"Actuating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the ignorance that was in them because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, gave themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness." The age, as Emerson says, had no live, distinct, actuating convictions. It was in even worse than a negative condition. As represented by its drama and poetry, it may almost be said to have repudiated the moral sentiment. A spiritual disease affected the upper classes, which continued down into the reign ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... 2. By actuating grace so in the soul, that it manifesteth itself, and evidenceth itself to be there; as the heat and burning of a fire will discover itself without ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... embarrassing procedure, he advanced to an empty side-table and began, in a quiet, business-like way, to lay on it the contents of his various pockets. As the pile rose, the silence grew, the act in itself was so simple, the motive actuating it so serious and out of accord with the standing of the company and the nature of the occasion. When all was done, he stepped up to Mr. Sedgwick, with his arms raised and ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... between them and the fact that he dreaded the conditions and experiences that might await her and her friends in Russia. For these same reasons her mother also desired her return, yet Mildred knew that there was another motive actuating her mother. She might be unconscious of the fact, but if her daughter should reappear in New York society at the present time, because of her war experiences she would become an object of ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... represents the varying strength of the current which supports it. The current produced in the cell by this light flows through an electro-magnetic apparatus by means of which mechanical movement is produced, and this motion is utilized for changing resistances, actuating a valve, rotating brushes, moving switches, levers, or other devices. This has been constructed on a small scale, and operates well, and I think it is destined to be largely used, as a most sensitive, simple, and perfect regulator for currents, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... very short. They have no preliminary measures, but at once voice the actuating emotion; that done, they come to a close. Although they are so short, they have form and in their structure follow in simple lines the rules of phrasing and motivization taught in our schools. These songs, speaking in general terms, partake more of the character ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... inconsiderable to mention.' The state of property, and its general diffusion throughout the social body, had also, he had no doubt, a beneficial effect on the moral condition of the people. 'The desire for wealth being considerably blunted, it was not the same actuating, engrossing principle of human action, the spring of much that was evil and immoral being thus removed.' Only one case of downright drunkenness—that of a Laplander—had come under his personal observation, and it was only on special occasions ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... connections shown, depress the rock plate so as to clear the wheels before the wheels touch it, but the depression is directly vertical, so that it does not give any horizontal motion to it, which would have the effect of actuating the rock shaft. Consequently, trains pass over the apparatus in one direction without having any effect upon it whatever, the different point at which the same force is applied to the rock plate giving the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885 • Various
... which beaming on her face, and actuating her every motion, had ever constituted all her charms: it was her mind which had gained her Henry's affection. That mind had undergone no change; and she was the self-same woman ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... that ever bound man to woman. Could this have been appreciated, what reams of demonstration might have been spared to foreign pens—demonstration of the folly, the hopelessness, the lust of conquest, the self-interest in myriad forms, which were supposed to be the actuating causes. ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... that you might have the longer time for reconsidering the structure of this genus for another edition of your interesting book, if indeed it be not already called for. I am furthermore induced to communicate the results of my yet imperfect experiments in the belief that the actuating principle of your late work is the elicitation of truth, and that you will gladly avail yourself of this even at the sacrifice of much ingenious ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... its having proceeded from the Holy Spirit. But the doctrine in question requires me to believe that not only what finds me, but that all that exists in the sacred volume, and which I am bound to find therein, was—not alone inspired by, that is composed by, men under the actuating influence of the Holy Spirit, but likewise—dictated by an Infallible Intelligence; that the writers, each and all, were divinely informed as well as inspired. Now here all evasion, all excuse, is cut off. An infallible intelligence extends to all things, physical no less ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... The motives actuating the assailants are significantly analysed, and may be distributed among the three classes enumerated. The priests and the captain of the Temple would be annoyed by the very fact that Peter and John taught the people: the former, because they were jealous ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... other Christian nations (and the superstitions of Sicily and Spain just cited point to this) it would help to clear up much of the difficulty surrounding the subject of changelings, especially the motives actuating both fairies and witches in their depredations. And, as infant baptism is by no means exclusively a Christian rite, research among heathen nations would ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... There are other actuating powers employed in the operations of this globe, which we are little more than able to enumerate; such are those of electricity, magnetism, and subterraneous ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... begin by a secret conspiracy, that you may end with a national confederation. The mere pleasure of the beginner must be the sole guide; since the mere pleasure of others must be the sole ultimate sanction, as well as the sole actuating principle in every part of the progress. Thus, arbitrary will (the last corruption of ruling power) step by step poisons the heart of every citizen. If the undertaker fails, he has the misfortune of a rebel, but not the guilt. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... show the internal mechanism. T is a flattened metal tube soldered at one end into a hollow casting, into which screws a tap connected with the boiler. The other end (closed) is attached to a link, L, which works an arm of a quadrant rack, R, engaging with a small pinion, P, actuating the pointer. As the steam pressure rises, the tube T moves its free end outwards towards the position shown by the dotted lines, and traverses the arm of the rack, so shifting the pointer round the scale. As the pressure ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... the reasons actuating the majority of the Court may be found in the brief concurring memorandum of Mr. Justice McReynolds. ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... it—this appraisement being made by beneficiaries whose blood had not the mischance to be shed. The French revolution is of incalculable value to the Socialist of to-day; when he pulls the string actuating its bones its gestures are inexpressibly terrifying to gory tyrants suspected ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... the lash. He was an unscrupulous, unmoral man, not lacking in courage of a sort; and upon the conquest of Mahara, the visible mouthpiece of Mr. King, he had entered in much the same spirit as that actuating a Kanaka who dives for pearls in a shark-infested lagoon. He had sought a slave, and lo! the slave was become the master! Otherwise whence this spirit of rebellion... ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... angelic idea of the fire of the sun of the natural world, and of the fire of the sun of the spiritual world, is this; that in the fire of the sun of the spiritual world the Divine Life is within, but in the fire of the sun of the natural world it is without. From this it can be seen that the actuating power of the natural sun is not from itself, but from a living force proceeding from the sun of the spiritual world; consequently if the living force of that sun were withdrawn or taken away, the natural sun would ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... motives actuating the Society "Pax" and the Rev. B. Duhr was the intention to refute the accusations of cruel outrages by Belgian and French Catholic priests. Whatever their motives may have been, one thing is certain, they ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... concerning the new attempt of the mysterious tourist to pry into his affairs. He every little while would spring some new question, which Larry answered to the best of his ability. Evidently Frank was trying to discover the real motives actuating Mr. Marsh when he so suddenly decided to remain around Bloomsbury a few days, and made such a lame excuse ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... of motives we have two great principles actuating the Apostle—one, his profound sense of obligation, and the other his desire, if it might be, to do more than he was bound to do, because he loved his work so much. And though he is speaking here as an apostle, and his example is not to be unconditionally ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... a circle when the extremity of the foot is raised about an inch. In consequence of the absence of passive resistances, motion occurs without any stress, and almost mechanically, giving air not only to him who is actuating the fan, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... criminal disregard for the laws of this State and the nation which seems to be the underlying motive actuating every move in this corrupt game of politics. Gantry, if you and some others had your just deserts, you would be breaking stone in the penitentiary this ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... Province of Louisiana is so complicated by rapid changes in government as to confuse the student, rendering it extremely difficult to comprehend correctly the varied and conflicting interests—aristocratic, official, and commercial—actuating her pioneer colonists. The written records, so far as translated and published, afford only a faint reflection of the varied characteristics of her peculiar, changing population. The blue-eyed Arcadian of her western plateaus, yet dreaming upon his more northern freedom; the royalist planter ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... he has commanded armies, and led them on to victory; and that having retired under the shade of his laurels, he is withering them away, leaf by leaf, by attendance at the hells{1} of the metropolis; his unconquerable spirit still actuating him in his hours of relaxation. It is said that the immense sum awarded to him for his prowess in war, has been so materially reduced by his inordinate passion for play, that although he appears at Court, and is a favourite, the demon Poverty stares him in the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... to him that his daughter's love had failed her, or that she could already be repenting what she had done. And now, when she was weeping at his feet and deploring the sin of the dinner-party,—which, after all, was a trifling sin,—he could not comprehend the feelings which were actuating her. "I suppose your aunt Harriet made ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... in its practical and active phase. I shall, therefore, use the term "passion," understanding thereby the particular bent of character, as far as the peculiarities of volition are not limited to private interest but supply the impelling and actuating force for accomplishing deeds shared in by the community at large. Passion is, in the first instance, the subjective and therefore the formal side of energy, will, and activity—leaving the object or aim ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... The money was evidently furnished by some persons or through some organization. Those who raised the money, or who caused it to be raised, no doubt had an eye to the main chance. A patriotic desire to have the State redeemed (?) was not with them the actuating motive. When the redemption (?) of the State was an accomplished fact they, no doubt, felt that they were entitled to share in the fruits of that redemption. Their idea evidently was that the State should be made to pay for its own salvation and redemption, but the only ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... Barnabas', but to the community at large, to explain in amplified detail why I have withdrawn suddenly, automatically as it were, from the organisation of youthful forest rangers of which I was, during its brief existence, the actuating spirit, and simultaneously have resigned my charge to seek a ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... tone of Douglas Dale's voice, there was brightness in his frank eyes. No wonder Lydia held the story her brother had told her in scornful disbelief; no wonder she felt all the glow of the fulfilment of long-deferred hope. What would have been her sensations had she known that Douglas Dale's only actuating motive in the proposed friendly alliance, was to secure a female friend for his adored Paulina, to gain for her the countenance and protection of a woman whose place in society was recognized ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... miserable world of ours, have some prevailing, predominating characteristic, which usually gives the tone and colour to all their thoughts and actions, forming what we denominate temperament; this we see actuating them, now more, now less; but rarely, however, is this great spring of action without its moments of repose. Not so with her of whom I have been speaking. She had but one passion —but, like Aaron's rod, it had a most ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... as in the earlier model, the moving parts of the motor are immersed in an oil bath. The pedals are employed to start, or as an auxiliary, or in the event of a breakdown. When not required for propulsion, they are thrown out of gear, when they serve as foot rests, and also as a means for actuating an emergency brake. The carburetor is no longer attached to the gasoline reservoir, but is separate; the explosions in the cylinder are regulated by a lever ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various
... ask leading questions. No, I am not badly wounded nor seriously ill. Neither am I suffering from shell-shock, nor even from cold feet. A Blighty injury of the cushiest is the spring actuating this Jack-in-the-Box appearance. Have patience. To-day's inactivity has bred a pleasant boredom, which I shall work off by writing you a history of the reasons why I am back from the big war. They include a Hun aeroplane, a crash, ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... actuating Lola in adopting this step were not divulged. Several, however, suggested themselves. Perhaps she was attracted by the Cornet's glittering cuirass and plumed helmet; perhaps by his substantial income; and perhaps she tired of being a homeless wanderer, and felt that here at last was ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham |
