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Motto   /mˈɑtoʊ/   Listen
Motto

noun
(pl. mottoes)
1.
A favorite saying of a sect or political group.  Synonyms: catchword, shibboleth, slogan.






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"Motto" Quotes from Famous Books



... blue with a narrow red stripe along the top and the bottom edges; centered is a large white disk bearing the coat of arms; the coat of arms features a shield flanked by two workers in front of a mahogany tree with the related motto SUB UMBRA FLOREO (I Flourish in the Shade) on a scroll at the bottom, all encircled ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... a half-bred American society, too ignorant to admit or recognise its own limitations,—she must have almost forgotten the stately traditions of the fine old family she springs from. One must not expect the motto of 'noblesse oblige' to weigh with modern young women—more's the pity! I'm afraid the mistress of Abbot's Manor will be a disturbing element in the village, breeding discontent and trouble where there has been till now comparative peace, and a fortunate ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... reclining on a grassy bank by a spring of water, with a wooded landscape, a sunrise, and a squire holding two horses in the distance. Robert studied, and remembered always, every detail of that singular composition. The warrior's shield, with its motto "Magica sympathia," his fat white hands, velvet breeches, steel cuirass, and stiff lace collar remained for days a grotesque image before his mind. He traced, too, a certain resemblance between Reckage and that ancestor—they both wore pointed red beards, both were fair of skin, both had a ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... to these nations, long preserve!) on the outside, facing towards Westminster; and the statue of Queen Elizabeth in regard to the day, having on a crown of gilded laurel, and in her hand a golden shield, with this motto inscribed: The Protestant Religion, and Magna Charta, and flambeaux placed before it. The Pope being brought up near thereunto, the following song, alluding to the posture of those statues, was sung in parts, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... The Latin motto "Look and Go" reminded my brother of an old timber-built mansion in Staffordshire which, as it stood near a road, everybody stayed to admire, its architectural proportions being so beautiful. It was said that when the fugitive King Charles was in hiding there he was greatly alarmed at seeing a ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... Brittany. In the pediment of the west doorway is the finest heraldic sculpturing that the Middle Ages of Brittany produced. In the centre, the lion of Montfort holds the banner of Brittany, on which may be read the motto of Duke John V.: Malo au riche duc. In the corner to the left are the arms of Bishop Bertrand de Rosmadec, stamped with the mitre and crozier, and the motto, En bon Espoir. Many other mottoes, such as Perac (Wherefore?); A l'aventure; Leal a ma ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various

... Baron is free to admit that the dainty manipulation of them is somewhat of a trial to the inexperienced guest, especially in the presence of "Woman, lovely Woman." "Hease afore helegance," was Mr. Weller's motto, but "Ease combined with elegance" may be attained in a few lessons, which any skilled M.D.E. (i.e., Mangeur d'ecrivisses) will be delighted to give at the well-furnished table of an apt and ardent pupil. Once more "Your health, Sir ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various

... believe that there is a Father in Heaven who educates His children; and I have no wish to interfere with His methods. Let my cousin go his way . . . he will learn something which he wanted, I doubt not, on his present path, even as I shall on mine. "Se tu segui la tua stella" is my motto. . . . Let it be his too, wherever the star may guide him. If it be a will-o'-the- wisp, and lead to the morass, he will only learn how to avoid morasses better for ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... own," he said. "Give and take—that is my motto. When you have nothing to give... offer ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman

... character, had not a word to say. Dr Barclay took great pride in collecting a library, and invented the following device as a mark for his books: His initials were engraved in the centre of an oval, at the top was the sun, with the motto—'I weary not;' below, was a mountain, with 'I am firm;' and surrounding all, 'Excel if ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various

... Edward the Third to the present hour. Their estates have been increased by the grant and improvement of lands in Ireland, and they have been recently restored to the honors of the peerage. Yet the Courtenays still retain the plaintive motto, which asserts the innocence, and deplores the fall, of their ancient house. [86] While they sigh for past greatness, they are doubtless sensible of present blessings: in the long series of the Courtenay annals, the most splendid aera is likewise the most ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... through their prejudices against the English Liturgy, and the simple rites of our communion. I visited them however in their affliction, and performed all ministerial duties as their Pastor; while my motto, was—Perseverance. ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West

... things were one to him, and all the views which he presented to the world were points, a cheval-de-frise, a coiled ball of barbed wire, a living Gibraltar, what you will, but, anyway, practically impregnable; and the beggar knew it. "He who believeth doth not make haste"—that seemed to be his motto, and he had, by the same token, a fine ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... was complete that the principal of one of the chief schools of Virginia set up a tablet to the memory of the "old boys" who had perished in the war,—it was a list the length of which few Northern colleges could equal,—and I was asked to furnish a motto. Those who know classic literature at all know that for patriotism and friendship mottoes are not far to seek, but during the war I felt as I had never felt before the meaning of many a classic sentence. The motto came from Ovid, whom many call a frivolous poet; but the frivolous Roman was after ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve

... himself. Perhaps while his friends were admiring the "greatness of his behaviour" at the approach of death, he may have had a twinkling hope of immortality. MENS CUJUSQUE IS EST QUISQUE, said his chosen motto; and, as he had stamped his mind with every crook and foible in the pages of the Diary, he might feel that what he left behind him was indeed himself. There is perhaps no other instance so remarkable ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... not seen Roscoff, but hoped to do so the following day, wind and weather permitting. Not that we had to reach Roscoff by water; but the elements can make themselves quite as disagreeable on land as at sea: and like the Marines might take for their motto, PER MARE, PER TERRAM. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various

... essential part of the fiction writer's duty is to be harmless. That, of course, to the men of the cayenne-pepper-caster creed seems a very milky sort of proclamation, but to us it is a matter of grave moment. I have always thought, for my own part, that the novelist might well take for his motto the last five words of that passage in 'The Tempest' where we read: 'This isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs, which give delight and hurt not! Simple as the motto seems, it will be found to offer a fairly wide range. When Reade tilted ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray

... with all the attachments and noiseless treadle. That's what I am, and no mistake. There's all kinds of businesses in this world, and there's got to be people to work at every one of 'em; and when a fellow takes any particular line, his business is to do it well; that's my motto. When I break into a house I make it a point to clean it out first-class, and not to carry away no trash, nuther. Of course, I've had my ups and my downs, like other people,—preachers and doctors and storekeepers,—they all have them, and I guess the downs are more amusin' than ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton

... family in the sense you mean. Generations of obscurity, a parentage only virtuous; no tombstone anywhere, no crest nor motto, not even a self-deluding lie of some former gentility, shaped from hand to hand till it commits a larceny on history, and is brazen on a carriage panel! We were foresters. We came forth and existed and perished, like the families of ants upon the ant-hills of sand. We migrated no more than the woodpeckers ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... keep a shop. Mine is a temple of the arts. I am a worshipper of beauty. My calling is to choose beautiful things for beautiful Queens. My motto is ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw

... that is his "motto" was—non sanz droict—not without right—and I desire the reader also especially to remember Sogliardo's words "Yfaith I thanke God" a phrase which though it appears in the quartos is changed in the 1616 Ben Jonson folio into "I thank them" ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence

... Susan said unaffectedly, and with flaming cheeks. "There is a little motto, to every nation dear, in English it's forget-me-not, in French it's ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... indeed an idle race; and poverty, perhaps for that reason, forces her way among them, through a climate that might tempt other mortals to improve its blessings; but, as the motto to the arms they are so proud of expresses it—"they toil not, neither do they spin." Content, the bane of industry, as Mandeville calls it, renders them happy with what Heaven has unsolicited shaken into their lap; and who knows but the spirit of blaming such behaviour may ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... in America. In every large city of America there is an extent of petty officialism and dictation that the English people would not for a day endure. Our policemen, following their Donnybrook proclivities, are all armed with clubs, and allowing prenatal influences to lead, they unlimber the motto, "Wherever you see a head, hit it," on slight excuse. In Central Park, New York, for instance, the citizen who "talks back" would speedily be clubbed into silence—but try that thing in Hyde Park, London, if you ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... points strong points. If, for instance, you realize that you are weak in applied minor tactics, or that you have no "bump of locality," or that you have a poor memory, or that you have a weak will, do what you can to correct these defects in your make-up. Remember "Stonewall" Jackson's motto: "A man can do anything he makes up his mind ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... And Khalid's motto was, "One book at a time." He would not encumber himself with books any more than he would with shoes. But that the mind might not go barefoot, he always bought a new book before destroying the one in hand. Destroying? Yes; for after reading or studying a book, he warms his hands upon ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... without certain conviction of the truth of that assertion.' Ib. p. 17. Lord Mansfield said nothing about the air. The line from Virgil, with which Lord Campbell makes Mansfield's speech end, was 'the happily chosen motto' to Maclaurin's published argument for the negro; Joseph Knight, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... you were introduced to me as such, but that's all. As a professional man, you should not need anyone's commendation, you should be able to say, 'Operibus credite'. That should be your motto." ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... of the same year this minister unexpectedly announced his new and startling proposals for the introduction of reforms in Macedonia, which nobody in the Balkans who had any material interest in the fate of that province genuinely desired at that moment; the motto of the new scheme was 'progressive decentralization', blessed words which soothed the great powers as much as they alarmed the Balkan Governments. But already in May 1912 agreements between Bulgaria and Greece and between Bulgaria and ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... again next term, I fancy most of us had got by heart the good Christmas motto, "Goodwill to men," and were mutually agreed that, whatever manly and noble sports we should engage in during the year, boycotting should not be one ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed

... the sound of a voice singing softly, and though the words were indistinguishable, the three occupants of the Flag Room caught snatches of the tune Peace loved so well, the Gleaners' Motto Song. Recalling the days when the brown-eyed child had made the little Hill Street parsonage ring with this very melody, the preacher ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown

... Day, on which Judge Ben B. Lindsey of Denver spoke for the amendment. The dirigible balloon, a feature of the exposition, carried a large silken banner inscribed Votes for Women. Later a pennant with this motto was carried by a member of the Mountaineers' Club to the summit of Mt. Rainier, near Tacoma, said to be the loftiest point in the United States.[200] It was fastened to the staff of the larger pennant "A. Y. P." of the exposition and the staff was planted in the highest snows on the top of Columbia ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... the internal, elevated, or affective life, to which all are not called, and the contemplative life, to which only a few can attain. The three parts of the soul, sensitive, rational, and spiritual, correspond to these three stages. The motto of the active life is the text, "Ecce sponsus venit; exite obviam ei." The Bridegroom "comes" three times: He came in the flesh; He comes into us by grace; and He will come to judgment. We must "go out to meet Him," ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... return. But the man who had before been afraid to sail from Genoa to Tunis, now escaped unseen from the ship that would have taken him back to safety in order to risk his life once more. He said to himself the motto he ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews

... The old Latin motto festina lente, "make haste slowly," has a great lesson for us. The more work we have to do, the more frequently we have to drop our head upon our desk and wait a little for heavenly aid and love, and then press on with new strength. One hour ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson

... tooke in the sermon hee preached that day at the intreaty of the said House of Commons at St. Margaret's, Westminster, it being the day of publike humiliation, and to desire him to print this sermon;' which accordingly was done, under the title of 'Hope's Encouragement.' The motto on the outside was: 'Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast, and entereth into that which is within the veil.' The sermon was printed in London for Ralph Smith, at the sign of the Bible, in Cornhill, near the Royal Exchange. In his ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie

... fed all the hungry folk who asked him for bread. If his pockets were empty he borrowed of his neighbours, but he always took good care to prevent his scolding wife from finding out that he had done so. His motto was: 'It will all come right in the end'; but what it did come to was ruin for Master Peter. He was at his wits' end to know how to earn an honest living, for try as he might ill-luck seemed to pursue him, and he lost one post after another, till at last all he could do was to carry sacks of corn ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various

... played out, an' a'n't exackly wut she's cracked up to be. It's pooty plain thet that 'ere blamed grease has ben one too many for ye, arter all yer lingo. Ef a man will dance, he's got to pay the fiddler. You can't go it on tick with Natur'; she's some on a trade, an' her motto is, 'Down with the dosh.' Ef you think you can play 'possum, an' pull the wool over her eyes, jest try it on, that's all; you'll find, my venerable hero, thet you're shinnin' a greased pole for the sake of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... other strict orders, who live sparingly, profess the most severe rules, and have no servants or boarders, enjoy a universal reputation for virtue and sanctity. They consider the other convents worldly, and their motto is, "All or nothing; the world or the cloister." Each abbess adds a stricter rule, a severer penance than her predecessor, and in this they glory. My friend the Madre—-frequently says —"Were I to be born again, I should choose, above every lot in life, to be a nun of ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... which makes up her mind to stay in the kitchen and then loses her mind. A product of modern society who has for her motto "Dimuendo contralto dumdum," which means, "She who cooks and runs away will live ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott

... the Freemasons, and consequently are debarred from membership of the Royal Ante-diluvian Order of Buffaloes. Mr. SHORTT disclaimed responsibility, but it is expected that the Member for the Carnarvon Boroughs, who is notoriously sympathetic to Ante-diluvians (is not his motto Apres moi le deluge?), will take up the matter on his return from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various

... Scripture. Pilgrim's Progress is the most widely read book in the English language after the Bible. Its phrases, its names, its matter are either directly or indirectly taken from the Bible. It has given us a long list of phrases which are part of our literary and religious capital. Thackeray took the motto of one of his best-known books from the Bible; but the title, Vanity Fair, comes from Pilgrim's Progress. When a discouraged man says he is "in the slough of despond," he quotes Bunyan; and when a popular evangelist tells the people that the burden ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee

... opened them first, proves the admirable rigidity of her discipline. Any other woman would have done so, but it was Miss Marietta rule to dispose of the pupils' correspondence before attending to her own. "Business first, pleasure afterward," was the motto of ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang

... flashing with microscopic lights, humming little melodies that matched their motions. A giant replica of the Bureau's cap-emblem—the Federal eagle clutching between his talons a banderole bearing the motto, 'Tis More Blessed to Give Than Receive—had been mounted on the center wall, the place of honor. Beneath the eagle stood a bandstand draped in bunting, ready to accommodate the Bureau of Seasonal Gratuities Brass-Band-and-Glee-Club, the members of which were to fly in from Washington ...
— The Great Potlatch Riots • Allen Kim Lang

... paper out towards Marguerite, inviting her to look at it. She caught sight of an official-looking document, bearing the motto and seal of the Republic of France, and of her own name and Percy's written ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... take time to accustom himself to the thought of his new position. But, his taking time was exactly the thing of all others that Silas Wegg could not be induced to hear of. 'Yes or no, and no half measures!' was the motto which that obdurate person many times repeated; shaking his fist at Mr Boffin, and pegging his motto into the floor with his wooden leg, in ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... dailin' with b'ys take 'em in toime," was the widow's motto. "What's the use of lettin' 'em climb up and fall down, and maybe break their legs or arms, and then take their promise? Sure, and I'll take it before the harm's ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger

... as places of sanctuary, they were often used for profane purposes. I recollect reading of fairs and rustic sports being held in them as early as John's reign, but unfortunately I have not been an observer of your motto, and know not now where to refer for such instances. I shall therefore feel obliged to any of your readers who will specify a few instances of the profanation of churchyards at different periods, or refer ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 34, June 22, 1850 • Various

... crude, Do not laugh, because it's rude. If my gestures promise larks, Do not make unkind remarks. Clockwork figures may be found Everywhere and all around. Ten to one, if I but knew, You are clockwork figures too. And the motto of the lot, "Put ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... another wall fell amid a shower of sparks and ashes, and the flames, licking up and up, caught the high-pitched roof of the great hall, and ran along the stone letters of the parapet, which spelt out the motto—"Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." The fantastic letters themselves, which had been lifted to their places before the death of Shakespeare, seemed to dance in the flame ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Linda. "He must have liked the head and tail pieces I drew for his other article, so he wants the same for this, and if he is well paid for his article, maybe in time, after I've settled for my hearth motto, he will pay me ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... twenty years earlier in the days of peace by Mr. Adams. It was in pursuance of the doctrine to which he thus gave the first utterance that slavery was forever abolished in the United States. Extracts from the last-quoted speech long stood as the motto of the "Liberator;" and at the time of the Emancipation Proclamation Mr. Adams was regarded as the chief and sufficient authority for an act so momentous in its effect, so infinitely useful in a matter of national extremity. ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... this matter will be apt to be put off too long; "wait and see if they don't swarm," will be the motto of too many, and when the season is over, drive them. Perhaps a good swarm has set outside the hive, all through the best of the honey season, and done nothing, while they could have half filled a hive; ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby

... this time they had gained the deepest part of a patch of woodland. The trees were a little separated from each other, and at the foot of one of them, a beautiful poplar, was a hillock of moss, such as the poet of Grasmere has described in the motto to our chapter. So soon as she arrived at this spot, Madge Wildfire, joining her hands above her head, with a loud scream that resembled laughter, flung herself all at once upon the spot, and remained there ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... even as you wish," said he. "Either entirely punish or entirely pardon; that is my motto. Take your pretty one, take her away wherever you like, and may God grant you love ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... took for its motto "We must be canny," and canny they certainly were. They even changed their programme from day to day, and in this way just when Angus felt he was about to discover his tormentors and know if they were human and not witches, they found some new method of annoyance and he ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... is, too, the man of his age: for it is an age of awakening enterprise, of wider views, of stronger sympathies. He lives and works, not for himself alone. His motto is Progress; and while the forest whispers to him of the past, books and his own heart commune with him of the future. Such men belong to both. When the present becomes the past, their work will survive them; and their tomb will not ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... accomplish it, will be a worthy chapter in the history of the world; and if written with the spirit which breathes through me, and with sufficient energy and calmness to execute well the details, would be what the motto on my ring indicates,—"a possession for ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... motto of the piano teacher Leschetitzky is, "Think ten times before you play once." If this rule were more generally observed we should have better interpreters of music. A great composition should completely occupy mind and heart ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore

... what a great poet says,—Drink till the moon goes down. I can improve that; I say,—Drink till yourselves go down. What an age this is, when temperance fanatics dance through the world to smash decanters, and make one pledge himself to be a fool! Independence is my motto! I go for independence now, independence forever, and as much longer as possible. Who says I am not right? Deluded mortals, who wink at sin, and kick at brandies! Magnificent monstrosities, making manliness moonshine; ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... Jane's motto that wherever a weed would grow a flower would grow; and carrying out this principle of planting, her garden was continually extending its boundaries; and denizens of the garden proper were to be found in every nook and corner of her domain. In the spring you looked for grass only; and ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall

... there is much likelihood of a nation with the history and the literature of England behind it, ever becoming to any great extent materialistic in the crude sense of Omar's poetry. The danger is subtler. The motto, "Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die," is capable of spiritualisation, and if you spiritualise that motto it becomes poisonous indeed. For there are various ways of eating and drinking, and many who would not be tempted with the grosser appetites may become ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... object of a verb or preposition, and being the name of an act or circumstance, are in construction, regarded as nouns, and are usually called 'substantive phrases;' as 'To play is pleasant,' 'His being an expert dancer is no recommendation,' 'Let your motto be Honesty is the best policy.'"—Id., ib., ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... on both shores of Delaware Bay, and along the coast of New Jersey, he captured everything which came in his way, and for about three weeks he made the waters in those regions very hot for every kind of peaceable commercial craft. If Worley had been in trade, his motto would have been "Quick sales and small profits," for by day and by night, the New York's Revenge, which was the name he gave to his new vessel, cruised east and west and north and south, losing no opportunity of levying contributions of money, merchandise, food, and drink upon any vessel, ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton

... nothin'. You've GOT to believe it. And whether you stay here ten minutes or ten years you've got to mind your own business. I won't have any hints or questions about me—from you nor nobody else. 'Mind your own business,' that's the motto of Eastboro Twin-Lights, while I'm boss of 'em. If you don't like it—well, the village is only five mile off, and I'll p'int out the road ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln

... and yet in all his numerous volumes on so many different subjects, it is scarcely too much to say, that you will hardly find a page in which some one sentence out of every three does not deserve to be quoted for itself—as motto or as maxim. God bless thee, dear old man! may I meet with thee!—which is tantamount ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... Dukes Federigo and Guidobaldo: the ermine of Naples: the ventosa, or cupping-glass, adopted for a private badge by Frederick: the golden oak-tree on an azure field of Della Rovere: the palm-tree, bent beneath a block of stone, with its accompanying motto, Inclinata Resurgam: the cypher, FE DX. Profile medallions of Federigo and Guidobaldo, wrought in the lowest possible relief, adorn the staircases. Round the great courtyard runs a frieze of military engines and ensigns, trophies, machines, and implements ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... and without price." Those used to be the terms. Mrs. Eddy's Annex cancels them. The motto of Christian Science is, "The laborer is worthy of his hire." And now that it has been "demonstrated over," we find its spiritual meaning to be, "Do anything and everything your hand may find to do; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... servant of the Lord' might be the motto of this Gospel, and 'He went about doing good and healing' the summing up of its facts. We have in it comparatively few of our Lord's discourses, none of His longer, and not very many of His briefer ones. It contains but four parables. This Evangelist gives no miraculous birth ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... spoil the child," was to me in those years of tenderness, a dismal contemplation. But Sundays had a brighter hue when Mother would dress me in full Highland suit of tartan, and adorn my cap with an eagle feather, surmounted with a brooch of the design of an arm with a dagger, bearing the motto, "We fear nae fae." With my small claymore and buckled shoes and plaid, how proudly I would walk up to the barracks at Castle Gate, where the sentry would salute me, and give me permission ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds

... defeated. And so Hamilton Fish died as he had lived—defiantly, running into the very face of the enemy, standing squarely upright on his legs instead of crouching, as the others called to him to do, until he fell like a column across the trail. "God gives," was the motto on the watch I took from his blouse, and God could not have given him a nobler end; to die, in the fore-front of the first fight of the war, quickly, painlessly, with a bullet through the heart, with his regiment behind him, and facing ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis

... these Iambicks with the Motto of this Paper, which is a Fragment of the same Author: A Man cannot possess any Thing that is better than a good Woman, nor any thing that is worse than a ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... is a country sign, representing five human figures, each having a motto under him. The first is a king in his regalia; his motto, I govern all: the second, a bishop in pontificals; motto, I pray for all: third, a lawyer in his gown; motto, I plead for all: fourth: a soldier in his regimentals, ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... dubiously, glancing at the bed and the table and the ricketty washstand. There were pictures and framed mottoes on the walls. Over his bed was a large motto-card, framed in stained deal, bearing the word: ETERNITY; and on the opposite wall, placed so that he should see it immediately he awoke, was a coloured picture of Daniel in the Lions' Den, in which the lions seemed to ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... arms centered on the outer half of the flag; the coat of arms features a shield with a golden lion centered; the shield is supported by a fur seal on the left and a penguin on the right; a reindeer appears above the shield, and below it on a scroll is the motto LEO TERRAM PROPRIAM PROTEGAT (Let the Lion Protect ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... addressing a king. "I know," said the great philosopher, "that I am censured of some conceit of my ability or worth; but I pray your majesty impute it to desire—possunt quia posse videntur." These men of genius bear a charmed mail on their breast; "hopeless, not heartless," may be often the motto of their ensign; and if they do not always possess reputation, they still look onwards for fame; for these do not ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... my motto is—fight fire with fire." Burwink was listening to this sharp interchange of words, the meaning of which he caught. Wishing to make a friend of him, for Ben foresaw trouble, he asked—"Am ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis

... Miss Mackenzies, sisters of her husband, handsome, middle-aged women, with high cheek-bones and fine brave-looking eyes. All the Mackenzies, except our Griselda, were dressed in the tartan of their clan; and over the stall there was some motto in Gaelic, "Dhu dhaith donald dhuth," which nobody could understand, but which was not the less expressive. Indeed, the Mackenzie stall was got up very well; but then was it not known and understood that Mrs ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... and folksy while she was servin', too. Her motto seemed to be, "Eat hearty and give the house a good name." If you didn't, she tried to coax you into it, or ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford

... her hearers, "the Catechism of Sergei Netschajew, but begin with Herzen's noble motto: 'Long live ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... WELL THUS, OR DYCE. The order to the helmsman to keep the ship in her present direction, when sailing close-hauled. This truly sailor's motto was adopted by the ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... "This expression is a kind of common property, being the motto, we believe, of a Scottish family."—Review of Gertrude, Scott's Miscellanies, vol. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... indefinitely? Ah, you offer a flag of truce? I warned you I should not respect it. You know my motto, 'Nemo me impune lacessit!' Thank you, for this lovely peace-offering. Since you are willing to negotiate, run and open the gate for me. I may never pass through it again except ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... that Ferdinand, after the death of Columbus, showed a sense of his merits by ordering a monument to be erected to his memory, on which was inscribed the motto already cited, which had formerly been granted to him by the sovereigns: A Castilla y a Leon nuevo mundo dio Colon (To Castile and Leon Columbus gave a new world). However great an honor a monument may ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... rough, but I have always been an honest boy and stood by the ship, so you needn't be ashamed of me.' Sir, I could never forget those words." He dropped his cap, drum, and sticks, bared his little arm, and showed the figure of a ship in full sail, with this motto beneath it, pricked into the skin: "Stand by ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various

... now reap a reward for the good work of the Anglo-Irish Landlords' League; who, with their fitting motto, "Noblesse oblige," so liberally purchased from the old landlords, some years since, most of the properties in the distressed and disturbed parts both of England and Ireland, and sold them out in small farms to the peasantry. Glancing the other ...
— 1931: A Glance at the Twentieth Century • Henry Hartshorne

... forget Dulcinea del Toboso, I will teach him with equal arms that what he says is very far from the truth; for neither can the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso be forgotten, nor can forgetfulness have a place in Don Quixote; his motto is constancy, and his profession to maintain the same with his life and ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... the lawn, were dead peasants. I seemed to know the house, probably from some print which I may have seen, but I could not make out the escutcheon, though I saw from its simplicity that it must be very ancient. Right across the facade spread still some of the letters in evergreens of the motto: 'Many happy returns of the day,' so that someone must have come of age, or something, for inside all was gala, and it was clear that these people had defied a fate which they, of course, foreknew. I went nearly ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... solemn voice, "I cannot survive the disgrace of being taken prisoner by the French. I will not adorn, as a modern Cleopatra, the triumphal entry of the modern Augustus. To live and to die honorably is my motto. I prefer death to ignominious captivity. Tell it to my husband and my children. And now to the will of God I commit myself. The moment that a French soldier extends his hand toward me, ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... will amuse the spectator. There is Policinel—the eternal Punch—with his audience, a short distance from the Cathedral. All over Europe, the most enlightened portion of the world, is this little Motley to be seen frolicking with flashes of satire; the motto for his proscenium should be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various

... the late events, his majesty caused two medals to be struck; one of himself, with the usual inscription, and the motto, Aras et sceptra tuemur; the other of Monmouth, without any inscription. On the reverse of the former were represented the two headless trunks of his lately vanquished enemies, with other circumstances in the same taste ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox

... The motto of the Little family was evidently "variety." Young Bingo is long and thin and hasn't had a superfluous ounce on him since we first met; but the uncle restored the average and a bit over. The hand which grasped mine wrapped it round ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse

... should ever make a little book out of these papers, which I hope you are not getting tired of, I suppose I ought to save the above sentence for a motto on the title-page. But I want it now, and must use it. I need not say to you that the words are Spanish, nor that they are to be found in the short Introduction to "Gil Blas," nor that they mean, "Here lies buried the soul of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... time to see anything else in this volume than Abstinentia adjicit vitam; but this motto of the noble Venetian I have no intention of putting in practice, at least ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne

... contented; he admired a young swell for buying flowers from a woman with a shawl over her head; he mused on all the honest, well-paid toil that had gone to the raising of the grapes and peaches at a Piccadilly fruiterer's. "Live, and let live"—that's a good motto all the world over. When he saw babies in perambulators, he would have liked to kiss them. When he saw an elderly man with a pretty young woman, he wanted to nudge him and say jocosely, "You're in luck, old chap, ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... planted so much powder and so many explosive contrivances in the roads leading into Hawkeye, and then forgot the exact spots of danger, that people were afraid to travel the highways, and used to come to town across the fields, The Colonel's motto was, "Millions for defence but ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... soldier; who was he? 16. When in the civil war did the groom and best man become acquainted? 17. A little sister of the bride was flower girl; what was her name? 18. In what church was the ceremony solemnized? 19. In the thoroughfares of what foreign city did they spend their honeymoon? 20. What motto greeted them as they entered their new dwelling? 21. Who did the bridegroom finally turn ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce

... liberty, in this free country, to think for himself. Old sparrows are not easily caught with chaff; and unless I saw a proper affidavit, I would not, for my own part, pin my faith to a single word of them. But every man his own opinion,—that's my motto. ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... strictly observed; violations of politeness and affection must be prohibited; ebullitions of temper must be considered as sad and lamentable improprieties, to be mourned over but always quickly and readily forgiven; the motto of each should be, "I will be, do, and bear all I can and ask as little as possible." A constant and perfect agreement in opinion and feeling between the parties must never be expected. The rule should be, that they will agree just so far as possible without a violation ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... vegetarian restaurant in London where he had once or twice eaten eccentric dishes of cutlets made of lentils and nuts that pretended to be steak. On all the plates in this restaurant there was printed a figure of St. George in blue, with the motto, Adsit Anglis Sanctus Geogius—May St. George be a present help to the English. This soldier happened to know Latin and other useless things, and now, as he fired at his man in the grey advancing mass—300 yards away—he uttered the pious vegetarian motto. ...
— The Angels of Mons • Arthur Machen

... preferring of the comfort, the ease, the wishes of another to one's own, for the love we bear them. Love is giving, and not receiving. Love is not a sheet of blotting-paper or a sponge, sucking in every thing to itself; it is an out-springing fountain, giving from itself. Love's motto has been dropped in this world as a chance gem of great price by the loveliest, the fairest, the purest, the strongest of Lovers that ever trod this mortal earth, of whom it is recorded that He said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Now, in love, there are ten receivers to one ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... they felt that this duel meant certain death, so great was Judson's fame for skill and cruelty. Notwithstanding they were so handicapped with this feeling of impending evil, they met their duty without a tremor; for the motto of their house ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... preparation is half the battle." Everything depends on a good start and the right road. To retrace one's steps is to lose not only time but confidence. "Be sure you are right then go ahead" was the motto of the famous frontiersman, Davy Crockett, and it is one that every young man can adopt ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... murdered. It was distinctly and imperatively demanded that nobody should be allowed to say anything anywhere against slavery. The movement of the societies which had then been recently formed at Boston and New York, with 'Immediate abolition' for their motto, was made use of to stimulate the terror and the fury of the South.... The position of political parties and of candidates for the Presidency, just at that juncture, gave special advantage to the agitators—an ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... his heritage. Doubtless the two had understood each other; but the absolute naked horror of the surmised facts had been kept delicately out of sight. But such delicacy was not to Aby's taste. Sharp, short, and decisive; that was his motto. No "longae ambages" for him. The whip was in his hand, as he thought, and he could best master the team ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... is an orderliness and thoroughness about Ibn Khallikan's methods which the Dictionary of National Biography does not exceed. The Persian may be more lenient to floridity ("No flowers, by request," was, it will be remembered, the first English editor's motto), but in his desire to leave out no one who ought to be in and to do justice to his inclusions he is ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas

... sheet of gold paper and half an ounce of gum-arabic, twice as much of both as he really wanted; people in a hurry are not apt to calculate very nicely, or be very economical, you know. He carried his articles back to the barn, and asked a lady to try to cut out a motto he had selected, and gum it on a ribbon. "But where shall I get the ribbon?" said the lady. "Oh! find it somewhere," said Mr. Perseverance; "and be sure and have all ready when I return." There was one spot in the woods he remembered visiting months before with a boy in his ...
— Gems Gathered in Haste - A New Year's Gift for Sunday Schools • Anonymous

... Nominalists. The sense in which any name is applied, they say, is derived from a comparison of the individuals, and by abstraction of the properties they have in common; and thus the definition is formed. Universalia post rem is their motto. Some Nominalists, however, hold that, though Universals do not exist in nature, they do in our minds, as Abstract Ideas or Concepts; and that to define a term is to analyse the concept it stands for; whence, these philosophers are ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... whom their actual and continued prosperity depends. The detail that the ruling sovereign is sometimes regarded as the re-incarnation of the original founder of the race strengthens this point—the king never dies—Le Roi est mort, Vive le Roi is very emphatically the motto of this Faith. It is the insistence on Life, Life continuous, and ever-renewing, which is the abiding characteristic of these cults, a characteristic which differentiates them utterly and entirely ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... Sovereign; and is to be next in dignity to the military Order of the Bath. The knights are to wear a silver star with nine points, and a straw-coloured riband from the right shoulder to the left. A figure of Minerva is to be embroidered in the centre of the star, with this motto, 'Omnia posthabita Scientiae.' Many men eminent in literature, in the fine arts, and in physic, and law, are already thought of to fill the Order, which, it is said, will be instituted before the meeting of ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 6. Saturday, December 8, 1849 • Various

... a thorough Bohemian, adventurous, but not an adventurer; a hare-brained fellow, a kind of Icarus, only possessing relays of wings. For the rest, he was ever in scrapes, ending invariably by falling on his feet, like those little figures which they sell for children's toys. In a few words, his motto was "I have my opinions," and the love of the impossible constituted ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne

... ever choose a coat of arms, I have a motto ready: "Enter Rumour painted full of tongues." The majority of the natives do extremely little; the majority of the whites are merchants with some four mails in the month, shopkeepers with some ten ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Veritas is the motto upon a little pencil-case contained in the small work-case Emily has given me. She had it engraved on the seal, and though it is not altogether so congenial a motto to me as Arnold and Robertson's Christian device "Forward!" (and is moreover axiomatic rather than hortatory), I use ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... own remembrance was blazoned. So he let make a new shield, and in the corner was painted a Blue Flower that was nameless, and this he gave to Martimor, saying: "Thou shalt name it when thou hast found it, and so shalt thou have both crest and motto." ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke

... desire of the promoters of this movement was a reunion of the divided followers of Christ. After a thorough and prayerful consideration of the subject, it was decided that the only possible basis of union is the Bible; and so the motto was adopted, "Where the Bible speaks we will speak, and where the Bible is silent we will be silent." It was decided to require a "thus saith the Lord" or an apostolic example for every item of teaching or practice. The reformers expected to bring about Christian union without ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz

... believe. The idea is to have everything of one colour—flowers, drapery, and food, china—everything that is on the table. It's a fag and an awful handicap, for you can't have half the things you want. But let us be modern or die—that's the motto nowadays. Mother is always trying to get hold ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... as the English, I hate the pedantry of tagging or prefacing what I write with Latin scraps; and ever was a censurer of the motto-mongers among our weekly and daily scribblers. But these verses of Horace are so applicable to my case, that, whether on ship-board, whether in my post-chaise, or in my inn at night, I am not able to put them out of my head. ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... reproaches and all my diplomacy were of no avail in reforming the Staff. Evidently comfort and not looks was their motto. ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... of that little group which has for its motto, 'Art for Art's sake,' not 'Art, for God's sake!') noticed him, and spoke of literature as an expression of the soul, a thing not of a season or a decade, but ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... find most people worrying to a greater or lesser extent. Indeed so full has our Western world become of worry that a harsh and complaining note is far more prevalent than we are willing to believe, which is expressed in a rude motto to be found hung on many an office, bedroom, library, study, ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... wearing a bright blue tie and a cornflower in his buttonhole, and his sandy hair was sleekly brushed. He showed Roger into his private room, a small place he had partitioned off, where over his desk was a motto in gold: "This is no place ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole

... H——d heard o' nights the sound Of rail-cars onward faring; Right over Democratic ground The iron horse came tearing. A flag waved o'er that spectral train, As high as Pittsfield steeple; Its emblem was a broken chain; Its motto: "To the people!" ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... River, supporting four millions of people on its 2,500 square miles of area, owes its prosperity to the embanking and irrigating works of the engineer heroes, Li Ping and his son, who lived before the Christian era. On the temple in their honor in the city of Kuan Hsien is Li Ping's motto, incised in gold: "Dig the bed deep, keep the banks low." For twenty-one centuries these instructions have been carried out. The stone dikes are kept low to permit a judicious amount of flooding for fertilization, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... a German spy might be crouching behind the door, Mr. Gould spoke in a whisper. "Keep your eyes open!" he commanded. "Watch every stranger. If he acts suspiciously, get word quick to your sheriff, or to Judge Van Vorst here. Remember the scouts' motto, ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... in Vermont resolved on a Christmas festival, and determined to have a scripture motto, handsomely illuminated, in a space back of the pulpit. One of the deacons, who had business in Boston, took with him the proposed motto and the measure of the space to be occupied by it, but unfortunately ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara

... finest I ever saw or tasted, and, I believe, the largest that ever grew out of Paradise, or Scotland. I have written to quiet Dr. Kennedy about the newspaper (with which I have nothing to do as a writer, please to recollect and say). I told the fools of conductors that their motto would play the devil; but, like all mountebanks, they persisted. Gamba, who is any thing but lucky, had something to do with it; and, as usual, the moment he had, matters went wrong. [1] It will be better, perhaps, in time. But ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... crucifix, which suggested that Inez was a Catholic. On the walls, too, were some good portraits, and on the window-ledge a jar full of flowers. Also the forks and spoons were of silver, as were the mugs, and engraved with a tremendous coat-of-arms and a Portuguese motto. ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... a shade more civil than usual," observed Marcus, dryly, "but his manners certainly want mending. Could you not illuminate that motto, Livy, 'Manners makyth man?' and we would frame it, and give it him as a Christmas present." But Olivia could not be induced to see the joke; Mr. Gaythorne was still an old dear, and the perfume of his flowers was ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... bottle of ammonia I kept for insect bites, I mixed some with kaffir beer and poured it on the head of the tomtom. One touch of the handkerchief was sufficient once the strong alkali got to work, and out came the grand old face of Nelson and underneath his motto: ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various

... floor the Stewart arms are enameled in brass, showing a shield with a white and blue check, supported by the figures of a wild Briton and a lion. The crest is a pelican feeding its young, and the motto is "Prudentia et Constantia." These heraldic figures are made a special feature of the main aisle. Directly in the center of the auditorium floor the Stewart and Clinch arms are impaled, enameled in brass. On the floor in the choir the Hilton arms are placed. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... missionary, clad in homespun apparel, his face shining with inward peace, while his silver locks overhang his shoulders. He was the Nestor of divines, and the character of his labors might be judged from his motto—' Prayers and pains with faith in Christ Jesus can accomplish anything.' His efforts and successes amongst the Indians were remarkable, and it was commonly reported that he possessed the gift of ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... darkest day of all, it was the brave old family motto, on a letter which came by post: "Dieu defend le droit." It was something to be reminded that, in spite of appearances to the contrary, the kingdom is the Lord's, and He is ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... its parts; that its stars and stripes were to float over every city and fortress in the land, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the river St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and "bearing for their motto no such miserable interrogatory as, What are all these worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first and Union afterwards; but that other sentiment, dear to every American heart, Liberty and Union, now and forever, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... cry, unheard save by the sea-birds which circled about my head, broke from my lips. It was a man's signet ring, thin and worn smooth with age. It was quaintly shaped, and in the centre was set a small jet-black stone. The device was a bird, and underneath the motto—"Vinco!" ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... his death, the mail from Samoa, brought to Stevenson's friends, myself among the number, a precious, if pathetic, memorial of the master. It is in the form of "A Letter to Mr Stevenson's Friends," by his stepson, Mr Lloyd Osbourne, and bears the motto from Walt Whitman, "I have been waiting for you these many years. Give me your hand and welcome." Mr Osbourne gives a full account of the ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp

... his word Mr. Phelps brought Abiram in, leading him by his long chain. Patty had tied a red ribbon round his neck with a huge bow, and had further dressed him up in a paper cap which she had taken from a German cracker motto. ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells

... remains; and, however late in the season, will economize stem and leaf to produce flowers and seeds, cuddled close within the tuft, that set all your pains at naught. "Never say die" is the dandelion's motto. An exceedingly bitter medicine is extracted from the root of this dandelion, formerly known as T. officinale. Likewise are the leaves bitter. Although they appear so early in the spring, they must be especially tempting to grazing cattle and predaceous insects, the rosettes remain untouched, ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... talked of and some are bold to say that national feeling prevents a real feeling of duty to the world, to man. These claim that duty must have its origin in the extension of tender feeling, in fraternity, to all men. In a lesser way business is commencing to substitute for its former motto, "Handelschaft ist keine Bruderschaft" (business is no brotherhood), the ideal of service, as the duty of business. Everywhere we are commencing to hear of "social duty," of obligation to the lesser and unfortunate, of the responsibility of the leaders to the led, of the well to the sick, of the ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... son-in-law Doctor Hawkins, (whome I love as my owne son) and to my dafter his wife, and my son Izaak to each of them a ring with these words or motto;—love my memory, I.W. obiet to the Lord B'p of Winton a ring with this motto—a mite for a million: I.W. obiet "And to the freinds hearafter named I give to each of them a ring with this motto—A friends farewell. ...
— Waltoniana - Inedited Remains in Verse and Prose of Izaak Walton • Isaak Walton

... a very comfortable dinner awaiting us, which rather surprised us, as our landlord, Mr. Lindsay, a very civil, obliging person, and a new proprietor here, I believe, had promised us but Lenten entertainment; but 'deeds, not words,' seems the motto of these mountaineers. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... the Camp, as a necessary introduction to the tragedy, the following passage taken from the prologue to the first representation, will give a just idea, and may also serve as a motto to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... was always safe to consult in matters of this sort, "try BOTH—if one staff should fail, it may be well to have another to lean on. A good soldier always keeps a part of his troops for a reserve. I motto of his coat of arms; the "gare a qui la touchc," or "noli ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... George did occasionally go to a theatre, thereby offending the Quaker's judgment, justifying the "overmuch," and losing his claim to a full measure of praise. "Therefore I will not quarrel with him that he has chosen his friend from among the great ones of the earth. But like to like is a good motto. I fancy that the weary draught-horse, such as I am, should not stable himself ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... adds that "only a small attendance greeted me upon opening my school," and after consoling himself with the reflection that this will leave him plenty of time for study, he adopted a single rule—"Do right;" and an additional motto, "A time and place for everything and everything in its time ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... strangers lodged with the simple peasant people in the valley, partaking with thankfulness of the coarse bread, the dates and the red wine—the common fare of their daily life. Nor did they fail to notice a motto inscribed above the fireplace in rude ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various

... the conclusion of the continental war, ever had so entire a recovery. The chain of its history, to be sure, was broken, and can never, in the nature of things, be welded together. But there is still left to Holland the boast and the reality of her motto, 'Luctor ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... "Oh, that is just sentimental rot. If a man was really needed, he would go; but if not, why should he? There's no use getting rattled over this thing. Besides, somebody's got to keep things going here. I think that is a fine British motto that they have adopted in England, ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... doubted. He stood poised in equilibrium, in indifference, between contrary opinions. He saw reasons on this side, but he saw reasons also on that, and he did not clear his mind. "Que scai-je?" was his motto ("What know I?"), a question as of hopeless ignorance,—nay, as of ignorance also void of desire to know. His life was one long interrogation, a balancing of opposites, ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... a quasi military position under the laws of the state, I deem it proper to acquaint you that I accepted such position when Louisiana was a state in the union and when the motto of this seminary was inscribed in marble over the main door: "By the liberality of the General Government. The Union Esto perpetua." Recent events foreshadow a great change, and it becomes all men to choose. If Louisiana withdraw from the federal Union, I prefer to maintain ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... letters, and in nature. He died young; he was one of those whose talent matures slowly, and he died before he came into the full possession of his intellectual kingdom. He had the ambition to excel, [Greek text], as the Homeric motto of his University runs, and he was on the way to excellence when his health broke down. He lingered for two years ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray

... Our French motto must be qualified in order to give us precision in our definition and a starting-point in history for science in the strict sense. In a general sense the action of the mind upon the given in experience has been going on from the beginning of animal life. But science, strictly ...
— Progress and History • Various

... divine of the seventeenth century adopted these words as his motto? They are part of a line ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various

... capture a large, powerful, and speedy vessel, for that was the only safeguard of their barbarous trade. They readily recognized that success and security depended solely upon speed to overtake a fleeing ship or to escape a powerful adversary. Their motto, "He who fights and runs away may live to fight another day," was in reality the only literature the bold and adventurous pirate would comprehend or accept. Therefore, well equipped in a stanch, trim vessel, with the lockers filled, the magazines stocked, the guns aimed ...
— Pirates and Piracy • Oscar Herrmann

... reached Durban safely at midnight on November 4, and we passed an impatient six hours in a sleeping town waiting for daylight and news. Both came in their turn. The sun rose, and we learned that Ladysmith was cut off. Still, 'As far as you can as quickly as you can' must be the motto of the war correspondent, and seven o'clock found us speeding inland in the extra coach of a special train carrying the mails. The hours I passed in Durban were not without occupation. The hospital ship 'Sumatra' lay close to our moorings, and as soon as it ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... beings and still retain one's own characteristic qualities. This seems to me to be the basis upon which the mass and the individual, the true democrat and the true individuality, man and woman, can meet without antagonism and opposition. The motto should not be: Forgive one another; rather, Understand one another. The oft-quoted sentence of Madame de Stael: "To understand everything means to forgive everything," has never particularly appealed to me; it has the odor of the confessional; to forgive one's fellow-being conveys ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... Much that you carefully preserve will never be of service to you, but you cannot afford to risk losing possible good matter through failure to make note of it. "I would counsel the young writer to keep a note book, and to make, as regards the use of it, nulla dies sine linea his revered motto. It is a great deal better that he should have his notes too copious than too meagre. By filling page after page with jottings of thoughts, fancies, impressions, even doubts and surmises of the vaguest kind—of a kind which he himself can only understand at the time and perhaps may ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett

... There are little boxes partitioned off in the balcony for the best customers—that is the sight-seers—and we got one of them. A piano is being vigorously thumped by a black-haired genius, who is accompanied by a violinist and a cornet player. 'Don't shoot the pianist; he is doing his best,' the motto a Western theater man hung up in his place, would be a good thing here. Yet the pianist of one of these dance halls is by no means to be despised. It was from a position like this that Counselor Disbecker rose within a few years to a legal standing that enabled ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... Esmond has taken truth for his motto, it must be owned, even with regard to that other angel, his mistress, that she had a fault of character which flawed her perfections. With the other sex perfectly tolerant and kindly, of her own she was invariably jealous; and a proof that she had this vice is, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... hommie is unique; he has a rich, pawky humour, which with his own countrymen is almost worshipped. In all circumstances he displays the suaviter in modo. In short, he is excellent company. "Aye ready!" might be his motto, if Dr. Macleod has any dealings with the literature of the Herald's College. He will speak, and that effectively, on any mortal subject; and if he cannot say much pertaining to the matter in hand, he will at least say something else, equally or ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans

... a powerfully-written story in Blackwood's Magazine, April, 1827, entitled "Le Revenant," in which a resuscitated felon is supposed to describe his feelings and experience. The author, in his motto, makes a sweeping division of mankind:—"There are but two classes in the world—those who are hanged, and those who are not hanged; and it has been my lot to belong to the former." Many well-authenticated cases might still be adduced; but enough at least has now ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various

... head of a king, although it wears a crown,' Willoughby explained, 'but the head and bust of a Saracen against whom my ancestor of many hundred years ago went to fight in the Holy Land. And the words cut round it are our motto, "Vertue vauncet", which means ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,

... this disposition they would disclaim it with mild indignation, or an expression of hurt remonstrance, for they are almost too lazy to become enraged. "Take life easy, or, if we can't take it easy, let us take it as easy as we can," is, or ought to be, their motto. In low life at home they slouch and smile. In high life they saunter and affect easy-going urbanity—slightly mingled with mild superiority to things in general. Whatever rank of life they belong to they lay themselves out with persistent ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... years, affianced his son Maximilian to Marie of Burgundy and had put under the ban of the Empire his son-in-law, Albert of Bavaria, who laid claim to the ownership of the Tyrol. He was therefore too full of his family affairs to be troubled about Italy. Besides, he was busy looking for a motto for the house of Austria, an occupation of the highest importance for a man of the character of Frederic III. This motto, which Charles V was destined almost to render true, was at last discovered, to the great joy of the old emperor, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... faintest notion of regularity. She found that he could not even begin to appreciate her struggles in housekeeping. And she was much too proud to ask his help, or perhaps too wise, since he was obviously unfit to give it. To live like the birds of the air was his motto. Gyp would have liked nothing better; but, for that, one must not have a house with three servants, several meals, two puppy-dogs, and no great experience of how to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... mind did not flaunt in gay parterres; it resembled those that Cowley and Evelyn delighted in, with clipped trees, and shaven lawns, and stone satyrs, and dark, shadowing yews, and a sun-dial, with a Latin motto sculptured on it, standing at the farther end. Lamb was the slave of quip and whimsey; he stuttered out puns to the detriment of all serious and improving conversation, and twice or so in the year he was overtaken in liquor. Well, in spite of these things, perhaps on account of these things, I love ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... base for social scientists to build their hopes of present and future progress on. To the Brook Farm leaders it was new; it was sensible; it was reasonable. Communism they did not favor, for their motto was, "Community of property is the grave of individual liberty." Instinctively ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... said Clarendon, who had just come in. "We Yankees should stick to our motto,—'United we stand, divided we fall.' In our days, we think too much of our being 'pluribus,' and too little that ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill



Words linked to "Motto" :   cry, watchword, catchword, battle cry, catch phrase, locution, catchphrase, war cry, rallying cry, expression, mantra, saying, shibboleth



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