"Unalterable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in which her low voice could be distinctly heard, she, conquering her extreme timidity, and with a calmness that astonished us all, said, that she did not pretend to be a judge of what gentlemen might think right or wrong about duels, but that for her own part she had formed a resolution—an unalterable resolution, never to marry a man who had fought a duel in which he had been the challenger. Her father, who was behind her, leaned forward, and asked what his daughter said—she ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... loser to the tune of seventy dollars, and while she wrote her check to Marie Littlejohn, a tiny blond exotic not much older than herself,—who laid down the law with the ripe authority of a Cabinet Minister and kept to a daily time-table with the unalterable effrontery of a fashionable doctor,—talked over her ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... read more than he attended to the lecture, and, having been refused the loan, gave such an instant turn to the mind of Bonnet, that he hastened to obtain a copy; after many difficulties in procuring this costly work, its possession gave an unalterable direction to his future life. This naturalist indeed lost the use of his sight by his devotion to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... remonstrance of reproval—nothing but just unlimited faith and love. If the boy's look had angered him, had caused him to waver, had made the self-sacrifice seem too great when repaid with ingratitude, all these thoughts vanished in an instant, obliterated by that one look of unalterable love. In the hour of darkness the girl stood by him, and he would also stand firm. She would believe in him, and his sacrifice would be as nothing. He had undertaken to avert the sorrow of dishonor from her, from her brother, from her parents, ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... rectitude of my intentions.... that I may be restored to the favor of my most Gracious Sovereign—... cheerfully cast myself at his feet imploring his Royal Grace and Protection.... the unalterable attachment to the Person, Family, and Interests of my Sovereign, and to ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... Schumann's word, in their magnificence. But the underlying feeling was always the same throughout; it might wax or wane in intensity: its character did not change. The themes, once announced, were rigid and unalterable; the music had always to be more or less like "a tune tied to a post." Dramatic changes of mood had no place. So later, a voice had to be found for shifting, complex, theatrically conflicting moods—states of mind characteristic ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman
... superstitions, at which they laugh so, have an affectionate, lovable kind of character. He is like a College-Tutor, whose whole world is forms, College-rules; whose notion is that these are the life and safety of the world. He is placed suddenly, with that unalterable, luckless notion of his, at the head not of a College but of a Nation, to regulate the most complex, deep-reaching interests of men. He thinks they ought to go by the old decent regulations; nay, that their salvation will lie in extending and improving these. Like ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... Hamersleben, 3d December, &c. (Putter, Historische Entwickelung der hautigen Staatsverfassung des Teutschen Reichs, Gottingen, 1788, ii. 384, 390).] And so certain doors are locked; and Friedrich Wilhelm's word, unalterable as gravitation, has gone forth. In this manner is the mad Catholic bull taken by the TAIL: keep fast hold, and apply your cudgel duly in that attitude, he will ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... inspires artists and poets. This woman, whose name I would here conceal, whom I would veil even as Dante does, is endowed with all the generous sympathies of our age. She has visited, with the select few, the haunts of lofty minds. Here, in this seat of imperturbable peace, of unalterable security, she has formed noble friendships, those friendships which have filled her life, which, born under immortal auspices, are sheltered alike from time, from death, and from all human vicissitudes. I address myself, ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... figure, against the bright light which shone outside at the upper end of the tunnel. Many confused thoughts oppressed him, but they were like advancing and retreating waves breaking about the central rock of his one unalterable purpose. He followed Beatrice till they reached the door of the house. Then she turned and smiled at him, and turned again and went in. Bastianello of course carried the bag upstairs for Teresina, and Ruggiero ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... be happy is to live according to nature, in obedience to that universal and unalterable law with which every heart is originally impressed; which is not written on it by precept, but engraven by destiny, not instilled by education, but infused at our nativity. He that lives according ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... about the want of life and total lack of variety of treatment in this school of art. To a very great extent the charge is just, yet it could scarcely be otherwise. The one circumstance which compelled Byzantine work to remain so long as if cast in one unalterable mould, and thus to differ so strangely from that of Western artists, was due to the fact that in very early Christian times the scribes and illuminators were enrolled into a minutely organised corporation originating primarily ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... act has no other object than to proclaim to the whole world their unalterable resolution to take, as their only guide, both in the internal administration of their respective States, and in their political relations with other governments, those principles of justice, Christian charity and peace, which, far from being exclusively applicable ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... it very seldom does; but acquiescence in the semblance is rarely enduring, and hence there are few examples of lifelong constancy. But I hold with Plato that true love is single, indivisible, unalterable. ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... gesture of contempt indicative also of complete self-satisfaction and unalterable self-belief, shrugged his broad shoulders. His short fat fingers, covered with rings, beat a tattoo upon the ledge of ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... faithfully promised that he would preserve it always with the utmost care; and would show it to the commanders of such ships as might in future touch at the Society Islands. Who can fail to love a character like that of O'too, in which unalterable steadiness of affection is as conspicuous, as honest and natural ardour? Long may he enjoy his authority and his health; and preserve the honourable memorial of his friend, without being afflicted by the knowledge ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... Prince, calmly, "a man's destiny is never unalterable; it is like a pitcher filled with wine which he is carrying to his lips—it may be broken on the way, and its contents spilled. Such has often happened through impatience and pride. What is waiting but the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... life in the wilderness were resisted by an invincible, passive courage, and a deep, internal tranquillity. Away from the amenities of life, away from the opportunities of vain-glory, they became dead to the world, and possessed their souls in unalterable peace. The few who lived to grow old, though bowed by the toils of a long mission, still kindled with the fervour of apostolic zeal. The history of their labours is connected with the origin of every celebrated ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... with the clear eye of an impartial philosopher. That at least is by no means impossible, historically or psychologically. Even in our most solemn hours of doubt it is rare that we know not where we should look for the fixed point of duty, its unalterable summit; but we feel that there stretches a distance too wide to be travelled between the actual thing to be done and this mountain-peak, that glitters afar in its solitude. And yet it is proved by man's whole history—by the life of each one of us—that it is on the loftiest ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... her life. "My lawyers" (I wrote) "have undertaken to arrange Mr. Van Brandt's affairs immediately. In a few hours he will be at liberty to accept the situation that has been offered to him." The last lines of the letter assured her of my unalterable love, and entreated her to write to me before ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... consequence. With an insatiable thirst for knowledge, I trifled away the years of improvement; with a restless desire of seeing different countries, I have always resided in the same city; with the highest expectation of connubial felicity, I have lived unmarried; and with unalterable resolutions of contemplative retirement, I am going to die within the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... companionship of Ellen Carley. This warm-hearted outspoken country girl had taken a fancy to Mr. Holbrook's beautiful wife from the hour of her arrival at the Grange, one cheerless March evening, and had attached herself to Marian from that moment with unalterable affection and fidelity. The girl's own life at the Grange had been lonely enough, except during the brief summer months, when the roomy old house was now and then enlivened a little by the advent of a lodger,—some ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... before his departure were very uncomfortable, and everyone rejoiced that the 'poor, dear fellow was going away to forget his trouble, and come home happy'. Of course, he smiled darkly at their delusion, but passed it by with the sad superiority of one who knew that his fidelity like his love was unalterable. ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... lukewarm; the educated classes, where they did not simply convert themselves to Christianism, began to regard the doctrines of their religion in a rationalist manner; for them the dispersion of the Jewish people was a final and unalterable fact; they emptied the conception of the Messiah and of Zion of every concrete meaning, and arranged for themselves a singular doctrine, according to which the Zion promised to the Jews was to be understood only in a spiritual sense, as the setting up of ...
— Zionism and Anti-Semitism - Zionism by Nordau; and Anti-Semitism by Gottheil • Max Simon Nordau
... unalterable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, that whenever you are invited to a supper at Paris, Lyons, or any of the great cities, where a little trifling play commences before supper, that GREAT PLAY is intended after supper; and that you are the marked pigeon to be plucked. Always remember ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... (thoughts and motions). It is not destroyed by the fact that the will is always moved by desire, more exactly, by uneasiness under present circumstances, and that the decision is determined by the judgment of the understanding. Although the result of examination is itself dependent on the unalterable relations of ideas, it is still in our power to decide whether we will consider at all, and what ideas we will take into consideration. Not the thought, not the determination of the will, is free, but the person, the mind; this has the power to suspend ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... contempt for mankind was absolute; not a fluctuating sentiment, not a mournful conviction, ebbing and flowing with circumstances, but a fixed, profound, unalterable instinct; who never loved any one, and never hated any one except his own children; was diverted by his popularity, but he was also gratified by it. At this moment it was a great element of power; he was proud that, with a vicious character, ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... reasons for this reservedness, reasons difficult to discern, even for their own eyes. The first reason was a too great critical faculty, which saw too clearly the unalterable differences between one mind and another, backed by an excessive intellectualism which attached too much importance to those differences: they lacked that puissant and naive sympathy whose vital need is of love, ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... converse with us were we to remain constantly in that position and point of view, which is peculiar to ourselves. The intercourse of sentiments, therefore, in society and conversation, makes us form some general unalterable standard, by which we may approve or disapprove of characters and manners. And though the heart takes not part entirely with those general notions, nor regulates all its love and hatred by the universal abstract differences of vice and virtue, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... helpless and find no stay. For this reason the merriest of all children are those, much pitied, who are brought up neither in a family nor in a public home by paid guardians, but in a place of charity, rightly named, where impartial, unalterable, and impersonal devotion has them in hand. They endure an immeasurable loss, and are orphans, but they gain in perpetual gaiety; they live in an unchanging temperature. The separate nest is nature's, and the best; but it might ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... Dorothea, who planted the Lindens in Berlin, and did other husbandries, fell far short of Louisa in many things, but not in tendency to advise, to remonstrate, and plaintively reflect on the finished and unalterable. Dreadfully thrifty lady, moreover; did much in dairy produce, farming of town-rates, provision-taxes, not to speak again of that Tavern she was thought to have in Berlin, and to draw custom to it in an oblique manner! "Ah! I have not my Louisa now; to whom now shall I run for advice or help?" ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... wanted there, that you cannot in conscience—conscientious as you are—keep away, when you have the means of returning. I have not time or patience to give half Henry's messages; be satisfied that the spirit of each and every one is unalterable affection." ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... First then, by the law or light of nature, I mean that law which was concreate with man; that which is natural to him, being original with, and essential to, himself; consequently, that which is invariable and unalterable, as is that nature. Secondly, I grant that by this law of nature, man understands that there is one eternal God; that this God is to be worshiped according to his own will; consequently, that time must be allowed to do it in: but whether ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... gestation was formerly thought to be so unalterable a character, that a supposed difference between the wolf and the dog in this respect was esteemed a sure sign of specific distinction; but we have seen that the period is shorter in the improved breeds of the pig, and in the larger breeds of the ox, than in other breeds of these two ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... to take me for some one else; they talk to me as if I were a person of earnest views and unalterable convictions. 'What is your opinion of Democracy?' they ask: 'Are you in favour of the Channel Tunnel?' 'Do you ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... falling a little silent over their meal, for neither could longer hold at bay the sense that events impended—that all paths, however devious, however touched by the enchanter's wand, lead back by an unalterable law to the ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... drain his open purse, and his boon companions were as welcome to its contents, while it could stand the strain, as its careless, happy owner. The bright side of life attracted his laughing fancy, and with stern and unalterable determination he studiously avoided all seriousness and shadow. There was no room in his happy composition for aught of sorrow or sadness, and a quick and merry wit always extricated him from every embarrassing position or ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... a quick puce until they reached the corner of Bodagh's garden, where, with brief but earnest reassurances of unalterable attachment, they took ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... for this imaginary neglect. So she sought to make the journey as pleasant as possible by cheerful remarks and lively observations. None of these things, however, produced any effect upon the attitude of Minnie. She sat there, with unalterable sweetness and unvarying patience, just like a holy martyr, who freely forgave all her enemies, and was praying for those who ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... only, in comparative quiet, the Concerned struggled with the Concerned. Then true to all Dog Psychology,—absolutely indisputable, absolutely unalterable, the Non-Concerned leaped in upon the Non-Concerned! Half on his guard, but wholely on his itch, the jostled Parrot shot like a catapult across the floor! Lost to all sense of honor or table-manners the benign-faced Giraffe with his ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... sent from the counties of Orange and Spottsylvania.[187] On the 19th of May, an address "to the inhabitants of Virginia," under the signature of "Brutus," saluted Patrick Henry as "his country's and America's unalterable and unappalled great advocate and friend."[188] On the 22d of May, Prince William County declared its thanks to be "justly due to Captain Patrick Henry, and the gentlemen volunteers who attended him, for their ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... for it is one of the main objects of our society to assist and guide Englishmen in the use of their language by fully exposing the facts that should determine their practice. Every word has its history, and no word can prosper in the speech or writing of those who do not respect its inherited and unalterable associations; these cannot be got rid of by ignoring them. Littr['e] in the preface to his dictionary claims for it this pre-eminent quality of usefulness, that it will enable his countrymen to speak and write good French by acquainting ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt
... improper here to say that it should be our fixed and unalterable determination to protect by all available and proper means under the Constitution and the laws the lately emancipated race in the enjoyment of their rights and privileges; and I urge upon those to whom heretofore the colored people have sustained the relation of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes • Rutherford B. Hayes
... sea-level in Manchester a pound weight falling through seven hundred and seventy-two feet could generate enough heat to raise the temperature of a pound of water one degree Fahrenheit. There was nothing haphazard, nothing accidental, about this; it bore the stamp of unalterable law. And Joule himself saw, what others in time were made to see, that this truth is merely a particular case within a more general law. If heat cannot be in any sense created, but only made manifest as a transformation ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... few words of heartfelt gratitude towards the multitude from whom, in the intercourse of the world, I have experienced good offices; and towards the few who, in the hour of my trials and adversities, remained with faces towards me steadfast and unalterable, scorning the fickle who scoffed, and the Levite who passed by on the other side. Of old hath it been said, that a true friend is the medicine of life; and in the day of darkness, when my heart ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... of untiring toil; it meant the lowliest office, the most menial service; it meant the renouncing of all personal comfort, the sharing of her last possession with the soldier of her country; it meant patience, and watching, and unalterable love. A mother, every boy who fought for his country was her boy; and if she had nursed him in infancy, she could not have cared for him with a tenderer care. Journey after journey this woman has performed to every part of the land, carrying ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... this inflammation. During that period, the blood-vessels are fully employed absorbing the products of the inflammation, and any attempt to interfere with this necessary process of nature can end only in disaster or in a prolongation of the difficulty. This is the law of pathology, unalterable and not to be evaded. Physicians at times resort to soothing and astringent applications in an emergency, to carry the artist through a performance; but the lack of edge to the voice for weeks following is an all-sufficient ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... for a farm cottage, will admit of such changes as will adapt it to the wants of those who require a higher grade of accommodation. It is the most natural thing in the world for any one to take up a plan and suggest innumerable changes and additions, always forgetting the unalterable condition of price, situation, and object, which restrained the architect while working it up. To prepare a design regardless of expense is a very different matter from devising one that gives the largest amount of accommodation within a fixed limit of ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... established as a means to an end—the highest good of men. Therefore, the end is more important than the means; and, in any case of apparent collision, the means must give way that the end may be secured. External observances are not of permanent, unalterable obligation. They stand on a different footing from primal moral duties, which remain equally imperative whether doing them leads to physical good or evil. David and his men were bound to keep these, whether they starved or not; but ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... that we shall do well to remember is that no condition or relation one of whose elements or factors is the human mind can ever be properly considered apart from that mind. Shakespeare's plays would seem to be fairly unalterable. Shakespeare is dead and cannot change them, and they have been written down in black and white this many a year. But the real play, so far as it makes any difference to us to-day, is not in the books; or, at least, the book is but one of its elements. ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... to beguile him in the boasting of his apostrophes, in the flow of his patriotic nonsense, in the emphasis of his harangues, in the ponderousness of his style, fleshy but ropy and lacking in marrow and bone, in the insupportable dross of his long adverbs with which he introduces phrases, in the unalterable formula of his adipose periods badly sewed together with the thread of conjunctions and, finally, in his wearisome habits of tautology. Nor was his enthusiasm wakened for Caesar, celebrated for his laconic style. ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... Wahcoudah's will be done." He had repeated to his old servant what their deliverer had told them of himself. But having taken in the evidence of his own senses and already drawn therefrom his own unalterable conclusions, Big Black Burl could not be made to understand how a man who looked like Kumshakah, talked like Kumshakah, acted like Kumshakah, called himself Kumshakah, could be any other than the Kumshakah whom he had met as a foe, entertained as ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... distress, or do but bear the image of Jesus my Master." "Sir," said he to his friend, "my wife hath a competent maintenance secured after my death; and therefore, as this is my prayer, so this my resolution shall, by God's grace, be unalterable." ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... was entertained by the Ministers and was warmly urged by the local crown officials. Thus, John Pownall, the Under-Secretary, avowed in a letter addressed to the Governor, that such a measure was necessary, and that such "had been long his firm and unalterable opinion upon the fullest consideration of what had passed in America"; and in the same letter be says that the Government had under consideration "the forfeiture of the Charter and measures of local regulation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... already established. The immutability of such an abstract system is its great practical merit; the same identical terms and relations in it can always be recovered and referred to—change itself is just such an unalterable concept. But all these abstract concepts are but as flowers gathered, they are only moments dipped out from the stream of time, snap-shots taken, as by a kinetoscopic camera, at a life that in its original coming is continuous. Useful as they are as samples of the ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... required them, as they valued his favor, to aid him in effecting his purposes. Good natured as he was, his determination was fully aroused, and he was now resolved to compel the queen to submit. He wrote a letter to Lord Clarendon, in which he declared his absolute and unalterable determination to make Lady Castlemaine "of the queen's bed chamber," and hoped he might be miserable in this world and in the world to come if he failed in the least degree in what he had undertaken; and if any one of his friends attempted to thwart or ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... stricken whales, men slipping down their slimy flanks into the sea, boats overturned and smashed, in the thick of it the wet nose of the German submarine coming up for a look round, and then, out of that hideous welter, the voice of a sailor, the unalterable Briton in the face of all this modern science and sea magic, grabbing an anchor or whatever it was he ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... religion, wherever their birth or their residence; they have maintained the inviolability of the constitutional rights of the different sections of the Union, and they have proclaimed their devoted and unalterable attachment to the Union and to the Constitution, as objects of interest superior to all subjects of local or sectional controversy, as the safeguard of the rights of all, as the spirit and the essence of the liberty, peace, and greatness of the Republic. In doing this they have ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... swiftly any undertaking you engage in. As an American, you will have the confidence of the King and Queen, and will act as a surety for Lafayette, whom 'tis only too true their Majesties distrust profoundly. I reminded Lafayette of the unalterable obligation which prevented me from interesting myself personally in the political situation here and of the plan I had just formed of appealing to you. He approved of it entirely, saying that there was no one in ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... and the declaration which Lord Cashel had made to him respecting himself. Could it be absolutely true that Fanny had determined to give him up altogether?—After all her willing vows, and assurances of unalterable affection, could she be so cold as to content herself with sending him a formal message, by her uncle, that she did not wish to see him again? Frank argued with himself that it was impossible; he was sure he knew her too well. But still, ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... transitions! In solitude I ruminate and form my schemes. They seem to me unalterable: yet a word from you scatters all my laboured edifices, and I look back upon my former state of mind as on something that passed when I was a ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... be other than spirits made perfect, or, as Leighton writes, "glorified souls,"—the "unalterable by nature" seems ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the London University College, and afterwards realised at the Ecole Pratique, and School of Anatomy adjoining the Hospital La Pitie, Paris, a few years since. As far as the subject of relative anatomy could admit of novel treatment, rigidly confined to facts unalterable, I ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... of the burning logs lighted up Jones's calm, cold face. Tranquil, unalterable and peaceful it seemed; yet beneath the peace I thought I saw a suggestion of wild restraint, ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... pass with the year which brought it. Owen had little imagination, that soil from which loves spring with the rank swiftness of a tropic bloom to fade at the first chill breath of change. His passion was an unalterable fact. It was rooted like an oak on our stiff English soil, its fibres wrapped his heart and shot his being through, and if so strong a gale should rise that it must fall, then ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... carelessness with regard to Him, whether we are to worship Him at all, whether we worship Him in a right manner, or conceited confidence that we do so, will seem to imply unspeakable Presumption. Neither do we know what necessary, unalterable connexion there may be, between moral right and happiness, ...
