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Formulate   /fˈɔrmjəlˌeɪt/   Listen
Formulate

verb
(past & past part. formulated; pres. part. formulating)
1.
Elaborate, as of theories and hypotheses.  Synonyms: develop, explicate.
2.
Come up with (an idea, plan, explanation, theory, or principle) after a mental effort.  Synonyms: contrive, devise, excogitate, forge, invent.
3.
Put into words or an expression.  Synonyms: articulate, give voice, phrase, word.
4.
Prepare according to a formula.



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"Formulate" Quotes from Famous Books



... letter came Harvey had brought round the engagement ring. He had made a little money in war stocks, and into the ring he had put every dollar of his profits—and a great love, and gentleness, and hopes which he did not formulate even to himself. ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... if one must formulate a definition, is the written record of man's best thought and feeling, and English literature is the part of that record which belongs to the English people. In its broadest sense literature includes all writing, but as we commonly define the term it excludes ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... tempt one to become almost lyrical in its praise; but I remember that, encountering the picture unexpectedly in New York a year or two after it had been exhibited in Paris, it seemed to me to have acquired an extraordinary general value, to stand for more artistic truth than it would be easy to formulate. The language of painting, the tongue in which, exclusively, Mr. Sargent expresses himself, is a medium into which a considerable part of the public, for the simple an excellent reason that they don't understand it, will doubtless always be ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James

... is considering and will formulate during the coming winter a plan for laying up ships in reserve, thereby largely reducing the cost of maintaining our vessels afloat. This plan contemplates that battle ships, torpedo boats, and such of the cruisers as are not needed for ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland

... (he had a passionate aversion to baring his body before strangers), the inability to find anything to do and the compulsion to endless small talk. A thought flitted over his mind which he was too loyal to formulate. Once he and his wife had had similar likings, but they had taken different roads since their child died. Janet! He saw again—he was never quite free from the sight—the solemn little white-frocked girl who had died long ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan

... without present employment, the Widow Barnes considered what she should do next. And, thus considering, the desire to visit and inspect her East Wellmouth property grew and strengthened. She thought more and more concerning it. It was hers, she could do what she pleased with it, and she began to formulate vague ideas as to what she might like to do. She kept these ideas to herself, but she spoke to Emily Howes concerning the possibilities of a ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... Convention into a treaty of amity such as one independent power might conclude with another. Mr. Chamberlain, therefore, having put upon record that the purpose of the proposed conference was to give effect to the London Convention and not to destroy it, proceeded to formulate a South African policy that would enable him to make the most effective use of the authority of Great Britain as paramount Power. His purpose was to win Dutch opinion in the Free State and the Cape Colony to the side of the Imperial Government, and then to use ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... very still, staring into space, his hold on her never loosening. She stumbled on, confessing what had lain hidden in her heart until this moment. She told him things she had never thought she could betray to any one—things she had never even dared formulate. When she had done, he said in a strange, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... that self-restraint which, bred of adequate self-knowledge, might come from within, and contaminates with neurotic and mental instability the innocent unborn, furnishing histogenic factors which the future will formulate in minds dethroned to become helpless wards of the state ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... frankness, allowing you to look into my inmost heart! Though you have shown me a proof of your gracious confidence in giving me, down to the smallest detail, an account of your personal and business relations with your servants, I still believe that I have no right to formulate any judgment. Only one thing my heart bids me to express, viz., that the men with whom you have broken were faithful, veracious servants, warmly devoted to you, and that just by the freedom and independence of spirit, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... was greatly disturbed at this news, and a confused longing, a criminal desire, surged through my mind; I did not formulate it, but I felt it in my heart, ready to come to the surface, as if some one hidden behind a portiere should await the signal to come out. If some accident might only happen! So many of these little beings ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... I came downstairs an hour or so later, I knew how right I had been to formulate this scheme for Gussie's bucking up. I ran into him on the lawn, and I could see at a glance that if ever there was a man who needed a snappy stimulant, it was he. All nature, as I have indicated, was smiling, but not Augustus Fink-Nottle. He was walking round in circles, muttering something ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... the coming years. No formula of definite re-construction had been evolved, or has even been evolved yet, after a hundred years. And these swelling inchoate new powers, whose very birth condition was the crippling, modification, or destruction of the old order, were almost forced to formulate their proceedings for a time, therefore, in general affirmative propositions that were really in effect not affirmative propositions at all, but propositions of repudiation and denial. "These kings and nobles and people ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... improvement-work, if possible. If you proceed after a plan of your own on your side of the fence, and he does the same on his side, there may be a sad lack of harmony in the result. But if you talk the matter over together the chances are that you can formulate a plan that will be entirely satisfactory to both parties, and result in that harmony which is absolutely necessary to effective work. Because, you see, both will be working together toward a definite design, ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford

... find a poet who, despite occasional expressions of confidence in the power of beauty to sustain him, loses his courage at other times, and lays down a system of rules for his guidance that is quite as strict as any which puritans could formulate. Wordsworth's Ode to Duty does not altogether embody the aesthetic conception of effortless right living. One may, perhaps, explain this poem on the grounds that Wordsworth is laying down principles of conduct, not for poets, but for the world at large, which ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... forbid those who belong to a religious Order, to formulate any vow against lending their books to those who are in need of them; seeing that to lend is enumerated among the principal works ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark

... now in the newspaper-room at the English bank. Lucy stood by the central table, heedless of Punch and the Graphic, trying to answer, or at all events to formulate the questions rioting in her brain. The well-known world had broken up, and there emerged Florence, a magic city where people thought and did the most extraordinary things. Murder, accusations of murder, A lady clinging to one man and being rude to another—were ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... efficient leaders. I believe in the honesty, in the good intentions, and in the good sense of the common people. But I do not believe in their ability to detect relations, to draw wise conclusions, and to formulate policies touching the complicated political, social, and economic conditions ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... several specific measures no such right existed,—that the action was illegal as well as oppressive. As the war with Napoleon increased in intensity, however, the exigencies of the struggle induced the British cabinet to formulate and enforce against neutrals a restriction of trade which it confessed to be without sanction in law, and justified only upon the plea of necessary retaliation, imposed by the unwarrantable course of the French Emperor. These ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... great activity lies in the fact that it was based upon the most advanced theories of papal power. It was the controversy over lay investiture which first caused the defenders of the Church to formulate their views of the sphere of ecclesiastical influence as against the influence of the secular authority. But the extreme claims put forward for the Papacy as the head of the Church, by Gregory VII and his followers, had provoked the counter definitions ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... deplored the death of a fellow traveller, who had manfully faced many hardships, and was young, genial, and full of promise. They regretted the act which took from the company a member who had been prominent in its organization, had helped to formulate its rules, and had, up to that unfortunate hour, been a co-worker with the other leading spirits for its best interests. It was plain that the hardships and misfortunes of the journey had sharpened the tempers ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... passed through my mind in rather a confused manner, and without my taking the trouble to fix or to formulate any ideas and sensations, for I continued to dream, rather than to think effectively, and it is very probable that, when my visit was over, I should not have remembered much about it, not even with regard to Babette, if I had not been suddenly awakened ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... told Gouverneur Morris—United States minister since 1792—that to his astonishment he found nothing to surprise him. Therefore the prophet had long been determined upon the policy the United States should pursue when this crisis shot out of the eastern horizon; he had now but to formulate it in such a manner that every point could be grasped at once by the Cabinet, and acted upon. When Washington arrived in Philadelphia and summoned his advisers, Hamilton presented twelve questions for discussion, the most pressing of which were: Shall a proclamation ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... chapter i., that there was an old tradition in Armorica that St. Patrick was a native of that province; and the same author adds that several Irish writers adhered to that opinion. This book, therefore, does not seek to formulate a new theory; its only object is to gather together many of the records which tend to prove that St. Patrick ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming

... as her husband, was destined to hear more that day of Uncle Simon's strange move, for there was one other person on the place who was not satisfied with Uncle Simon's explanation of his conduct, and yet could not as easily as the mistress formulate an opinion of her own. This was Lize, who did about the quarters and cooked the meals of the older servants who were ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... could easily be arranged. Here Mr. Silk's sallow face almost flushed with a little colour, and his heart beat as his little scheme pressed upon his mind. Dreading an obstacle, he feared to allow the thought to formulate; but after a moment he let it slip, and it said—"Now if I were to take the second floor, I should often meet Sir Arthur on the doorstep and staircase. What an immense advantage it would be to me when Stoggard and Higgins learnt that I was on ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... this connection to formulate a complete theory of freight rates, it may be said that there are three factors to which weight should be given in fixing charges: First, the cost of service. The total costs of transportation, including ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various

... poor widow could formulate her fears as to the reception of "round dances," Brooks had darted to the piano, and the next moment she heard with a "fearful joy" the opening bars of a waltz. It was an old Julien waltz, fresh still in the fifties, daring, provocative to foot, swamping to intellect, ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... writer; but brilliancy is not always the best quality in an historian, for it as often leaves readers dazzled as taught. A decidedly matter-of-fact turn of mind prevents his being a theorist, so that he does not formulate characters and events in accordance with some fixed preconception. His learning seems sometimes limited by what was accessible to him at the least expense of study,—as, for example, in his account of the religion of the Teutonic races, where he depends almost altogether ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... construction of Utopias is not a sound method of social science; that this particular Utopia makes insufficient provision for liberty, movement, and growth; and that in order to bring his ideals into the region of practical discussion, what the Socialist needs is to formulate not a system to be substituted as a whole for our present arrangements but a principle to guide statesmanship in the practical work of reforming what is amiss and developing what is good in the actual fabric of industry. A principle so applied grows if it has seeds of good in it, and so ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse

... result of these investigations was to impress upon him the reality of nature as something independent, and to increase on a very large scale his knowledge of, and control over nature. When man began to formulate and understand nature, he began, too, to invent machines to profit from the knowledge he gained. Hence followed a marvellously fruitful period of human activity, an activity which at first strengthened man in his own ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones

... that masterly "common-sense" article of Bernard Shaw. How clearly he expresses the much that many of us have felt way down inside and have not been able to formulate even to ourselves! ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... of the Russian workman is such that he can only formulate his grievances by employing others to do it for him. Hence there has come into existence numerous professional councils, who for a consideration visit the workers in their homes and wherever they congregate, and compile their complaints ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward

... hints that would not count as a lesson, but after all, Georgie had still got Olga Bracely to himself, for he had not breathed a word of her advent to Lucia. He felt rather like one who, when revolutionary ideas are in the air, had concealed a revolver in his pocket. He did not formulate to himself precisely what he was going to do with it, but it gave him a sense of power to know ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... from the most humble to those of the King and of the Priest, the highest expressions of our society, will group themselves according to their rank. In these pictures I shall follow the effect of Thought on Life. Then another work, entitled 'History of the Succession of the Marquis of Carabas,' will formulate the life of nations, the phases of their governments, and will show decidedly that politics turn in one circle, and are evidently stationary; and that repose can only be found in the ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... the city, with all its mystery, taken its place? Here was this greatest mystery, the man of money and affairs sitting beside her, appealing to her. Behold, he had ease and comfort, his strength was great, his position high, his clothing rich, and yet he was appealing to her. She could formulate no thought which would be just and right. She troubled herself no more upon the matter. She only basked in the warmth of his feeling, which was as a grateful blaze to one who is cold. Hurstwood glowed with his own intensity, and the heat of his passion was already melting ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... theory, which brings the sex determination question under Mendel's Law in a modified form, seems most in accordance with the facts, and makes one hopeful that in the near future it may be possible to formulate a ...
— Studies in Spermatogenesis - Part II • Nettie Maria Stevens

... tells us, is only possible in a civilized society, "where ideas are current and the perceptions quick." We have already touched upon this point and later we must return to it again; but for the moment let us notice that this idea of comedy, though he would have been quite unable to formulate it in words, was in reality at the back of Lyly's mind, or rather we should perhaps say that he quite unconsciously embodied it. He was par excellence the product of a "social" atmosphere; he moved more freely within the Court than without; his whole ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson

... case, of course . . ." He gathered up his reins, and lifted his hat, "At least I am glad to have been of some small service to you," he added, quietly. And before her brain or lips could formulate an answer, he had cantered off and vanished round a shoulder ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... the sexual appetite in man is part of his natural rights. Natural science compels us to formulate this principle; yet it is a dogma the consequences of which may become very grave and even fatal; for the satisfaction of a man's sexual appetite implies, not only the direct participation of one or more human beings in a common act, but also that of a much greater number ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... Caesars[8] were developed there, and it is there we must look for the key to enigmas still unsolved. It is true that at present nothing is more obscure than the history of the religions that arose in Asia when Greek culture came in contact with barbarian theology. It is rarely possible to formulate satisfactory conclusions with any degree of certainty, and before further discoveries are made we shall frequently be compelled to weigh contrasting probabilities. We must frequently throw out the sounding line into the shifting sea of possibility in order to find ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... has disordered our ranks. Most of the intellectuals placed their science, their art, their reason, at the service of the governments. We do not wish to formulate any accusations, to launch any reproaches. We know the weakness of the individual mind and the elemental strength of great collective currents. The latter, in a moment, swept the former away, for nothing had been prepared to help in the work of resistance. Let this ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland

... may formulate my conjecture as to the course of development actually pursued, it would be something like this. The ceremony at Coventry is a survival of an annual rite in honour of a heathen goddess, from which men were excluded. This rite, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... did not formulate it in so many words, even mentally, Richard was of the opinion that some debauched woman or cuckolded man had fired the fatal shot. Thus he found himself inclining toward mercy before he knew anything substantial about ...
— The Eyes Have It • Gordon Randall Garrett

... by the cultural discipline of a society based on class-divisions. In every one of them there is implied the relation of status, of a superior, natural or supernatural, with the right or power to formulate "commandments," and of an inferior class whose lot it is to obey. We find this implication of status in even the noblest expressions of current ethical aspirations. Wordsworth's immortal Ode to Duty begins, "Stern Daughter of ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte

... were not respected in America. We have already seen how he had drawn a petition which Holmes, Lowell, Longfellow, and others were to sign, and while nothing had come of this plan he had never ceased to formulate others. Yet he hesitated when he found that the proposed protection was likely to work a hardship to readers of the poorer class. Once he wrote: "My notions have mightily changed lately.... I can buy a lot of the copyright ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... reached a point at which it is possible to formulate a definite conception of the living organism. A plant or animal is a living entity whose properties may in large measure be expressed in terms of unit-characters, and it is the possession of a greater or lesser number of such unit-characters renders ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett

... freshness. He wanted a world that was like walking through rain, even though he could not see far ahead of him, but fate had put him in the world of Mr. Macy's fetid storerooms and corridors. At first merely the overwhelming need of change took him, then half-plans began to formulate in ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... thoughts into her. Rather we feel that we are receiving her thoughts into ourselves, and that, in certain receptive hours, we are, by some avenue simpler and profounder than reason, made aware of certitudes we cannot formulate, but which nevertheless siderealize into a faith beyond the reach of common doubt—a faith, indeed, unelaborate, a faith, one might say, of one tenet: belief in the spiritual sublimity of all Nature, and, therefore, of our own being ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... didn't want to remember," said the doctor, authoritatively. "The brain is acting on some impression that is either painful and unpleasant, or so vague that he can't formulate it; he is conscious of it, and won't attempt it yet. It's a heap better ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte

... a whole was not able to formulate any such clear conclusion. Within a week Mr. Gladstone had determined to break away from the "upper official circles of Liberalism," and to move a series of Resolutions, which were actually drafted on April 26th, but the existence of ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... kind of father. He must choose to be a child again, he must desire to please them, he must make an effort to be in harmony with them, he must draw on his experience to interest them, he must talk to them entertainingly of every interesting problem which the walk itself suggests or he must formulate a plan and select a subject with a definite educational scheme in view. We can, in a most effective way, begin to build their characters, and, by the right kind of talk and enthusiasm, he can determine their resolves to be honest, truthful, just, clean, sympathetic. He can instill ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... psychological character of the personage portrayed; a gay, reckless Don Giovanni calls for a brighter colouring throughout than that necessitated by the music allotted to a gloomy Vanderdecken or an embittered and vengeful Rigoletto. One may, therefore, formulate the following rule: The general character of the composition will decide the tonal colour appropriate for its general interpretation; the colouring necessary for its component phrases will be determined by the particular sentiment embodied in them. Emotions like ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam

... running before he had time to formulate his fear. And then a startling memory spurred him to more desperate haste. He recalled the old well by the barn, boarded over years before and later so concealed by the encroachment of grass and weeds that its very existence had been forgotten. ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... have had the same thought. On the whole he was ready to follow their advice, but as he drew near to his destination he realised that it must be the first point settled. He did not exactly know how to formulate his request, for he had never known anybody who had asked another for his name. He almost wished that Hilda could manage it for him, which was a proof that he had not ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... excerpts which make up the body of the book are not to be regarded as mere illustrations. In the context in which they appear, and with the headings which indicate their place in the volume, they should enable the student to formulate for himself the principles involved. An experience of some years, during which this book has been in preparation, has demonstrated the value to the teacher of a body of materials that are interesting in themselves and that appeal to the experience ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... Greek thought preoccupied with the quest for the simple substances in terms of which the course of events could be expressed. We may formulate this state of mind in the question, What is nature made of? The answers which their genius gave to this question, and more particularly the concepts which underlay the terms in which they framed their answers, have determined the unquestioned ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead

... drawing-master, lay under no necessity to formulate his principles and stick to them. On the contrary, his style developed like a kaleidoscope. He had been in Switzerland and on the Rhine in 1841, "painting his impressions," making water-colour notes from memory of effects that had ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood

... provided by Jefferson, they would most assuredly have been crystallized by the pioneer politicians of the day. The Jeffersonian creed has exercised a profound influence upon the thought of the American people, not because Jefferson was an original and profound thinker, but because of his ability to formulate popular opinions, ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... of space implies that of time. If the latter therefore be impossible, the former must be equally so.' Formulate this argument as ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock

... in 1917, events began so to shape themselves as directly to point to the entrance of the United States into the Great War, Edward Bok set himself to formulate a policy for The Ladies' Home Journal. He knew that he was in an almost insurmountably difficult position. The huge edition necessitated going to press fully six weeks in advance of publication, and the preparation of material fully four weeks previous to that. He could not, ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... face at the same instant, and Harry saw the flame and white smoke puff from it, and the sickening thought flashed into his mind that the shot was fired at him, and that he would feel the deadly ball pierce his body! Before he could more than formulate this he heard the bullet pass him with a screech, and strike somewhere with a plainly sharp slap. Turning his head he saw the leading Rebel stagger and fall. Harry thre his gun up, with the readiness acquired in old hunting days, and fired at the next of his foes, who also fell! ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... B.-C.'s (the name is really too long to go on writing) house is perfectly awful. She told us so before we could even formulate the thought ourselves! It was done up about fourteen years ago, she said, when it was one of the first houses as high up on Fifth Avenue, and was the time of the most appalling taste in decoration. Every sort of gilding and dreadful ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn

... this question is that there is in this special case no antagonism between the two ideas. The most effective organization will aim both at the promotion of individual effort, and at subordination and co-operation. It would be a serious error to formulate any general rule by which all cases should be governed. The experience of the past should be our guide, so far as it applies to present and future conditions; but in availing ourselves of it we must remember that conditions are constantly changing, and ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb

... agility had given me permitted me to formulate plans for the immediate future and to note more closely the appearance of the warriors, for I could not disassociate these people in my mind from those other warriors who, only the day before, had been ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... assumption which takes it for granted. Perhaps this would be news to Professor Ray Lankester, and such as he, but I think I could convince them that I am right if I had them face to face. To use the mind at all we have to assume this doctrine even though we may not actually formulate it. Christianity did not invent it; it clarified and defined it, but in principle it is as old as ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell

... has said, 'I feel that one of Wellesley's strongest points is in her alumnae.' And once more, because of this confidence, the alumnae, as when students, were spurred to do their best, were filled with loyalty for their alma mater.... If I should try to formulate an expression of that life in brief, I should say that in her relation to the students there was perfect justness; as regards her own position, a passion for duty; as regards her character, simplicity, sincerity, ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse

... innocent, pathetic, almost terrible love of one who has trodden the earth long for one who has just set dancing feet upon it. It was noble of Jane Carew that, lacking all such imagination, she acted as she did: that, although she did not, could not, formulate it to herself, she would no more have deprived the other woman and the dead man of that one little unscathed bond of tender goodness than she would have robbed ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... toward the former's camp the Englishman maintained a morose silence. The other was attempting to formulate an opening that would lead naturally to the proposition he had in mind. He rode a neck behind his companion, grinning as he noted the sullen scowl ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Machiavelli. The politics of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, of Louis XI. of France, of Ferdinand of Spain, of the Papacy, of Venice, might have been dictated by the author of The Prince. But Machiavelli was the first to observe, to compare, to diagnose, to analyse, and to formulate their principles of government. The first to establish, not a divorce, but rather a judicial separation between the morals of a man and the morals of a government. It is around the purpose and possible results of such a separation in politics, ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli

... repeat the last words, "think sometimes of Teresa." He was conscious that this was not all; he had a full conviction of being deceived, and knew that he held the proof in his hand, but he could not formulate it beyond that sentence. "Teresa"—yes, he would think of her. She would think of him. She would explain it. ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... profound silence within the forecastle, and pending the destruction of his attacker Mr. Henckel judged it imprudent to make any further attempts at a delivery. He required time to formulate a plan of attack, and in the interim he desired shelter. Mike Murphy heard the patter of feet, the patter ceasing almost as soon as it ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... members of a sapient race," he declared. "They reason logically, both deductively and inductively. They learn by experiment, analysis and association. They formulate general principles, and apply them to specific instances. They plan their activities in advance. They make designed artifacts, and artifacts to make artifacts. They are able to symbolize, and convey ideas in symbolic form, and form symbols by ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper

... formulate what he would care to say. But, perhaps just because he was too tired to say it right, the life the robin in the nearest tree was that moment celebrating in song seemed more important than anything he had to say about his own feeling toward ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell

... not authorities acknowledge facts and try to formulate combat methods that conform to reality? It would reduce a little the disorder that bothers men not warned of it. They jump perhaps from the frying pan into the fire. I have known two colonels, one of them a very brave man, who said, "Let soldiers alone before the ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq

... was on the following morning. For he was confronted at the very outset with the difficulty of finance. He was a lad of rapid ideas, and his knowledge of seafaring matters, and the Spaniards, had enabled him to formulate the outlines of a scheme, even while listening to Dyer's relation of the incidents of Hawkins' and Drake's disastrous voyage. But he fully recognised, even while planning his scheme, that to translate it into action would necessitate an expenditure ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood

... dog of a brown man,' says I, quiet, but full of indignations and discomforts, 'things shall happen to you. Maybe not right away, but as soon as J. Clancy can formulate somethin' in ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... college yonder asked me to formulate for him what I thought was the happiest hour in a man's history, and I studied it long and came back convinced that the happiest hour that any man ever sees in any earthly matter is when a young man takes his bride over the threshold of the ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr

... met two of the most remarkable men in American history, Paul Jones, the naval hero, and Jefferson. To them both he told the marvels of Pacific wealth, and both were far-sighted enough to share his dreams. It was now that Jefferson began to formulate those plans that Lewis and Clark afterward carried out. The season was too late for a voyage this year, but Paul Jones loaned Ledyard money and arranged to take out a ship of four hundred tons the following ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... from the bench and gesticulated eloquently but dumbly. He was beggared for words with which to formulate ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry

... Indeed, we may therefore formulate and apply to nations at large what Goethe has there suggested; and we shall find it can be arranged in what I may call a pentatonic scale of culture. You may be aware that all musical scales of all savage and barbarous and primitive tribes are not in the octave, as ours, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various

... of the shed and hen-coops at the rear was duly exhibited. Garrison did his best to formulate a theory to exonerate Dorothy from knowledge of the crime; but his mind had received a blow at these new disclosures, and nothing seemed to aid him in the least. He could only feel that some dark deed lay either at the door of the girl who had paid him to masquerade as her husband, ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... ride, for it was not so very many blocks to the hotel, and Murk wanted time to formulate in his mind the report he intended to make to ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong

... effects do not enter very largely into the necessities of life. Hence alone is that suspicion of vagueness that often hangs about the purpose of a romance: it is clear enough to us in thought; but we are not used to consider anything clear until we are able to formulate it in words, and analytical language has not been sufficiently shaped to that end. We all know this difficulty in the case of a picture, simple and strong as may be the impression that it has left with us; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that 'every atom in the universe attracts every other atom,' were without exceptions or modifications, that comet could not continue to exist in its present form. Until we get some additional illustration, however, we shall be short of data with which to formulate any iconoclastic hypothesis. The source of the light, I must admit, also puzzles me greatly. There is certainly no heat to ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor

... that Omar seldom, if ever, spoke of either of these matters, which had at first so seriously agitated him. Whether he had relinquished all thought of recovering the jewels collected by his ancestors, or whether he was endeavouring to formulate some plan of action I knew not, yet his unwillingness to speak of them was, to ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... as a conscious and more or less active being.[553] Thus the creed of these savages on this profound subject agrees fundamentally with the creed of the average European; if my hearers were asked to state their beliefs as to the nature of life and death, I imagine that most of them would formulate them in substantially the same way. However, when the Central Melanesian savage attempts to define the nature of the vital principle or soul, which animates the body during life and survives it after death, he finds himself in a difficulty; and to continue the parallel ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... rejection of Galloway's Plan, conservatives and radicals united to formulate the non-intercourse measures, which New England delegates thought so essential, and those famous addresses—to the King, to the Inhabitants of Great Britain, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies—which Pitt declared to be unsurpassed for ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... said Barbican, "is pretty much the same as that lately presented by an English astronomer, Nasmyth, who has devoted much study and reflection to lunar matters. Of course, I only formulate my theory, I don't affirm it. These streaks are cracks, made in the Moon's surface by cooling or by shrinkage, through which volcanic matter has been forced up by internal pressure. The sinking ice of a frozen lake, when meeting with some sharp pointed rock, cracks ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... so narrowed in their practical application? The answer is very simple. Jesus was the revealing of God—God manifest in the flesh. He had come into this world not merely to heal a few sick people, to bring back joy to a few darkened homes by the restoring of their dead, to formulate a system of moral and ethical teachings, to start a wave of kindliness and a ministry of mercy and love; he had come to save a lost world, to lift men up out of ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... girl was beginning to dare formulate the deepest of any thoughts that ever had stirred ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers

... following morning, I began to formulate that plan which was to lead to an extraordinary discovery. I breakfasted in my own room, and just as I had finished and was about to light my pipe, Mr. Martin, the ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer

... arch-villain's death, and given to Lord and Lady Greystoke a peace of mind that neither could ever have felt so long as the vital spark remained in the body of the Russian and his malign mind was free to formulate new atrocities against them. ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... not formulate his comparisons so clearly; nor does Sir Thomas Browne touch so unerringly the canker in the root of the politics of his time; but one cannot saturate oneself in the works of either without contrasting them with the physiocrats of the eighteenth century, who tore ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... seeking. She, too, had always stood aloof, a fine and vital personality, before the eyes of men sufficient to herself. But as the evergreen had stretched its hundred arms toward light and sunshine, so Beulah Rutherford had cried dumbly to life for some vague good she could not formulate. ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine

... at intervals. A lighter note. His answers were precise, as was his way. But they lacked the enthusiasm of the other. It was as though his thoughts were traveling far afield, while his ears subconsciously conveyed the other's talk to a brain ready to formulate adequate reply. ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum

... active co-operation and support on the part of the alumni came from the institution, in recent years the alumni have tended more and more to organize, not as an adjunct of the university administration, but as a body designed to formulate independent alumni opinion, and to make intelligent graduate sentiment really effective for the good of the institution. With this new phase of alumni activity came new elements—particularly the alumni secretary, ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw

... proclaim our popular beliefs to be infallible dogmas. I consider them as mere theories, and try to the best of my ability to reconcile the ancient and the modern science. I formulate hypotheses just like Darwin and Haeckel. Besides, if I understood rightly, Miss X—— is a spiritualist, so she believes in bhutas. And, believing that a bhuta is capable of penetrating the body of a medium, how can she deny that ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky

... have been the perils of self-tradition, I certainly did not escape them, for it required eight years—from the time I left Rockford in the summer of 1881 until Hull-House was opened in the the autumn of 1889—to formulate my convictions even in the least satisfactory manner, much less to reduce them to a plan for action. During most of that time I was absolutely at sea so far as any moral purpose was concerned, clinging only to the desire ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... all these peculiarities in the structure of the Cyclostoma, we may formulate the following thesis: Two divergent lines proceeded from the earliest Craniota, or the primitive Craniota (Archicrania). One of these lines is preserved in a greatly modified condition: these are the Cyclostoma, a very backward and partly degenerate side-line. The other, ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel

... towards the inky-black sky, he tried to formulate a prayer, but he could not, his thoughts could not shape themselves, his mind refused to work; he opened his lips and ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking

... perceptible. She felt its cramping influence to the full, as if the walls were closing in to suffocate her, to bury her alive before she had ever known a fuller freer life. She had longed for expansion—ideas she could not formulate, desires she could not express, crowded, jostled in her brain. She wanted a wider outlook on life than the narrow convent windows offered. Brief excursions into the world to the homes of her friends had filled her with a ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... revealed in detail to a judge," he said loftily. "At present I fail to see what bearing they have on the discussion, unless, indeed, you mean to arrest Curtis immediately on a charge which I am prepared to formulate." ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... into his pockets and handed me that knife in solemn silence, I fully realized that he was making a sacrifice on the altar of friendship. Any critic of this writing will be justified in objecting that I did not probably formulate the idea in just these terms, but this is about the size of ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears

... Before he could formulate any answer there came the sound of the house-door opening and closing. He rose hastily from ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... he walked quickly home over the rough stones of the Grande Rue, he realized all that it meant, and stopped short, staring at the dusky houses. He was not a man of dramatic instincts. He did not strike his forehead, nor stamp his foot, nor formulate in words the resolution he made out there in the dark street. He merely thrust his hands deeper into the pockets of his overcoat, and walked on; but he knew from that moment that he would fight for Hermione, and that his mood of an hour ago had been but the passing effect ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... calumny seemed to Susannah clear enough; it was a natural one for low-minded politicians who hated Smith to formulate, and the religious world outside thought they were doing God service by believing any ill of a blasphemer; but this charge was an old one, and she probed further to-day for the real cause of Emma's excitement. She was first given a letter in which ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... later, Mgr. Pie was obliged to refute a new pamphlet, entitled, "France, Rome and Italy," and so endeavor to prevent new iniquities. He feared not to formulate the following terrible rebuke, which was denounced as seditious, but which history has already confirmed ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... of the University question in recent years is instructive. In 1868 Lord Mayo, the Chief Secretary, endeavoured without success to formulate a scheme. In 1873 Mr. Gladstone brought in a Bill which risked the life of his Government, and failed to pass. Three years later a Bill of Isaac Butt's was introduced, but was unsuccessful, and after another three years, in 1879, was established the federal Royal University. In 1885 the Conservative ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... of reasoning, some inkling of what Nietzsche is trying to formulate as his solution of the difficulty. What is needed must be a natural process, a vis medicatrix naturae. In the process of declining and falling, races practise a sort of thrift; they save and they economise. Then, if we may suppose ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... for the writers. In May, 1840, two months after the disastrous failure of Vautrin, he offered to the consideration of the Society of Men of Letters a Literary Code, divided into titles, paragraphs, and articles, in which he laid down the principles from which to formulate practical rules for the protection of the interests of authors, and for the ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

... she began, on a note of deliberation. "But I 'm afraid, just now, it would take too long to formulate my thought. Perhaps I'll try ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... minutes the great red quadrangle of the Samaritan Hospital loomed up on her right. And even before she was ready, before she quite had time to compose her mind in preparation for the questions she had begun to formulate, she was ushered into a private room by a nurse on duty who detained her a moment at ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers

... however—which Her Majesty's Government earnestly trusts may not be the case—the reply of the South African Government be negative, or dilatory, it reserves to itself the right to consider the situation de novo, and to formulate its own propositions for a ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot

... it is a disgrace to European civilization that there exist so few physiological observations on callipedy, and he refuses to state the results of his Meditations on this subject, because it would be difficult to formulate them in terms of prudery, and they would be but little understood, and misinterpreted. Such reserve produces an hiatus in this part of the book; but the author has the pleasant satisfaction of leaving a fourth work to be accomplished by the next century, to which he ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... scholars' shackles. The symphony, like the Old Man of the Sea, weighed upon his mighty shoulders; music, he believed, must be formal to be understood. Illowski, in his many wanderings, pondered these things: saw Berlioz on the trail, in his efforts to formulate a science of instrumental timbres; saw Wagner captivated by the glow of the footlights; saw Liszt, audacious Liszt, led by Wagner, and tribute laid upon his genius by the Bayreuth man; saw Tschaikowsky struggling away from the temptations of the music ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... great strain upon their diverse temperaments. Thyrsis would be thinking of such matters as roads and fruit-trees and barns—and above all of prices; while Corydon would be concerned with—alas, Corydon never dared to formulate her vision, even to herself. She had vague memories of dilettante country-places with great open fire-places, and exposed beams, and a broad staircase, and a deep piazza, and above all, a view of the sunset. Whenever she came upon any vague suggestion of these luxuries, her heart would leap up—and ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... Without attempting to formulate any principles or a philosophy of children's interests, the author has simply sought to draw the material ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 5, February 3, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... carelessly for shade and, according to Cash's record, "getting it in his mouth, tongue, feet & all over body." Bud liked it—all except the blistering heat and the "side-winders" and other rattlers. He did not bother with trying to formulate any explanation of why he liked it. It may have been picturesque, though picturesqueness of that sort is better appreciated when it is seen through the dim radiance of memory that blurs sordid details. Certainly it was not adventurous, ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... wattles. He also drew the conclusion that the results were due to the effect of the testicle upon the blood, and through the blood upon the organism. Little attention was paid to Berthold's experiment at the time. The credit of having been the first to formulate the doctrine of internal secretion is generally given to Claude Bernard. He discovered the glycogenic function of the liver, and proved that in addition to secreting bile, that organ stores up glycogen ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham

... by which he reached his famous theory can be followed in his classical work On War and the Notes regarding it which he left behind him. In accordance with the philosophic fashion of his time he began by trying to formulate an abstract idea of war. The definition he started with was that "War is an act of violence to compel our opponent to do our will." But that act of violence was not merely "the shock of armies," as Montecuccoli had defined ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett



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