"Ennoble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... too profoundly rationalistic to be attracted by a pagan paradise. All this is to be regretted, since Mr. Swinburne undoubtedly has the pagan virtues. His aspirations are concentrated on ideals that ennoble the present life, on justice, inflexible courage, patriotism, the unsophisticated intelligence; he loves liberty and he hates oppression in all their shapes. He is throughout an optimist, who believes and predicts that a clearer and brighter ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... generous women will excite love they do not reciprocate, but, in nine cases out of ten, the woman has, half consciously, done much to excite. In this case, she shall not be held guiltless, either as to the unhappiness or injury of the lover. Pure love, inspired by a worthy object, must ennoble and bless, whether mutual or not; but that which is excited by coquettish attraction of any grade of refinement, must cause bitterness and doubt, as to the reality of human goodness, so soon as the flush of passion is ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... been hand in hand with man, has assisted, supported and encouraged him, and now there are women ready to help reform the life of the body politic, and side by side with man work to purify, refine and ennoble the world. Miss Couzins seemed Inspired by her own thoughts and carried the audience along with her in her flights ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... telepaths Malone's investigation had turned up. And she still believed, quite calmly, that she was Good Queen Bess. Malone had been knighted by her during the course of the investigation. This new honor had come to him through the mail; apparently she had decided to ennoble some of her friends ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... always asked more money for virginity, the Church, instead of detecting the money-changer and driving him out of the temple, took him for a sentimental and chivalrous lover, and, helped by its only half-discarded doctrine of celibacy, gave virginity a heavenly value to ennoble its commercial pretensions. In short, Mammon, always mighty, put the Church in his pocket, where he keeps it to this day, in spite of the occasional saints and martyrs who contrive from time to time to get their heads and souls free ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... man was prepossessing in the highest degree, displaying as it did every requisite of mind and body that can ennoble and dignify manly beauty. He stood at the summit of his prime, his form erect and symmetrical, though somewhat stouter than is usually to be found in men of his race. His bearing was graceful, lofty, and commanding; his eye eagle-like in its unflinching ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... activity of closely united men who, employing symbolical forms borrowed principally from the mason's trade and from architecture, work for the welfare of mankind, striving morally to ennoble themselves and others, and thereby to bring about a universal league of mankind, which they aspire to exhibit even now ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... of especial interest, in calling attention to the fact that the creator of Pompilia, Balaustion, and the heroine of the "Inn Album"—all central figures, whence radiate the life and spiritual energy of the work they ennoble—had, at this period, created no typical figures of women in any degree corresponding ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... a marvellous one. Success and unquestioned dominion far more often deprave and distort than ennoble and purify the moral nature of man. But something like this transformation was seen when Octavian, the crafty and selfish intriguer, ripened into the wise and statesmanlike Augustus. Nor have our own days been quite ignorant of a similar phenomenon, when the stern soldier-politician ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... to fall for freedom's right? He's dead alone that lacks her light! And murder sullies in Heaven's sight The sword he draws:— What can alone ennoble fight? ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... themselves out silently whenever she and her lady-in-waiting came in. The librarian's name was Fritzing; plain Herr Fritzing originally, but gradually by various stages at last arrived at the dignity and sonorousness of Herr Geheimarchivrath Fritzing. The Grand Duke indeed had proposed to ennoble him after he had successfully taught Priscilla English grammar, but Fritzing, whose spirit dwelt among the Greeks, could not be brought to see any desirability in such a step. Priscilla called him Fritzi when her lady-in-waiting dozed; dearest Fritzi ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... they be fair and beautiful or crooked and ugly. Hence most of those who receive her favors conceal them in selfishness, and hoard them to be despised; while hundreds, slighted of her gifts, cultivate the virtues, which adorn and ennoble, and ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... they never break the home-silence; they mould the young life and stamp their impress upon it. How important then that all such objects should be chosen, not only as treasures of artistic beauty, but for their power to elevate and ennoble character. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... himself, at last! But on this he seldom allowed his mind to dwell,—except when quite alone,—in the deep silences of night;—when he gave his soul up to the secret sweetness which had begun to purify and ennoble his innermost nature,—when he saw visioned before him a face,—warm with the passion of a love so grand and unselfish that it drew near to a likeness of the Divine;—a love that asked nothing, and ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... liberty for France, liberty for the United States, liberty for the world, arose, then the French people were set aflame with a desire to bring, as it were, their gifts of frankincense and myrrh to lay on this altar of liberty, that its censer might never die out, but forever perfume and ennoble the air of the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... the true life-blood of the country to which they belong. They elevate and uphold it, fortify and ennoble it, and shed a glory over it by the example of life and character which they have bequeathed. "The names and memories of great men," says an able writer, "are the dowry of a nation. Widowhood, overthrow, desertion, even slavery ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... and bird-song. Get into sympathetic current with the hearts around you. Be sincere; be a man. Keep open-minded to all knowledge, and keep humble in the sense of your ignorance. Seek the company that ennobles, the scenes that ennoble, the books that ennoble. In your darkest hour, set yourself to brighten another's life. Be patient. If an oak-tree takes a century to get its growth, shall a man expect to win his crown in a day? Find what word of prayer ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... have many, princess, judging from your standpoint; but you cannot right them by committing greater ones. Nothing can dignify or ennoble deliberate assassination, or wanton, cruel, secret murder. The nihilists are assassins, ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... of catching slaves was regarded as one of the lowest grades of scoundrelism. Now, great pains are taken by our gentlemen of property and standing to ennoble it; and men of eminence in the legal profession are stooping to take the wages of iniquity, and lending themselves to consign to the horrors of American slavery men whom they know to be innocent of crime. Nay, we have seen in New York a committee of ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock
... simplicity of the young chatelaine in giving her orders. If an air of distinction seems hereditary in some families it is surely because the exercise of the duties conferred by the possession of wealth has a natural tendency to ennoble the whole ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... Lottie; they don't indeed,' answered my dear dying mother. 'Riches bring a snare—they debase the character, they don't ennoble it.' ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... to answer, even though his master desires it. This practical responsibility is of the utmost advantage to the sovereign. Make independence, not subservience, the essential of service, and you compel the minister to keep his soul free toward the sovereign, you ennoble his advice, you make him staunch and patriotic, while time-servers, the submissive instruments of a monarch's extreme wishes and commands, may lead, and often have ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... as ever of you, Eustacia. Nothing of that sort can degrade you: you ennoble the occupation ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... beautiful sounds! Neither is it a passing emotion of little moment in our lives we receive from the senses, for they are our perpetual body-guards, surrounding us unceasingly; and these constantly repeated impressions become powerful agents in life; they refine or beautify our souls, they ennoble or degrade them, according to the beautiful or mean objects which surround us. A dirty, slovenly dress will exert an evil moral influence upon the child; it will aid in destroying its self-respect; it ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... makes the demand, and the necessity is the ever-advancing spirit of to-day, which urges all to attain something that will not only benefit themselves, and be an incentive to others, but will enlighten and ennoble the coming generation ...
— Silver Links • Various
... who has the courage and self-restraint to leave his noble creations alive: too many try to ennoble them by death. For my part, if I have to go out of life before you, I would gladly trust you to the hands of Clara, or Rose, or Janet, or most of all Vittoria; though, to be accurate, I fear they have all grown too old for you ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... M. Malicorne had taken to make his revenues fructify, twelve thousand livres might rise to twenty thousand. Then, when once an incumbent of this post, he would marry Mademoiselle de Montalais. Mademoiselle de Montalais, of a half noble family, not only would be dowered, but would ennoble Malicorne. But, in order that Mademoiselle de Montalais, who had not a large patrimonial fortune, although an only daughter, should be suitably dowered, it was necessary that she should belong to some great princess, as prodigal ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... something, feed my conceit of my own talents. How infinitely more glorious to find my work-field and my prize, not in dead forms and colours, or ink-and-paper theories, but in a living, immortal, human spirit! I will study no more, except the human heart, and only that to purify and ennoble it.' ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... missed until he could return the original. Monsieur, he was never able to return it at any time, for, once she had got it, the Russian made away with it in some secret manner and refused to give it up. Her price for returning it was his royal father's consent to ennoble her, to receive her at the Mauravanian Court, and so to alter the constitution that it would be possible for her to become the ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... to see a man of genius, regardless of temporary gains, whether of money or praise, fixing his attention solely upon what is intrinsically interesting and permanent, and finding his happiness in an entire devotion of himself to such pursuits as shall most ennoble human nature. We have not yet seen enough of this in modern times; and never was there a period in society when such examples were likely to do more good than at present. The industry and love of truth which distinguish Sir Joshua's mind are most admirable; but he appears ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... doves that fly Yoked to Cytherea's car; Not the wings that lift so high, And convey her son so far, Are so lovely, sweet, and fair, Or do more ennoble love, Are so choicely matched a pair, Or ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... high devout purpose and wide human sympathy ennoble all the writer's work, and his clear language and quiet music will retain ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... glory in something, and strive to retain our admiration for all that would ennoble, and our interest in all that would enrich and beautify our ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... that looks as if it was born in the purple, you would ennoble anything, dear Theodora; ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to need any talking about, that the direct tendency of what we venture to call love to God, meaning thereby the turning of the whole nature to Him, in aspiration, admiration, longing for likeness, and practical imitation, is to elevate, ennoble, and illuminate the whole character. It was said about one woman that 'to love her was an education.' That was exaggeration; but it is below the truth about God. The true way to refine and elevate and educate is to cultivate love to God. And when we get near to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... delicate critical distinctions which are sometimes supposed peculiar to modern writers. The piece has for its title La Deffense et Illustration de la langue Francoyse; and its problem is how to illustrate or ennoble the French language, to give it lustre. We are accustomed to speak of the varied critical and creative movement of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as the Renaissance, and because we have a single name for it we may sometimes fancy that there was ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... disguise the forms of the body, and exhibit mental emotion; but both use it to enhance the life, either of the body or soul; Donatello and Michael Angelo, no less than the sculptors of Gothic chivalry, ennoble armor in the same way; but base sculptors carve drapery and armor for the sake of their folds and picturesqueness only, and forget the body beneath. The rule is so stern, that all delight in mere incidental beauty, which painting often triumphs in, is wholly forbidden to sculpture;—for instance, ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... "tickles the ear of an Englishman! He loves it so much, indeed, that it all but reconciles him to the National Debt; and when applied to private proprietorship, it secures deference for lowness of mind, birth, habits, and pursuits.... Ambition and money-love, if they tend to ennoble a country, reduce to insignificance the human particles of which the nation is composed. In their pursuit of riches, the English are gradually losing sight of higher characteristics; ... our pursuit of railway bubbles and every other frantic speculation of the hour, affords sufficient evidence ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... 25th, 1446, the King laid the foundation stone of the chapel, and so began a building which, as a distinguished member of the college (Lord Orford) said, would "alone be sufficient to ennoble any age." It has been classed with the chapel of Henry VII at Westminster and Saint George's collegiate church at Windsor, as one of "the three great royal chapels of the Tudor age"; but there is no edifice, except Eton College Chapel, ...
— A Short Account of King's College Chapel • Walter Poole Littlechild
... which owns no duty, and is good for no use; not a repose which Thought cannot ennoble, and Affection cannot sanctify. To serve the cause of the poor and the ignorant, in the little sphere which now surrounds me; to smooth the way for pleasure and plenty, where pain and want have made it rugged too long; to live more and more worthy, with every day, of the sisterly love which, never ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... record it, but the silly spirit of mockery within me had so far infected my wits that I cried out in pretended astonishment, "O marvellous fancy that can so ennoble a neighbor's brat!" The which was very false and foolish of me, for I know well enough now, and knew very well then, that love, while it lasts, can ennoble any child, maid, or matron. Lord, the numbers of ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... procured the distinction of our presence in arms. We were the heaven-born disseminators of freedom throughout Europe; the sworn enemies of kingly domination; and the missionaries of a political creed, which was not alone to ennoble mankind, but to render its ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... entitled to any more attention than her loveliness and ladylike conduct will command. Those who are most pleasing will receive the most attention, and those who desire more should aspire to acquire more by cultivating those graces and virtues which ennoble woman, but no lady should lower or distort her own true ideal, or smother and crucify her conscience, in order to please any living man. A good man will admire a good woman, and deceptions cannot long be concealed. Her show of dry goods or glitter of jewels ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... once to Berlin and had a long interview with Mariette, who was ripe for revolution: her lover had been killed and her husband had not. Mariette was not of the type that sorrow and loss ennoble. She was still a handsome woman, particularly in her uniform, but the pink and white cheeks that once had covered her harsh bones were sunken and sallow. Her mouth was like a narrow bar of iron. Her eyes were half closed as if to hide the cold and deadly flame that never flickered; ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... the same spot for a century, it could easily advance a degree; it could introduce one of its members into the upper class, pass from the plow or trade to petty offices, and from these to the higher ones and to parliamentary dignities, from the four thousand posts that ennoble to the legalized nobility, from the lately made nobles to the old nobility. Apart from the two or three thousand gilded drones living on the public honey at Versailles, apart from the court parasites and their valets, three or four hundred ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... right. I couldn't bear to have you think such a thing, especially—well, I'll tell you why some day. But I do wish you had a title. Do they ever ennoble accountants in this ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... My glorious future, he said, was to carry a princess to England and sit among the, highest there, the husband of a lady peerless in beauty and in birth, who, in addition to what she was able to do for me by way of elevation in my country, could ennoble in her own territory. I had the option of being the father of English nobles or of German princes; so forth. I did not like the strain; yet I clung to him. I was compelled to ask whether he had news of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... at the early age of thirty-five, he became general of his order, a post which he held till his death. He did much to ennoble and purify the order, and to bring it back to orthodoxy, from which then, as nearly always, it was strongly inclined to swerve. In 1265 Clement V. nominated him to the see of York; but Bonaventura, unwilling probably to face so rude a climate ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... are not sincere. I put aside an educated enthusiast such as Westlake. The proletarian Socialists do not believe what they say, and therefore they are so violent in saying it. They are not themselves of pure and exalted character; they cannot ennoble others. If the movement continue we shall see miserable examples of weakness led astray by popularity, ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... there was once in our city a very rich merchant called Arriguccio Berlinghieri, who, foolishly thinking, as merchants yet do every day, to ennoble himself by marriage, took to wife a young gentlewoman ill sorting with himself, by name Madam Sismonda, who, for that he, merchant-like, was much abroad and sojourned little with her, fell in love with a young man called Ruberto, who had long courted ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... to speak against his will). Yes, one thing—only I'm afraid you wouldn't see it in the same light. And yet I must mention it. It is like this. I want to recover faith in my mission, in my power to ennoble human souls. And, as a logical thinker, this I cannot do now, unless—well, unless you jump into the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 28, 1891 • Various
... and to level down the higher classes instead of elevating the inferior. Liberty and equality then govern by their negative side, instead of exercising the positive and beneficent influence they should have, to develop all forces to their utmost, to ennoble the mind, to give more elasticity to the soul and greater vigor to thought, to give birth to those varied forms and to that moral energy, which should bring us nearer to final equality in ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... them under foot. I became sour and cynic from shame, and affected to despise the politeness which I knew not how to practice. This austerity, conformable to my new principles, I must confess, seemed to ennoble itself in my mind; it assumed in my eyes the form of the intrepidity of virtue, and I dare assert it to be upon this noble basis, that it supported itself longer and better than could have been expected from anything so contrary to my nature. Yet, not withstanding, I had the name of a misanthrope, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... woman who has a lofty soul, fine taste, gentle wit, a generously warm heart, and who lives a simple life, has not a chance of being the fashion. Ergo: A woman of fashion and a man in power are analogous; but there is this difference: the qualities by which a man raises himself above others ennoble him and are a glory to him; whereas the qualities by which a woman gains power for a day are hideous vices; she belies her nature to hide her character, and to live the militant life of the world she must have iron strength under a ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... my own age, as there have been to all ages, that are intellectually in advance of it. They live in a mental and prophetic world of their own, and leave behind them discoveries, inventions and teachings that benefit and ennoble the generations to come. Could such a mind have chanced upon Mizora, as I chanced