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Venus   /vˈinəs/   Listen
Venus

noun
1.
The second nearest planet to the sun; it is peculiar in that its rotation is slow and retrograde (in the opposite sense of the Earth and all other planets except Uranus); it is visible from Earth as an early 'morning star' or an 'evening star'.
2.
Goddess of love; counterpart of Greek Aphrodite.  Synonym: Urania.
3.
Type genus of the family Veneridae: genus of edible clams with thick oval shells.  Synonym: genus Venus.



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"Venus" Quotes from Famous Books



... The scale of business varies with the speed; For Queen of Beauty or for Sausage King The Customer is always on the wing— Then praise the nymph who regularly earns Small profits (if you please) but quick returns. Our modish Venus is a bustling minx, But who can spare the time to woo a Sphinx? When Mona Lisa posed with rustic guile The stale enigma of her simple smile, Her leisure lovers raised a pious cheer While the slow mischief crept from ear to ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... quite remarkable energy, he had thereupon repaired to his son's room, opened the window, and begun vigorously to throw his pretty editions, his dainty water-colours, his drawers full of letters, his cast of the Venus of Milo, out on to the lawn, upon which at the moment a heavy rain was ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... year the Royal Society presented a memorial to his majesty, expressing a wish that proper vessels might be appointed to sail to the southward to observe the transit of Venus over the disc of the sun. The Admiralty accordingly, for this service, purchased the Endeavour barque, and placed her under the command of Lieutenant James Cook. Mr Charles Green was appointed astronomer, and Mr Banks and Dr Solander embarked on ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... matter, and the most harmonious voices of nature. There lived, it is said, at Athens a great number of beautiful girls; Praxiteles drew them all one after another; then from these diverse types of beauty, each one of which had its defects, he formed a single faultless beauty and created Venus. The man who first created a musical instrument, and who gave to harmony its rules and its laws, had for a long time listened to the murmuring of reeds and the singing of birds. Thus the poets, who understand life, after knowing ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... te—Venus, the goddess of love and beauty. The island of Kythera (Cythera), south of Greece, was the seat of ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer

... enemy's fortress. Arrived there, the luxury of the rooms seemed to inspire them with a kind of respect, not unmixed with alarm. So many things were entirely new to their experience—the choice furniture, the pictures, the great statue of Venus. They followed their chief into the salon, however, with a kind of impudent curiosity. There, the sight of General Epanchin among the guests, caused many of them to beat a hasty retreat into the adjoining room, the "boxer" and "beggar" being ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... that the race would have been better off, when man was colonizing Venus and Mars, if it had been a joint enterprise rather than you people doing one, and we the other. If it had all been in the hands of that ...
— Summit • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... you, Nan," said her husband. "I think it is just that wistfulness and innocence which makes her the true Venus: the true modern Venus. She chooses NOT to know too much. And that is her attraction. Don't you agree, Aaron? Excuse me, but everybody speaks of you as Aaron. It seems to come naturally. Most people speak of ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... formidable undertaking, for they knew not their destination—if even, indeed, they knew their direction. Some one—I forget who—has traced their route through Larsa, where men worshipped the sun; through Erech, where they worshipped the planet Venus—the bright evening star; through Nipur, where they bowed the knee to Baal; through Borsippa, where they worshipped the planet Jupiter; and on and on until they came to Haran, where the people worshipped—the moon! It was not until they came to ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd

... which he would passively have allowed himself to be united to Miss Kitty Honeywood, or to Miss Letitia Jane Morkin (who was one of Miss Patty's bridesmaids), or to Mrs. Hannah More, or to the Hottentot Venus, or to any one in the female shape who might have thought proper to take his bride's place. Mr. Verdant Green also had a general recollection of making responses, and feeling much as he did when in for his viva voce examination at college; and of experiencing ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... swan;—who knows but I, Ere night hath sought her cave, May see in splendour pale float by The Venus of the wave! ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... expelled by the Czar for compromising the prestige of the Imperial Family, through an affair with a grand duke who had wanted to marry her. In Rome she had posed in the nude for a young and unknown sculptor out of pure compassion for his silent admiration; and she herself made his "Venus" public, hoping that the world-wide scandal would bring fame to the work and to its author. In Genoa she found Salvatti again, now "retired," and living on usury from his savings. She received him with an amiable smile, ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... people who have little aptitude for these vocations. Many people, feeling their deficiencies, yearn to convince themselves and others that they are not deficient. It is only another phase of the fatality with which a Venus longs to be a Diana and a Minerva a Psyche. Thousands enter business who have no commercial or financial ability. They cannot know the requirements; they cannot understand the fundamental principles of business. Commercially they are babes in the woods. ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... as every man and woman ought to know, two main and quite distinct diseases (any other being unimportant) poetically termed "Venereal" because chiefly, though not by any means only, propagated in the intercourse over which the Roman goddess Venus once presided. These two diseases are syphilis and gonorrhoea. Both these diseases are very serious, often terrible, in their effects on the individual attacked, and both liable to be poisonous to the race. There has long been a popular notion that, while syphilis is indeed an awful ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... body to depend on the magnitude of its sphere, in the sense of the old astronomy (according to which each planet had its proper sphere, around the earth as centre), then the influence of the sun would be judged to be inferior to that of either Saturn, Jupiter, or Mars; while the influences of Venus and Mercury, though inferior to the influence of the sun, would still be held superior to that of the moon. For the ancients measured the spheres of the seven planets of their system by the periods of the apparent revolution of those bodies around the celestial dome, and so set ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... "fire-eating" traditions produce a "difficulty"? Why had they not done this already? Well, the garden had in some way helped me to frame a fairly reasonable answer for this also. Poor Hortense had become as powerless to woo John to warmth as poor Venus had been with Adonis; and passion, in changing sides, had advanced the boy's knowledge. He knew now the difference between the embraces of his lady when she had merely wanted his phosphates, and these other caresses now that, she wanted him. In his ceaseless search for some possible loophole ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... which is a fair garden by a river-side. Here the poet is led into a splendid temple, through a crowd of courtiers allegorically representing the various instruments, pleasures, emotions, and encouragements of Love; and in the temple Venus herself is found, sporting with her porter Richess. Returning into the garden, he sees the Goddess of Nature seated on a hill of flowers; and before her are assembled all the birds — for it is Saint Valentine's Day, when every fowl chooses her mate. Having with a graphic ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... ceiling. On the gray cement walls were four German photographs of famous marbles. The Venus de Milo looked across to the David of Michael Angelo; the Flying Victory across to Rodin's Thinker. In the centre was a massive Florentine table, its broad top bare except for a big ivory tusk paper-knife free from any mounting of silver. On the shelf underneath ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... he kept his eyes on her. She was a handsome girl, and there was plenty of excuse for the male youth of Birralong losing their hearts to her. She was both tall and well formed, with a figure that made her look like a Venus posing as a bush-bred girl. The wealth of glorious hair surmounted a shapely head, and although her features were not of classical regularity, there was character in every one, and character that was pleasing to the ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... woman came to look at us, perfect in every way, and nearly naked, but unconscious of indecency; a very Venus in black. The light-grey, red-tailed parrot seen on the West Coast is common in Rua, and tamed by ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... the shrewder Khostov. "When men like Rezanov make an effort to please—" He shrugged his shoulders. "Some men are the offspring of Mars and Venus and most of us are not. We can at least be philosophers. Let us hope the dinner ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton

... buried dust;—the midnight train, Of silent stars,—the rolling spheres, Each God, that list'ning bows, With thee it prospers, false-One! to profane. The Nymphs attend;—gay Venus hears, And all deride thy vows; And Cupid whets afresh his burning darts On the stone, moist with blood, that dropt ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... they are simply real, which Squeers and Sikes are not. And please remark that whilst Squeers and Sikes have their speeches written with anxious verisimilitude (comparatively) Wegg says, "Man shrouds and grapple, Mr. Venus, or she dies," and Riderhood describes Lightwood's sherry (when retracting his confession) as, "I will not say a hocussed wine, but a wine as was far from 'elthy for the mind." Dickens doesn't care what he ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... a noted beauty, published in The Princess, The Ladies' Court Journal, and other leading pictorials, we venture to submit to you a sample of our famous Eau de Venus, an invaluable adjunct to the toilet of any lady possessing a delicate complexion. It is a perfectly harmless, fragrantly scented fluid, which, if applied daily after breakfast, produces a rose-leaf bloom which is absolutely incomparable. ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... whitebait are growing up; when the leaves are yet young, and Epsom and Ascot either pleasant or grim memories of the past. Can anything be more delightful than Hurlingham on a fine Saturday afternoon? that one week-day when the daughters of Venus throng the pleasant grounds, and the birds sacred to the goddess are held sacred for fear that the shooters should scatter the coaches—it would be too grievous that the destruction of pigeons, through frightening the horses, should result in the upsetting of a drag bearing a bevy ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart

... at the neck-band, crossed bands in the centre of the shoulders, and lines across the back, is obviously inartistic. The back of a Venus, even, would be detracted from by such criss-crossed effects. Happy the woman who has so shapely a back she can afford to allow her waist to fit smoothly and plainly, unbroken by any conspicuous lines. If bands must be used to remedy the deficiencies of ungenerous Nature, let them be at ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley

... blue and the gray, Sol now commences his wonderful march, And the forests' wing'd denizens sing from the spray. Gaily the rose Is seen to unclose Each of her leaves to the brightening ray. Waves on the lake Rise, sparkle, and break: O Venus, O Venus, thy shrine is prepar'd, Far down in the valley o'erhung by the grove; Where, all the day, Philomel warbles, unscar'd, Her silver-ton'd ditty ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow

... a porcelain dragon, all constellated with warts, its mouth formidable with bristling tusks and ranges of teeth, and an abominable little Mexican fetich, representing the god Vitziliputzili au naturel, when I caught sight of a charming foot, which I at first took for a fragment of some antique Venus. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various

... figures are often engaged in subjects that required great expression: yet his "Judith and Holofernes," the "Daughter of Herodias with the Baptist's Head," the "Andromeda," and even the "Mothers of the Innocents," have little more expression than his "Venus attired by the Graces." ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds

... fires of Persia and of the Aztecs, have died out in the ashes of the past, and there is none to rekindle, and none to feed the holy flames. The harp of Orpheus is still; the drained cup of Bacchus has been thrown aside; Venus lies dead in stone, and her white bosom heaves no more with love. The streams still murmur, but no naiads bathe; the trees still wave, but in the forest aisles no dryads dance. The gods have flown from high Olympus. Not even the beautiful ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... l'an 9 de la Republique Francaise, 1800 de l'ere Chretienne, et 3eme de la conquete de l'Egypte, les Citoyens Rozieres et Coutelle, Membres de la Commission des Sciences et Arts, sont venus visiter les lieux saints, les ports de Tor, Ras Mohammed, et Charms, la mer de Suez et l'Accaba, l'extremite de la presqu'ile, toutes les chaines de montagnes, et toutes les tribus Arabes entre les deux golfes." (Seal ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... discovers a company of nymphs resting by a stream, and overhears the song of the beautiful Lia. His rough nature is touched by the sweetness of the music and he falls in love with the singer. Their meetings are interrupted by the advent of winter, but he finds her again at the feast of Venus, when shepherds, fauns, and nymphs forgather at the temple of the goddess. In this company Lia proposes that each of the nymphs present, seven in number, shall narrate the story of her love. This they in turn do, each ending with a song of praise to the gods; ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... receiving the Sick. Pensyl. hospital. * Leonidas exiling Cleombrotus and family. The two Marys at the Sepulchre. Alexander and his Physician. Cesar reading the Life of Alexander. Death of Adonis. Continence of Scipio. * Savage Warrior taking leave of his family. Venus and Cupid. Alfred dividing his loaf with the Beggar. Helen presented to Paris. Cupid stung by a bee. Simeon and the Child. * William Penn treating with the Savages. Destruction of the Spanish Armada. Philippa soliciting of Edward ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... travellers told one another in the Earthly Paradise, such as The Man Born to be King (itself derived from the first of our stories), The Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and The Ring given to Venus, are, on the face of them, folk-tales. Need I give any stronger recommendation of this book to English readers than to ask them to regard it as a sort of outhouse to that goodly fabric so appropriately known to us all as The ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris

... in 1572, what appeared to be a new star in the constellation, Cassiopeia. It was a star of the first magnitude when first perceived, and daily it increased in brilliancy, till it out-shone Sirius, equaled Venus in lustre, and could be perceived, even by the naked eye, at noonday. For nearly a month the star shone; at first it had a white light, then a yellow, and finally it was a bright red. Then it slowly faded, and in about sixteen months ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... her to a cushion, and bade her sit down. She did so with the grace of Venus, and then the Moor removed her veil—looking fixedly at the painter as he ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne

... wrapt in delicious repose, Most harmoniously playing a tune with his nose, In a dream there appeared the adorable Venus, Who said, "To be sure there's no likeness between us; Yet to show a celestial to kindness so prone is, Your looks shall soon rival the handsome Adonis." Liston woke in a fright, and cried, "Heaven preserve me! If my face you improve, zounds! ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... the various Months" of Flanders work, in the "Salle des Etats"—the six pieces of Gobelin work in the Queen's Boudoir on the first floor—the five pieces of the same work, including "Venus's toilet," in Queen Jeanne's room on the second floor, and the four pieces of Brussels in Henry IV.'s bedroom—also on the second floor—are only a few of the many wonderful pieces ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough

... Archibald, putting with the care of one brushing flies off a sleeping Venus, had holed out and won the thirteenth, he was in the full grip of this feeling. And as he walked to the fifteenth tee, after winning the fourteenth, he felt that this was Life, that till now he ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... Florentine painter, who had been summoned to Venice to paint an altar-piece for some church, the name of which I do not recollect. He had brought with him three paintings, which had been intended for the gallery in the Cornari palace. They consisted of a Madonna, a Heloise, and a Venus, very lightly apparelled. All three were of great beauty; and, although the subjects were quite different, they were so intrinsically equal that it seemed almost impossible to determine which to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... not, though I be gray, Lady, this I know you'll say; Better look the roses red, When with white commingled. Black your hairs are; mine are white; This begets the more delight, When things meet most opposite; As in pictures we descry Venus standing Vulcan by. ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick

... to sleep upon the cold wet ground, where we slept pretty well, being only disturbed occasionally by some animals sniffing at our feet. As the clouds broke towards morning, my obstinate boys still swore that west was east, and would hardly follow me when tracking down Venus; next up rose the moon and then followed the sun, when, as good luck would have it, we struck on the track, and walked straight ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... the Grecian statues were mostly made. By some, it is supposed to have taken its name from the Isle of Paros, in the Mediterranean; but by others from Parius, a famous statuary, who made it celebrated by cutting in it a statue of Venus. Parian marble is often ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers

... safety rouses my liveliest gratitude, but I could have wished that they had not chosen to take my bare safety into consideration, like doctors, but, like trainers, my strength and complexion also! As it is, just as Apelles perfected the head and bust of his Venus with the most elaborate art, but left the rest of her body in the rough, so certain persons only took pains with my head, and left the rest of my body unfinished and unworked. Yet in this matter I have ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... portrait of Sophonisba. You are no longer a pupil, but a rising artist. Moor is a peerless portrait-painter, and you have profited greatly by his teaching. But Art has still higher aims. Every living thing belongs to her. The Venus, the horse . . . which of those two pictures won Apelles the greater fame? Not only copying, but creating original ideas, leads to the pinnacle of art. Moor praised your vivid imagination. We must ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... wishing to see you in such a plight," replied Fink. "Ladies fare worst of all. All that constitutes their toilette vanishes entirely in torrents such as these. Do you know the costume of the Venus of Milo?" ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... less immaculate person, though the precise extent of the indulgence of their affections is left veiled. But, meanwhile, Amaury's tendency towards "Volupte" has, after his first visit to Paris, led him to indulge in the worship of Venus Pandemos, parallelement with his more exalted passions. No individual object or incident is mentioned in any detail; and the passages relating to this side of the matter are so obscurely phrased that a very innocent person might—without stupidity quite equal to the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... The New Chemical Light taught that one metal could be propagated from another only in the order of superiority of the planets. He placed the seven planets in the following descending order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury, Luna. "The virtues of the planets descend," he said, "but do not ascend"; it is easy to change Mars (iron) into Venus (copper), for instance, but Venus cannot ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir

... grinningly demanded Dalzell, who had bravely recovered from his own two meetings with Venus. ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock

... went on Mr. Silk, nodding down admiration. "What a group to startle!—Cupid extracting a thorn from the hand of Venus—or (shall we say?) the Love god, having wounded his mother in sport, kisses the scratch to make ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... either very forgetful or very ungrateful," she said. "If Venus has healed so faithful a votary, surely mortal women have not been lacking in their sympathy; nor, if report tells truly, has the noble Lucius ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... local. Course, Ferdy's mighty intellect ain't suggested to him anything about askin' me out for a meal; so I has to take a chance on what time to land there. But I strikes the mat about two-thirty P. M., and the first one to show up is Marjorie, lookin' as plump and bloomin' a corn-fed Venus as ever. ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford

... and snug is old lady's belly. Old lady makes Venus Aphrodite Parvenue. Old lady Arranges places for courtesans In warm outbuildings ...
— Precipitations • Evelyn Scott

... the districts I visited. On one occasion I walked from Somerville twelve miles to a village where there was a vacancy, but the trustees, after looking me over, concluded I was too young and inexperienced for their large school. That night the occultation of Venus by the moon took place. I remember gazing at it long ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... himself is purest gold; for pay And favor serves the herald, Mercury; Dame Venus hath bewitched you from above, Early and late, she looks on you with love; Chaste Luna's humor varies hour by hour; Mars, though he strike not, threats you with his power, And Jupiter is still the fairest star; Saturn is great, small to the eye and far; As metal ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... Monny said. "All I know is that she's more wonderful than I expected, and as beautiful as the loveliest marble Venus of Italy, though a thousand times greater—if one perfect thing can be greater than another. She's so great that I don't think she can be meant to be a woman—or even a man. She is like a soul carved ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... Mercury, always to present the same face to the sun. Its comparative nearness to the sun (67,000,000 miles) probably explains this advanced effect of tidal action. The consequences that the observers deduce from the fact are interesting. The sun-baked half of Venus seems to be devoid of water or vapour, and it is thought that all its water is gathered into a rigid ice-field on the dark side of the globe, from which fierce hurricanes must blow incessantly. It is a Sahara, or a desert ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe

... assumption of the old alchymists that the physiological functions were regulated by planetary influence. The sun controlled the heart, the moon the brain, Jupiter the lungs, Saturn the spleen, Mars the liver, Venus the kidneys, and Mercury the reproductive powers. But even with this distribution among the heavenly bodies the moon was allowed plenipotentiary sway. As in mythology it is the god or goddess of water, so in astrology it is the embodiment of moisture, and therefore rules the ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... Bear is explained in one story, the origin of Venus in another. The spirits of the departed are "stellified" as seen in "The Coming of Men." There seems to be a considerable intermingling of Christian culture and modern science in the general attitude towards life, but these foreign elements are coated over, as it were, like the speck ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown

... beautiful because there will be no imaginative wholeness in it. In other words, the artist who divorces aesthetics from ethics does gain creative license, but he gains it at the expense of a balanced and harmonious expression. If you do not believe it, compare the Venus de Milo with the Venus de Medici or a Rubens fleshy, spilling-out-of-her-clothes Magdalen with a Donatello Madonna. When ethical restraint disappears, art tends to caricature, it becomes depersonalized. The Venus de Milo is a living being, a great personage; indeed, a genuine ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... evening hours were ever lightened with breathless interminable recitals of what some 'he' had said and some 'she' had replied, such an enthralling episode should escape discovery? The dormitories knew of Eva's 'attachment' before Eva herself. Yet none knew how it was known. The whisper arose like Venus from a sea of trivial gossip, miraculously, exquisitely. On the night when the first rumour of it traversed the passages there was scarcely any sleep at Brunt's, while Eva up at Pireford slumbered as ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... Ottima. Then, Venus' body, had we come upon My husband Luca Gaddi's murdered corpse Within there, at his couch-foot, covered close— Would you have pored upon it? Why persist 105 In poring now upon it? For 'tis here As much as there in the deserted house; ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... "the bramble of Ida," because it grew in abundance on that classic mountain where the shepherd Paris adjudged to Venus the prize for beauty—a golden apple—on which was divinely inscribed the words, Detur pulchriori—"Let this be awarded to the fairest ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... disputes, Replies, rejoins, confutes, and still confutes. One her coarse sense by metaphors expounds, And one in literalities abounds; In mood and figure these keep up the din: Words multiply, and every word tells in. Her hundred throats here bawling Slander strains; And unclothed Venus to her tongue gives reins In terms, which Demosthenic force outgo, And baldest jests of foul-mouth'd Cicero. Right in the midst great Ate keeps her stand, And from her sovereign station taints the land. Hence Pulpits rail; grave Senates learn to jar; Quacks scold; and Billingsgate ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... call me Dan," said the boy, "and I am somebody in particular. Fact is, sir, if it hadn't been for me there wouldn't have been anybody in particular anywhere. I'm Cupid, sir, God of Love, favorite son of Venus, ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs

... the building's broad central corridor. Anita and Venza were riding a midget platform! Anita, in her boyish black garb; Venza, with a flowing white Venus-robe. They lay on the tiny six foot long oblong of metal, one manipulating its side shields, the other at the controls. As we arrived, the platform came sliding down the narrow confines of the corridor, lurching, barely missing a door projection. Up to the low ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... the Metropolitan took place on November 17, 1884. The opera was "Tannhuser" and the distribution of parts as follows: Elizabeth, Mme. Krauss; Venus, Frulein Slach; a Young Shepherd, Frulein Stern; the Landgrave, Josef Koegel; Tannhuser, Anton Schott; Wolfram, Adolf Robinson; Walther von der Vogelweide, Emil Tiffero; Biterolf, Josef Miller; Heinrich der Schreiber, Otto Kemlitz; Reinmar, Ludwig Wolf. The performance made no claim upon ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... extravagance I endeavour to preserve a method in my madness, and with most works find that they fall readily into the growing or the decaying. It is only with very few, as with Homer and Shakespeare at their best, the Venus of Milo, the Ilyssus, the finest work of Rembrandt, Giorgione, and Velasquez, and in music with Handel, that I can see no step left unclimbed, yet none taken on the downward path. Assuredly the Vecchietto ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler

... discovered talent in my pictures, but instead of devoting myself solely to my brush I have dabbled in music, in literature—have dissipated my energies. I meant to write a novel, and neither you nor anybody else prevented me and told me that I am a sculptor, a classical artist. A Venus of living marble is born of my imagination. Is it then my cue to introduce psychology into my pictures, to describe manners and customs? Surely not, my art is concerned with ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov

... an immensity of worlds revolving in the ocean of space? Or of what use is it that this immensity of worlds is visible to man? What has man to do with the Pleiades, with Orion, with Sirius, with the star he calls the north star, with the moving orbs he has named Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury, if no uses are to follow from their being visible? A less power of vision would have been sufficient for man, if the immensity he now possesses were given only to waste itself, as it were, on an immense desert of space ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... the flames, but a temple also that was close to it. Milo's house was attacked, and was defended by arms. We are made to understand that all Rome was in a state of violence and anarchy. The Consuls' fasces had been put away in one of the temples—that of Venus Libitina: these the people seized and carried to the house of Pompey, declaring that he should be Dictator, and he alone Consul, mingling anarchy with a marvellous ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... Micawber. He tells Mr. Boffin that he will drop into poetry in a friendly way. He does drop into it in a friendly way; in much too really a friendly way to make him convincing as a mere calculating knave. He and Mr. Venus are such natural and genuine companions that one does not see why if Venus repents Wegg should not repent too. In short, Wegg is a convenience for a plot and not a very good plot at that. But if he is one of the blots on the business, he is not ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton

... longer even indirectly associated with the storm. As for dryads and nymphs, the beautiful creatures never inhabited Eastern Asia. Anthropoid foxes and raccoons, wholly lacking in those engaging qualities that beget love, and through love remembrance, take their place. Even Benten, the naturalized Venus, who, like her Hellenic sister, is said to have risen from the sea, is a person quite incapable of inspiring ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... seen Harrie Hunsden, radiant as Hebe, blooming as Venus, daring as Diana, at the memorable fox-hunt of a little more than a year ago, would ever have recognized this haggard, pallid, wretched-looking ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming

... the month of April, "when the fertilising powers of nature begin to operate, and its powers to be visibly developed, a festival in honour of Venus took place; in it the phallus was carried in a cart, and led in procession by the Roman ladies to the temple of Venus outside the Colline gate, and then presented by them to the sexual part of the goddess."[85] In the Greek Bacchic religious ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... that not the best-dressed girl in the room would be as exquisite as she. I told her this on an impulse, and she was pleased. Yet she sighed. Of course she couldn't help knowing, said she, that she wasn't bad looking. But Venus or Helen of Troy couldn't make a ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... central hub drives a hundred outer wheels or because the whole universe wheels round the sun. After all, it would be mere silliness to say that the moon and the earth and Saturn and Jupiter and Venus have just as much right to be the centre of the universe, each of them separately, as the sun. Such an assertion is made merely ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... historical interest. They are kept out of the way, in places which no one is obliged to visit. Modern work of that kind is tolerated, nothing more. What on earth is the good of an artistic production of which people in general are afraid to speak freely? You take your stand before the Venus of the Capitol; you bid the attendant make it revolve slowly, and you begin a lecture to your wife, your sister, or your young cousin, on the glories of the masterpiece. You point out in detail how admirably Praxiteles has exhibited every beauty of the female frame. Other ladies are standing ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... hero himself, the particular being Don Juan Tenorio. The vibrant, brilliant music of the up-surging, light-treading strings, of the resonant, palpitating brass, springs forth in virile march, reveals the man himself, his physical glamour, his intoxication that caused him to see in every woman the Venus, and that in the end made him the victim as well as the hero of the sexual life. It is Till Eulenspiegel himself, the scurvy, comic rascal, the eternal dirty little boy with his witty and obscene gestures, who leers out of every measure of the tone-poem named for him, and twirls his fingers at ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... confirm the boast of her panegyrist that she surpassed Venus, however well she might ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... luck's way, you are, since you haven't been at a first night before. The Blonde Venus will be the event of the year. People have been talking about it for six months. Oh, such music, my dear boy! Such a sly dog, Bordenave! He knows his business and has kept this for the exhibition season." Hector was religiously attentive. ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... you tied so tight in the middle?" Angelica asked at last in a voice that silenced everybody else in the room. "Doesn't it hurt? I mean to have a good figure when I grow up, like the Venus de Medici, you know. I can show you a picture of her, if you like. She hasn't a ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... he was writing to the "minx," "I will imagine you Venus to-night, and pray, pray, pray, pray to your star like a heathen." Certain it is, as I have already said, that it was after his meeting with Fanny Brawne that he grew, as in a night, into a great poet. Let us not then abuse Keats's passion for her as vulgar. ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... arm'd with right, And patience counting every labour light, And constancy of soul, and meekness too, That neither pride nor worldly wishes knew. You might have thought him born when there concur The sweet star and the strong, Venus and Jupiter. ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... be remembered that nothing had been heard of the 'Bounty' since she was seen off Point Venus on the morning of September ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... was sent by the king of France, at the desire of the French Academy, to Siberia, to observe the transit of Venus, gives us a striking picture of the state of his own mind when the moment of this famous observation approached. In the description of his own feelings, this traveller may be admitted as good authority. A few hours before the observation, a black cloud appeared in the sky; the idea of returning ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... Beauty of Worcester. Belle of Woking. Blue Gem. Duchess of Edinburgh. Edith Jackman. Fairy Queen. John Gould Veitch. Lady Bovill. Lord Beaconsfield. Lucie Lemoine. Madame Baron Veillard. Miss Bateman. Mrs. A. Jackman. Othello. Prince of Wales. Rubella. Star of India. Stella. Venus Victrix. William Kennett. ...
— Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs • A. D. Webster

... three of the most brilliant members of the galaxy, the latter being the bodies which came to be known finally as planets, or wandering stars. The wandering propensities of such brilliant bodies as Jupiter and Venus cannot well have escaped detection. We may safely assume, however, that these anomalous motions of the moon and planets found no explanation that could be called scientific until a ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... some people will say "not in history," for the time I am speaking of is what would be called "prehistoric"—when the great Lords from the planet Venus came to our globe to guide and train the humanity which just then had come to the birth, we find a group of Teachers and Rulers, not belonging to our humanity at all, but, as I said, coming from the planet Venus, from the far more highly evolved humanity living in that ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant

... he thought to himself, "why can't we go away and live in some pleasant place where they haven't got any religion, unless it is the worship of Venus? Yes, a place of orange groves, and running streams, and pretty women with guitars, who like having ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... the image of Aphrodite." Zeune cf. Lucr. i. 24, addressing Venus, "te sociam studeo scribendis versibus esse," "I would have thee for a helpmate in writing the verses..."; and below, 28, "quo magis aeternum da dictis, diva, leporem," "Wherefore all the more, O lady, lend my lays an ever-living ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon

... night—and the stars Are shining like winkin'—Venus and Mars Are rolling along in their golden cars Through the sky's serene expansion— But vainly the stars dispense their rays, Venus and Mars are lost in the blaze Of the Kilmanseggs' ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... Beatrice with little Effie also bathed before breakfast from the ladies' bathing-place, a quarter of a mile off, and sometimes he would meet her as she returned, glowing with health and beauty like Venus new risen from the Cyprian sea, her half-dried hair hanging in heavy masses down her back. Then after breakfast they would take Effie down to the beach, and her "auntie," as the child learned to call Beatrice, would teach her lessons and poetry till she was ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... morsel for thy lips," the garrulous one repeated. "I speak of what mine eyes have seen. What if the mind be wanting, so long as the face is fair? Many a man hath found too much mind a sorry investment in a wife. And she's fair enough! By Venus, yes! Eyes like clouded stars, midnight tresses, a bosom whiter ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... fasting, because fasting is practiced for a threefold purpose. First, in order to bridle the lusts of the flesh, wherefore the Apostle says (2 Cor. 6:5, 6): "In fasting, in chastity," since fasting is the guardian of chastity. For, according to Jerome [*Contra Jov. ii.] "Venus is cold when Ceres and Bacchus are not there," that is to say, lust is cooled by abstinence in meat and drink. Secondly, we have recourse to fasting in order that the mind may arise more freely to the contemplation of heavenly things: hence it is related (Dan. 10) of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... Ethopians. But here we are in Ahaggar, in the midst of the Targa country, and the best authorities tell us that the Tuareg never have been willing to live in caves. Duveyrier is precise on that point. And what is this, I ask you, but a cave turned into a workroom, with pictures of the Venus de Medici and the Apollo Sauroctone on the walls? I tell you that it is enough to ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit

... it. It became a new Paganism. Patron saints assumed the offices of household gods. St. George took the place of Mars. St. Elmo consoled the mariner for the loss of Castor and Pollux. The Virgin Mother and Cecilia succeeded to Venus and the Muses. The fascination of sex and loveliness was again joined to that of celestial dignity; and the homage of chivalry was blended with that of religion. Reformers have often made a stand against these feelings; but never with more than apparent and partial success. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... extent of ocean, Admiral Villeneuve, with a formidable squadron, consisting of eleven sail of the line and two frigates, suddenly pushed out of Toulon harbour. The Seahorse, Lord Nelson's look-out frigate, accordingly, narrowly escaped being taken: and the Venus sloop of ten guns, with his lordship's dispatches, was actually captured; having, however, previously thrown the dispatches overboard. The Seahorse, instead of watching, at a safe distance, the course of the ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison

... but not frightened; two white little teeth showing between parted lips; a wealth of long brown hair held back from the forehead by a small hand; and a rounded, dimpled cheek, the damask shading of which merged delicately into the olive tint that extended to the feet. No Venus ever arose from the sea with rarer lines of beauty than were combined in the picture of loveliness which, backed by the blue of the lagoon, appeared to the astonished eyes of this wild boy. It was a girl—naked as Mother Eve, and as ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... Swounds, Colonel," turning to him with a merry smile, "I shall put a flea in his lordship's ear when I see him at Derby. He never so much as mentioned your daughter. Man, one might as well talk of stars and forget Venus!" ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... Grimsby, at this memorandum book," said Shirley, holding forward the list which he had copied from the joy-party article in the theatrical paper. "With some friends of yours, you held merry carnival to Venus and Bacchus at an all-night lobster palace not long ago. Have I the ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... wild rush through the solar heat, or Venus gleaming in the western sky, or ruddy Mars with its tantalising problems, or of mighty Jupiter 1,230 times the size of our own planet, or of Saturn with its wondrous rings, or of Uranus and Neptune revolving in ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... the globe to the earth, three hundred feet below, then away over the trackless wastes of Labrador, he finally exclaimed, "This, gentlemen, is too wonderful for me. I cannot give expression to my feelings. If you had told me that you were visitors from Venus or Mars, I should ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman

... beautiful so rapidly in Tom's eyes; for he saw that she was poor, and that this good had sprung up in her from among the sordid strivings of her life; that she might have been a very Venus in a minute more, if Miss Pecksniff had not entered ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... with himself, he had risen to look out, as the only available zeitvertreib. It was one of those rainy days of spring which it needs a hopeful mood to distinguish from autumnal ones—dull, depressing, persistent: there might be sunshine in Mercury or Venus—but on the earth could be none, from his right hand round by India and America to his left; and certainly there was none between—a mood to which all sensitive people are liable who have not yet learned by faith ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... "Shades of venus! How well you are looking, Fillmore! I need not ask how you have fared since last we met! One look at your face, tells the whole story! The goddess of good fortune, must have smiled on you right royally! I congratulate you most heartily! The fame of your ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... mankind. In the face of all creation, where the female is sometimes found quite self-sufficient, often superior, and always equal to the male, our human race set up the "andro-centric theory," holding that man alone is the race type; and that woman was "his female." In what "Mr. Venus" described as "the vicious pride of his youth," our budding humanity distinguished itself by discrediting its mother. "You are a female," said Ancient Man, "and that's all. We ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... moment, then caught herself up. "I won't embitter you by absolutely accusing you of that; though, as for my being hideous, it's hardly the first time I've been told so! I know it so well that even if I haven't whiskers—have I?—I dare say there are other ways in which the Countess is a Venus to me! My pretensions must therefore seem to you monstrous—which comes to the same thing as your not liking me. But do you mean to go so far as to tell me that you WANT to live with ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

... left-handed; And what Venus did with her arms; What the Conqueror said when he landed; The ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey

... Polypodium vulgare Sori of Polypody Polypody in mass (Greenwood) Gray Polypody. Polypodium incanum Brake. Bracken. Sterile Frond Bracken. Fertile Frond Bracken, var. pseudocaudata Spray of Maidenhair Sori of Maidenhair Maidenhair. Adiantum pedatum Alpine Maidenhair Venus-Hair Fern. Adiantum capillus-veneris Purple Cliff Brake. Pellaea atropurpurea Dense Cliff Brake. Cryptogramma densa Slender Cliff Brake. Cryptogramma Stelleri Parsley Fern. Cryptogramma acrostichoides ...
— The Fern Lover's Companion - A Guide for the Northeastern States and Canada • George Henry Tilton

... of Scotland Yard," smirked Furneaux, who had checked P.C. Robinson's one-sided story by referring to Whitaker's Almanack. "It may relieve your mind if I tell you that I have never seen a real live astronomer in the dock. Venus and Mars are often in trouble, but their devoted observers ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... is in loss, but not in gain. My second is in France, but not in Spain. My third is in sling, but not in stung. My fourth is in old, and also in young. My fifth is in Venus, but not in Mars. My whole ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... was a pretty girl too—a very pretty girl. Take the Venus Celestis, plump her down in a muddy road in a rainstorm, dress her in a draggled black alpaca, a faded shawl, and shocking bad hat, and what can you say for your goddess but that she isn't a bad-looking young woman? Miss Edith Darrell labors under all these disadvantages at present. ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... considerably more than twice that number, and his maid and her lover, instead of using the simple language befitting the theme, employ the conventional machinery of the age, and bring Jove and Mars, Cupid and Venus upon the scene, with allusions to Marlborough's victories and to 'Anna's ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis

... find out what kind of girls they are around their home. Find if they honor their fathers and their mothers, and are helpful, and care as much for the happiness of those around them as they do for their own. If you find one who is handsome as Venus—I don't know Venus, but I have heard that she takes the cake—I say, if you find one that is perfect in everything, but shirks her duties at home, and plays, "I Want to Be an Angel," on the piano, while her mother is mending her stockings, or ironing her "picnic skirts," ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck

... universe a self- operative machine needing neither key nor steam generator to "make it go." They pride themselves, sometimes justly, on their reasoning powers; but the product of their logic-mill is like artificial flowers, as unprofitable as the icy kiss of the Venus de Medici. Of that knowledge gleaned in the Vale of Sorrow they know nothing; of that wisdom which cannot be demonstrated by the laws of logic they have no more conception than has a mole of the glories of ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... to pieces, my boy," said the head of the school, not unkindly. "You're supposed to be a Greek athlete and not Venus rising from the sea or a jelly ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke



Words linked to "Venus" :   terrestrial planet, hard-shell clam, round clam, hard clam, Venus's girdle, solar system, quahog, Mercenaria mercenaria, family Veneridae, mollusk genus, quahaug, Roman deity, inferior planet, Veneridae, Venus's flytrap



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