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Act upon   /ækt əpˈɑn/   Listen
Act upon

verb
1.
Have and exert influence or effect.  Synonyms: influence, work.  "She worked on her friends to support the political candidate"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Act upon" Quotes from Famous Books



... by your own confession, you would force them to act upon a principle equally opposite to that upon which you would yourself act under similar ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat

... offended, but what I say is true, and I hope you will act upon it, so that Miss Brown shall not go out ridin' round the country with that—" began Mr. Ramsay, only to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... define. Live to love and love to live— You will ripen at your ease, Growing on the sunny side— Fate has nothing more to give. You're a dainty man to please If you are not satisfied. Ah! Take my counsel, happy man; Act upon ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... a full hour followed, for neither party seemed to have any plan to act upon. It was plain enough to Dory that the new skipper had discovered the presence of the detective on board of the boat, either before or soon after he went into her himself. A little later he saw a plaid overcoat lying on the forward deck. It was odd enough to betray the identity ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic

... individual. A man of the greatest intelligence finding himself in an audience, is no longer himself. An audience is never intelligent; it is a multiple being, composed of sense and sentiment. The greater the numbers, the less intelligence has to do. To seek to act upon an individual by gesture would be absurd. The reverse is true with an audience; it is persuaded not by ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... came to make their measurements. Their busy minds were full of weight and size and the relationship of thing to thing. Perhaps by now they too were so committed to the use of a thing to act upon another thing that they could not countenance the thought that thought could act upon a thing direct. They measured the crystal tool, and recorded all their measurements, but found no meaning in its arches and ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... apartments at all, the cook-room and reception-room drawing from the waste steam and engine boilers. People outside had long been using fires constantly and freely. At length, a remark of the warden to company, revealed the theory he was pretending then to act upon. The temperature, at the time, was low in the hall, and some excuse evidently appeared to be needful. The remark was this: "I have not let the heat into this hall yet, for I think it best to do with that as people ought to do with regard to under-clothing, keep it off as late ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby

... John noticed their surprise he seemed in no way put out by it. "Perhaps," he said gently, "it is wrong to thrust opinions on others unasked. I think that is so! It should be enough to act upon them one's self, and ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... which act upon each person's susceptibilities differ.—O, yes! I will tell you some of mine. The smell of PHOSPHORUS is one of them. During a year or two of adolescence I used to be dabbling in chemistry a good deal, and as about that time I had my little aspirations and passions ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... general reader; but I have found from my own experience, and from what I have heard from others, that plain matters of fact in relation to customs and habits of life new to us, and descriptions of life under new aspects, act upon the inexperienced through the imagination, so that we are hardly aware of our want of technical knowledge. Thousands read the escape of the American frigate through the British channel, and the chase and wreck of the Bristol trader in the Red Rover, and follow the minute nautical manoeuvres ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... new object, but rather the bond which binds together into unity all the experiences of life. It is their relation to this conscious self which gives to all objects their moral worth. Every act upon an object reacts upon ourselves. The virtues and vices, the rewards and penalties that we have been studying are the various reactions of conduct upon ourselves. This chapter then will be a comprehensive review and summary of all that has gone before. Instead of taking one ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... the United States require that the Senate should be convened at 12 o'clock on the 12th day of April, 1869, to receive and act upon such communications as may be made to it on the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... to have such a chance of winning the King's daughter. Snati noticed that his master was at a loss, and said to him that he should not disregard what the King had asked him to do; but he would have to act upon his advice, otherwise he would get into great difficulties. The Prince assented to this, and began to prepare for ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various

... to know what Mrs. March thought, too; 'Every Other Week' was such a very good place that he could not conscientiously neglect any means of having his work favorably considered there; if Mrs. March's interest in it would act upon her husband, ought not he to know just how much she thought of him as a writer? "Did ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... quietly, "is important. There are times, Miss Longworth, when the junior in command of a great enterprise is faced with a crisis, when he or she is forced to act upon their own responsibility. The person who is great enough to rise to an occasion like this is the person who wins and deserves success in life. You follow ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... British Consul, and putting the matter entirely in his hands. But before he had had the strength to decide what it was best to do, had come the declarations of war, and he had determined to remain silent and act upon his own initiative. Unless he had muttered something of his past in his fever, and this he doubted, or some sign of it would have come from Fraeulein Roth, there would he no means of identifying him as an Englishman, ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... introspection and prayer. What we are in ourselves,—what use we shall make of life;—is not this an all important subject? What lesson we shall furnish for others,—what influence for good or evil;—can we be indifferent to that? God give us grace and strength to ponder and to act upon these suggestions! ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin

... do you feel that this will continue? When we go elsewhere, what habits, what tendencies, what fixed bent of spirit and character shall we exhibit? Knowing as we do how strongly the forces of the outer world will act upon us, it is never a useless warning which bids us take care that in new spheres we do not forget our old principles, or lay aside any good habits. "Blessed are ye that ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival

... honor and integrity of the Empire. In natural temperament he was probably at once soft and cruel. But, when policy required it, he could throw his softness aside and show himself a hardy and intrepid warrior. Similarly, he could control his natural harshness, and act upon occasion with clemency and leniency. He was not, perhaps, without a grim humor, which led him to threaten more than he intended, in order to see how men would comport themselves when greatly alarmed. There is some evidence that he aimed at saying good things; though ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... old Republic—thought that by his eloquence, by his vehemence of words, he could turn men from fraud to truth, and from the lust of plundering a province to a desire to preserve their country. Of Antony now he despaired, but he still hoped that his words might act upon this young Caesar's heart. The youth was as callous as though he had already ruled a province for three years. No Roman was ever more cautious, more wise, more heartless, more able to pick his way through blood to a throne, than the young Augustus. ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... mother'—Shall I go on? Or do you all know the plain old duty to your neighbours, which stands in the Church Catechism. If you do, thank God that you were taught it in your youth. Read it over and over again. Think over it. Pray to God to give you grace to act upon it, and to shew the fruit of it in your lives. And then, 'By its fruits you shall know it.' By its fruits you shall know the virtue of the Catechism, and of the great and good men, true prophets of God, who wrote that Catechism. Yes. Cling to that Catechism, even if it convinces you of many sins, ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... attempted resuming the interview so peremptorily terminated by Marnoo, who was evidently little disposed to compromise his own safety by any rash endeavour to ensure mine. But the plan he had suggested struck me as one which might possibly be accomplished, and I resolved to act upon ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... variability Darwin was always on the look out for those which might, with the greatest probability, be considered as affording material for natural selection to act upon in the development of new species. Neither of the extremes complied with his conceptions. He often pointed out, that there are a good many small fluctuations, which in this respect must be absolutely ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... the first call. Then at last came a copy of the "Twice-Told Tales," fresh from the press. But it was not until the establishment of the "Democratic Review," a year or two later, that occasion offered for a renewal of relations. Hawthorne was too shy to act upon the first invitation. Miss Peabody, finally, addressing him by letter, to inquire concerning the new periodical, for which he had been engaged as a contributor, asked him to come with both his sisters on the evening of the same day. Entirely to her surprise, they came. She herself opened the door, ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... under lip. Lest the piece should slip through the hole in the lip, a kind of rivet is formed by twine bound round the inner extremity, and this protruding into the space left by the extraction of the four front teeth of the lower jaw, entices the tongue to act upon the extremity, which gives it a wriggling motion, ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... always been fond of the drama in all its forms, and were ready to receive it even contaminated as it was by the licentious spirit of the time. An illiterate and ignorant people cannot think for themselves; they act upon the precepts and example of those above them in knowledge and social station: thus it is that a dissolute monarch and a subservient ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... the Union. But with such master minds as Clay, Webster, and Calhoun in the councils of the nation, the calamity was averted for the time. The North had broken compact after compact, promises after promises, until South Carolina determined to act upon those rights she had retained for herself in the formation of the Union, and which the general government guaranteed to all, and withdrew when that Union no longer served the purposes ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... to take violent steps, my friends Botot and Charles having worked with me for you. Botot alone not being sufficiently powerful, inasmuch as he could influence none but Barras, I sent Charles to his assistance in order to act upon Madame Tallien. And the stratagem was successful. Take this letter which I received only yesterday through a special messenger from Botot—you know Botot's handwriting, ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... master of all things, yet scarce can command anything. He is given a freedom of his will; but wherefore? Was it but to torment and perplex him the more? How little avails this freedom, if the objects he is to act upon be not as much disposed to obey as he is ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... constitution to constantly call forth and produce the social constitution. This is tremendously confusing! Yet one might get out of the difficulty by assuming that what Proudhon meant to say was that the political constitutions act upon the evolution of the social constitution. But then we are inevitably met by the question. Is not the political constitution in its turn rooted—as even Guizot admitted—in the social constitution of a country? According to our author no; the more emphatically no, that ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff

... dabs at disputation, I think. Houston, a lawyer by trade, is one of course, and Adams is not a whit less addicted to it than the lawyers. The question was, whether all America was not in a state of war, and whether we ought to confine ourselves to act upon the defensive only? He was for acting offensively, next spring or this fall, if the petition was rejected or neglected. If it was not answered, and favorably answered, he would be for acting against ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... him a girl or woman, apparently civilized and in the mode, who obviously had never seen him before and seemed not to care if it should be her fate never to repeat the experience, Talbot Potter had a certain desire. If society had established a rule that all men must instantly obey and act upon every fleeting impulse, Talbot Potter would have taken that girl or woman by the shoulders and said to her: "What's the matter ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington

... it pleases in the matter. George Washington's machine would act upon the right one; Pizarro would act ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... sugar-bush for good till the commencement of April, when the sun and wind beginning to unlock the springs that fed the lake, and to act upon its surface, taught them that it would not be prudent to remain longer on the island. The loud, booming sounds that were now frequently heard of the pent-up air beneath striving to break forth from its icy prison ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill

... and I at least was affected by her tears; I am not so sure my wife was. But she had instantly to consider how best to propose the matter to Miss Bentley, and to act upon her decision. ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells

... a long way to go yet," said he. "And yet—and yet—well, we have some suggestive facts to act upon. The possession of this trifling bust was worth more, in the eyes of this strange criminal, than a human life. That is one point. Then there is the singular fact that he did not break it in the house, or immediately outside the house, if to break it was ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... getting out of his ulster, and sitting down. "But I must begin by asking a few more questions. Did you get your cousin's letter yesterday morning? It was absolutely essential you should receive it before Ronnie reached home. I hoped you would act upon it ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay

... slightest sign of humour anywhere in the book. Yet, again, this is a thing one would rather not have said, "Diane cessant de m'etre favorable, Ismene[214] me pouvait tenir lieu de Deesse." Now it is sadly true that the human race does occasionally entertain, and act upon, reflections of this kind: and persons like Mr. Thomas Moore and Gombauld's own younger contemporary, Sir John Suckling, have put the idea into light and lively verse. But you do not expect it ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... not due to the individual elements, but to the combination of them. One has been added to one and a sum greater than two has been secured. The modification of result may be due merely to the bringing of the two elements together, so that they may mutually act upon each other, or it may be due to the manner or means by which they are joined. In a patentable combination the separate elements mutually act upon each other to effect a modification of their previous individual results, and secure a conjoint ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various

... that's stout!" hinted Mr. Terriberry after looking the table over for the customary pitcher of tinned milk. But before Mr. Symes could act upon the hint his brother-in-law's eyes began to water and bulge. He groped for his napkin while he compressed his lips in an heroic effort to retain the hot and bitter coffee, but instead he grabbed the hanging edge of the table-cloth. His pitiful ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... convenience, or for current prejudices, to weigh against respect for truth? For how much is it well that the individual should allow the feelings and convictions of the many to count, when he comes to shape, to express, and to act upon his own feelings and convictions? Are we only to be permitted to defend general principles, on condition that we draw no practical inferences from them? Is every other idea to yield precedence and empire to existing circumstances, and is the immediate and universal workableness ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... presence of the relics of him whom they have but lately seen such as they themselves, and who now is such as they must in their time become. But this decent and praiseworthy practice was not adopted at the time of which I am treating, or at least, Mr. Blattergowl did not act upon it, and the ceremony proceeded ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... tongue are of various kinds, and, like many other affections, are caused by contraction and dilation. Some of them are produced by rough, others by abstergent, others by inflammatory substances,—these act upon the testing instruments of the tongue, and produce a more or less disagreeable sensation, while other particles congenial to the tongue soften and harmonize them. The instruments of taste reach from the ...
— Timaeus • Plato

... in common with most of the States of Europe, while forbearing to reject, did not affirmatively act upon the overtures ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson

... acknowledgments on account of her generous mediation; and in the course of their walk, which Emilia was now in no hurry to conclude, whispered a great many tender protestations in the ear of his mistress, who nevertheless continued to act upon the reserve, until her doubts should be more ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... "I suppose I would read books and magazines from the country and possibly have an interview with the heads of the government. After I had collected my data I could then act upon it." ...
— Prelude to Space • Robert W. Haseltine

... I were sure of that also. Eh, well; I leave the affair in your hands, and they are capable ones. When the time comes, act, act upon your own initiative. In this matter we shall ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... of all healing to be God, or Mind. Relying on this Principle alone, she regained her health, and for the last sixteen years has taught this theory to others, and has healed the sick in all cases where the patient's mentality was sufficiently strong to understand her teachings and act upon them.—Brooklyn Eagle ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... students, "'Try the effect of close mental application to some of those ennobling pursuits to which your profession introduces you, in combination with vigorous bodily exercise, before you assert that the appetite is unrestrainable, and act upon ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... the same name, what could be more likely than that his money should be lured out of him by such a fraud as this? But yet,—yet, as he came to think of it all, it could not be true. The chance of carrying such a scheme to a successful issue would have been too small to induce the man to act upon it from the day of his first appearance at Bowick. Nor was it probable that there should have been another Ferdinand Lefroy unknown to his wife; and the existence of such a one, if known to his wife, would certainly have ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope

... and the German offensive was brought to a full stop. Towns and villages in Flanders, in Artois and in Champagne, that had been captured in the early German rush, were retaken one by one by the Belgians, French and British, slowly but surely, until the Germans were forced to act upon the defensive along a line of entrenchments prepared to enable them to keep open their communications through Belgium with their great base ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... advantage of the opportunity to scribble a note to the Captain, hinting at the complications promised by Felix Page's death, and requesting that I be permitted to retain Stodger as an assistant—for I liked the stout, cheerful man who was willing and quick to act upon no more than a hint, and at the same time not disposed to interfere at all with my own modes of procedure. This message I gave to him, requesting that he entrust it to either Callahan or O'Brien for delivery. "Tell 'em to clear out," I added; "I ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... affectation of wit will make a man of parts pass for a coxcomb. By this modesty I do not mean timidity and awkward bashfulness. On the contrary, be inwardly firm and steady, know your own value whatever it may be, and act upon that principle; but take great care to let nobody discover that you do know your own value. Whatever real merit you have, other people will discover, and people always magnify their own discoveries, as they lessen those ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... and thought it a good plan to act upon the guide's suggestion, although he could not make up his mind that he would permit his men to make prisoners of Bud and Silas. Perhaps, on the whole, it would not be safe. Good-natured, obedient Dick Graham could be easily controlled, but how ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon

... and he was ultimately landed in absurdity or something worse. The wholesome influence of ordinary men and women never permits us to link conclusion to conclusion from a single premiss, or at any rate to act upon our conclusions, but Mr. Cardew had no world at Abchurch save himself. He saw himself in things, and not as they were. A sunset was just what it might happen to symbolise to him at the time, and his judgments upon events ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford

... vessels of war should act upon the presumption that the flag of the United States was not being used in good faith and should destroy on the high seas an American or the lives of American citizens, it would be difficult for the Government of the United States to view the act in any other light than as an indefensible ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... noticed the sharp contrast that there is gradually growing up between the way people at home and these foreign peoples are receiving the Gospel? Out there there is an openness to the truth, an eager willingness to believe it simply, and to act upon it, that suggests the way they did in the Book of Acts. In our home-lands of America and Great Britain and Germany there seems to be either indifference, or an atmosphere of quibble and criticism. With questions and doubts naturalistic ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon

... of changing the devouring and trickster system of finance, of softening the revolutionary government, of guiding its influence, and punishing its prevaricating agents. Lastly, he invoked the people, talked of their necessities, and of their power. And when he had recalled all that could act upon the interests, hopes, or fears of the convention, he added: "We say, then, that there exists a conspiracy against public liberty; that it owes its strength to a criminal coalition which intrigues in the very heart ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... went on, "my information ends here, for the means of inquiry possessed by the police are, of course, very limited. They can only act upon facts, not on intentions, and so long as these are not displayed in open acts, the hands of the police are tied. It is only forty-eight hours since I heard of you for the first time, and I have already your biography ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... more liberal in his views than Eldon and Castlereagh, but he was less opposed to free trade than most of his cabinet, to parliamentary reform than Canning, and to catholic emancipation than Wellington or Peel. His fault was that he did not act upon his own inward convictions with sufficient promptitude, or assert his own authority with sufficient energy. Had he done so, the beneficial measures of the last years of his administration might have been anticipated, and the country might have been spared much of the misery ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... train, give an impulse &c. n.; to; inspire; put up to, prompt, call up; attract, beckon. stimulate &c. (excite) 824; spirit up, inspirit; rouse, arouse; animate, incite, foment, provoke, instigate, set on, actuate; act upon, work upon, operate upon; encourage; pat on the back, pat on the shoulder, clap on the back, clap on the shoulder. influence, weigh with, bias, sway, incline, dispose, predispose, turn the scale, inoculate; lead ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... do," Miss Kitty thought, as she peered through the crack at Moses Mouse, while she paused to get her breath. And as she stared at him, an idea popped into her head. It seemed such a good idea that Miss Kitty Cat decided to act upon ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... the young commander with a certain amount of contempt. The old takhaars laughed at him when he asked them to perform any duties, and called him a boy. They were unable to understand for a long time why they should act upon the advice or orders of a man many years younger than they themselves, and it was not until Botha had fought Colenso and Spion Kop that the old burghers commenced to realise that ability was not always monopolised by men with hoary beards. Before they had these manifestations ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas

... or what the monks are pleased to call by that name, has given no beneficial spur to their minds. How indeed could it act upon their confined understandings, when their teachers were almost wholly deficient in the necessary means of communicating knowledge,—an acquaintance with their language? I have since had opportunities of ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... your advice, Mr. Ten Eyck," said Miss Trigillgus, "and I thank you for it, whether I act upon it or not;" and she gave a cold bow that contradicted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... spoken so many words. Kindly, Siddhartha thanked him, went troubled into the hut, could not sleep for a long time. Vasudeva had told him nothing, he had not already thought and known for himself. But this was a knowledge he could not act upon, stronger than the knowledge was his love for the boy, stronger was his tenderness, his fear to lose him. Had he ever lost his heart so much to something, had he ever loved any person thus, thus blindly, thus sufferingly, thus unsuccessfully, and ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse

... a thing. He adds, "as I understand your cattle are taken away, I beg you will order your steward to write to Colin, or anybody else here, for provisions, as I can be supplied from the Highlands. I am preparing to act upon the defensive, and I suppose will soon be provoked to act on the offensive. I have sent for a strong party to protect my house and overawe the country. None of my Kintail men will be down till Tuesday, but as the river is ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... sum up the general character of the Saskatchewan half-breed population, I would say: They are gay, idle, dissipated, unreliable, and ungrateful, in a measure brave, hasty to form conclusions and quick to act upon them, possessing extra ordinary power-of endurance, and capable of undergoing immense fatigue, yet scarcely-ever to be depended on in critical moments, superstitious and ignorant, having a very deep-rooted distaste to any fixed employment, opposed to the Indian, ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... in 1872 by American journals, Dyar constructed the first telegraph in America. This line, which was put up on Long Island, was of iron wire strung on poles carrying glass insulators, and, upon it, Dyar operated with static electricity. Causing the spark to act upon a movable disk covered with litmus paper, he produced by the discoloration of the latter dots and dashes that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various

... archbishop—which threatens to have a disastrous influence upon my Netherlanders also—had robbed him of the last remnant of his enjoyment of life, already clouded? The indignation aroused by the German princes, and the difficult decision to which their conduct is forcing him, act upon his soul like poison. But hesitation is not in my nature, so I thought: Let us have music—good, genuine music. Then I sent a mounted messenger to order Gombert, the conductor of his orchestra, and the director ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... he is human, like his mother. John is terribly strong-willed, and this would worry me, were I not sure that his sense of justice is equally strong. He is like me in gentleness; but the man in him is the same man I loved in my girlhood days. When John maps out a course to act upon, if he believes he is right, nothing can swerve him—nothing. And sometimes he has been innocently wrong. I told Miss Challoner all his good qualities and his bad. She told me that she, too, has her faults. She added that there was only one other ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... while he was still but Duke of Orleans, with no sure prospect of inheriting the crown of France, he seems to have indulged the fancy of annexing Milan. No sooner had he ascended the French throne than he began to act upon this ambition. He descended into Lombardy, overran the Milanese, sent Lodovico Sforza to die in a French prison, and initiated the duel between Spain and France for mastery, which ended with the capture of Francis I. at Pavia, and his ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... recognize this fact, however, than to act upon it. His mind was full of tricksy devices for eluding this task of serious thought which he sought to impose upon it. It seemed so much pleasanter not to think at all—but just to drift. He found himself watching with envy the men who, as they came out ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... request." After this I related to the duke my conversation with the king. "Your situation is delicate," said he to me, "but it should not trouble you. The king is weak, we must give him courage. It is his pliancy of disposition rather than his resistance that we must contend with, and I go to act upon it. " I then instructed the duke with what had passed between me and the prince de Soubise. When I had done, the duke replied : "Expect nothing from the prince de Soubise: he will speak, no doubt; but how? In a jesting, laughing way. If, ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... curves arched in the rear of the front edge, thus allowing the supporting surface of the aeroplane in passing forward with its backward side set at an angle to the direction of its motion, to act upon the air in such a way as to tend to compress ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing

... scene of his encounter with my lady was not fully formed until it was time to act upon it. He had deliberately walked in the direction of the inn, so that, when the hour came, he could, if he chose, indulge the inclination of which he was wholly ashamed. Honestly, he reflected, he had not a good word to say for the girl. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... Missouri, tended to arouse a strong feeling against them, and at last, in the early part of the summer of 1841, the citizens of Illinois organised a strong force in opposition; the Mormons were beaten in the contest. The disposition now manifested by the citizens, appears to be to act upon the defensive, but at all ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... of medicine, with all its quackeries, combined with its advocacy of the simplest natural processes by means of a methodical use of strengthening and refreshing water, quickly won my fervent adherence. He maintained, for instance, that every genuine medicine can only act upon our organism in so far as it is a poison, and is therefore not assimilated by our system; and proved, moreover, that men who had become weak owing to a continuous absorption of medicine, had been cured by the famous Priesnitz, who had effectually driven ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... the second. If dead sheep are good to eat, why not also living ones? The kea, pondering deeply on this abstruse problem, solved it at once with an emphatic affirmative. And he straightway proceeded to act upon his convictions, and invent a really hideous mode of procedure. Perching on the backs of the living sheep he has now learnt the exact spot where the kidneys are to be found; and he tears open the flesh to get at these dainty morsels, ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... that he does really believe that judgments about what is good may be true, and, provisionally, that his own are true, or at least as true as he can make them, and that he does in fact accept and act upon them as true, and intends to do so until he is convinced that they are false. And this attitude of his feelings, you may call, if you like, an attitude of faith; it is, I think, the attitude most men would adopt if they were pressed home upon the subject; and to my mind it is ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson

... manifested, as a matter of course, without further consciousness or reflection, for people cannot be always opening up settled questions; if they thought a matter all over yesterday they cannot think it all over again to-day, what they thought then they will think now, and will act upon their opinion; and this, too, even in spite sometimes of misgiving, that if they were to think still further they could find a still better course. It is not, therefore, to be expected that "instinct" should show signs of that hesitating and tentative action which results from ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... you—that not only the souls of thousands now living, but thousands yet unborn, will be affected through all eternity for good or bad, by the clearness with which you, here at this moment, perceive and reason out these spiritual values—and the honesty with which you act upon your conclusions. How truly God has made us responsible for the souls of ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... over your own powers, cannot conceive of the desultory and uncertain way in which I (an author by fits) sometimes cannot put the thoughts of a common letter into sane prose. Any work which I take upon myself as an engagement will act upon me to torment; e.g., when I have undertaken, as three or four times I have, a school-boy copy of verses for Merchant Taylors' boys, at a guinea a copy, I have fretted over them in perfect inability to do them, and have made my sister wretched with my ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... the faith of an Act of Parliament. Good God! an act of your Parliament. This demonstrates that you do not yet know us; and that you fancy that we do not know you. But it is not merely this flimsy faith that we are to act upon. You offer us hope, the hope of ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... act upon the aggressive; it was all they could do to secure their own safety. Just then, the expected squall struck the Isabel, and though Dan had before cast off all the sheets, she careened over till the water flowed into the standing room. Her watchful skipper sprung to the helm, and in an instant she ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic

... their faculties, we, who have children round about us, shall no longer repress their energies, tie up their bodies, shut their mouths.... The frolic of childhood is not pure exuberance and waste. 'There is often a high meaning in childish play,' said Froebel. Let us study it, and act upon the hints—or more ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... the Embassador himself, may one day be fully communicated to the public, when the present objections to it shall cease, and the moment arrive (which is probably not very distant) that will enable us to act upon the ideas of that nobleman's capacious and enlightened mind, and to prove to the world that the late Embassy, by shewing the character and dignity of the British nation in a new and splendid light, to a court and people in a great measure ignorant of them before, however misrepresented by the jealousy ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... already, to join his gladiators, who, to the number of fifteen hundred, were gathered beyond the Janiculum, ready to act upon the guard, and to beat down the standard which waved there, the ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... countries where "man is scarce better than a brute, he shows his degeneracy by his treatment of women," and again falls into metaphor, not very clearly made out:—"The influence that women have over us is as the medium through which the finer Arts act upon us. The incense of our love and respect for them creates the atmosphere of our souls, which corrects and meliorates ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... us in the street, we should be just as well pleased by your taking no notice, if you wouldn't mind. 'Twill save so much awkwardness—being in our working clothes. 'Tis always the plan that Mrs. Petherwin and we agree to act upon, and we find it best for both. I hope you take our meaning right, and as no offence, ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... the appetites and passions under its wise control. But, if, through any cause, this fine equipoise is disturbed, or lost, then a way is opened for the influx of more subtle evil influences than such as invade the body, because they have power to act upon the reason and the passions, obscuring the one and ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... by the great movement of which we begin to speak; but we are far from undervaluing other sources of life, which not only affected the Church at its birth in the United States, but have continued to act upon her ever since with more or less of energy. The reader should not imagine that, by not speaking of them, we are unjust or blind to their efficiency; they simply lie without the scope ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... better notion is that the Church is not a receptacle, but an engine; not a box for Christians to get into, but a "body" for them to operate, and through which Christ can act upon the world of to-day. According to this view, the minister is not the only member whom the Master has called into His vineyard, the ideal Church is not so much a company of sheep as a company of soldiers; the congregation comes together not simply to "hear Mr. ——," ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 01, January, 1884 • Various

... Legislature to pass measures for the public good. But, no matter how overwhelming might be the majorities whereby such measures were passed, there was no obligation on the other branches of the Legislature to accept or act upon them. In the words of one of our own writers: "the Legislative Councils, nominated by the Crown, held the Legislative Assemblies by the throat, kept them prostrate, and paralyzed them."[29] As for the members of the Executive Council, ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... torrid zone is declared utterly uninhabitable, and many other arguments equally absurd and ridiculous. Upon the whole, they concluded to give judgment against the enterprize as vain and impracticable, and that it did not become the state and dignity of such great princes to act upon such weak information as they conceived to have been communicated. Therefore, after much time spent in the business, the admiral received for answer that their Catholic majesties were then occupied in many other ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... Antonio Agapida, "thus did this most sagacious sovereign act upon the text in the eleventh chapter of the evangelist St. Luke, that 'a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.' He had induced these infidels to waste and destroy themselves by internal dissensions, and finally cast forth the survivor, while the Moorish ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... man was to fall overboard and a shark was nigh, what would be the best plan to act upon—that is, if there would be any chance of escape from ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... entertain conscientious scruples against the use of slave produce—let them, if they please, act upon them themselves, but do not let them seek to inflict certain punishment, and the whole train of vice and misery consequent on starvation and want of employment, upon their poorer neighbours, for the purpose of conferring some speculative advantage on the slaves of ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... conduct rather than our thoughts that determines the question of insanity. The most practical definition of insanity I know is that of Spitzka, the gist of which is that a person is insane who can no longer correctly register impressions from the outside world, or can no longer act upon those impressions so as to formulate and carry out a line of conduct consistent with his age, ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.

... tore his hair at having missed this letter till it was too late to act upon its contents; but he had chastened himself considerably of late, and at last his chimerical expedition to Kennetbridge really did seem to have been another special intervention of Providence to keep him away from temptation. But a growing impatience of ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... annoyance is caused in this world by imagining and anticipating trouble, that half the pleasure of life is denied us. You cannot do your whole duty by a helpless baby if you do not reason and act upon sound judgment. Many babies are lost by mothers being afraid to do what should be done, and what they know should be done. It is not what the doctor does that brings a baby through a dangerous sickness; it is the faithfulness of the nurse in ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.

... recipient of another's bounty, Edith would have been, if not quite happy, at least contented. Yet it must not be imagined that she was ungrateful or the less thankful to her kind protectors, the Bartons, for she could now well realize what might have been her situation had she been compelled to act upon the plan that had first suggested itself to her on leaving Vellenaux—that of becoming a governess or companion to some ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... at all, but had permitted things to take their own course and natural direction. I do believe that Margaret received Michael on the following day without deeming it in the slightest degree incumbent upon her to act upon the offensive. She established herself behind her decision and her prayers, and, relying upon such fortifications, would not permit the idea of danger. A child might have prophesied the result. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... advice, so I should lay before you the two courses open to us, and ask your opinion upon them. Sir Ralph Harcourt and I are of one mind in the matter, but as the decision is a grave one we should be loath to act upon it without ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... appeal was in vain, but the upshot proved satisfactory to him. The colonial secretary replied that the lieutenant-governor was undoubtedly responsible to the governor-general for any act, and that equally undoubtedly the governor-general must act upon the advice, in this as in other matters, of his responsible ministers. The governor-general suggested reconsideration, but the Macdonald Cabinet was obdurate and Letellier was dismissed. Fortunately the precedent thus set has not been followed. The principle is now established ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton

... "I do hope our meeting to-night will be a success. Surely some one will have a real live idea for the club to act upon." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower

... always been to act upon unwarrantable over-estimates of the strength of our adversaries, Hooker had not this reason to allege for having retired to await Lee's attack. For he had just received excellent information from Richmond, to the effect that Lee's rations amounted to fifty-nine ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... very guileless, convent-raised girl. Matters assumed such a condition at the close of the third day of our journey that I felt it incumbent upon me to invite the latter into my section for the sake of some friendly advice. She appeared to take it all in good part and promised to act upon it. Had she done so, I should not now be relating that before the end of the next twenty-four hours I was subjected to most unkind, uncalled-for criticism from nearly all the occupants of that car, mostly young people. The schoolgirl was foolish enough to betray every word of our conversation to ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts

... before her. It was positively, this effect, an excitement that carried her on; she went forward into space under the sense of an impulse received—an impulse simple and direct, easy above all to act upon. She was borne up for the hour, and now she knew why she had wanted to come by herself. No one in the world could have sufficiently entered into her state; no tie would have been close enough to enable a companion to walk beside her without some disparity. She literally felt, in this ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... exercise of power as are found in the Constitution of the United States." The power, therefore, is not to be confined by state lines but acts upon its subject-matter wherever it is to be found. "It may, of consequence, pass the jurisdictional line of New York and act upon the very waters to which the prohibition now under consideration applies." It is a power to be exercised within the States and not merely at ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... on this river has proved fruitless, and they still continue obstinately bent on quitting their houses and families rather than submit to his Majesty's gracious offers of clemency, I think it my duty to give you their names—Seth Noble, Elisha Nevers, Jacob Barker—that you may act upon the occasion agreeable to the orders you may have received from Major ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... news to Mrs. Cortlandt, her surprise was so cleverly simulated that he never dreamed that she had been at great pains to bring this thing about. Not that Runnels was indisposed to act upon his own initiative, but the circumstances that had made his action possible had been due to her. It was hard to help a man against his will; but she profited by experience, and took the line ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... of Beckwith to infer that what Strap had shown respect for would be respected by the greyhound, and certainly bold of him to act upon his inference. However, events proved that he had been perfectly right. Bran, the greyhound, was interested, highly interested in his guest. The moment he saw his master he saw what he was carrying. "Quiet, Bran, quiet there," ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... these changes? In virtue of what condition does the wire radiate at all? We must now look from the wire, as a whole, to its constituent atoms. Could we see those atoms, even before the electric current has begun to act upon them, we should find them in a state of vibration. In this vibration, indeed, consists such warmth as the wire then possesses. Locke enunciated this idea with great precision, and it has been placed beyond the pale of doubt by the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... it was of no use to say anything. Our failure has had a strange effect upon the poor fellow, and a word would act upon him like fire ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn

... Reputations, ruin their Families, make their Lives painful, or put an End to them. Sure when I see such dreadful Consequences rising from a Principle, I would be as fully convinced of the Truth of it, as of a Mathematical Demonstration, before I would venture to act upon it, or make it ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... talked. Had I made a god of a poor piece of clay? No, it was not true. I knew him, I believed in him. He was the clearest voice in all this rising absurdity of American life. But Abigail had given me one idea that I wished to act upon. ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... be lost. The great one cause of all the errors in this branch of architecture is, the principle of imitation, at once the most baneful and the most unintellectual, yet perhaps the most natural, that the human mind can encourage or act upon.[50] Let it once be thoroughly rooted out, and the cottage villa will become a beautiful and interesting element ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin

... Scotch are canny people and wonderfully logical. They seem to regard present arrangements as inevitable, and act upon them. After all, what is marriage when one comes to think about it? It is really the promise of the man and the woman to take each other as husband and wife. All the rest, Church services and legal ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... perception of the duty of man to man than are ninety-nine out of the hundred of so-called Christians to the things they profess to believe. How many men would be immeasurably better, if they would but truly believe, that is, act upon, the smallest part of what they untruly profess to believe, even if they cast aside all the rest. John cast aside an allegiance to God which had never been more than a mockery, and set about delivering his race from ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald

... and half. As much at home in one language as the other." But for several reasons I was silent. One was, that it was easier to be silent than to make a fuss. Another was that, if the suspicion which had just sprung into my head had any foundation, it was mine or any man's duty to know the truth and act upon it. So I sat still, and went on with my luncheon as my next door neighbors went on with theirs; and no one remembered ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... after looking as far as was practicable, his horse Sandy swung into one of the open-mouthed depressions of his own accord. Probably he had become convinced that they were hunting stock, and that every niche must be entered. (Range horses are quick to form opinions of that sort and to act upon them.) Johnny was dreaming along, and let Sandy go back toward the wall, but Sandy, poking along with his head bobbing contentedly at the end of his long neck, swerved to the right, into a nature-built ell that had a fine-sifted sand floor, walls that ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower

... being in fact an indivisible unity, the treatment we employ in disease must, logically, act upon ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... to this insane counsel, the mob resolved to act upon it. Headed by the merchant, they ran down Thread-needle-street, and, crossing Stock's Market, burst open several houses in Bearbinder-lane, and drove away the watchmen. One man, more courageous than the others, tried to maintain ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... news of Mr. Lincoln's assassination has reached me. It is enough for me to say that I am dissatisfied with the result. I do not attempt to excuse the assassin. Yet there will be men who will charge this act upon the chivalrous South. This leads me to repeat a remark once before made by me in this connection, which has become justly celebrated. It ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... to accept, believe as a tenet of your faith, and act upon always. It is that your entire welfare depends on the condition of your horses. They must, as a consequence, receive always your first consideration. As long as they have rest and food, you are sure of getting along; as soon ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... waiving this right to oppress them, and offering coin for that which he is entitled to take without payment, they suppose at once that he is actuated by fear (fear of them, poor fellows!), and it is so delightful to them to act upon this flattering assumption, that they will forego the advantage of a good price for their provisions rather than the rare luxury of refusing for once in their lives to part ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... act upon the uterus. In cases of difficult parturition, or calving, resort is occasionally had to them. Ergot of ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... investigation; and yet, such is the force of natural genius, that in most instances he attained the ultimate object in view, although by an indirect path. He was an admirer of Hippocrates, and always speaks of him with the most profound respect, professing to act upon his principles, and to do little more than expound his doctrines, and support them by new facts and observations. Yet, in reality, we have few writers whose works, both as to substance and manner, are more different from each other than those of Hippocrates and Galen, the simplicity ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... the country. So, and upon the analogy of these cases, we may understand that, to make a strife overwhelming by a thousand fold to the feelings, it must not deal with gross material interests, but with such as rise into the world of dreams, and act upon the nerves through spiritual, and not through fleshly torments. Mine, in the present case, rose suddenly, like a rocket, into their meridian altitude, by means of a hint furnished to my brother from a Scotch ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... what," answers the other. "You know what a man is who insults a poor woman, and breaks his word of honour. Consider the word said, and act upon it as ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Lincoln's character. He disliked rows; he was too kind- hearted and good-natured to wish to quarrel with any one; but he hated unfairness, and was enraged at anything like persecution or bullying. If you will look up Shakespeare's play of "Hamlet" you will see that Lincoln was ready to act upon the advice that old Polonius gave to ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... information. I shall act upon it in the most exact manner. Walter sails next Monday. Charley and I go down with him to Southampton next Sunday. We are all delighted with the prospect of seeing you at Gad's Hill. These are my Jerrold engagements: On Friday, the 24th, I have to repeat my reading at St. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... understanding, than the mechanist can discard the use of wheels and pulleys, and perform every thing by simple motion. If the mind of man were competent to comprehend the whole of truth and good, and act upon it at once, and independently of all other considerations, Mr. Bentham's plan would be a feasible one, and the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth would be the best possible ground to place morality upon. But it is not so. In ascertaining the rules of moral conduct, we must ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... answer. The latter part of it seemed to act upon Don Cosme as a hint, and we were immediately hurried to the dining-room, where we found the ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... surprise reflected in his companion's face as he had seen it a little earlier in Laura's; and at the same instant he felt a sensation of annoyance because of his inability to act upon his impulse of hospitality. He would have liked to take Mr. Wilberforce home with him; but remembering the probable quality of the luncheon which awaited him, ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... September 1804 Harrel came to me at the Tuileries. He revealed to me the plot in which he was engaged, and promised that his accomplices should be apprehended in the very act if I would supply him with money to bring the plot to maturity. I knew not how to act upon this disclosure, which I, however, could not reject without incurring too great a responsibility. I immediately communicated the business to the First Consul, who ordered me to supply Harrel with money; ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... a party unless there is wine with the refreshments, and I would rather forego all entertainments than put temptation in the way of any one. Your son's suggestion is admirable. Have the independence to act upon it, and set an example which many will be glad to follow. Don't fear criticism or remark; don't stop to ask what this one will say or that one think. The approval of our own consciences is worth far ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur

... because he is systematic and philosophical, may reveal to us what that error is in us as well as in himself. We do not state it as if it were a splendid truth; we merely act upon it. He stated it for us with such histrionic and towering absurdity that we can laugh at his statement of it; but we must not laugh at him without learning to laugh at ourselves. All this talk about the iron will, about set teeth and ruthlessness, what does it mean except that the German chose ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock

... and your tongues with singing." They listened to this enthusiastic lawyer whom they had retained as a legal adviser, in dumb amazement 'Is Saul also among the prophets?' But having given his advice, he was prompt to act upon it himself. 'Where will we get a preacher?' 'Here is one who will serve you until you can get one whom you will like better, and who can do you more good. Announce preaching in the old meeting house ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr

... student would not have to select his own instrument, his own teacher, nor even his own practice time. Every author would know just how and when to write, and in order to become famous, he need only act upon the suggestions for stories and improvement of style which are gratuitously given him from day to day, by people who cannot write a clear and correct sentence. This thing actually happened; consequently ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed

... the States act upon almost every other question by majorities, except the power to say whether my opinion shall be counted. I insist upon it that no State ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.

... from the Indiana government. This time the committee reported that "the citizens of Clark county [in which was located the first Baptist church organized in Indiana], in their remonstrance, express their sense of the impropriety of the measure"; and that they also requested Congress not to act upon the subject until the people had an opportunity to formulate a State Constitution[16]. Commenting upon the whole proceedings, Dr. Peck quotes Gov. Harrison to the effect that, though he and Lemen ...
— The Jefferson-Lemen Compact • Willard C. MacNaul

... girl? Ah yes: do you know that I used to be a wild and careless creature, and did many things which I am sorry for now? I would often act upon the impulse of the moment, therefore I said many vain and foolish words, and though I did not intend evil, yet I often committed thoughtless acts, which were, in themselves, very wrong. I did not restrain that spirit ...
— No and Other Stories Compiled by Uncle Humphrey • Various



Words linked to "Act upon" :   form, persuade, swing, get at, colour, touch on, manipulate, militate, pull wires, touch, blackmail, bear upon, color, pressure, bear on, dominate, prejudice, fix, pull strings, imprint, swing over, sway, prepossess, affect, impact, blackjack, carry



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