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Act   Listen
verb
Act  v. i.  
1.
To exert power; to produce an effect; as, the stomach acts upon food.
2.
To perform actions; to fulfill functions; to put forth energy; to move, as opposed to remaining at rest; to carry into effect a determination of the will. "He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest."
3.
To behave or conduct, as in morals, private duties, or public offices; to bear or deport one's self; as, we know not why he has acted so.
4.
To perform on the stage; to represent a character. "To show the world how Garrick did not act."
To act as or To act for, to do the work of; to serve as.
To act on, to regulate one's conduct according to.
To act up to, to equal in action; to fulfill in practice; as, he has acted up to his engagement or his advantages.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Act" Quotes from Famous Books



... suggestions of his corrupt heart, and he had done nothing during the last few days but go backwards and forwards in order to induce the chief priests to come to some agreement. But they were unwilling to act at once, and treated him with contempt. They said that sufficient time would not intervene before the festival day, and that there would be a tumult among the people. The Sanhedrin alone listened to his proposals with some degree of attention. ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... opinion to the conclusion that he was the foremost man of his time and of all time, with power to search the secrets of all hearts, to measure the abysses of all passion, to portray the weakness of all human foibles, to create characters who act and speak and are as much alive to us as the men and women we daily meet, to teach mankind the profoundest philosophy, the littleness of the great, the greatness of humility and truth, and to inculcate by immortal examples the highest ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith

... sleds, with the dogs in harness, loaded with furs and fish. His rifle lay on top of the beaver skins. The six hunters who were to act as his ...
— Lost Face • Jack London

... after he realized his situation, has act, however just, had made him a fugitive, and he must fly at once from those scenes of his boyish ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray

... 1888 he made a study trip to England, during which he wrote a series of "London Letters" on medical subjects for his father's journal. On his return he settled down as a practicing physician, but continued to act as his father's assistant. And as late as 1891-95 we find him named as his father's collaborator on a large medical work entitled "Clinical Atlas of ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler

... considered good advice, and Dick agreed to act upon it. He spoke to Parsons, and a small boat was put out, and Dick, Larry, and Peterson ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield

... impossible to think of morality aside from expressions of force, primarily physical force. "Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not remove the ancient landmark;" and all approvals and disapprovals imply that the act in question has affected or will affect the interest of others, or of society at large, for better or for worse. And since morality goes back so directly to forms of activity and their regulation, we may expect to find that the ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... wondering what Drouet would do. That worthy had his future fixed for him beyond a peradventure. He could not help what he was going to do. He could not see clearly enough to wish to do differently. He was drawn by his innate desire to act the old pursuing part. He would need to delight himself with Carrie as surely as he would need to eat his heavy breakfast. He might suffer the least rudimentary twinge of conscience in whatever he did, and in just so far he was evil and sinning. But whatever twinges of conscience he might ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... considered for a time; and at last boldly determined to act on this advice. He sat up late that night, concocting a skilful, cautious, appealing letter; and as he re-wrote it carefully, all by himself, in the silence, it seemed to him almost as if he were beseeching Nan to reconsider the verdict she had given at Bellagio more than three ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black

... strove to force his horse nearer to this gesticulating, screaming grey object that struggled up and down, there came a clatter of hoofs, and the little man, in act of mounting, swordless, balanced on his belly athwart the white horse, and clutching its mane, whirled past. And again a clinging thread of grey gossamer swept across the master's face. All about him, and over him, it seemed this drifting, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... Minister at Vienna, and Mr. Motley held as firmly that it must be done through the United States Consul at Venice. I could only report to him from time to time the unyielding attitude of the Civil Tribunal, and at last he consented, as he wrote, "to act officiously, not officially, in the matter," and the hapless claimant got what was ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... officer and 5 men killed, and 2 officers and 25 men wounded. Lieutenant James E. Whiteside, of the 75th New York, who had volunteered to lead the sharpshooters on the right bank, was killed close to the Cotton, in the act of ordering the crew to haul down her flag. Among the killed, also, was the gallant Buchanan—a serious loss, not less to the army than to ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... hireling, lest he get it dry. It cannot be always seaside, even as it cannot be always May, and through the gaps thought creeps in. Going over the cliff and along the parade, and down by the circulating library to the cigar divan, where they sell Parique tobacco, the swinging of one's legs seems to act like a pendulum to the clockwork of one's brain. One meditates all the way, and chiefly on how few people there are who can really—to a critical adept—be said ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... the choice between perjury, and its consequences, or doing service. On the other hand, the issue of the summonses forced many otherwise neutral men into the ranks of the Vigilantes. If they refused to act when directly summoned by law, that very fact placed them on the wrong side of the law. Therefore they felt that joining a party pledged to what practically amounted to civil war was only a short step further. Against these the various military companies were mustered, reminded ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White

... of the God-man. What a hellish deed! But what was the next thing that took place? Blood covered the spear! Oh! thank God, the blood covers sin. There was the blood covering that spear—the very point of it. The very crowning act of sin brought out the crowning act of love; the crowning act of wickedness was the crowning ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody

... to supporting the Established Church; and in Ireland, where the population was preponderatingly Roman Catholic, the grievance was specially felt and resented. The agitation against church rates led in 1868 to the passing of the Compulsory Church Rates Abolition Act. By this act church rates are no longer compulsory on the person rated, but are merely voluntary, and those who are not willing to pay them are excluded from inquiring into, objecting to, or voting in respect of their ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... important points about the subconscious mind is its openness to suggestion. It likes to believe what it is told and to act accordingly. The conscious mind, too,—proud seat of reason though it may be,—shares this habit of accepting ideas without demanding too much proof of their truth. Even at his best, man is extremely susceptible to the contagion of ideas. Most of us are even less immune to this mental contagion ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... last was very near to the truth. Everyone has a reason for everything he does; but it by no means follows that he always knows that reason, or even could extricate it from the tangle of motives, real and reputed, behind any given act. This self-ignorance is less common among men than among women, with their deliberate training to self-consciousness and to duplicity; it is most common among those—men as well as women—who think about themselves chiefly. And Adelaide, having little ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... such. It was only a human being who could hit upon the unnatural thought that there were human beings who could not love. Let the cowl cover the man who could impose such a covering—whose heart dared not beat under it. Is not such an act a sin against God? Is not this the murder of a human being—this slow killing of one in the likeness of God? Does the poisoner do anything worse when he gives his victims the means of passing away slowly? ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai

... feet. "Mary, you're a clever girl!" he said. "And it seems to me that if Paul's life is saved, we shall owe everything to you! But—but—— Go to bed, my child, my brain is weary now, as yours must be. Let us try and get a little sleep. To-morrow we can act." ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... Greeks sought refuge at Odessa, and the great Turkish families assembled round Pacho Bey and Abdi Effendi at Constantinople, who lost no opportunity of interceding in their favour. The sultan, who as yet did not dare to act openly against the Tepelenian family, was at least able to relegate Veli to the obscure post of Lepanto, and Veli, much disgusted, was obliged to obey. He quitted the new palace he had just built at Rapehani, and betook himself to the place of exile, accompanied by actors, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... causes must always be followed by like effects, Mr. Mill's answer was that it is the result of an induction coextensive with the whole of our experience; Mr. Spencer's answer was that it is a postulate which we make in every act of experience;[20] but the authors of the "Unseen Universe," slightly varying the form of statement, called it a supreme act of faith,—the expression of a trust in God, that He will not "put us to permanent intellectual confusion." Now the more thoroughly we comprehend that process of evolution ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske

... known that the invasion was a few Dutch hoys. The day before, it was triumph. Rodney was known to be before Havre de Grace; with two bomb-ketches he set the town on fire in different places, and had brought up four more to act, notwithstanding a very smart fire from the forts, which, however, will probably force him to retire without burning the flat-bottomed boats, which are believed out of his reach. The express came from him on Wednesday morning. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... only real factor that actually counted in any of the places where he had been employed or in others which he had watched; that business was so constructed and conducted that nothing else, in the face of competition, could act as current coin. And the amazing part of it all to Bok was how little merit there was. Nothing astonished him more than the low average ability of those with whom he worked or came ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... a hot July and brought with it Sebastian's curt letter. Sebastian himself—that shadowy father—returned to his home a few hours later. He was not alone, for a heavier step followed his into the passage, and Desiree, always quick to hear and see and act, coming to the head of the stairs, perceived her father looking upwards towards her, while his companion in rough sailor's clothes turned to lay aside the valise he had carried on ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman

... No spot in the wide world was secret enough to conceal me now. I was a marked man. Better to stand my ground, and take the consequences, than to act the coward's part and slink away like those other men of blood I had so often sat ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... from a crevice. These remained till the twenty-seventh, looking more alert every day, and seeming to long to be on the wing. After this day they were missing at once; nor could I ever observe them with their dam coursing round the church in the act of learning to fly, as the first broods evidently do. On the thirty-first I caused the eaves to be searched, but we found in the nest only two callow, dead, stinking swifts, on which a second nest had been formed. This double nest ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... made into a law, to dethrone a leader every time any bold person calls out odbiianego, which means retaken by force or reconquered; he who pronounces this word is supposed to wish to reconquer the hand of the first lady and the direction of the dance; it is a kind of act of liberum veto, to which everyone is obliged to give way. The leader then abandons the hand of his lady to the new pretender; every cavalier dances with the lady of the following couple, and it is only the cavalier of the last couple who finds himself definitively ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... increased; and many an earnest prayer does she send up to God during the day, and sometimes during the night, that He would bless the lads. The tender, pitiful soul of a girl clings to her brother; and sometimes, if the boys only knew how much they are beloved, they would perhaps live and act very differently. They may rest assured that no one, unless it be their mother, feels as thankful for their joy, and as grieved for their sorrow, as proud of their virtue, and as sad for their sins, as the sisters who played with them, and who always feel as if God meant them to ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope

... indulgently upon the turbulent minor Chiefs, checking up with swift, firm, but tactful justice the many outbreaks against law and order, presenting even in their most desperate moments such a front of resolute self-confidence to the Indians, and refusing to give any sign by look or word or act of the terrific anxiety they carried beneath their gay scarlet coats. And the big Chiefs, reading the faces of these cool, careless, resolute, smiling men who had a trick of appearing at unexpected times in their camps and refused ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... the feeling seemed to her so paltry and contemptible that she had a lively impulse to make amends for the angry look she had cast at him. Possibly, had she been quite normal, she would have checked such an impulse. The voice of conventionality would have made itself heard. But Domini could act vigorously, and quite carelessly, when she was moved. And she was deeply moved now, and longed to lavish the humanity, the sympathy and ardour that were quick in her. In answer to the stranger's movement she turned towards him, opening her lips to speak to him. Afterwards ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... man knew the cause of this expense, But the two hapless lords, Leander's sire, And poor Leander, poorest where the fire Of credulous love made him most rich surmis'd: As short was he of that himself so priz'd, As is an empty gallant full of form, That thinks each look an act, each drop a storm, That falls from his brave breathings; most brought up In our metropolis, and hath his cup Brought after him to feasts; and much palm bears For his rare judgment in th' attire he wears; Hath seen the hot Low-Countries, not their heat, Observe their rampires and their ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman

... torn away, and on the floor lay two elderly Egyptian women; a third, who was much younger, leaned against the back of the vehicle thus strangely transformed into a boat. Her companions lay dead in the water which had covered its floor, and several Hebrew women were in the act of tearing the costly gold ornaments from the neck and arms of one of the corpses. Some chance had preserved this young woman's life, and she was now giving her rich jewels to the Israelites. Her pale lips and slender, half-frozen hands trembled as ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... power; but the framework on which strong muscles are to act, as that of an insect's wing, or ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... grain of talent," Lois Dunlap laughed. "I can't act for two cents—can I, Peter darling?... Here's the redoubtable 'Robin of Bagshot' in person, ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin

... crisis he was the surest and most available force. From the first moment he came to the front. On the opening day he was ready with a plan for a consultation in common, before deciding whether they should act jointly or separately. The next day he started a newspaper, in the shape of a report to his constituents, and when the Government attempted to suppress it, he succeeded, May 19, in establishing the liberty of ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... head of government cabinet: Council of Ministers proposed by the president of the Council of State and appointed by the National Assembly or the 31-member Council of State, elected by the Assembly to act on its behalf when it is not in session elections: president and vice presidents elected by the National Assembly for a term of five years; election last held 6 March 2003 (next to be held in 2008) election ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... that the moon is surrounded by its elements, that is to say, water, air and fire, and thus it sustains itself by itself in that space as our earth is suspended with its elements in this part of space; heavy bodies act in their elements there just as other heavy bodies ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci

... Leonie II. hit upon a plan of placing them in a photographic album into which Leonie I. could not look without falling into catalepsy (on account of an association of ideas with Dr. Gibert, whose portrait had been in the album). In order to accomplish an act like this Leonie II. has to wait for a moment when Leonie I. is distracted, or, as we say, absent-minded. If she can catch her in this state Leonie II. can direct Leonie I.'s walks, for instance, or start on a long railway journey without ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead

... this manner, that Browning does not act satisfactorily as that which we have decided that he shall be—a logician—it might possibly be worth while to make another attempt to see whether he may not, after all, be more valid than we thought as to what he himself professed to be—a poet. And if we study this seriously ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton

... heard him say it. A fortnight before he had been quite ready to do like the others. I knew what I thought, and I suppose I expressed it with some clearness, for my arguments made him still more uncomfortable, unable as he was either to accept them or to act in contempt of them. Why he should have cared so much for my opinion is a mystery I can't elucidate; to understand my little story, you must simply swallow it. That he did care is proved by the exasperation with which he suddenly broke out, "Well, then, as I understand you, ...
— The Path Of Duty • Henry James

... Church Militant, with pluck and perseverance, whether right or wrong it is not for amicus curiae to say. But, it may be asked, is this action for the rates, on the part of the Vicar, a Vicar's first-Rate Act or not? Some parishioners suspend payment; we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 11, 1892 • Various

... Dryden seems to think that Pericles is one of his first Plays; but there is no judgment to be form'd on that, since there is good Reason to believe that the greatest part of that Play was not written by him; tho' it is own'd, some part of it certainly was, particularly the last Act. But tho' the order of Time in which the several Pieces were written be generally uncertain, yet there are Passages in some few of them which seem to fix their Dates. So the Chorus in the beginning of the fifth Act of Henry V. by a Compliment very ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe

... or even from Dickens, to understand how little there was in such an atmosphere to develop poetic gifts. Before Keats was fifteen years old both parents died, and he was placed with his brothers and sisters in charge of guardians. Their first act seems to have been to take Keats from school at Enfield, and to bind him as an apprentice to a surgeon at Edmonton. For five years he served his apprenticeship, and for two years more he was surgeon's helper in the hospitals; but though skillful enough to win approval, he disliked his work, and ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... present you must allow her to think ill of you. You must not court arrest. We now know that you have enemies who intend you to be the victim, while they reap the profit," said The Sparrow kindly. "Leave matters to me and act ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux

... us remember that we shall most imperfectly apprehend the whole sweep and blessedness of this great supreme aim of the devout soul, if we regard this doing of God's will as merely the external act of obedience to an external command. Simple doing is not enough; the deed must be the fruit of love. The aim of the Christian life is not obedience to a law that is recognised as authoritative, but joyful moulding of ourselves after a law that is felt to be sweet and loving. 'I delight ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... You see, he did not wish to act definitely without consulting his chief, yet the unexpected opportunity seemed far too vital not to be utilized. He did not explain, did he, what it was we wanted ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston

... not to be opened until out at sea. You are expected to parade at dawn the day after to-morrow, and there will be somebody from headquarters to act as guide for the occasion. In fact, you will be guided at each point until it is time to open your orders. No explanations will be given about anything until later on. That's all. Good ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy

... went out, plunging the place into darkness. Instantly the room was in confusion; women screamed; a voice, which I recognized as Clubfoot's, bawled stentorianly for lights ... the moment had come to act. ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... colored citizens of Philadelphia, have among us Samuel A. Smith, who was incarcerated over seven years in the Richmond Penitentiary, for doing an act that was honorable to his feelings and his sense of ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... where Martin lived, or she would surely have sent him a message next day, for long before noon she had made up her mind to act without delay. ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner

... and took dinner. We eat on a slab table and had ice tea to drink. Meas was dere drinking on de side, and all other devilment dey could carry on in sight of de church. De preacher eat wid us. Some eat out of dere buckets and would not come and be wid de crowd. Long time ago, nobody didn't act greedy like dat. Girls cut up like boys now, and nobody don't look ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... seas followed each other in close succession— causing her to shake, and all on board occasionally to tremble. At each of these strokes of the sea the rolling and pitching of the vessel ceased for a time, and her motion was felt as if she had either broke adrift before the wind or were in the act of sinking; but, when another sea came, she ranged up against it with great force, and this became the regular intimation of our being still ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Commissioners were sent from France, who asked simply civil rights for freedmen, and not emancipation. Indeed that was all that Toussaint himself had as yet demanded. The planters intrigued with the British and this, together with the beheading of the king (an impious act in the eyes of Negroes), induced Toussaint to join the Spaniards. In 1793 British troops were landed and the French commissioners in desperation declared the slaves emancipated. This at once won back Toussaint from the Spaniards. ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois

... and fear no ill. But oh, my friend, to wait the long, long year,— To keep my heart in silence, not to hear The words my whole soul hungers for, nor say One syllable to brighten his dark day! Must it be so, my queen? And how shall I School eyes and lips to act this year-long lie? From the dear teacher-guardian of my youth The only ways I learned were ways of truth! I tried my skill this night, and learned to know That there are deeps below the deeps of woe; Hearts may be bruised ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis

... always in a book before," as she said one day to Mrs. McGuire. "An' he don't act natural, somehow, neither, ter my way of thinkin'. Have ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter

... a prudent sentinel, said the Judge. Act thy pleasure with the forests, for this night ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... battery produces at the point of contact a greater degree of heat than any other process; and it is at this very high temperature only that the affinity of these metals for oxygen will enable them to act ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... persistent rather than patient in effort, vigorously direct in action; a minister of unconscious good, of half-conscious evil; stern and gloomy to the sacrilegious climax of his well-battled life, even in the regicidal act going as one driven to his deeds by Fate that forgot God;—was he to be wondered at, whose life, in ages far gone, began among the stony ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... contemplation independent of their value for fact-transmission, their value as nerve-and-emotion-excitant and of their value for immediate, for practical, utility. This aesthetic value, depending upon the unchanging processes of perception and empathy, asserts itself in answer to every act of contemplative attention, and is as enduring and intrinsic as the other values are apt to be momentary and relative. A Greek vase with its bottom knocked out and with a scarce intelligible incident of obsolete mythology portrayed upon it, has ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee

... solo to sing in the second act. It was while she was attempting this that my glance strayed to the man in the gallery. His face this time ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... is something of an art; it has to be learned. Some master it easily, some with more difficulty, and some, it is to be feared, never become skilled in its use. In order to introspect one must catch himself unawares, so to speak, in the very act of thinking, remembering, deciding, loving, hating, and all the rest. These fleeting phases of consciousness are ever on the wing; they never pause in their restless flight and we must catch them as they go. This ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... object of his movements. In reply to a remonstrance that those who came after him would be embarrassed by the absence of these explanations, and that his fame would suffer, he said: "The men who come after me must act for themselves; and as to the historians who speak of the movements of my command, I do not concern myself greatly as to what they may say." To judge, then, from the reports, Jackson himself had very little to do with his success; ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... read some of them actually. He will be curious as to Charlemagne and his peers, Arthur and his knights, and will seek to know their true as well as their fabulous history. Then he will wonder who the Moors were, why they were banished, and what was the result to Spain of this act in which even his liberal and kindly author acquiesced. He will ask if antiquity had its romances and if any later novelists were indebted to Cervantes. The answer to the last query will bring him to Gil Blas in French ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman

... within perhaps ten boats' lengths of Fair Island. All this time they had kept silence, and all this while we had kept silence also. But now, as if Lancelot had made up his mind exactly at what point he would take it upon him to act, we assumed the defensive. For Lancelot gave the command to make ready and to present our pieces, and his words came from his lips as clearly and as composedly as if he were only directing some drilling on an English green. ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... Such is every man who denies the Divine, and who has no conscience derived from religion. That he is such is clearly evident from those of like character in the other life when their externals have been removed and they are let into their internals. As they are then separated from heaven they act in unity with hell, and in consequence are affiliated with those who are in hell. [3] It is not so with those who in heart have acknowledged the Divine, and in the actions of their lives have had respect to Divine laws, and have lived as fully in accord with the first ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg

... upon our country, they cut down the grass with scythes, and the trees with axes. Their cows and horses eat up the grass, and their hogs spoil our beds of clams; and finally we shall starve to death. Therefore, I beseech you to act like men. All the sachems both to the east and west have joined with us and we are ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton

... outcome of thwarted passion, but the result of mortified vanity. You never loved Denis. I felt somehow that in this instance, not your vanity alone, but your deepest passions were involved, and that when you would act from thwarted passion, either against yourself, against me, or against Leonetta, you would proceed to violence. Was I wrong? Was I hopelessly vain and foolish to imagine that in this instance, because I was concerned and not Denis, therefore ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... pull at the kid's leather, or vomit up his dinner, then reckon without his host. He would beat the bushes without catching the birds, thought the moon was made of green cheese, and that bladders are lanterns. Out of one sack he would take two moultures or fees for grinding; would act the ass's part to get some bran, and of his fist would make a mallet. He took the cranes at the first leap, and would have the mail-coats to be made link after link. He always looked a given horse in the mouth, leaped from the cock to ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... its highest. It was like taking back the half-extinguished germ into the very bosom and core of life. They stood round her with an awe of her, which would permit no intrusion either of word or act. Even the experienced nurse who believed that the little spark of life would be shaken out by this movement, only wrung her hands and said nothing. The rest were but as spectators, gathering round to see the tragedy accomplished and the woman's ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... smoke," and this is a fitting point to call attention to an error of Dujardin-Beaumetz, who states that "in those who habitually swallow the smoke the nicotine acts directly upon the stomach." The expression "swallow smoke" (tragar el humo) does not mean to force it into the stomach by an act of deglutition, and I am sure no one attempts to dispose of it in that way; but to inspire or breath it into the air passages. It is evident that this latter habit does not involve the stomach, but those ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera

... to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by John F. Trow, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... house in Duke Street, had fairly landed him but for that unfortunate dinner at which he detected her eating fish with a knife; how certain grated-looking needle-marks on Miss Glance's left forefinger had checked him just in time while in the act of kissing her hand; and how, on the very eve of a proposal to beautiful Constance de Courcy, whose manner, bearing, and appearance, no less than her name, denoted the extreme of refinement and high birth, he had sustained a shock, galvanic but salutary, from her artless exclamation, "O my! whatever ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... to the laden trees outside the enclosure, "ef you think I'm agoin' to pay a dollar for this here show jest because I ain't no tree-climbin' animal, you're pickin' out the wrong customer. They coughs up a screamer apiece, or this act don't begin actin'. ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill

... Venice; Duke Hercules III of Ferrara was also to be summoned to pronounce for one or other of the two leagues. Alexander VI, wounded by Ferdinand's treatment of himself, accepted Ludovico Sforza's proposition, and an Act of Confederation was signed on the 22nd of April, 1493, by which the new allies pledged themselves to set on foot for the maintenance of the public peace an army of 20,000 horse ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... all there was the Englishman—Delaine—and the letter that must be written him. But there, also, no evasions, no suppliancy. Delaine must be told that the story was true, and would no doubt think himself entitled to act upon it. The protest on behalf of Lady Merton implied already in his manner that afternoon was humiliating enough. The smart of it was still tingling through Anderson's being. He had till now felt a kind of instinctive contempt for Delaine as a fine gentleman with a useless education, ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Rules, why this Man with those beautiful Features, and well fashion'd Person, is not so agreeable as he who sits by him without any of those Advantages. When we read, we do it without any exerted Act of Memory that presents the Shape of the Letters; but Habit makes us do it mechanically, without staying, like Children, to recollect and join those Letters. A Man who has not had the Regard of his Gesture in any part of his Education, will find himself unable to act ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... into three parts; the head, torso, and legs, and he teaches that the first and third should act on the same line, while the second is in opposition to them. For instance, if you be standing and looking toward the right, your weight should rest on your right leg and your torso should be turned to the left. Neither turn should be exaggerated, but the two should be exactly ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne

... never mean that! Whatever we may do with the Truth, we cannot make it false. We may act like cowards, unworthy, ungrateful, ignorant; but the Truth will ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... went on. "The whole waterworks project was a Stone scheme, and Stone people—even though Stone himself is wiped out—secure the contract. The last expiring act of the Stone administration was to employ Ed Scales as chief engineer until the completion of the waterworks, which may occupy eight or ten years, and the contract with Scales is binding on the city unless he can be impeached for cause. Scales was city engineer under the previous reform spasm, ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester

... is here question of a simple act of courtesy," said Bestuscheff, pressingly; "an act the omission of which may be attended with the most disagreeable consequences, perhaps indeed involve us in a war. Think of the peace of your realm, the welfare of your ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... maiden with a heart On me should venture to bestow it, Pray, should I act the wiser part To take the treasure or forego it? Quoth Echo, with ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... letters addressed to me (partly copies of letters written to the king or the ministers) remain unanswered, I am blamed, charged with being a parvenu courtier, an apostate from science. This bitterness of individual claims does not diminish my ardent desire to be useful. I act oftener than I answer. I know that I like to do good, and this consciousness gives me tranquillity in spite of my over burdened life. You are happy, my dear Agassiz, in the more simple and yet truly proud position which you have created for yourself. You ought to take satisfaction ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... became like a flowing of oil and ceased to burn; and Jizo put his arms about her and lifted her out. And he went with her before King Emma, and asked that she should be pardoned for his sake, forasmuch as she had become related to him by one act of goodness. So she found pardon, and returned to ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn

... about it; there is no place in his scheme for blind faith. Naturally, beginners in the study cannot yet know for themselves, so they are asked to read the results of the various observations and to deal with them as probable hypotheses—provisionally to accept and act upon them, until such time as they can prove them ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater

... heart consented to this act of disobedience, and he tried to persuade himself that he was doing the right thing ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki

... make haste in finding one, and as Mr. Hass did not seem to have any special duties, he asked the favor of him. After Edwin had explained that his object in coming to the meeting was to be converted and that all he wanted of Mr. Hass was that he inform him when to act, the two went at once and took their places on the front row of seats very close to the pulpit, and there they waited patiently while the rest of the people assembled. Judging that Mr. Hass would be as ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum

... put this plan into operation, a meeting of women interested in the school should be called and if, after the plan has been laid before them and fully discussed, enough women are willing to open their homes and act as instructors, then it is safe to proceed. The subjects should be divided, and a scheme somewhat as follows ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario

... time I had begun to understand the meaning of their terms. By a "gentleman of fortune" they plainly meant neither more nor less than a common pirate, and the little scene that I had overheard was the last act in the corruption of one of the honest hands—perhaps of the last one left aboard. But on this point I was soon to be relieved, for, Silver giving a little whistle, a third man strolled up and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... most of them were just being polite and trying to cheer Harry up. They knew damned well that he wasn't living in one room through any choice of his own. The Housing Act was something you just couldn't get around; not in Chicagee these days. A bachelor was entitled to one room—no more and no less. And even though Harry was making a speedy buck at the agency, he couldn't hope to beat ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch

... into things and their relations; but then this insight is intense or languid, clear or confused, comprehensive or narrow, exactly in proportion to the weight and power of the individual who sees and combines. It is not so much the intellect that makes the man, as the man the intellect; in every act of earnest thinking, the reach of the thought depends on the pressure of the will; and we would therefore emphasize and enforce, as the primitive requirement of intellectual success, that discipline of the individual which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... her daughter to visit many of the chief cities, cathedrals, and other places of interest in the British Isles. Her first public act was to present the colours to a regiment of foot at Plymouth. An American writer has recorded that he saw the widowed lady and her little girl in the churchyard of Brading, in the Isle of Wight. They were seated near the grave ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous

... the road that climbs above and bends Round what was once a chalk-pit: now it is By accident an amphitheatre. Some ash-trees standing ankle-deep in brier And bramble act the parts, and neither speak Nor stir." "But see: they have fallen, every one, And brier and bramble have grown over them." "That is the place. As usual no one is here. Hardly can I imagine the drop of ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas

... do they act to get the gold into their own hands? With feigned words, says Peter, shall they make merchandise of you. For they have selected the word by which they make money of the people, for this very purpose, as when they say, "If you give the dear ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther

... as you know, is the opposite principle to death. To be alive is to possess an inward force capable of action without any outside assistance. For instance: anything that has in it the principle by which it is able to act in some way, independent of the will of any other thing or creature outside of itself, may be said to be alive. It has in it the principle ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... any other, although it is the one which is most worried about. However, cavalry always has the same doctrine: Charge! To start with, cavalry action against cavalry is always the same. Also against infantry. Cavalry knows well enough today, as it has always known, that it can act only against infantry which has been broken. We must leave aside epic legends that are always false, whether they relate to cavalry or infantry. Infantry cannot say as much of its own action against infantry. In this respect there is a complete anarchy ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq

... much better and safer to have a regular well-known rule to act by; but I don't see how you can give me, e.g., precise directions. It seems to me that you must use great care in selecting your man, and ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... spring of 1767 to see the new lands he had bought in our parish. His coach couped in the Vennel, and his lordship was thrown head foremost into the mud. He swore like a trooper, and said he would get an act of parliament to put down the nuisance. His lordship came to the manse, and, being in a woeful plight, he got the loan of my best suit of clothes. This made him wonderful jocose both with Mrs. Balwhidder and me, for he was a portly man, and I but a thin body, and it was really ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... as undesirable vagrants," laughed Vane. "It's a county town and they're rather particular. I'm not certain that happiness isn't an offence under the Defence of the Realm Act. Incidentally, I don't think there would be many convictions these days. ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile

... absolute confidences. He lacked what was the most important thing in life for him and for others: CHARACTER. That he failed of the Academy was to him a dreadful chagrin. What weakness! and how little he must have esteemed himself! To seek an honor no matter what, seems to me, besides, an act of ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... been said to prove that in cases of sham capture the girls simply follow their village customs blindly. Left to themselves they might act very differently, but as it is, all the girls in each district must do the same thing, however silly. About the real feelings of the girls these comedies tell us nothing whatever. With coyness—that is, a woman's concealment of her feelings ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... for the first time to command men, for his duties hitherto had been those of military engineer, astronomer, or staff-officer. The act of Congress directing that two new cavalry regiments should be raised excited an ardent desire in the officers of the army to receive appointments in them, and Lee was transferred from his place of engineer to the post of lieutenant-colonel in ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke

... between lords of the Court. Fines such as these however affected a smaller range of sufferers than the financial expedient to which Weston had recourse in the renewal of monopolies. Monopolies, abandoned by Elizabeth, extinguished by Act of Parliament under James, and denounced with the assent of Charles himself in the Petition of Right, were again set on foot, and on a scale far more gigantic than had been seen before; the companies who undertook ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... town to change the form of the deposit:— He took care to think of it as a deposit still, the act of deposit having been complete, the withdrawal incomplete, and by no fault of his, for he had offered it back; but Fate and Accident had interposed. He had converted the notes into gold direct, and the bills into gold through notes; this was like going into the river to hide ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... Contentment—is commonplace; and, that to shine As something superior, one must repine, Or seem to be hiding an ache in the breast. Yet the commonest thing in the world is unrest, If you want to be really unique, go along And act as if Fate had not done you a wrong, And declare you have had ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... in the doom of perpetual slavery; yet not only is incidental mention of them as slaves to be met with in the laws of most of the States of our confederacy, but in one, at least, direct legislation may be cited to sanction their enslavement. In Virginia, an act was passed, in 1679, declaring that "for the better encouragement of soldiers, whatever Indian prisoners were taken in a war, in which the colony was then engaged, should be free purchase to the soldiers taking them;" and in 1682, it was decreed that "all servants brought into Virginia, ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... nothing could be more ludicrous and fanatical than the volunteer movement in England rising out of the most incredible panic which ever arose without a reason. I only hope that if the volunteers ever have to act indeed, they may behave better than at Naples, where they left the worst impression of English morals and discipline. They embarked to return home dead drunk all of them, and the drunkenness was not the worst. Sir John Bowring has been ill since he came, so perhaps he may ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... did Kate realize what interpretation the world might put upon her act of public loyalty to the man who had gone for her sake into a ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... popular, later surviving under conditions of strict secrecy? This would fully account for the atmosphere of awe and reverence which even under distinctly non-Christian conditions never fails to surround the Grail, It may act simply as a feeding vessel, It is none the less toute sainte cose; and also for the presence in the tale of distinctly popular, and Folk-lore, elements. Such an interpretation would also explain features irreconcilable with orthodox Christianity, which had caused some scholars to postulate ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... would speedily follow with redoubled confidence; and he owned he was. It may prolong for a brief period the sickly existence of the Government, and if a dissolution comes speedily, Whigs and Radicals may act in concert at the elections; but if they attempt to go on with the present Parliament fresh demands will rapidly ensue, and then there must be fresh concessions or another breach. It is a base and disgusting truckling to allies between whom ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... up in a feather pillow to prevent him from defrauding the law by committing suicide in the murderer's cell. The shrill sound of a whistle was heard in the theatre just before Booth committed the act; and when the Major was arrested in his bed at the hotel a few hours afterwards, a whistle was found in his pocket. It was damaging evidence, but he escaped prosecution as an accomplice by adopting the advice once given ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson

... stagnation. The Gorbachev regime has made at least four serious errors in economic policy in these five years: the unpopular and short-lived anti-alcohol campaign; the initial cutback in imports of consumer goods; the failure to act decisively for the privatization of agriculture; and the buildup of a massive overhang of unspent rubles in the hands of households and enterprises. In October 1989, a top economic adviser, Leonid Abalkin presented ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... useful schools today are schools of struggle schools offering encouragement and facilities for young people to work their way thru and to act upon their ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette

... application of the principle which the ancient philosopher could not contemplate. Both in truth committed the same fundamental mistake, of making the mind the measure of things. The union of opposites is an act of thought, not a fact relating ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... the head of the nearest man, and though Flavia, with instant presence of mind, struck it up, the act helped little. Before Cammock could clear his blade, or his companions back up his resistance, four or five men, of Colonel John's following, flung themselves on them from behind. They were seized, strong arms ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... "Yes, I will act on your advice, and consign these stones to your friends for sale at Amsterdam, or elsewhere, as they may think best. And be good enough to ask them to advise me as to the investment of ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall

... one-story log house but a few steps from the office. As Bob and Mr. MacPherson entered it, a big man with a bushy red beard, and a tall brawny man with clean shaven face, both perhaps twenty-five or thirty years of age, and both with "Scot" written all over their countenances, were in the act of sitting down to an uncovered table, while an ugly old Indian hag was dishing up a savory stew ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace

... this point of public duties, (exercised without fee or compensation,) our own nobility is the only one in Europe having almost any connexion at all with the national service, except through the army. Some of this small body are pretty constantly attached to the cabinet; others act as ambassadors, as under-secretaries, or as colonial governors. And so far are they from wishing, apparently, to limit the field for their own exertions, that the late Dukes of Manchester and Richmond spontaneously extended it, by giving the countenances of their high stations to the governments ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... Either he may doubt the nurses, or he may want to see how some particular drug works. Nothing, so far, seems of use, but that may be partly because the doctors are all so busy that they cannot watch the patients and see, from hour to hour, how medicines act." ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... had never seen any other sort of people. Here, reader, it will be necessary to remark, that, as our hero is no longer amongst simple honest Indians, neither polite, lettered, nor deceitful, but among polished people, whose knowledge has taught them to forget the ways of nature, and to act every thing in disguise; whose hearts and tongues are as far distant asunder, as the North from the South pole, and who daily over-reach one another in the most common occurrences of life; we hope it will be no disgrace to our hero if among such he appears polished as the best, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown



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