upon it, it might have consorted with its intellect, and brought from the companionship ideas that I could not receive, and sciences ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... delicate health of her childhood. Her elastic step—her eyes full of sweetness and light—her bloom, at once soft and luxuriant—all spoke of the vital powers fit to sustain a mind of such exquisite mould, and the emotions of a heart that, once aroused, could ennoble the passions of the South with the purity and devotion ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... the local legend the ancestor of the Earl of Erroll—a husbandman who stayed the flight of his countrymen in the battle of Luncarty and won the victory over the Danes by the help of the yoke of his oxen—exhausted with the fray uttered the exclamation "Hoch heigh!" The grateful king about to ennoble the ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... and honors shall be heaped upon us. Do you imagine that I have been wasting the last three years of my life? do you believe that the ambition which was the subject of your illusive aim at college is dead? No! look here, Carl and Krantz, this day week will see me famous, and ennoble my family till it vies ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... missionary to pursue, and the missionary should assist every movement towards a higher life in the heathen community as well as in the Christian, and should introduce every method and plan, industrial, social, or political, literary, or artistic, which tends to ennoble the life of men. It may be so. It may be true that the introduction of everything which tends to uplift and enlighten is a proper object for missionary activity, but we venture to argue not all at once, in the same place, nor even any one of them at the whim of any missionary at any time, anywhere. ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen
... to the people, yet forbade him to descend to the language of the people, even to flatter them. All his passions were noble as his words, and he adored the Revolution as a sublime philosophy destined to ennoble the nation without immolating on its altars other victims than prejudices and tyranny. He had doctrines, and no hatreds; the thirst of glory, and not of ambition,—nay, power itself, was in his eyes, too real, too vulgar a thing for him to aim at, and he disdained it for himself, and ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... Lord Christ.' It promises him rewards sufficient to stimulate the most indolent to exertion: 'Whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.' And it holds forth to him an example so glorious, that it would ennoble even angels to imitate it: 'Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... remember that defeat itself may be a gain where it costs our enemy more in relation to his strength than it costs ourselves. But if, in the inscrutable providence of the Almighty, this generation is disappointed in its lofty aspirations for the race, if we have not virtue enough to ennoble our whole people, and make it a nation of sovereigns, we shall at least hold in undying honor those who vindicated the insulted majesty of the Republic, and struck at her assailants so long as a drum-beat summoned them ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... ignominy," spoke the Admiral when the herald had come and gone. "Death cannot wear a form so base that he, nobly dying, will not ennoble." ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... Lord, as it must needs grieve you to see these three distressed kingdoms lie like a body without a head, so it may also cheer you to consider that the Comforter hath empowered you (and in this nick of time you only) to make these dead and dry bones live. You may by this one act ennoble and eternize yourself more in the hearts and chronicles of these three kingdoms than by all your former victories and the long line of your extraction from the Plantagenets your ancestors ... It is a greater honour to make a king than ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... don't. But a human being who is young and clean, as you are, is apt to ennoble—or ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... that ennoble your face are a sealed book to all but me. Mine is the power which transforms you into the most lovable of men, and that is why I would keep your mental gifts also for myself. To others they should be as meaningless as your eyes, the charm of your mouth and features. Let it ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... Valencia;...this is the inheritance which I have won for you. While they were thus rejoicing the Bishop Don Hieronymo came with the procession. Dona Ximena brought good relicks and other sacred things, which she gave to ennoble the new Church of Valencia. In this guise they entered the city. Who can tell the rejoicings that were made that day, throwing at the board, and killing bulls! My Cid led them to the Alcazar, and took them up upon the highest tower thereof, ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... good and great. 210 Go! if your ancient but ignoble blood Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood, Go! and pretend your family is young; Nor own, your fathers have been fools so long. What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? Alas! not all the blood of all ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... is honorable, because the products of labor feed and clothe the world, and thus conduce to the welfare and happiness of mankind. Coerced labor is better than no labor. Coercion itself does not necessarily degrade man; rather may it ennoble and elevate, when it is exercised to summon the barbarian to the lessons of civilization. Coercion degrades not the man whom it compels to do right; it only exposes that degradation which is the result of doing wrong. ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... one of those who do not believe that to give to women common rights and privileges will degrade them, but on the contrary I believe it will ennoble them; and I believe further that to put them on an equality in the matter of rights and privileges with men will enhance their charms and not ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... it, from the baseness of another person (but it is my desire to justify the innocent, and to accuse none). Believe me, my friend, this young man hath the noblest generosity of heart, the most perfect capacity for friendship, the highest integrity, and indeed every virtue which can ennoble a man. He hath some faults, but among them is not to be numbered the least want of duty or gratitude towards you. On the contrary, I am satisfied, when you dismissed him from your house, his heart bled for you more ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... ends. Visiting the Academy of Design, she studied "in silent reverential awe," the marble face of Harriet Hosmer's Beatrice Cenci, and declared, "Making that cold marble breathe and pulsate, Harriet Hosmer has done more to ennoble and elevate woman than she could possibly have done by mere words...." Of Rosa Bonheur, the first woman to venture into the field of animal painting, she said, "Her work not only surpasses anything ever done by a woman, but is a bold and successful ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... administration. We come now to a second need in the modern state if it is to get the best result from the citizens born into it, and that is the need of honours and privileges to reward and enhance services and exceptional personal qualities and so to stir and ennoble that emulation which is, under proper direction, the most useful to the constructive statesman of all human motives. In the United States titles are prohibited by the constitution, in Great Britain they go by prescription. But it is possible to imagine titles and privileges that are ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... caring about. God forbid!