— Some Remains (hitherto unpublished) of Joseph Butler, LL.D. • Joseph Butler
... they are now more fitted than they were before for ousting their superior neighbours from the chances of support. But I can see no reason for supposing such a consequence to be probable or even possible. The struggle for existence, as I have suggested, rests upon the unalterable facts that the world is limited and population elastic. Under all conceivable circumstances we shall still have in some way or other to proportion our numbers to our supplies; and under all circumstances those who are fittest by reason of intellectual or moral or physical ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... natural antipathy, or, as you say, hatred. Which antipathy their creatures do inherit. Whence, good people, you may both see and hear your cattle stamp in their stalls for the self-same causes as decree the passages of the stars across the unalterable face of Heaven! Ahem!' Puck lay along chewing a leaf. They felt him shake with laughter, and Mr ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... place, but would he see it? The thought flashed through his mind that he might not; but he trod it under foot; not through an inborn, primitive egotism like that of Lempriere, but through an innate arrogance, an unalterable belief that Fate was ever on his side. He had played so many tricks with Fate, had mocked while taking its gifts so often, that, like the son who has flouted his indulgent father through innumerable times, he conceived that he should never be disinherited. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... settled into a calm and decided seriousness of expression. "I feel highly flattered by his lordship's proposal, which, as you say, I might well doubt to be gravely meant. I wish him all happiness with a lady of higher deserts; but I speak from an unalterable determination, when I say that I can never accept the dignity with which he would ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... soon be in, not merely that she might soon have a letter; nor even that it, the clock, had seen Mr. Linden since she had. All these thoughts mingled, but with them something else. They would tick on, those minutes, relentlessly, no matter what they were to bring or take away,—steady, unalterable, unchecked,—like the old idea of Fate. She tried to be steady too—tried to have that fixedness of heart which says confidently, "I will sing and give praise." But she was weak yet, with the effect and even the presence of fever, and through all her thoughts she seemed ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... gaily circling glass. The others began to talk thick and at once, each performing his own part in the conversation without the least respect to his neighbour. The Baron of Bradwardine sung French chansons-a-boire, and spouted pieces of Latin; Killancureit talked, in a steady unalterable dull key, of top-dressing and bottom-dressing, [Footnote: This has been censured as an anachronism; and it must be confessed that agriculture of this kind was unknown to the Scotch Sixty Years Since.] and year-olds, and gimmers, and dinmonts, and stots, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... from me. I longed no more for the glory of this world, my heart hung above it as an eagle on his outstretched wings, and the voice of the world's blame could not stir it, and the vision of its beauty brought no delight. For above me was the vast vault of heaven, where in unalterable procession the stars pass on, drawing after them the destinies of men; where the Holy Ones sit upon their burning thrones, and watch the chariot-wheels of Fate as they roll from sphere to sphere. O hours of holy contemplation! ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... I repelled his advances—not, as he thought, because I could not conquer my wrath, but simply because I feared becoming sentimental. I must preserve undiminished the whole glow of my indignation, the whole vigor of an unalterable determination. I went to bed early, but you may well believe I did not close my eyes. I kept them wide open, although I had pulled the bed-clothes over my head. I had not thought over beforehand what I should do: I had no ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... shook his head. "Everything is lost through this shillyshallying timidity, called prudence," cried Paul Jones, starting to his feet; "to be effectual, war should be carried on like a monsoon, one changeless determination of every particle towards the one unalterable aim. But in vacillating councils, statesmen idle about like the cats'-paws in calms. My God, why was ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... Joan, upon the tidy condition of her house, she answered, with that cruel humility that is so bad an element in their character, 'Missis no 'spect to find coloured folks' house clean as white folks.' The mode in which they have learned to accept the idea of their own degradation and unalterable inferiority, is the most serious impediment that I see in the way of their progress, since assuredly, 'self-love is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting.' In the same way yesterday, Abraham the cook, in speaking of his brother's ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... judgments they exercise they are most accurate and just, nor do they pass sentence by the votes of a court that is fewer than a hundred. And as to what is once determined by that number, it is unalterable. What they most of all honor, after God himself, is the name of their legislator [Moses], whom if any one blaspheme he is punished capitally. They also think it a good thing to obey their elders, and the major part. Accordingly, if ten ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... eyes, and even a sort of horrid dignity in ours. Philip is not without a certain greatness, the greatness of unlimited external power, and of a will relentless in its dictates, guided by principles, false, but consistent and unalterable. The scene of his existence is haggard, stern and desolate; but it is all his own, and he seems fitted for it. We hate him and fear him; but the poet has taken care to secure him ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... your love, and my own is unalterable. I fear circumstances; but what has fear to do with it; I wish to make you my own; the empire of my passion is all-subduing. I will not wait! If you refuse me, I have been mistaken; you do not ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... open air. In the deserts of Africa the preservation of the body is secured by burying it in the hot sand; and even in Europe soils are sometimes met with in which the bodies undergo a slow process of drying, and then remain almost unalterable even on exposure to the air and moisture. There is a vault at Toulouse in which a vast number of bodies that have been buried were found, after many years, dry and without a trace of the effects of putrefaction; and in the vaults of St. Michael's Church, Dublin, the bodies are similarly preserved. ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... though he was, he could not, for his life, have helped the queer feeling which came over him. He had sharply rebuked the superstition in his parishioners; had been inclined to ridicule Matthew Frost; had cherished a firm and unalterable belief that some foolish wight was playing pranks with the public; but all these suppositions and convictions faded in this moment; and the clergyman felt that that which had rustled past was the veritable dead and-gone Frederick Massingbird, in the ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... unwieldy, and of a brighter colour, and seldom leaves the parent hive; but when she goes to settle a new colony, all the bees attend her to the place of destination. A hive of bees cannot subsist without a queen, as she produces their numerous progeny; and hence their attachment to her is unalterable. When a queen dies, the bees immediately cease working, consume their honey, fly about at unusual times, and eventually pine away, if not supplied with another sovereign. The death of the queen is proclaimed by a clear and uninterrupted ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... millions each year satisfied the lottery owners; the votaries of the "System," among whom the "swag" must be divided, demand millions upon millions each. The tickets of the lottery had a definite value at all times until the drawing took place. The stocks and bonds of the "System" have no rigid or unalterable value when issued or at any other time, and do not represent a fixed ownership in all the savings of the people which have been ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... writing, in so far as this is not looked at as a means of relieving the memory. That a name or a number should be this or that, is a mere chance for the intelligence, an entirely meaningless accident to which we have unconditionally to submit ourselves as unalterable. The intelligence must be accustomed to put upon itself this constraint. In science proper, especially in Philosophy, our reason helps to produce one thought from others by means of the context, and we can discover names ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... the way, each one as overcome adding to the final momentum with which the goal is reached. It is like an accumulation of evidence, a constellation of associations. AB foretells C; but ABCDEF rushes yet more strongly upon G. So it is that the irresistibleness, the "unalterable rightness" of a piece of music increases from ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... more, Conscience will not only become more tender and faithful, but her domain will be much enlarged by the study of the Bible; and in many cases is which this heavenly monitor was once silent, she will now utter her warning voice. Conscience is not unalterable, as some suppose she is susceptible of elevation as long as we live; and happy is the individual who elevates her to her rightful throne. Happy is the individual who sees things most nearly as God sees them, and whose conscience ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... my speech to-night, embodying my most unalterable convictions [KATHERINE turns and looks up at him, but he is staring straight before him, and with a little movement of despair she goes on writing] I have no alternative but to place the resignation of my Under-Secretaryship ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... in a shallow stream at the bottom of the garden catching water-beetles, caddis-worms, and other small cattle for a freshwater aquarium, he was generally carrying this child about the garden pickaback, or otherwise obeying her little behests, and assuring her of his unalterable love. ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... a token of favour, of unity and confidence. It was one more attempt to save Judas, one more token of all-forgiving patience. No wonder that that last sign of friendship embittered his hatred and sharpened his purpose to an unalterable decision, or, as John says: 'After the sop, Satan entered into him.' For then, as ever, the heart which is not melted by Christ's offered love ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... resume his customary vestments and to weary him by making him wait for this operation, which promised to be a long one, he would have been without volition in the matter; for in obedience to a gesture, Mesrour grasped his arm and with great deference, but inflexible and unalterable firmness, led him through the shop and closed the street door ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... with a round and ruddy face, with bright blue eyes and a curling spread of yellow beard. Lola hesitated. She doubted if this richly arrayed, somewhat stout man could be the slim, boyish-looking father she remembered. Then the unalterable joyousness of his glance reassured her, and she rushed forward crying, ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... concerned. He who sees this as to Russia cannot conceivably miss seeing it as to Germany; even tariffist hallucinations about a "losing trade" under German tariffs cannot shut out the fact that our trade with Russia and the United States was carried on under still higher hostile tariffs. The unalterable fact remains that industrial prosperity rises and falls in the measure of the total mass of goods handled; and men who realise the responsibility of all Governments for the material wellbeing of their populations can come to only one conclusion. Trade must be facilitated ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... first call of beautiful order out of chaos and confusion, as the architecture of a well-ordered commonwealth. Wherefore Lycurgus, seeing in effect that his orders were good, fell into deep contemplation how he might render them, so far as could be effected by human providence, unalterable and immortal. To which end he assembled the people, and remonstrated to them: That for aught he could perceive, their policy was already such, and so well established, as was sufficient to entail upon them ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... was bathing, he remembered Statyllius, and called out aloud, "Apollonides, have you tamed the high spirit of Statyllius, and is he gone without bidding us farewell?" "No," said Apollonides, "I have said much to him, but to little purpose; he is still resolute and unalterable, and declares he is determined to follow your example." At this, it is said, Cato smiled, and answered, "That will ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... most foolhardy capers they preserved an unalterable gravity of demeanour, to such a degree that it was quite impossible to make out ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... expressions yet more strong, he made use of; and had Sir Philip had less unalterable politeness, I believe they would have had a vehement quarrel. He maintained his ground, however, with calmness and steadiness, though he had neither argument nor wit at all equal to such ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... his all in hardware, drugs, or law, runs the risk of failure. If his neighbor can rise earlier, walk faster, talk faster, work harder, and hold on longer, he will get the avails that might suffice for both. This unalterable fact ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... versus simple Jewish faith is struck at the very beginning and is echoed to the end. Thus, Ahasuerus ruled over one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, the opening banquet lasted one hundred and eighty-seven days, the king's bulletins were as unalterable as the tides, the gallows erected was eighty-three feet high, the beds were of gold and silver upon a pavement of red and blue and white and black marble, the money wrested from the Jews was to be eighteen million dollars, etc. The word "banquet" occurs twenty times in this short story ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... compact were also written into the ordinance, which were to remain forever unalterable except by the common consent of the parties thereto—"the original States and the people and States in the said territory." Freedom of worship, the usual rights of person and property, and the obligation of private contracts ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... answer their end... is most absurd.... Yet our lawyers and priests generally inculcate this doctrine, and suppose that preceding generations held the earth more freely than we do; had a right to impose laws on us, unalterable by ourselves;... in fine, that the earth belongs to the dead and not to the living." And so, too, apparently the majority of the Legislature believed; for by the measure which it promptly passed, ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin |
