainable now that the larger game has disappeared, and they care nothing for the intellectual pleasures of reading or art or music. Education is beginning to spread among them, but it has not yet done much to quicken their minds or give them new interests. The population is so extremely thin, the towns so few and so small, that it is not surprising that a people who came out from the least educated strata of society ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... fascination. When I had occasion recently to return to London for a week's visit, I was surprised to find with what eager joy I plunged into the labyrinth of lighted streets, how the blood began to quicken with the movement of the ceaseless crowd, how much of grandeur and beauty assailed the eye in the wide perspective of domes and towers and spires, how the very voice of London, sonorous and confused, like the noise of a great battlefield, thrilled the spirit, and ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson

... then offered Rowdy his tobacco-sack, and asked questions about the Cypress Hills country. How was this girl?—and was that one married yet?—and did the other still grieve for him? As a matter of fact, he had yet to see the girl who could quicken his pulse a single beat, and for that reason it sometimes pleased him to affect susceptibility beyond that ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower

... some mad girlish wish to test her own theory; to prove to herself the correctness of her own reasoning, the fixity of her own purpose. He did not go on analysing further; for as he walked the room with a portion of the weight taken from his heart he noticed that the sky was beginning to quicken. The day would soon be upon him, and there was work to be done. Instinctively he knew that there was trouble in store for Stephen, and he felt that in such an hour he should be near her. All her life she had been accustomed to him. In her sorrows to ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... hyssop, and to make them give forth sighs, aspirations, voice, perfume, and flame enough to fill the whole sanctuary of Nature, even if more vast and mute than the desert in which we wandered. Had a globe been created for ourselves alone, we alone would have sufficed to people and to quicken it, to give it voice and language, praise and love for all eternity! And who shall say that the human soul is not infinite? Who, beside the woman he adores, before the face of Nature, and beneath the eye of God, e'er felt the limits of existence, or of his ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine

... trifle annoyed at my carelessness in missing the Express by which I had been expected; but now I quite enjoyed going in this mixed train, since I could the better observe the country than in the swifter Express. As I drew near the end of my journey, my pulses began to quicken with ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter

... there without conscious thoughts, without sense of the lapse of time, in a deep and grave amazement that seemed to suspend life rather than quicken it. "This was what had to be, then ... this was what had to be," he kept repeating to himself, as if he hung in the clutch of doom. What he had dreamed of had been so different that there was a ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... upwards of a hundred of the Bornou troops speared by the Felatahs, and was following the steps of one of the Mandara officers, when the cries behind, of the Felatah horse pursuing, made both quicken their pace. His wounded horse at this juncture stumbled and fell. Almost before he was on his legs the Felatahs were upon him. He had, however, kept hold of the bridle, and, seizing a pistol from the holster, presented it at two ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... development of humanity as a process of infinite duration, as a sectional growth included in universal evolution—Science, in whose eyes a thousand years are as a watch in the night—shall she not thereby quicken our sympathies with the most gifted race that has appeared in our short human history, and arouse the same feeling toward it as a family may cherish toward the memory of their best and ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar

... without to deliver the note to Emily, Mrs. St. John had observed him: her alarm and surprise only served to quicken her presence of mind. She intercepted Emily's answer under pretence of giving it herself to Falkland's servant. She read it, and her resolution was formed. After carefully resealing and delivering it to the servant, she went at once to Mr. Mandeville, ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... himself. It was with an odd mingling of pride and jealousy that he watched the admiring yet respectful glances of the passers-by, some of whom turned to look again, and one or two to retrace their steps and follow her at a decorous distance. This caused him to quicken his own pace, with a new anxiety and a remorseful sense of wasted opportunity. What a booby he had been, not to have made more of his contiguity to this charming girl—to have been frightened at the ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... simultaneously, but the third—that of Maikar—was pulled with such vigour that it broke with a crash that would have awakened the sleepiest of wild boars, had there been nothing else to arouse him. As it was, other things helped to quicken his sensibilities. Bladud's unfailing arrow went indeed straight for the heart, but a strong rib caught and checked its progress. The captain's shaft, probably by good luck, entered deep into the creature's flank not far ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... master to become ill whenever he heals another person. Healings ordinarily take place through the saint's knowledge of various methods of instantaneous cure in which no hurt to the spiritual healer is involved. On rare occasions, however, a master who wishes to greatly quicken his disciples' evolution may then voluntarily work out on his own body a large ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... then they start and waken. We do not know the use of the sword until we are in battle. Until the shipwreck comes, no man puts on the lifebelt in his cabin. Every one of as has large tracts of Christian truth which we think we most surely believe, but which need experience to quicken them, and need us to grow up into the possession of them. Of all our teachers who turn beliefs assented to into beliefs really believed none is so mighty as Sorrow; for that makes a man lay a firm hold on the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... doing did not seem to them to deserve the name of a Church. It was simply a branch of the Civil Service of the State. But Wesley and his brother, and Whitefield and the rest, fully believed at first that they could do something to quicken the Church into a real, a beneficent, and a religions activity. Most of them had for a long time a positive horror of open-air preaching and of the co-operation of lay preachers. Most of them for ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... the interests of the average person for whom he is writing. He must look at things from "the other fellow's" point of view. A sympathetic insight into the lives of his readers is necessary for every writer who hopes to quicken ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... presented the old theme of youth, love and sin in the provincial setting that he knew so well; the characters were taken from real life and portrayed with striking truthfulness. But over it all was the atmosphere of spring, of sunshine and blossoms and thundershowers that quicken the germs in the womb of the earth. This was suggested with a delicacy and a chastity rare in the literature of that period of storm and stress. Youth was the work of a true poet and would have been ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... the Samoan, Hawaiian, and Venezuelan episodes had done much to quicken a national consciousness in the people of the United States and at the same time to break down their sense of isolation from the rest of the world. Commerce and trade were also important factors in overcoming this traditional isolation. Not only was American trade growing, but it was ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... locks In sable coils entwined. But when she saw The youth's companions trembling, and himself With eyes cast down, with visage as of death, Thus spake the witch: "Forbid your craven souls These fears to cherish: soon returning life This frame shall quicken, and in tones which reach Even the timorous ear shall speak the man. If I have power the Stygian lakes to show, The bank that sounds with fire, the fury band, And giants lettered, and the hound that shakes Bristling with heads of snakes his triple head, What fear is ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... the contrary: this cursed cracking of whips is not only unnecessary but even useless. The effect that it is intended to have on the horse mentally becomes quite blunted and ineffective; since the constant abuse of it has accustomed the horse to the crack, he does not quicken his pace for it. This is especially noticeable in the unceasing crack of the whip which comes from an empty vehicle as it is being driven at its slowest rate to pick up a fare. The slightest touch ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... yet. I ain't seen it, anyway. I sure think there's gold in plenty on that claim. I know there is," he added, with unusual force, his pulses beginning to quicken, and a sudden hope stirring. Bill's accusation was aiding the effect. "But it ain't on the surface. ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... was not very far off. I should only have to quicken my pace, by making a supreme effort, in order to arrive before ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... proposes to bring forth the ring, she finds she has lost it from her finger. "It must have slipped off," suggested Gautami, "when thou wast offering homage to Sachi's holy lake." The king smiles derisively. Sakoontala tries to quicken his memory:—"Do you remember how, in the jasmine bower, you poured water from the lotus cup into the hollow of my hand? Do you remember how you said to my little fawn, Drink first, but she shrunk from you—and drank water from my hand, and you said, with ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... did not outrage my reverence for him by a too high profession, I found him hard enough to follow. When during the first year, Sabbath after Sabbath, I saw him quicken the spirit of his congregation with hymns and prayers, and then, taking his text for a motto banner, start for the outskirts of eternity, I was probably the one person in his congregation who hung back for conscientious ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris

... prevail as to the sympathetic connexion between friends at a distance, we need not wonder that above everything else war, with its stern yet stirring appeal to some of the deepest and tenderest of human emotions, should quicken in the anxious relations left behind a desire to turn the sympathetic bond to the utmost account for the benefit of the dear ones who may at any moment be fighting and dying far away. Hence, to secure an end so natural and laudable, friends ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... prudence graced: 208 What loss or gain may follow, thou may'st guess, Thou then wilt be secure of the success; Yet be not always on affairs intent, But let thy thoughts be easy, and unbent: When our minds' eyes are disengaged and free, They clearer, farther, and distinctly see; They quicken sloth, perplexities untie, Make roughness smooth, and hardness mollify; And though our hands from labour are released, Yet our minds find (even when we sleep) no rest. Search not to find how other men offend, ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... at an Office solicit your Due, And would not have Matters neglected; You must quicken the Clerk with the Perquisite too, To do what ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay

... now, O gentle Chrystchilde, and walke among us peoples of ye earth; enwheel us round about with thy protecting care; forefend all envious thoughts and evil deeds; toche thou our hearts with the glory of thy love, and quicken us to practices of peace, good-will, and charity meet for ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field

... they said, While gazed the watch upon those glowing balls, "These are like moons eclipsed; but let them lie Red on the moss, and sear its dewy spires, Until our lord give leave to draw the web, And quicken reverence by his presence dread, For he will know and call to them by name, And they will change. At present he is sick, And wills that none disturb him." So they lay, And there was silence, for the forest tribes Came never near that cave. Wiser than men, They fled the serpent ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... short, sharp report was heard, and a little dust whiffed up on the road beside them. Pah! pah! another puff of dust, and splinters flew from a tree just beyond them. Aquila twitched his ears and stretched his long neck, and they felt the stride quicken under them. The road rushed by; they were half-way to ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards

... was met with smiling faces and courteous salutes; but he drew no comfort from them. The Chilti would smile pleasantly while he was fitting his knife in under your fifth rib. Only once did Phillips receive a hint that something was amiss, but the hint was so elusive that it did no more than quicken his uneasiness. ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... that attracted me—should have no place. There was every reason why I should pity her and offer aid; none why her grey eyes should hold my own; none why the frail body of her in her rags should quicken any pulse of mine; none why my nearness to her should stop my heart ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... in the bushes out of sight, and desired only to be let alone. We tried to tempt him with the offer of a piece of toast: it was no temptation. Tea we thought would revive him: he refused it. A drink of brandy would certainly quicken his life: he couldn't touch it. We were at the end of our resources. He seemed to think that if he were at home, and could get a bit of fried bacon, or a piece of pie, he should be all right. We knew no more how to doctor him than if he had been a sick bear. He withdrew ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... that such constraint allowed Were music to his ears and touched his heart; And when her eyes met his her rosy blush Told what her maiden modesty would hide. And at the dance, when her soft hands touched his The music seemed to quicken, time to speed; But when she bowed and passed to other hands, Winding the mystic measure of the dance,[3] The music seemed to slacken, time to halt, Or drag his limping moments lingering on. At length, after ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles

... was. The gloom of centuries darkened it. Their dusk had penetrated the very fibre of the wood. Its look suggested ancient times; far climes; and hands long mouldering in dust. It was an instrument to quicken curiosity and elicit mental interrogation. What was its story? Where was it made? By whom, and when? The Lad did not know. It was his mother's gift, he said. And an old sea-captain had given it to his mother. The old sea-captain had found it on a wreck in the far-off ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... think even now of the noble enthusiasm, the animated exertions, the undaunted courage, the unconquerable perseverance of the Spanish nation, in a cause apparently so desperate, finally so triumphant, without feeling his blood glow and his pulses quicken with tumultuous throbs of admiration. But I must remind the honourable gentleman of three circumstances, calculated to qualify a little the feelings of enthusiasm, and to suggest lessons of caution: I must remind him first of the state of this country—secondly, ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... mixed and huddled together, that a stranger finds it impossible to reconcile his ear to it, so as to perceive its modulation. Some of these pibrochs, being intended to represent a battle, begin with a grave motion, resembling a march; then gradually quicken into the onset; run off with noisy confusion, and turbulent rapidity, to imitate the conflict and pursuit; then swell into a few flourishes of triumphant joy; and perhaps close with the wild and slow wailings of ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... gives all men life, gave him his death, And too much breathing put him out of breath; Nor were it contradiction to affirm, Too long vacation hasten'd on his term. Merely to drive the time away he sicken'd, Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quicken'd; "Nay," quoth he, on his swooning bed outstretch'd, "If I mayn't carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetch'd, But vow, though the cross doctors all stood hearers, For one carrier put down to make six bearers." Ease was his chief disease; and to judge right, He died for heaviness that his ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... did so choose. In general he had steeled himself to resist the temptation to smoke no more than was needed to quicken and clarify thought. But the short talk with Richardson had set all his over-strained nerves on edge. His sum of sleep in the past week did not amount to twenty-four hours, and for once in a way oblivion must ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... warrior Achilles, he was somewhat subject to extempore bursts of passion, which were rather unpleasant to his favorites and attendants, whose perceptions he was apt to quicken, after the manner of his illustrious imitator, Peter the Great, by anointing their shoulders with ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd's plantation, and, on allowance-day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, analyze the ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... 20th, at an early hour, we resumed our march, and as the column proceeded sounds of artillery were heard in the direction of the White House, which fact caused us to quicken the pace. We had not gone far when despatches from General Abercrombie, commanding some fragmentary organizations at the White House, notified me that the place was about to be attacked. I had previously sent an advance party with orders to move swiftly toward the cannonading ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan

... complete department of the kind ever attempted, contains letters from almost every quarter of the globe, and not only serves to bring the boys and girls of different states and countries into pleasant acquaintance, but, through its exchanges and answers to questions, to extend their knowledge and quicken their intelligence. ...
— Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... slantwise, it beat upon one side of the basketwork of the tilt until the splashings began to spurt into his face, and he found himself forced to draw the curtains (fitted with circular openings through which to obtain a glimpse of the wayside view), and to shout to Selifan to quicken his pace. Upon that the coachman, interrupted in the middle of his harangue, bethought him that no time was to be lost; wherefore, extracting from under the box-seat a piece of old blanket, he covered over his ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... thrilling incidents of narrow escapes is that told by Miss Minnie Chambers. She had been to see a friend in the morning and was returning to her home on Main street, when the suddenly rising waters caused her to quicken her steps. Before she could reach her home or seek shelter at any point, the water had risen so high and the current became so strong that she was swept from her feet and carried along in the flood. Fortunately her skirts served to support her on ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... cloud lay low upon the hills, wrapping in its hot blanket the sweltering breathless town; and rolled off sullenly when the sun rose high, to let him pour down his glare, and quicken into evil life all evil things. For Baalzebub is a sunny fiend; and loves not storm and tempest, thunder, and lashing rains; but the broad bright sun, and broad blue sky, under which he can take his pastime merrily, and laugh at all the shame and agony below; and, as he did at his great banquet ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... Cornelius. A tall youth of seventeen, with the strong family features, varied by a droop in the eyelids and a slight drawl in his speech, lounged to the door of the library. Before entering he straightened his shoulders; he did not, however, quicken his pace. ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... famous for the quality of its tobacco, a plant that is most esteemed when grown among the ruined parts of villages, because the nitre contained in the old cement of houses not only serves to quicken the vegetation, but imparts to the article that sparkling effect which is admired when ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... song's salute, When summer's beauties thicken; Cuckoo, nightingale, no art Of yours my heart can quicken! Morfydd, not thy haunting kiss Or voice of bliss can save me From the spear of age whose chill Has quenched the thrill love gave me. My ripe grain of heart and brain The sod sadly streweth; Its empty chaff with mocking laugh The wind of death pursueth! Dig my grave! ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves

... of this conspiracy would not have prevented the intended invasion by the royal army from Flanders, had not Charles been disappointed in his expectations from another quarter. No reasoning, no entreaty, could quicken the characteristic slowness of the Spanish ministers. Neither fleet nor money was ready; the expedition was postponed from month to month; the season passed away, and the design was deferred till the return of the long and darksome nights of winter. But Sexby's impatience ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... does. Receive the influence that tends to quicken your best impulses and purposes; follow your awakened conscience naturally. Do what seems to you womanly, right, noble in little things or in great things, should there be opportunity. Did Shakespeare, as a child, propose ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... give an impression of the manifest enjoyment of Mrs. B. in these kitchen scenes. It was her favorite exercise to enter the apartment noisily, vociferate orders, give a few sudden blows to quicken Nig's pace, then return to the sitting room with SUCH a satis- fied expression, congratulating herself upon ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson

... stricken heart and home, O, come! In tenderest pity, come! To anxious souls who wait in fear, Be Thou most wonderfully near! And hear a people's prayers, for faith To quicken life ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham

... the streets, your heart all me; Till you gain the world beyond the town. Then — I fade from your heart, quietly; And your fleet steps quicken. The strong down Smiles you welcome there; the woods that love you Close lovely and conquering ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke

... I say now—I shall do great works for this generation; I am strangely favoured of God; I have felt the spirit quicken wondrously within me, and I know the Lord works not in vain; what great wonder of grace I shall do, what miracle of salvation, I know not, but remember, it shall be transcendent; tell it to no one, but I know in my inner secret heart it shall be a greater work than ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson



Words linked to "Quicken" :   deepen, move, energise, excite, recreate, accelerate, speed up, quickener, whet, energize, intensify, brisk, brisken, arouse, animate, speed, vivify, stimulate, renovate, stir, decelerate, revive



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