—but because your form of vice must ever be so distasteful to a woman. And then you are all wrong about your surroundings. You are, you have been, at least, a man of education, and yet you call this a hut and a hole. It is you who make it so! You vilify, where you might ennoble. You defile where you should enrich and keep pure. You are set here, in the midst of the most beautiful scenes of Nature, scenes that cannot be matched anywhere in the world, and yet you despise them and use them for your own undoing and that of others. ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... The truth—the truth—why can't people see how splendid it is, and that it is one's only chance of getting on! To shut your eyes to the possibility of the great man having a touch of the commonplace, a touch of the ass, even a touch of the knave in him, doesn't ennoble your conception of human nature. If you can only glorify humanity by telling lies about it, and by ruling out all the flaws in it, you end by being a sentimentalist. "See thou do it not ... worship God!" that's one of the finest things in the Bible. ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... must—it makes the difference between the artist and the drudge. The drudge does only what he must when he works, the artist all he can. The drudge longs for the end of labor, the artist for it to begin. The drudge studies how he may escape his labor, the artist how he may better his and ennoble it. ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... a moral and ennobling influence [xx] upon Government. But a lover of perfection, who looks to inward ripeness for the true springs of conduct, will surely think that as Shakspeare has done more for the inward ripeness of our statesmen than Dr. Watts, and has, therefore, done more to moralise and ennoble them, so an Establishment which has produced Hooker, Barrow, Butler, has done more to moralise and ennoble English statesmen and their conduct than communities which have produced the Nonconformist divines. The fruitful men of English Puritanism ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... movement is slow and color is dull. We are not tempted to make a vacancy and call it piety; but when man's life is so full that it tempts him daily to self-consciousness and pride, then let him open it wide to the consciousness of God and ennoble it with the full dignity of that humility whose first condition is the presence of God in the soul that He built ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... indeed, Sir John, if it were certain these foreign umpires would not abuse the power to their own particular advantage, if they could have the feelings and sentiments which ennoble and purify a nation far more than money, and if it were possible they could thoroughly understand the character, habits, wants, and resources of another people. As things are, therefore, we believe it is wisest to trust our own elections to ourselves—not ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... calves and such folly," he said. "We are likely enough to have our waters of Marah. But it seems to me the best way to ennoble labor, give it its true dignity, and show the possibilities for the workmen, is concerted action. As matters stand now, few poor men can ever acquire sufficient capital to start any business; and perhaps this is not best when we consider the cost of machinery, and the ever-appearing ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... before the end of a year she secretly married her squire, Ralph de Monthermer, and her father only discovered the union when he had promised her to the Count of Savoy. Monthermer was imprisoned; but Edward, always a fond father, listened to Joan's pleading, that, as an Earl could ennoble a woman of mean birth, it was hard that she might not raise a gallant youth to rank. Ralph was released, and bore for the rest of his life the title of Earl of Gloucester, which properly belonged only to Joan's young son, Gilbert. Joan was a pleasure-loving ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... in His service the atrophy of the affections? As long as he was in the world was it right that he should isolate himself from any of its sympathies and trials? Why was it not a higher life to enter into the common lot, and suffer, if need be, in the struggle to purify and ennoble all? He remembered the days he had once passed in the Trappist monastery of Gethsemane. The perfect peace of mind of the monks was purchased at the expense of the extirpation of every want, all will, every human interest. Were these men anything but specimens in a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the beneficence of Providence, we shall behold our empire arising, founded on justice and the voluntary consent of the people, and giving full scope to the exercise of those faculties and rights which most ennoble our species. Besides the advantages of liberty and the most equal constitution, Heaven has given us a country with every variety of climate and soil, pouring forth in abundance whatever is necessary for the support, comfort, and strength of a nation. Within our own borders ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... deal more like Shakespeare than Ben; but there was this difference: he was trying to create Greeks of a nobler order than his contemporaries. Men in those days, he says, were of huger stature than they are now. And yet, when his imagination is not actually at work to heighten and ennoble the portrait of a hero, real Greek life of his own times does not fail sometimes—to obtrude on him. So he lets in bits now and again that belong to the state of things Hesiod describes, and confirm the truth ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... than gold is a conscience clear, Though toiling for bread in an humble sphere, Doubly blessed with content and health, Untried by the lusts and cares of wealth, Lowly living and lofty thought Adorn and ennoble a poor man's cot; For mind and morals in nature's plan Are the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... He [Lord John Russell] brought into public life, and he carried through it unimpaired, the qualities which ennoble manhood—truth, justice, fortitude, self-denial, a fund of genuine indignation against wrong, and an inexhaustible sympathy with human suffering.... With a slender store of physical power, his life was a daily assertion of the superiority of the spirit ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... churches of Antwerp and the neighboring villages. Hardly a statue or picture escaped destruction. Fortunately, the illustrious artist, whose labors were destined in the next generation to enrich and ennoble the city, Rubens, most profound of colorists, most dramatic—of artists; whose profuse tropical genius seemed to flower the more luxuriantly, as if the destruction wrought by brutal hands were to be compensated by the creative ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the feeling that the spirit in him is entire and as good as the world, which entitle the poet to speak with authority, and make him an object of interest, and his every phrase and syllable significant, are in Hafiz, and abundantly fortify and ennoble his tone. ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... fighting, and pent in between the Danish frontier and the sea. Here, surrounded by overpowering numbers, without food, without ammunition, he capitulated on the 7th of November, after his courage and resolution had done everything that could ennoble both general and soldiers in the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... too often conceded that because the new testament contains, in many passages, a lofty and terse expression of love as the highest duty of man, Christianity must have a tendency to ennoble his nature. But Christianity is like sweetened whisky and water—it perverts and destroys that which it should nourish ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... had no power over her. She possessed a character of too much depth and penetration to harbor the least feeling akin to vanity. Lady Trevelyan had guarded her daughter's education and trained her with a view to set a proper estimate upon those qualities which ennoble and elevate the soul. Maude Bereford was a proper companion for Fanny Trevelyan. Their minds were in harmony, while the latter acted as a propelling power to force the aspirations of the other above ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... insinuations of a holy flame, to clothe impurity in vestments 'bright with something of an angel light,' to exalt spleen into elevation of soul, and selfishness into a noble scorn of the world, and, with the ringing cadences of an enthusiastic style, to ennoble the vulgar and to sanctify the low. How much may be done, with an engine of such power, in increasing the numbers of 'The Family' may be conceived. The Muse of Faking, fair daughter of the herald Mercury, claims her place among 'The Mystic Nine.' ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... these problems for a year or two, and must confess that the electioneering and drawing-room politics of Fabians and Social Democrats are not much to my taste; in fact I may say that I am sick of them. A few men like our friend Nekrovitch, who ennoble any opinions they may hold, are of course exceptions, but I cannot blind myself to the fact that ambition, wire-pulling, and faddism play a prominent part in the general proceedings. On the other hand you seem to me to sin in the opposite ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... and of dream I sought an eligible theme; But none I found, or found them shared Already by some happier bard, Till settling on the current year I found the far-sought treasure near. A theme for poetry, you see— A theme t' ennoble even ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss
... If some youth replies, 'This is a laborious, troublesome, hopeless occupation, in which there is not reward enough to make it worth my while,' I tell him but 'Attack it: rejoice to see something so near to challenge your mettle, and if you meet the battle boldly so, and ennoble yourself, you will immediately understand how to think of the ennoblement of your people and your country as glorious.' 'Altius tendimus! We move towards a higher!'—The country reads our motto, and is watching what we practise. Give it an answer ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... realize the power of a diseased imagination to ruin a precious life. Perhaps the defect began in a little speck of taint. No other faculty has such power to curse or bless mankind, to build up or tear down, to ennoble or debauch, to make happy or miserable, or has such power upon our destiny, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... heavy reproach lies on us and chills our ardour whenever we try to grow better, to increase our knowledge, our love, our forgiveness. Though we purify our consciousness and ennoble our thoughts, though we strive to render life softer and sweeter for those who are near us, all our efforts halt at our threshold, and have no influence on what lies outside our door; and the moment we leave our home we feel that we have done nothing, that ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the ears and minds of a great many continual hearers of the Gospel. But Paul had a very definite idea of what he meant by it; and what he meant by it was a very large thing, which we may well ponder for a moment as being the only thing which will transform and ennoble character and will produce fruit that a man need not be ashamed of. The grace of God, in Paul's use of the words, which is the scriptural use of them generally, implies these two things which are ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... Egyptians our information is very scant; but we learn from the monuments depicting the number and variety of their instruments that they had advanced from childish practice to orchestration and harmony. According to Plato, "In their possession are songs having the power to exalt and ennoble mankind." The harp is ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... Kaum or Commandos [35], numbering from twenty to two hundred troopers, armed with assegai, dagger, and shield, and carrying a water skin and dried meat for a three days' ride, sufficient to scour the length of the low land. The honest fellows are not so anxious to plunder as to ennoble themselves by taking life: every man hangs to his saddle bow an ostrich [36] feather,—emblem of truth,—and the moment his javelin has drawn blood, he sticks it into his tufty pole with as much satisfaction as we feel when attaching a medal ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... "that God may be all in all." What a triumph it would be if the Church were fighting really with that banner floating over her! What a life ours could be if that were really our banner! To serve God fully, wholly, only, to have Him all in all! How it would ennoble, and enlarge, and stimulate our whole being! I am working, I am fighting, "that God may be all in all;" that the day of glory may be hastened. I am praying, and the Holy Spirit makes His wrestling in me with ...
— The Master's Indwelling • Andrew Murray
... manliness, of the way he had mingled with all classes of men—mingled with them to do them good. And Beth's heart cried out within her, only to do something in this great, weary world—something to uplift, to ennoble men, to raise the lowly, to feed and to clothe the uncared for, to brighten the millions of homes, to lift men—she knew not where. This cry in Beth's heart was often heard after that—to be great, to do something for others. ...
— Beth Woodburn • Maud Petitt
... your real parish work; lest the bustle and amusement of playing at shopkeeper, or penny-collector, once a week, should blind you to your real power—your real treasure, by spending which you become all the richer. What you have to do is to ennoble and purify the WOMANHOOD of these poor women; to make them better daughters, sisters, wives, mothers: and all the clubs in the world will not do that; they are but palliatives of a great evil, which they do not touch; cloaks for almsgiving, clumsy means of eking ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... is a number of dollars which I find in a drawer where I had left 28, it is 28 minus 1. If it is the number of inches in a shelf which I wish to insert into a cupboard 26 inches wide, it is 26 plus 1. If I wish to ennoble the heavens by the constellations I see there, 'Charles's Wain' would be more true than 'Dipper.' My friend Frederick Myers was humorously indignant that that prodigious star-group should remind us Americans of nothing but a ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... tell you, who was made to bring his wares to you like a hawker. And you think it insult, I will warrant!—insult for a soldier who has nothing but his courage, and his endurance, and his heroism under suffering to ennoble him, to dare to love Mme. la Princesse Corona! I think otherwise. I think that Mme. la Princesse Corona never had a love of so much honor, though she has had princes and nobles and all the men of her rank, no doubt, at her feet, through that beauty ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... these, too, that he would begin to speak of the "vain dream of life," of the "inexhaustible torrent of fair forms," of the "sterile, splendid torture of understanding and loving," of the "moving effigies which ennoble for all time the charming and venerable fronts of our cathedrals"; that he would express a whole system of philosophy, new to me, by the use of marvellous imagery, to the inspiration of which I would naturally have ascribed that ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... deep-rooted in the past, and the capital of that Anglo-Saxon race of which we are ourselves a condition, and of a colonial empire without a present equal. Paris is France in the sense of representing the intense life of a nation unsurpassed in the things which enlighten and ennoble the human intellect and advance mankind. Berlin is the concentration of the strong will of a state which has made itself great out of the weak will of sundry inferior states, homogeneous in their disunity more than in ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... dusty breath That doth our wits enslave, And with the crowd to hurry to and fro, Seeking we know not what, and finding death, These did unwisely; but if living be, As some are born to know, The power to ennoble, and inspire In other souls our brave desire For fruit, not leaves, of Time's immortal tree, These truly live, our thought's essential fire, And ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... tend to ennoble a writer, and therefore are great books characterized by lofty thought, by fine feeling and, as a rule, by a beautiful simplicity of expression. They have another quality, hard to define but easy to understand, a quality which leaves upon us the impression of eternal youth, as ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... a dignity and a grace to the carriage, and a freedom and a swing to the gait, which nothing else will do. Depend upon it, that so much of our burdens of work and weariness as is left to us, after we have cast them upon Him, is intended to strengthen and ennoble us. But do not let there be the gnawings of anxiety. Do not let there be the self-torment of aimless prognostications of evil. Do not let there be the chewing of the bitter morsel of irrevocable sorrows; but fling all upon God. And remember what the Master has said, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the Polonaise was again suddenly given to it by a composer of true genius. Weber made of it a Dithyrambic, in which the glittering display of vanished magnificence again appeared in its ancient glory. He united all the resources of his art to ennoble the formula which had been so misrepresented and debased, to fill it with the spirit of the past; not seeking to recall the character of ancient music, he transported into music the characteristics ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... no more than a leopard's skin, it is but developed or dwarfed. The influences of the war will have as many little forms as there are soldiers, and to attempt precision of summary is clearly vain. It is something of a truism to suggest that the war will ennoble and make more serious those who before the war took a noble and serious view of life; and that on those who took life callously it will have a callousing effect. The problem is rather to discover what ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... whole world. Be he Englishman, Frenchman, German, Dane, or Scot; the European who scoffs at an American, calls his own brother Raca, and stands in danger of the judgment. We are not a narrow tribe of men, with a bigoted Hebrew nationality—whose blood has been debased in the attempt to ennoble it, by maintaining an exclusive succession among ourselves. No: our blood is as the flood of the Amazon, made up of a thousand noble currents all pouring into one. We are not a nation, so much as a world; for unless ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... known that the woman who makes a good record in the shop shall be respected in the home, and that she who becomes skilled in thought and acquainted with scientific research, should find thereby an introduction to society, that will ennoble her, and it is impossible to describe the effect that would be produced upon the minds of all. In this work women of culture can keep step with Jesus, and become the benefactresses of their sex and blessings to mankind. Let woman help woman, and society will be ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... heinousness imputed by their foes. Father, mistake me not: I urge no plea To shield this hell-spawn, loathed by all who love The lamb and kiss the Cross. I had not guessed Such obscure creatures crawled upon my path, Had not my son—I know not how misled— Deigned to ennoble with his great regard, A sparkle midst the dust motes. SHE is sacred. What is her tribe to me? Her kith and kin May rot or roast—the Jews of Nordhausen May hang, drown, perish like the Jews of France, But she shall live—Liebhaid von Orb, the ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... shire-reeves, officers charged with levying the royal revenues and destined ultimately to absorb judicial authority. Among the later nobility of the thegns personal service with such a lord was held not to degrade but to ennoble. "Horse-thegn," and "cup-thegn," and "border," the constable, butler, and treasurer, found themselves officers of state; and the developement of politics, the wider extension of home and foreign affairs were already transforming these royal officers into a standing ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... primate of the earthly creation upon the stage and furnished him with his superior faculties. But it is particularly by means of his social life, and of the forces which determine, transmit, increase and ennoble the various impulses and instincts promoting it, that man has become what he is. Through the need and faculty of reciprocal help, through sexual selection—which of course is a very essential factor of social life—there originated language, and reflection, and all the intellectual qualities; ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... facts of nature. Looks straight to find God's meaning in them, and then tries to exalt and ennoble them to their loftiest good. He does not, in his puny impotence, quarrel with the all-powerful Creator and try to stamp out that with which He thought ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... speak the truth, for the truth's own sake—a woman who will sacrifice her pride, rather than sacrifice an honest man who loves her—is the most priceless of all treasures. When such a woman marries, if her husband only wins her esteem and regard, he wins enough to ennoble his whole life. You have spoken, dearest, of your place in my estimation. Judge what that place is—when I implore you on my knees, to let the cure of your poor wounded heart be my care. Rachel! will you honour me, will you bless me, ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... sky. These singular perfections seemed to increase in Harcourt's mind the exasperating sense of injury inflicted upon him by 'Lige's exposures. With a daughter so incomparably gifted,—a matchless creation that was enough in herself to ennoble that fortune which his own skill and genius had lifted from the muddy tules of Tasajara where this 'Lige had left it,—that SHE should be subjected to this annoyance seemed an infamy that Providence ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... order and sources of energy in phenomena, he has passed his novitiate, and becomes one of that happy body of men who not only see what is perceived by the mass of their fellows, but are enabled to look through those chains of action which, when comprehended, serve to rationalize and ennoble all that the senses of man, aided by the instruments which he has devised, tell us concerning ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... published—place her far down among the multitude. From these untuneful utterances we gladly turn to her prose. There she shows strength of character and goodness of heart. One aim, never lost sight of, is perceptible through all, and gives unity to the whole; this is a fervent desire to ennoble human life; consequently her works will long have influence, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... was very little in Tom's life which tended to ennoble him. It is true there was a service for soldiers every Sunday morning in one of the big buildings in the town, and while Tom, lover of music as he had always been, was somewhat influenced by the singing of the men, and while the hymns reminded him of his Sunday-school ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... distinguished in its sports than in its history. The Italian language yields to every shade of gaiety with a facility which only requires a light inflection of the voice and a little difference of termination in order to increase or diminish, ennoble or travesty, the sense of words. It is particularly graceful in the mouth of children[28]. The innocence of this age and the natural malice of the language, form an exquisite contrast. In truth, it may be said, that it is a language ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... divine fire. If George Eliot's fame has to be based solely on her great powers and endowments, her art would not be worth much. However, it is not so: she was an artist, with true artistic gifts. Her philosophic power and her scientific attainments often ennoble these gifts: yet it is too often evident that they seriously ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... there were cunningly wrought charcoal braziers set near the gilded couches, grouped around a semicircular low table so as to give each guest an unobstructed view from the pavilion. Pertinax—neither guest nor host, but a god, as it were, who had arrived and permitted the city of Antioch to ennoble itself by paying his expenses—stretched his long length on the middle couch, with Galen the physician on his right hand, Sextus on his left. Beyond Galen lay Tarquinius Divius and Sulpicius Glabrio, friends of Pertinax; ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... were friends. After this was said, Pompey stood silent, but Crassus took him by the hand, and spoke in this manner: "I do not think, fellow-citizens, that I shall do anything mean or dishonorable, in yielding first to Pompey, whom you were pleased to ennoble with the title of Great, when as yet he scarce had a hair on his face; and granted the honor of two triumphs, before he had a place in the senate." Hereupon they were reconciled and laid down their office. Crassus resumed the manner of life which he had always pursued before; but ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... for Freedom's right? He's dead alone that lacks her light! And murder sullies, in Heaven's sight The sword he draws. What can alone ennoble fight? A ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... power, yet I should never be, in the language of the market, one shilling the better for her. Her father, a man of low birth, and having, perhaps, in spite of his wealth, suffered from the proud man's contumely, has determined to ennoble his family by means of his only child, and she is not to enjoy his fortune unless she marry one who has a title. If she unites herself with any man, below the rank of a baron's son, he swears she shall never see the colour ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... again with a leap, overflowing upon her fine skin. Understanding now came to her, with crushing force. Her knight made for her a pretty summary of an episode that was past. There was to come no coronation of words to ennoble these caresses: Mr. Canning, at parting, desired to thank her for her sweetness. And this was the high moment toward which she had been dancing on the fleece-pink of clouds ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... that their ethical system was marked by signal blemishes and radical defects. After all its excellence, it did not give roundness, completeness, and symmetry to moral life. The elements which really purify and ennoble man, and lend grace and beauty to life, were utterly wanting. Their systems were rather a discipline of the reason than a culture of the heart. The reason held in check the lower passions and propensities of the nature but it did not ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... entireness of our sanctification: "the very God of peace sanctify you wholly." Brethren, we dwell upon that expression "wholly." There is this difference between Christianity and every other system: Christianity proposes to ennoble the whole man; every other system subordinates parts to parts. Christianity does not despise the intellect, but it does not exalt the intellect in a one-sided way: it only dwells with emphasis on the third and highest part of man—his spiritual affections; and these ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson |
