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Invoke   /ɪnvˈoʊk/   Listen
Invoke

verb
(past & past part. invoked; pres. part. invoking)
1.
Summon into action or bring into existence, often as if by magic.  Synonyms: arouse, bring up, call down, call forth, conjure, conjure up, evoke, put forward, raise, stir.  "He conjured wild birds in the air" , "Call down the spirits from the mountain"
2.
Cite as an authority; resort to.  Synonym: appeal.  "I appealed to the law of 1900" , "She invoked an ancient law"
3.
Request earnestly (something from somebody); ask for aid or protection.  Synonym: appeal.  "Invoke God in times of trouble"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Invoke" Quotes from Famous Books



... idolatry of the Mass?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, there is no idolatry in the Mass. They believe god to be there, and they adore him.' BOSWELL. 'The worship of Saints?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, they do not worship saints; they invoke them; they only ask their prayers. I am talking all this time of the DOCTRINES of the Church of Rome. I grant you that in PRACTICE, Purgatory is made a lucrative imposition, and that the people do become idolatrous as they recommend themselves to the tutelary protection of particular saints. ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... in search of his examples Chesterton sees the ideal of the early republicans as dead in the republics of today, and nowhere more dead than in America. It would be useless, he feels, to invoke Jefferson or Lincoln in the modern world against the tyranny of wage-slavery or in favour of racial justice because "the bridge of brotherhood had broken down ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... beheld the multitudinous splendors Refulgent from above with burning rays, Beholding not the source of the effulgence. O thou benignant power that so imprint'st them! [89] Thou didst exalt thyself to give more scope There to the eyes, that were not strong enough. The name of that fair flower I e'er invoke Morning and evening utterly enthralled My soul to gaze upon the greater fire. And when in both mine eyes depicted were The glory and greatness of the living star Which conquers there, as here below it conquered, Athwart the heavens descended a bright ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... Continent, even into Papal-ridden Italy, and there urge the popular pleas in defence of slaveholding, and, from the Vatican, Pope Gregory XVI. shall reply: "We urgently invoke, in the name of God, all Christians, of whatever condition, that none henceforth dare to subject to Slavery, unjustly persecute, or despoil of their goods, Indians, Negroes, or other classes of men, or to be accessories to others, or furnish them aid or assistance in so doing; ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison

... became a theme of indulgent parental chaff, and the girl was neither dazzled nor annoyed by the freedom of all this tribute. "Well, he HAS told us about half we know," she used to reply with an air of the judicious that the undetected observer I am perpetually moved to invoke would have ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James

... of Bodhi, yet men, drunk with the liquors of the Three Poisons[FN176] Still slumber in the darkness of sin. Let us pray to Buddha, in whose bosom we live, for the sake of our own salvation. Let us invoke Buddha, whose boundless mercy ever besets us, for the Sake of joy and peace of all our fellow-beings. Let us adore Him through our sympathy towards the poor, through our kindness shown to the suffering, through our thought of the sublime ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya

... the great German poet describes, in not the least noble of his lyrics, the sudden apparition of some "Monster Fate" in the circles of careless Joy, he assigns to him who teaches the world, through parable or song, the right to invoke the spectre. It is well to be awakened at times from the easy commonplace that surrounds our habitual life; to cast broad and steady and patient light on the darker secrets of the heart,—on the vaults and caverns of the social state over which ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... will say to me: If so it be, that man is thus entirely exiled from the immortal gods, that all communication is denied [89] him, that not one of them occasionally visits us, as a shepherd his sheep—to whom shall I address my prayers? Whom, shall I invoke as the helper of the unfortunate, the protector ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater

... his danger from the living," said the Caesar, "induced him to invoke the dead?—for Ursel has been no living man for the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... even kept chaplains at their own expense for the celebration of masses which were daily said for the souls of the good deceased members of the craft. These associations, animated by Christian charity, took upon them to invoke the blessings of heaven on all members of the fraternity, and to assist those who were either laid by through sickness or want of work, and to take care of the widows and to help the orphans of the less prosperous craftsmen. ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... propitious. Hasten to THE ALCOVE. My sisters are twining honey-suckles and jessamine round the portico, and I have carried thither a respectable corps of bibliographical volumes, for Lysander to consult, in case his memory should fail. All here invoke the zephyrs to waft their best ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... the graves of the Indians, and our houses on the sites of their wigwams; our cattle may graze upon the hillsides and valleys of their hunting grounds, and our churches may be erected on positions where the Red men of the forest gathered together to invoke the blessing of the Great Chief of the everlasting hunting ground, yet what is truly written of ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith

... man had upset Esteban's economic life; his miserable wages and the poor assistance the Chapel-master could give were insufficient even for that extra mouth, which consumed more than all the others in the household put together. At the end of the month Esteban was obliged to invoke the aid of Silver Stick to enable him to get along the last few days, entering thus into the humble and miserable flock bound by the priest's usury. Sometimes the Chapel-master, waking for an instant to reality, would give him a few pesetas, sacrificing the ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... "To invoke your pity," said the lovely Jewess, with a voice somewhat tremulous with emotion, "would, I am aware, be as useless as I should hold it mean. To state that to relieve the sick and wounded of another religion cannot be displeasing to God were also unavailing; to plead that ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... immutable, and cannot be changed. {216} The present corn-laws must on that principle be done away, and no bounty allowed for exportation or for importation, which indeed would be the best way; but, at all events, let us have one weight and one measure for both parties, and not invoke freedom of trade to protect the corn-dealers when prices are high, and enact laws to counteract the effects of plenty, which ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair

... his hands are nailed to the cross, and his blood is poured out, Christ even then protests against the great imposture of auricular confession. Jesus will be to the end of the world what he was there on the cross: the sinner's friend; always ready to hear and pardon those who invoke his name and ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... Signers, you may depart: what would you more? We are going; do you fear that we shall bear The palace with us? Its old walls, ten times As old as I am, and I'm very old, Have served you, so have I, and I and they Could tell a tale; but I invoke them not To fall upon you! else they would, as erst The pillars of stone Dagon's temple on The Israelite and his Philistine foes. 220 Such power I do believe there might exist In such a curse as mine, provoked by such As you; but I curse not. Adieu, good ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... hesitate a moment. He hurried to invoke the judicial assistance of Judge George C. Barnard, of the New York State Supreme Court. He knew that he could count on Barnard, whom at this time he corruptly controlled. This judge was an unconcealed tool of corporate interests and of the plundering Tweed political "ring"; for his many ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... responsibilities so vast I fervently invoke the aid of that Almighty Ruler of the Universe in whose hands are the destinies of nations and of men to guard this Heaven-favored land against the mischiefs which without His guidance might arise from an unwise public policy. With a firm reliance upon the wisdom ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... "don't be rash. Those men have done a lawless thing, but they still have the power to invoke the ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... our England of to-day. There is much blasphemy in the world, but one of the greatest blasphemies of the age is the degradation of the sacrament of matrimony,—the bland tolerance with which an ordained priest of Christ presumes to invoke the blessing of God upon a marriage between persons whom he knows are utterly unsuited to each other in every way, who are not drawn together by love, but only by worldly considerations of position and ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... opening of Parliament. The Belgian Government applies to the Societe Generale whenever any national financial enterprise is to be inaugurated and counts upon it to take the initial steps. Thus it became the backbone of Leopold's ramified projects and it was natural that he should invoke its assistance in the organization ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... exploded into a livid rage, and cursed us plentifully,—wishing that we might never come to our journey's end, and that we might all break our necks or die of apoplexy,—the most awful curse that an Italian knows how to invoke upon his enemies, because it precludes the possibility of extreme unction. However, as we are heretics, and certain of damnation therefore, anyhow, it does not much matter to us; and also the anathemas may have ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... scene in which country-folk plant an orange-tree and invoke the blessing of pagan divinities. The Genius of Art appears, and with him the seven goddesses: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Poetry, Music, Dance and Drama. Genius asks for an explanation of the tree-planting, and is told by the rustics that it is an ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... Delight thee more, | and Siloa's brook that flowed Fast by the oracle of God, | I thence Invoke thy aid | to my adventurous song, That with no middle flight | intends to soar Above the Aonian mount, | while it pursues Things unattempted yet ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

... Peoples' Commissaries and the Soviets have, upon more than one occasion, made admissions that these horrors were part of their program. At the Congress of the Soviets the chairman of the Central Committee of the Soviets, Sverdlov, said: 'We invoke the Soviets not to relent, but to fortify the Terror, no matter how terrible it may be and what dimensions it ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... insidious temptation of impurity has, as far as one can learn, increased. One hears of simply heart-rending cases where a boy dare not even tell his parents of what he endures. Then, too, a boy's relations will tend to encourage him to hold out, rather than to invoke a master's aid, because they are afraid of the boy falling under ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... failed to do, and what Professor Wendell seems not to have done,—having reviewed at some length the works of Shakspere's contemporaries to whom the older chronicle plays are attributed by Malone,—we invoke, in support of the position we have taken, the opinion of Mr. Charles Knight in his "Essay on Henry ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith

... I invoke the land of Ireland! Shining, shining sea! Fertile, fertile mountain! Gladed, gladed wood! Abundant river, abundant in ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... bull, with a necklace of skulls for his ornament. There are human beings who still believe in a god of war, Krtikya, with six faces, riding on a peacock, and holding bow and arrow in his hands; and who invoke a god of success, Ga{n}e{s}a, with four hands and an elephant's head, sitting on a rat. Nay, it is true that, in the broad daylight of the nineteenth century, the figure of the goddess Kali is carried through the streets of her own city, Calcutta,[10] ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... have learned by the confession of certain guilty parties how the Master begins to instruct his disciple. First he tells him to abjure God, the saints and the Virgin, not to invoke their names, and to have no fear of them. He then conducts him to the wood, glen, cave or field where the pact with the Devil is concluded, which they call 'the agreement' or 'the word given' (in Tzental quiz). In some provinces the disciple is laid on an ant-hill, and the Master ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton

... wailed. His eyes were wild, and the hand that rested in hers trembled violently. "Do you know that it is against your father and your father's brother that you invoke God's vengeance?" ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... of the King, and his fears of Buckingham's being provoked to reprisals which might attach new scandal to the Court. While the warrant was out against him, the Duke was bold enough to resort to Clarendon, and to invoke his aid in securing for him an interview with the King, in which he was confident that he might allay the passing anger. Clarendon could only advise his surrender, and assure him that nothing would be allowed to interfere ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... an historian. He must conjure up the past; he must play the Witch of Endor. His lists and indices, his catalogues and note-books, must be but the spells which he uses to invoke the dead. The spells have no potency until they are pronounced: the lists of the kings of Egypt have no more than an accidental value until they call before the curtain of the mind those monarchs themselves. It is the business of the archaeologist to ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall

... the 49th, I have solicited and obtained permission of your gallant commanding officer to address you a few moments before I invoke the blessing of Almighty God upon the colours which are never to be sullied by any act of yours, and are not to be abandoned but with life itself. And let not any man marvel that I, a man of peace, ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... this subject from further thought. I will devote my whole time clearing up the Thames tragedy. This resolution is not so easy to carry out. That fascinating, pathetically mobile face confronts my inner vision. It seems to invoke sympathy and help ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... acts tested, under the provisions which existed in all state constitutions, forbidding the taking, by the public, of private property without compensation, or without due process of law. Such a provision existed hi the constitution of the State of New York, adopted in 1846, and it was to invoke the protection of this clause that one Wynehamer, who had been indicted in 1855, carried his case to the Court of Appeals in the year 1856. In that cause Mr. Justice Comstock, who was one of the ablest jurists New York ever produced, gave an opinion ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams

... handles file name defaulting in a particularly useless way, or an assembler routine that could easily have been coded using only three registers, but redundantly uses seven for values with non-overlapping lifetimes, so that no one else can invoke it without first saving four extra registers. What {randomness}! 8. /n./ A random hacker; used particularly of high-school students who soak up computer time and generally get in the way. 9. n. Anyone who is not a hacker (or, sometimes, anyone ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... and feared at the non-appearance of the men who led them. But none dared approach the fire. None thought to extend help to its possible victims. Fire was a demon they feared. It was a demon they were ready enough to invoke to aid them in war. But his wrath turned against themselves was something to be utterly dreaded. So they stood ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... the leaders, Mr. Wessels reported the discussions with Dr. Coster as above given. Both he and Mr. Solomon represented to them the gravity of the plea, and said that there was the possibility that the judge would invoke Roman-Dutch law and ignore the laws of the country, in which case it would be in his power to pass sentence of death. In their opinion, they added, and in the opinion of Mr. Rose Innes and others, this would be a monstrous straining of ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... existing evils for permanent good. He can make the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath He can restrain. Let me invoke every individual, in whatever sphere of life he may be placed, to feel a personal responsibility to God and his country for keeping this day holy and for contributing all in his power to remove our ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 10. • James D. Richardson

... blooms Ye bow'ry thickets, and prophetic glooms! Ye forests hail! ye solitary woods! Love-whispering groves and silver-streaming floods! Ye meads, that aromatic sweets exhale! Ye birds, and all ye sylvan beauties hail! Oh how I long with you to spend my days, Invoke the muse, and try the ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... Thee I invoke, the Lord of Life and Light! Beyond imagination pure and bright! To thee, sufficing praise no tongue can give, We are thy creatures, and in thee we live! Thou art the summit, depth, the all in all, Creator, Guardian of this earthly ball; Whatever is, thou ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... heroic comrades who have fallen by his side—men with whom he has passed the most trying hours of his existence—men who knowing the rights of their friends, their country and homes, dared raise the strong right arm in defense. Ay! he will ever invoke a just Heaven to reward them as their merit deserves, and in his hours of sad reflection, he will drop a ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear

... dear to an age of chivalrous display, that marked the landing of Columbus on the tropic island of San Salvador. The captain and his men moved in marching order: they knelt together on the barren rock to offer thanks to God and to invoke a blessing on their queen. Great cairns of stone were piled high here and there, as a sign of England's sovereignty, while as they advanced against the rugged hills of the interior, the banner of their country was proudly carried in the van. Their ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock

... the power of rouge; her mind, any mind she has, more and more filled with spleen, malice, and the dregs of pride run sour. A disgusting creature, testifies one Ex-Official gentleman, once a Hofrath under her, but obliged to run for life, and invoke free press in his defence: [ Apologie de Monsieur Forstner de Breitembourg, &c. (Paris, 1716; or "a Londres, aux depens de la Compagnie, 1745"): in Spittler, Geschichte Wurtembergs (Spittlers WERKE, Stuttgard und Tubingen, 1828; vol. v.), 497-539. ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... was over all causes and all persons, civil as well as ecclesiastical. It held good certainly in theory, and to a great extent in practice, against the temporalty as much as against the spiritualty. Why then are we to invoke the Supremacy as then understood, in a question about courts of spiritual appeals, and not in questions about other courts and other powers in the nation? If the Supremacy, claimed and exercised as Henry claimed and exercised it, is good against the Church, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... master, for the purpose of daring him to present a petition purporting to be from slaves; that, having now reason to believe it a forgery, he should not present the petition, whatever might be the decision of the house. If he should present it at all, it would be to invoke the authority of the house to cause the author of it to be prosecuted for the forgery, if there were competent judicial tribunals, and he could obtain evidence to prove the fact. He did not consider a forgery committed to deter a member of Congress from the discharge of his duty ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... I also recalled the gleaming eyes and shaking hands of Termonde, when he was talking with my mother about my father's mysterious disappearance. If they were accomplices, this was a piece of acting performed before me, an innocent witness, so that they might invoke my childish testimony on occasion. These recollections once more drove me upon my fated way. The idea of a guilty tie between her and him now took possession of me, and then came swiftly the thought that they had profited by the murder, that they alone had an engrossing interest in ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... Thursday, the 30th day of November next, the people meet in their respective places of worship and there make the usual annual acknowledgments to Almighty God for the blessings He has conferred upon them, for their merciful exemption from evils, and invoke His protection and kindness for their less fortunate brethren, whom in His wisdom He has deemed it best ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... and stood in struggle with herself. She had not foreseen a conflict of this kind. Surprise, and probably vexation, she was prepared for; irony, argument, she was quite ready to face; but it had not entered her mind that Mrs. Lessingham would invoke authority to oppose her. Such a step was alien to all the habits of their intercourse, to the spirit of her education. She had deemed herself a woman, and free; what else could result from Mrs. Lessingham's method of training and developing her? This disillusion gave ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... to seek: If any land knows how to pay the gods Their proper rites, 'tis Athens most of all. This is the land whence thou wast fain to steal Their aged suppliant and hast carried off My daughters. Therefore to yon goddesses, I turn, adjure them and invoke their aid To champion my cause, that thou mayest learn What is the breed of men ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... lesson of reason and experience that I would impress upon my countrymen in every possible way is, when war or insurrection comes or is threatened, do not trifle with it. Do not invoke judicial proceedings, or call for 75,000 men; but call for men, and let them come as many as will! If some of them do not get there in time, before it is all over, it will not cost much to send them home again! The services of the Pennsylvania reserve, though ready ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... Persians, and still more on account of an earthquake which laid the most of the city in ruins (465 B.C.), was so crippled as not to be able to check the progress of the rival community. She was even obliged to invoke Athenian help against the revolting Messenians and helots; but after the troops of Athens had joined them, the Spartans, jealous and afraid of what they might do, sent them back. This indignity led to the banishment of Cimon, who had favored the sending of the force, and to the granting ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... yourself, for immunity from insult while I am under your roof. Since I stood no taller than your knee, my mother has striven to inculcate a belief in the nobility, refinement, and chivalric deference to womanhood, inherent in southern gentlemen; and if it be not all a myth, I invoke its protection against abuse of my father. A stranger, but a lady, every inch, I demand the respect ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... Rite, and imparted thereto the Luciferian character in all its brutality. Palladism, for him, is a selection; he surrenders to the ordinary lodges the adepts who confine themselves to materialism, or invoke the Grand Architect without daring to apply to him his true name, and under the title of Knights Templars and Mistress Templars, he groups the fanatics who do not shrink from the direct patronage ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... have already become foreign cities, controlled by a foreign vote, and dominated by a foreign public opinion. Here in Kansas, in cities where there is a dominant element of foreign born citizens, we have to invoke the power of the State to compel obedience to our temperance laws on the part of this alien and un-American population; otherwise they overawe the city government and rebel against the laws. Self-evident it is that the presence of such a population is a threat against our social and domestic ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... had gone through all the topics derived from philosophy that were suitable to the occasion to be said about liberty and virtue, and death and good fame, with great emotion on his part, and finally addressed himself to invoke the gods as being there present and watching over the struggle on behalf of their country, there was so loud an acclamation and so great a movement in the whole army thus excited, that all the commanders hastened to the contest ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... business interruptions and all that, some men were well enough without, but as for him he never neglected the ordinances of religion. He doubted if the Columbus River appropriation would succeed if we did not invoke the Divine Blessing ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... either," said the doctor, working himself into his great coat. "By the by, do you want to invoke the ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... horizon and the sun in his pristine brightness again shine forth. I, therefore, can anticipate for you many years of happiness and prosperity, and in my daily prayers to the God of mercy and truth I invoke His choicest blessings upon you. May He gather you under the shadow of His almighty wing, direct you in all your ways, and give you peace and everlasting life. It would be most pleasant to my feelings could I again, as you propose, gather you all around me, ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... to the world, and call God to witness their truth and sincerity; and invoke defeat and disgrace upon our heads, should, we prove guilty ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary

... endure. That is the reason, in my opinion, why, among so many men of talent, France to-day counts not one great writer. In a society like ours, to seek for literary glory seems to me an anachronism. Of what use is it to invoke an ancient sibyl when a muse is on the eve of birth? Pitiable actors in a tragedy nearing its end, that which it behooves us to do is to precipitate the catastrophe. The most deserving among us is he who plays best this part. Well, I no longer ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... in one of the border towns of Kansas, and it was thought he would head for this place. Should he take the horses into the State, all the better, as they could invoke the courts of another State and get other sheriffs ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... to a person clothed with no sort of official powers or official relation to the Church of England. If Lord John should have occasion to communicate with the Bank of England, what levity, and in the proper sense of the word what impertinence, it would be to invoke the attention—not of the Governor—but of some clerk in a special department of that establishment whom Lord John might happen to know. Which of us, that wishes to bring a grievance before the authorities of the Post-Office, would address himself to his private friend ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... unfrequented meads and pathless wilds Lead me from gardens decked with art's vain pomp. . . But let me never fall in cloudless night, When silent Cynthia in her silver car Through the blue concave slides,. . . To seek some level mead, and there invoke Old midnight's sister, contemplation sage (Queen of the rugged brow and stern-fixed eye), To lift my soul above this little earth, This folly-fettered world: to purge my ears, That I may hear the rolling planet's ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... whose sceptre was confess'd, Where fair AEolia springs from Tethys' breast; Thence on Olympus, 'mid celestials placed, GOD OF THE WINDS, and Ether's boundless waste - Thee I invoke! Oh PUFF my bold design, Prompt the bright thought, and swell th' harmonious line Uphold my pinions, and my verse inspire With Winsor's {65} patent gas, or wind of fire, In whose pure blaze thy embryo form enroll'd, The dark ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith

... future affairs, the chief remedy is to invoke God, endeavoring to placate Him by sacrifice and prayer, and beseeching Him to protect us by His powerful right hand. This duty devolves by special right upon the religious. Our duty is to threaten and strive to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair

... So do, dear child, end this distressing state of things by returning to your right state of mind at once. You are a legally married woman, and you must obey the law of the land; but of course your husband would rather not invoke the law and make a public scandal if he can help it. He does not wish to force your inclinations in any way, and he therefore generously gives you more time to consider. In fact he says: 'She must come back of her ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... said to his mother: "O Mother! do not mourn, but at once invoke the gods that my life may be prolonged." She replied, "Alas! my son, which of the gods do you think will pity you? Is there one whom you have not outraged by filching from their very altars a part of the sacrifice offered up ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... pollution. I call upon the honour of your lordships, to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country, to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord, frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain did he defend ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... to Mr. Phelps's acting as not only not having been detrimental to the play, but having helped to save it, in the conspiracy of circumstances which seemed to invoke its failure. This was a mistake, since Macready had been anxious to resume the part, and would have saved it, to say the least, more thoroughly. It must, however, be remembered that the irritation which these letters express was due much less to the nature of the facts recorded ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... prefer some one of them to the simple plan of Girard himself? Besides, after they had been removed from power, and saw preparations made for a temple surrounded with costly columns, why did they not invoke the Democratic Legislature to arrest that proceeding? If they at any time whatever did make such an appeal, I have no recollection of it. For party effect, much may have been said and done on an election day, but I am not aware that otherwise any resistance was made. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... obtaining information may now be considered ridiculous; but it was not considered so, even in the Church, in the eighth century. After due inquiry and consideration, the second Council of Nice, in the year 787, declared that the Church had always believed it lawful and useful to invoke the intercession of departed saints, and to venerate ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... popes. ADRIAN I., pope from 772 to 705, was the son of Theodore, a Roman nobleman. Soon after his accession the territory that had been bestowed on the popes by Pippin was invaded by Desiderius, king of the Lombards, and Adrian found it necessary to invoke the aid of Charlemagne, who entered Italy with a large army, besieged Desiderius in his capital of Pavia, took that town, banished the Lombard king to Corbie in France and united the Lombard kingdom with the other Frankish possessions. The ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... I speak or hold my tongue?" But why should I be silent in a thing that is more true than truth itself? However it might not be amiss perhaps in so great an affair to call forth the Muses from Helicon, since the poets so often invoke them upon every foolish occasion. Be present then awhile, and assist me, you daughters of Jupiter, while I make it out that there is no way to that so much famed wisdom, nor access to that fortress as they call it ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus

... not know the danger you invoke. Wait, only wait; and as soon as we have left those streets, and got beyond the reach of listeners, all shall be explained. Meanwhile, avoid the topic. What a sight is this sleeping city!' she exclaimed; and then, with a most thrilling voice, ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... inquisitorial and as dogmatic as any Dominican of them all. He believed in force; he was as ready as all his fellows were to invoke the aid of the temporal power. The idea of the Church, as helped and sustained—which means fettered, and weakened, and paralysed—by the civic government, bewitched him as it did his fellows. We needed ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... me for the once. I invoke your patience," he said. "In the making of treaties, O Princess, one of the parties must first propose terms; then it is for the other to accept or reject, and in turn propose. And this"—he glanced hurriedly around—"this is no ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... the charge of Brother Avoirdupois; and I acknowledge myself to be a worshipper at the shrine of Mr. Melancthon Sage, and I invoke a blessing upon the head of Monsieur Odervie, the chief cook. Our life on the ocean wave is a constant promotive of the appetite. If the proof of the pudding is not in the eating of the bag, it is in the eating of the dinners; and I think we pay an abundant ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... revolutionists, felt his heart grow softer in victory. Furthermore, Cap'n Sproul, left outside the pale, might conquer dislike of law and invoke an injunction. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... role of the magician loses much of its importance. In the present advanced stage of culture, many physicians devote themselves to particular branches of their art, and each human organ, when ailing, may invoke assistance from its ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... well erect; I will follow, singing the Phallic hymn; thou, wife, look on from the top of the terrace.(1) Forward! Oh, Phales,(2) companion of the orgies of Bacchus, night reveller, god of adultery, friend of young men, these past six(3) years I have not been able to invoke thee. With what joy I return to my farmstead, thanks to the truce I have concluded, freed from cares, from fighting and from Lamachuses!(4) How much sweeter, oh Phales, oh, Phales, is it to surprise Thratta, ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes

... his wife and Lady Fanny were still more closely engaged; and the young Agnesina, though visibly a little scared at Mitchy's queer countenance, had begun, after the fashion he had touched on to Mrs. Brook, politely to invoke the aid of the idea of habit. "Look here—you must help me," the Duchess said to Petherton. "You can, perfectly—and it's the first thing I've ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... certain issue; and thus establish him for life on the shoulders of the wealthy Tamiya. Prayers? Indeed he did stop on the road, one lined with the ecclesiastical structures. Kondo[u] had too much at stake, not to invoke all ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... long together, this mother and this son, and it was her golden dreams for him that made her invoke Heaven's blessings upon him and tell him to go. She knew, too, that it was wise for her to tell him to go and to bless him, for it would have been impossible to withstand him, so set ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton

... drew forth his tablets and bowed his head a moment in some perplexity over the figures that were scribbled on them. "Multiplication," I heard him murmur, "is an act of the grace of heaven; let me invoke a blessing on FIVE, the perfect number, whereby the Pound Turkish is ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock

... as Rose and Lilian are going, Mrs.—what does she call herself, Claridge?"—(Norie interpolates: "Yes, that was her idea: she doesn't want to blazon the name of Clarges as the symbol of Free Love, 'cos of the dear old Dean; yet Claridge will not be too much of a surrender and is sure to invoke respectability, because of the Hotel")—"Mrs. Claridge, then, is coming in my stead—He's to help her all he can—and my cousin, who is reading for the Bar, will also look in when you are very busy. I shall, of course, see about rooms in one of the Inns of Court—the Temple ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... bodies like the sons of men, and subsist in like manner with them, but are free from the pains and cares of mortality; the term "spirit" among them only signifies a being of a superior and more excellent nature than man. However, they believe in the omnipresence of their deities, and invoke their aid in all ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... on which, with a word, could be made to rise all apparitions of the universe, grouped in new relations; a magic ring, that could transport the wearer, himself invisible, into each region of grandeur or beauty; a divining-rod, to tell where lie the secret fountains of refreshment; a wand, to invoke elemental spirits;—only such as these seemed fit to embody one's thought with sufficient swiftness and force. In earlier years I aspired to wield the sceptre or the lyre; for I loved with wise design and irresistible ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... processes of the common nature about us for clues to the origin of man is not unlike looking into the records of the phonograph for the secret of the music which that wonderful instrument voices for us. Something, some active principle or agent, has to invoke the music that slumbers or ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... when opposed to a mob, courage is not the most conspicuous virtue. Courage became so now—courage to bear hourly increasing privation, and to suppress every murmur of suffering that would discredit their patriotism, and invoke "peace at any price." It was on this class that the calamities of the siege now pressed the most heavily. The stagnation of trade, and the stoppage of the rents, in which they had invested their savings, reduced many of them to actual want. Those only of their number who obtained ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... at this point that we are enabled to invoke the aid of the principles which have been laid down in this Third Part. The cost of production of food and agricultural produce has been analyzed in a preceding chapter. It depends on the productiveness of the least fertile land, or of the least productively employed portion of capital, which ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... passion hath been dead and buried, along with a thousand other worldly cares and ambitions, he who felt it can recall it out of its grave, and admire, almost as fondly as he did in his youth, that lovely queenly creature. I invoke that beautiful spirit from the shades and love her still; or rather I should say such a past is always present to a man; such a passion once felt forms a part of his whole being, and cannot be separated from it; it becomes a portion of the man of to-day, just as any great faith or conviction, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... would be driven upon the shoals—hastened, some to the sails, ropes, and rigging, others to the helm, and the pilot to direct the ship's course. Our fathers, meanwhile, repaired to their quarters and berths to invoke the most blessed Virgin, to call upon God, and to pray for the intercession of the saints—all of them especially invoking that of blessed Father Ignacio, [4] a relic of whom the father-visitor ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... goddess, in these, for thee, first of all the immortals in Olympus, do we invoke; but guide us likewise to the horses and ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... entered the village, he beheld a sight which caused him to invoke St. Anthony of Padua. In front of the lodges were certain stakes, to which were attached bundles of straw, intended, as he supposed, for burning him and his friends alive. His concern was redoubled when he saw the condition of the Picard Du Gay, ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... century, as these darlings, wearing Kate Greenaway hats, walk up the aisle, preceding the bride. The young brother of the bride, a mere boy, who, in the fatherless condition of his sister, recently gave her away, also presented a touching picture. It has become a fashion now to invoke youth as well as age to give the blessings once supposed to be alone at the beck and call of those whom Time ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... name of the genie set over the insect kingdom. Scribes occasionally invoke him to preserve their manuscripts from ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne

... halls of numbered dead Where lambent lights and crystal dews Invoke the ghouls to guard each tomb That vandals of the sobbing night, When hell-winds stir the conquered dead, And thunder shook the mourner's pews, Giant cavalcades of marshalled Doom March thro' the phosphorescent light Unto the headland of the West, Where pageantries ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque

... impossible plans, though his intelligence told him that no plan of search he could form was likely to be of the slightest use. Only luck could help him there, and it was part of the hopelessness of the situation that he dared not invoke the aid of any of those agencies or organizations which make it their business to find persons who have disappeared in London. His search must be ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... everything I do not like, and I am hoping to hear you sing again, for it wass a fery pretty tune;" and the smith, passing along the road when Carmichael left that evening, heard Janet call him "my dear," and invoke a thousand blessings ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren



Words linked to "Invoke" :   quest, invocation, anathemize, plead, advert, bespeak, call for, provoke, turn, kick up, name, imprecate, make, damn, cite, maledict, refer, curse, mention, beshrew, bless, anathemise, request, create, bedamn, call on



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