"Persuade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said Aristodemus, 'if I once could persuade myself the gods take care of man, I should want no monitor to ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... wrote under the pseudonym of Mark Twain, was,—it is universally admitted,—one of the wisest of men. Last year (1909) he published a little book with the title, "Is Shakespeare dead?" In this he treats with scathing scorn those who can persuade themselves that the immortal plays were written by the Stratford clown. He writes, pp. 142-3: "You can trace the life histories of the whole of them [the world's celebrities] save one far and away the most colossal prodigy of the entire accumulation—Shakespeare. About ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence
... for us to endeavor to persuade other nations to join with us in adopting the principles of what was called 'free trade.' Other nations knew, as well as the noble lord opposite, and those who acted with him, what we meant by 'free trade' was nothing more nor less than, by means of the great advantages ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... steadily. And once more he saw himself in the African tent amid the rain and the boisterous wind. At the time he sought to persuade himself that George had a chance of escape. He told him with his own lips that if he showed perfect self-confidence at the moment of danger he might save himself alive; but at the bottom of his heart ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... that it was becoming that Christ should lead an austere life in this world. For Christ preached the perfection of life much more than John did. But John led an austere life in order that he might persuade men by his example to embrace a perfect life; for it is written (Matt. 3:4) that "the same John had his garment of camel's hair and a leathern girdle about his loins: and his meat was locusts and wild honey"; on which Chrysostom ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... and is now La Rue County, three miles from Hodgensville. The ground had nothing attractive about it but its cheapness. It was hardly more grateful than the rocky hill slopes of New England. It required full as earnest and intelligent industry to persuade a living out of those barren hillocks and weedy hollows, covered with stunted and scrubby underbrush, as it would amid the rocks and sands of the ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... few days at Dodge to discover that great discontent existed about the Medicine Lodge concessions, to see that the young men were chafing and turbulent, and that it would require much tact and good management on the part of the Indian Bureau to persuade the four tribes to go quietly to their reservations, under an agreement which, when entered into, many of them protested had ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... been together in "Wheaton's Hole," an uncommonly hot position where numerous people got hurt. He persisted in giving a graphic account of our experiences, and in paying high tribute to my coolness and courage under heavy fire. My efforts to persuade him that I had not been with him there proved futile, and I finally gave up the attempt. I wonder how many other military reputations rest upon so slender a foundation! This experience was unique. I never saw another officer under the influence of ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... was with Moxley when he broke into your cabin," he said huskily, "but I was only with him because I wanted to help these boys. I couldn't leave him without spoilin' my plans, and I couldn't persuade him to let the cabin alone, though I tried hard enough. He gave me the slip next morning, as it was, an' I had to tramp it down the creek the rest of the way. It's purty hard fer a feller to get into a scrape ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... something of a peculiar charm, a force that we miss in the sensual and almost devilish face we see in his portrait, he must have possessed, for it is said that Lorenzo desired his company; and even though we are able to persuade ourselves that it was for other reasons than to enjoy his friendship, we have yet to explain the influence he exercised over Sandro Botticelli and Pico della Mirandola, whose lives he changed altogether. In the midst of a people without a moral sense he appears ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... apostolic injunction to stand forth in its churches and preach the Gospel. It has, in fact, sent them out armed with the authority of its certificates to the very ends of the earth to preach in public; to visit and persuade in private. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... To argue from her being much older than Johnson, or any other circumstances, that he could not really love her, is absurd; for love is not a subject of reasoning, but of feeling, and therefore there are no common principles upon which one can persuade another concerning it. Every man feels for himself, and knows how he is affected by particular qualities in the person he admires, the impressions of which are too minute and delicate to be ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... a day or two, the time hung heavily on the hands of all on board. Desmond and Tom, having been at work all the morning studying the steam-engine, took it into their heads that they merited some little relaxation, and set to work to persuade Mr Large to accompany them on a shooting expedition to the island. "You see, Mr Large," observed Tom, "we're certain to make a good bag, and you like roast goose as much as any man; though we shall have to do without apple sauce, I'm afraid. I'm certain that the birds I saw ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... Gevangenhuis it will go hard if I can't squeeze the secret of old Brant's money out of one of the three of them. The women wouldn't know, they wouldn't have told the women, besides I don't want to meddle with them, indeed nothing would persuade me to that"—and he shivered as though at some wretched recollection. "But there must be evidence; there is such noise about these executions and questionings that they won't allow any more of them in Leyden without ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... Year afford no hope that your Court still entertains a favorable disposition for my interests, I cannot persuade myself that a union which has lasted between us for sixteen years may not have left some trace in the mind. Perhaps I judge others by myself. But, however that may be, I, in short, prefer putting my interests into the King your Master's hands rather than into any other's. If you have not, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... a lawyer and represent them in this controversy. By your favor therefore let us proceed. You've come to persuade them to resume work, and that is well. But there are conditions to be agreed upon before they return, which with your permission I shall state—first, no harsh driving of the workmen by foremen; second, full wages for ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... protested, "is inclined to be melodramatic. The gas which Bright has in that cylinder is simply one which would produce a little temporary unconsciousness. We might have used it—we may still use it—but if you others are able to persuade Mr. Orden to restore the packet, our task with him is at an end. We are not his gaolers—or perhaps he would say his torturers—for pleasure. The Council has ordered that we should extort from him the papers you know of and has given us carte blanche as to the means. ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fallen upon Mrs Browning—her sister Henrietta, Mrs Surtees Cook, was dead, leaving behind her three young children. Mrs Browning could not shed tears nor speak of her grief: she felt tired and beaten by the pain; and tried to persuade herself that for one who believed the invisible world to be so near, such pain was but a weakness. Her husband was able to do little, but he shared in his degree in the sense of loss, and protected her from the intrusion of untimely visitors. Sir John Bowring was admitted because ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... Teufelsdroeckh deal hits, harder or softer, according to ability; yet ever, as we would fain persuade ourselves, with charitable intent. Above all, that class of 'Logic-choppers, and treble-pipe Scoffers, and professed Enemies to Wonder; who, in these days, so numerously patrol as night-constables about the Mechanics' Institute ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... itself a good account. . . . He grows still, and still improves in appearance, at least in the estimation of his aunts, who love him better and better, as they see the sweet temper and warm affections of the boy confirmed in the young man: I tried hard to persuade him that he must have some message for William,[355] but in vain. . . . This is not a time of year for donkey-carriages, and our donkeys are necessarily having so long a run of luxurious idleness that I suppose we shall find they have forgotten much of their education ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... was Julia to the life. Seek not to persuade me otherwise. My picture was suspended by a sky-blue ribbon: this was flame-colored. My ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... say a week at furthest, he would tell Dainty of his love, and ask her to be his wife. No use putting off his happiness, he thought; and if he could win the little darling, the wedding should follow soon—as soon as he could persuade her to ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... Her brother drew his chair closer, leaned forward, and took one of the jewelled hands in his. He spoke very gently, and in his voice was a certain quality of persuasion which belongs not to all voices which would persuade. ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... does not necessarily follow that any one of these other experimenters might ever have achieved the result aimed at, although, after the proclamation of success by one, it is easy to believe that each of the other independent investigators might readily persuade himself that he would ultimately have reached the goal in just that ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... allowed to appear he was certain. It is her pride, he told himself. A high-bred girl like this would naturally hate the very idea of a sensational scandal under her roof, and all its unpleasant, rather sordid accompaniments. "I wish," he added with a touch of fervour, "that I could persuade you to dismiss any fear of annoyance ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... were quite on edge and she spoke with a greater violence than she knew. Jane Repton tried to persuade her. ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... that should be devoured. He harried the open country, he occupied the smaller posts, till the citizens were driven, against Geoffrey's will, to surrender. William entered Le Mans; he was received, we are told, with joy. When men make the best of a bad bargain, they sometimes persuade themselves that they are really pleased. William, as ever, shed no blood; he harmed none of the men who had become his subjects; but Le Mans was to be bridled; its citizens needed a castle and a Norman garrison to keep them in their new allegiance. ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... with such feelings as were produced by some of the most eminent orations of antiquity. This testimony I liberally give to the excellence of an old friend, with whom it has been my lot to differ very widely upon many political topicks; yet I persuade myself without malice. A great majority of the Lords of Session decided for the negro. But four of their number, the Lord President, Lord Elliock, Lord Monboddo, and Lord Covington, resolutely maintained the lawfulness of a status, which has been acknowledged in all ages ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... none whatever—but had borrowed enough to pay the sweepstakes, and stood to make something if the horse won and lose nothing if he lost, as he had nothing to lose. My friend insisted on being paid two pounds before he would mount, and the owner nearly had a fit in his efforts to persuade him to ride on credit. At last a backer of the horse agreed to pay 2 pounds 10s., win or lose, and the rider was to get 25 pounds out of the prize if he won. So up he got; and as he and the others walked the big muscular horses round the ring, nodding ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... Adjutant-Major, Agha Suleman. The Doctor came in and was very merry with the Adjutant, who is always trying to get himself reported sick, in order that he may return to Tripoli. The Adjutant observed to me, whilst he drew himself up, made a wry face, and heaved a deep sigh, as if his last, to persuade the Doctor he was greatly suffering, "I would not go to Bornou if you were to give me 100,000 dollars." But why should he? With what sort of feeling could he go there? The spirit of discovery, which once stirred up ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... all the morning to persuade her. It was only when he told her how he went all to pieces if he had to worry about money, and a moment later painted glowing pictures of the month they would have together if his orders permitted, before ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... expected, determined at once to attend it; and having directed in vain all the powers of his rhetoric to persuade his mother to accompany him, he turned the whole battery of his logic upon me, who, at that time, felt a reluctance stronger than that of mere apathy to mixing in any of these scenes of noisy pleasure ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... "he suffers horribly when he moves, and I tried to persuade him to have his dinner sent into the parlor, but in honor of your presence he will come, and he doesn't want us to see him wince and writhe under ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... to submit to be torn away. A little motor was waiting outside. It had brought the Sarratts and Bridget from Rydal, and was to take Bridget home, dropping the Sarratts at Grasmere for an evening walk. Sir William tried indeed to persuade them to stay longer, till a signal from his cousin Hester stopped him; 'Well, if you must go, you must,' he said, regretfully. 'Cicely, you must arrange with Mrs. Sarratt, when she will pay us a visit—and'—he looked uncertainly round him, as though he had only just remembered Bridget's ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... time to go. The Gooseberry cousins had got out the luncheon, and had tried to persuade the family to spend the night. Mrs. Peterkin declared this would be impossible. They never had done such a thing. So they went off, eating their luncheon as they went, the little boys each with a sandwich in one hand and a piece of cake ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... indicating the unconscious girl and the young man. "Take them and search them for a small packet. If you do not find it, search this room. If you do not find it still, hurt the male animal. They persuade well with pain here, I understand. But do not kill him. I will be in the ...
— Double Take • Richard Wilson
... Back; and being within a dozen Yards of those that advanc'd and saw him, he call'd out to them, and bid them approach no nearer, if they would be safe. So that they stood still, and hardly believing their Eyes, that would persuade them that it was Caesar that spoke to them, so much he was alter'd; they ask'd him, what he had done with his Wife, for they smelt a Stink that almost struck them dead? He pointing to the dead Body, sighing, cry'd, Behold her there. They put off the Flowers that ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... then when she was recounting to us the particulars of our father's death in a foray of Indians more than forty years ago. Seeing some figures one night moving in front of our house, nothing could persuade the good lady but that they were savages, and she sank on her knees crying out, "The Lord have mercy upon us! The ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... make sure that the door and shutters were tightly closed. "Do you not know that he could easily persuade the people to revolt ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith
... grub up a few weeds in the garden, the lad threw it down, and said to the farmer, 'I hate you.' This was his favorite expression to those who aroused his displeasure when a child. The good man was astonished at this insubordination, and tried to persuade Myndert to do as he was told. But persuasion was useless; and so were the threats with which the farmer tried to frighten him. As for whipping the boy, he was, like me, too ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... fervently. "Don't try to persuade me that there wasn't any such mountain," he challenged her. "I suppose," he added in wonder, "that lovers have been having these secret signs time out of ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... assemble. Grotius and Hoogerbetz promised that the States of Holland would not abandon them on this occasion when their sovereignty was at stake: they also brought Letters from the States to the principal officers of the ordinary garrison, tending to persuade them that it was their duty to obey the States of Utrecht, who paid them, ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... interfered to keep the missus at the homestead, to persuade Cheon that, after all, the Maluka was a fit and proper person to have the care of a woman, and to find a very present use for the house; an influenza sore-throat breaking out in the camp, the missus developed ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... Jew. However, he could not persuade his friend against the agreement, and Antonio signed the bond, thinking it was only a jest, as ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... believe that it was Grandfather Mole that was to blame for the scarcity of worms in the neighborhood. It must be confessed that he felt none too kindly towards Grandfather Mole. He thought that it would be a good thing if somebody could persuade that odd, old chap to stay on top of the ground, instead of lurking most of the time down below where he could catch the worms right where ...
— The Tale of Grandfather Mole • Arthur Scott Bailey
... taking upon himself the likeness of Phor'bas, one of the sons of Priam, who was killed during the Trojan war, appeared to Palinurus during one of the watches of the night, and tried to persuade him to lie down and sleep, while he himself would stand at the helm and steer the ship. But Palinurus refused to quit his post. Then the treacherous god waved before his eyes a branch that had been dipped in the Stygian Le'the, the fabled river of forgetfulness, and soon the pilot ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... was not of a nature to persuade him to perpetual effort in any direction; and so, whilst Barndale worked, the other amateur relieved vacuity with billiards. It got into a settled habit with him at last to leave Barndale nightly at his ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... persuade my audience that this world is a poor investment; that it does not pay ninety per cent. of satisfaction, nor eighty per cent., nor twenty per cent., nor two per cent., nor one; that it gives no solace when a dead babe ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... endeavoured to persuade him to see Gertrude, or at any rate to send his love to her. But in this also he was obdurate. 'It could,' he said, 'do no good.' He could not answer for himself that his feelings would not betray him. A message would be of no use; ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... studied books without a tutor—sacred books—since his boyhood!" he said to Don Ruy—"think of that, and of the grief we had to persuade you to the reading of even the saintly lives! There is devilish art in this—the angels guard us from further sorcery—without a tutor! A savage magician to study strange tongues without a tutor! It is nothing ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... guitar-player to come to me to-day. Amenda (instead of an amende [fine], which he sometimes deserves for not observing his rests properly) must persuade this popular guitarist to visit me, and if possible to come at five o'clock this evening; if not then, at five or six o'clock to-morrow morning; but he must not waken me if I chance to be still asleep. Adieu, mon ami ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... you might be going to recommend next. It makes me lose all patience every time I think of your discussing oyster-beds under the head of 'Landscape Gardening.' I want you to go. Nothing on earth could persuade me to take another holiday. Oh! why didn't you tell me you didn't ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... could the unfortunate girl be prevailed upon to leave the prison. His arguments were all wasted upon the infatuated victim, and he was obliged to leave her in order to attend to his own safety. Such was his account; but, perhaps, he persevered less steadily in his attempts to persuade her ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... I retorted. "As they are clever enough to know that it is for me, they will be clever enough to give it to me, or I will persuade ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... stage. And as I must not yet make it known, nor disclose many things which have perforce entered into this history, I perceive that my labour has been, after all, to no purpose. I dare not give the narrative to the world, now it is done; but I cannot persuade myself to give it to the fire, either. Let it lie hid, then, till all of us concerned in it are passed away; and perchance it may serve to instruct some future reader how much a transient vanity and wilfulness may wreck, and how much a ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... by him, when he spake of the foolish and weak, and base things, used of God, to confound those which are wise and mighty. He spake only with reference to the instruments which were chosen to carry the gospel abroad and persuade the nations of ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... it funny too? It couldn't be helped—old Miss Gallup seemed to think it was the proper thing and sent him—and father was waiting for me at the gate and was awfully cross. . . . Mother, how did you persuade him to let ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... contrary, such as had not been initiated, besides the evils they had to apprehend in this life, were doomed, after their descent to the shades below, to wallow eternally in dirt, filth, and excrement. Diogenes the Cynic believed nothing of the matter,(71) and when his friends endeavoured to persuade him to avoid such a misfortune, by being initiated before his death—"What," said he, "shall Agesilaus and Epaminondas lie amongst mud and dung, whilst the vilest Athenians, because they have been initiated, possess the most distinguished places in the regions of the blessed?" Socrates was not ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... tracts, which he vigorously distributed, and which the boys used to wrap up dust in. He nearly starved while trying to learn to cook his own food, so some of the boys took him in and fed him. He tried to persuade the boys to stop drinking, and they good-naturedly laughed; but when he attempted to break up the "little game" which was the only amusement of the camp—the only steady amusement, for fights were short and irregular—the camp rose in its wrath, and the young man hastily ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... his face, and thought in lurid adjectives. He wouldn't have dared, in view of Mirabelle's opinion, to ask for an injunction on behalf of the League itself, but it had occurred to him that he might arrange the matter privately. He could persuade one of the old moss-backs that Mirabelle might be swayed by her relationship to Henry (this struck him as the height of sardonic humour), and the moss-back could go into Court as an individual, to ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... day. She did not go out of her room again. Her mood changed a hundred times. The resolve to confess alternated with wild mockery and laughter, but still returned. She would struggle to persuade herself that her whole condition was one of foolish exaggeration, of senseless excitement about nothing—the merest delirium of feminine fastidiousness; and the next instant would turn cold with horror at a fresh glimpse of the mere fact. What could the wretched matter be to him now—or ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... him to his home in Brighton, but there he found Sylvia Custance. She weaved her web to enslave Denis, interesting herself in his career, asking him fairly intelligent questions, and doing her utmost to persuade him that he was the most important person in the world to her. Denis watched her as a scientist observes a remarkable organism. Once, after a prolonged silence on his part, ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... waited for hours at the hotel, expecting Hicks or his lawyer. When no one arrived at the hour agreed upon, Frederik felt a bit uneasy, but he tried to persuade himself that Hicks had merely missed the train and would come on the next one. With growing apprehension he waited, smoking innumerable cigarettes while the evening wore on, till finally the last ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... required all the persuasion of Uncle Dick, expert railway engineer in wilderness countries, to persuade the parents of these three boys to allow them to accompany him on this, his own first exploration into the extreme North, under the Midnight Sun itself. He had promised them—and something of a promise it was, too—to bring the young travelers back safely to their home in Valdez, on the Pacific ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... he continued with an amiable smile, "if you wouldn't persuade your husband to move out to Burgess Park, understand me, I shall consider it you don't like our ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... ses. "A man told me that if I could on'y persuade a few bees to sting me, that 'ud cure me. I don't know what 'e meant by persuading! they didn't want no persuading. I took off my coat and shirt and went and rocked one of my neighbour's bee-hives next door, and I thought ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... announce he has come to challenge Gunther to a duel, the Burgundians are dismayed, but they soon succeed in disarming their guest, and finally persuade him to remain with them a year, entertaining him with games and tournaments in which Siegfried distinguished himself greatly, to the satisfaction of Kriemhild who witnesses his prowess ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... folks would like to do, you see, Mr. Hardy, is to persuade us poor devils to get up the row, while they DIRECT it. DIRECT it, that's their word; but we're not ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... when not talking about his mare, the Colonel was trying to persuade Stephen to remain. Virginia did not join in this, and her father thought the young man's refusal sprang from her lack of cordiality. Colonel Carvel ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... for a distilling deacon? If the aim of the Society be only to convert men from sins they have no mind to, and to convince them of errors to which they have no temptation, they might as well be spending their money to persuade schoolmasters that two and two make four, or mathematicians that there cannot be two obtuse angles in a triangle. If this be their notion of the way in which the gospel is to be preached, we do not wonder that they have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... And I would that I could persuade all ye ends of the earth to repent and prepare to stand before the judgment-seat ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... order,' according to a red man's fancy. So, when everybody is ready—Don't hurry, please!—we'll board my car, the 'Erminie,' and take our leisurely way northward. It isn't as if we had to say good-by, you see, for we'll be all together still. As for Mrs. Calvert's plan—maybe we can persuade her to postpone business awhile for a taste of real ranch ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... against my trying to persuade the robots, because I knew well enough that I couldn't do it. Jack's idea sounded pretty good, though. He suggested that we send some spokesman who didn't know what we planned to do and thus couldn't alarm them. Some ordinary man without too much imagination. ...
— Robots of the World! Arise! • Mari Wolf
... answered the bee-hunter. "I wish I could persuade you to throw away that disgusting thing at your belt. Remember, Chippewa, you are now among Christians, and ought to do as ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... are to be made absolutely wretched because they are married," Margaretta answered. "I don't want to persuade her to leave him, but if what she says is true, it must ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... idea that the natives would have carried their tin across to this incommodious little islet for the sake of selling seems absurd, when we consider that they could have sold it much better on the mainland. The description by Diodorus Siculus, often quoted, has a tempting look, but it cannot persuade us that the Mount was Ictis. He says: "They that inhabit the British promontory of Belerium, by reason of their converse with merchants, are more civilised and courteous to strangers than the rest. These are the people that make the tin, which with a great deal of care and labour ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... would sooner trust my eyes," was the dry answer. "Nobody shall persuade me that I don't know my own brother's figures. There are limits, Geoffrey, and neither Helen nor I would hold our peace ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... the Alps," Malchus replied, "but beyond are great tribes who have never as yet heard of Rome. It is to them that Clotilde's mother belongs, and we have settled that we will first try and find her mother and persuade her to go with us, and that if she is dead we will journey alone until we join her tribe in Germany. But before I go I will, if it be possible, try and rouse the Gauls to make another effort for freedom by acting in concert, by driving out the Romans ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... much older. Your youth gives me the impression that you have gone into this affair from a spirit of adventure. I can assure you that you have nothing to gain commercially by interfering with my late kingdom. I hope, before we part, that I can persuade you to abandon your idea of financing this movement to restore me ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... It was very wrong of me to persuade him. But I did—I assure you. He seemed in such trouble. ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... Mr. Herbert Palmer:—"I shall here briefly single one of them [his detractors], because he hath obliged me to it—who, I persuade me, having scarce read the book, nor knowing him who writ it, or at least feigning the latter [!], hath not forborne to scandalize him, unconferred with, unadmonished, undealt with by any pastorly or brotherly convincement, in the ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... go for his daughter; sometimes he'll listen to her. If anybody can persuade him, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "Thank God! Oh, thank God!" and staggered to her feet in the frantic desire to help in unfastening the ropes that bound him to the insensible Watts. One of the men tried to persuade her to sit down again, but she would not be denied. Her unaccustomed fingers strove vainly against the stiff strands, swollen as they were with wet, and drawn taut by the strain to which they had been subjected. ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... intelligence in every face, waiting for a word, watching for a glance, expecting every moment that some one from south or north, or east or west, would say, "I've seen her;" yet, covering up the burning coal of his anxiety with the ashes of mock merriment, he tried to persuade himself that Kate was not on the island if nobody at Tynwald had seen her; that he had told the truth unwittingly, and that he was as happy as ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... the conclusion of one of these interviews, of having been put down as a tiresome and heavy young man. I fully believed in my own liveliness and sprightliness, but it seemed an impossible task to persuade my elders that these qualities were there. A good-natured, elderly friend used at times to rally me upon my shyness, and say that it all came from thinking too much about myself. It was as useless as if one told a man with a toothache ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... more to my wife, and used more rhetoric to dissuade her from having it drawn, than is generally employed to persuade young ladies to prefer a pain of three moments to one of three months' continuance, especially if those young ladies happen to be past forty and fifty years of age, when, by submitting to support a racking torment, the only good ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... of this disaster endeavours were made to persuade Count Zeppelin to abandon the use of aluminium for the framework of his balloon but they were fruitless, a result no doubt due to the fact that the inventor of the airship of this name has but a superficial knowledge of the various sciences ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... effects you get on the stage when very English people play at being Americans. You have to be rather young and unsophisticated if such phrases as "He's putting it over on us," or "I'm not going to stand for that," generously peppered about the dialogue and recited in the purest of English accents, can persuade you to believe that you are getting the real local stuff. At the same time you accept cheerfully the most farcical conditions on the vague assumption that all things ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... sward; but the murderer minded him not a whit, cleansing his blood-stained knife the while upon a whisp of grass. Everything else was unchanged, the sun still shining mercilessly upon the steaming marsh and the tall pinnacle of the mountain, and I could scarce persuade myself that murder had actually been done and a human life cruelly cut short a moment since, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his Winchester, and strode off, all my arguments failing to persuade him to take a drop of our little remaining store of water. I watched him striding away through the dunes till he was lost to sight, then I turned to and made a fire and some food; for I felt weak and ill and my head was burning. ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... the men do. Most of them as I learned, come from the country districts of Italy where they live very rudely. Once here they make their new quarters little better than their old. The younger ones however who are going to school are doing better. But taken by and large it was difficult to persuade them that cleanliness offered any especial advantages. It wasn't as though they minded the dirt and were chained to it by circumstances from which they couldn't escape—as I used to think. They simply didn't object to it. So long as they were warm and had food enough they ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... successful across the first salient, then, suddenly, I saw we were approaching a wide ditch. Leave would be cancelled as far as I was concerned if I tried to jump that, I felt certain. I saw a sort of a narrow bridge about fifty yards to the right. Tried to persuade the horse to make for it. No, he believed in the ditch idea, and put on a sprint to jump it. Terrific battle between Dick Turpin ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... before the year 1817, had rejected the doctrine of the real presence." (40.) With respect to the doctrine that the proper and natural body and blood of Christ are received in the Lord's Supper, the Platform remarks: "Now we cannot persuade ourselves that this is the view of a single minister of the General Synod or of ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... out about it soon enough," he told himself, impatiently, for the pain he suffered began to grow worse with every step, and an unaccountable weariness had come over him. That thing on his shoulder must be a mere scratch, he tried to persuade himself, in spite of the sharp pangs it gave him. Manlike he grew more obstinate as his strength began to fail, and pulled harder, with the sweat now running down his clammy forehead and ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... my bad days will begin,' said Taku-Wakin, 'for he hates me for my father's sake, and also a little for yours, Old Two-Tails, and he will persuade the Council to give my mother to another man and I shall be made subject to him. Worse,' he said,—'the Great Plan of my father will ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... Summers, you are in luck to-day," laughed one of the other sergeants; "here are two valuable recruits for the Rangers. The Mounseers will have no chance with the regiment with such giants as those in it. Come, my fine fellows, let me persuade you to join the 15th. Such little bantams as you are would be ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... parts of Bechuanaland. We entered the town late at night, delayed by the deep sand on the track, and wandered about in the dark for a long while before, after knocking at one hut after another, we could persuade any native to come out and show us the way to the little cluster of European dwellings. The Kafirs are terribly afraid of the night, and fear the ghosts, which are to them the powers of darkness, more than they care for offers ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... be permitted an ordinary reader to wonder how any critic can persuade himself that Fletcher wrote the speech of Wolsey on his downfall, or the prophecy of Cranmer at the christening of Elizabeth. Why is it not a permissible hypothesis that "Henry VIII." was written during the reign of the great Queen, and subsequently revised ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... daresay, for the gloss of his shoes and the magnificence of his cravat outshone us as the sleek skin of a race-horse does a country filly. Especially did he eye Quinet a little coldly, so that I could scarcely persuade the ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... into existence. Even were so great a change of English sentiment to take place that a majority of the people became ready, on grounds of expediency, to break up the connection between Great Britain and the neighbouring island, it would still be hard to persuade the nation that there was not vile treachery in refusing to stand by and support that part of the Irish people which wished to retain the connection with England. The treachery would approach to infamy if it should ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... she went to pieces, and every soul was drowned. When the gale abated the natives went down to collect the stores driven ashore, and I found on the beach one of her boats washed up almost uninjured, so nothing would do but I must sail away in her. The natives tried their hardest to persuade me to stay with them, but finding that my mind was fixed beyond recall they gave way and did their best to aid me. The boat was well stored with provisions; we made a sail for her out of one belonging to the ship, and I set off, promising them that if I could not alight upon an ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... or that other course. Nothing is more apt to deprive a child of confidence in himself than to tell him brutally that he does not understand, does not know how, cannot do this or that, or to laugh at his attempts. His educators must persuade him that he can understand, and that he can do this thing or that, and must be pleased ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... free trade susceptibilities; it is to impose on what remains of our opponents at the conclusion of this war free trade for a term of years. It remains to be seen whether we shall be powerful enough to insist on this measure, or to persuade our allies that it is one likely to fulfill the proposed end. It is, so far as I see, ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... domesticated Bombyx Yamamai, are useless at the beginning of the season, and the females at the end, from the want of mates. (80. Quoted by Dr. Wallace in 'Proceedings, Entomological Society,' 3rd series, vol. v. 1867, p. 487.) I cannot, however, persuade myself that these causes suffice to explain the great excess of males, in the above cases of certain butterflies which are extremely common in their native countries. Mr. Stainton, who has paid very close attention during many ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... to look at the literary journals only, and thereafter judge of the time, it would be easy to persuade oneself that civilization had indeed made great and solid progress, and that the world stood at a very hopeful stage of enlightenment. Week after week, I glance over these pages of crowded advertisement; I see a ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... conversations. It cuts off all hope, too, of possible mistake. I have heard the name Leontes mentioned as a parallel to Henry; and if the question lay only between the king and his wife, we would gladly welcome the alternative. Charity would persuade us that a husband had been madly blind, sooner far than that a queen had been madly wicked. But this road for escape is closed. The mistake of Leontes was transparent to every eye but his own. The charges against Anne Boleyn ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... and gib him quarter for himself, and Sam sorry to see dose chaps get hold ob him. Dis went on for two or tree days, till one ebening de captain, instead of going away after dinner, stopped talking to dese follows. De play begin at de table, and dey persuade him to join. He hab de debil's luck. Dey thought they going to cheat him, and if dey had got him by demselves dey would have cleaned him out sure. But dere were oder people playing and dey not able ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... the heart; he had never liked anything less. What could he do, what could he say? If the girl were irreclaimable could he pretend to like it? To attempt to reclaim her was permissible only if the attempt should succeed. To try to persuade her of anything sordid or sinister in the man to whose deep art she had succumbed would be decently discreet only in the event of her being persuaded. Otherwise he should simply have damned himself. It cost him an equal effort to speak his thought and to dissemble; he could neither ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... coloring entered into the statements of Mr. Stephens and party. About the only good point made in the talk about which there is no controversy was made by Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Hunter, in attempting to persuade the latter that there was high precedent for his treating with people in arms, cited the example of Charles I. of England treating with his subjects in armed rebellion. To this the President answered: "I do not profess to be posted in history. On all such matters I will turn you over to ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... and fortunately for the world, and for them also, it soon dies out in some more genuine work or passion. Very few have the real gift, and those to whom it IS given wait and work and slowly reach the height of their powers. Many delude themselves, and try to persuade the world that they can sing; but it is waste of time, and ends in disappointment, as the mass of sentimental rubbish we all see plainly proves. Write your little verses, my dear, when the spirit moves,—it is a harmless pleasure, ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... without exactly knowing why. I have not space to argue with Sir Laurence Gomme upon his main point, its continuity of policy and purpose from the Roman Empire till to-day, shown by the records of London's past. I leave it to the scholar and antiquary. It is my purpose to persuade the man in the street, to whom the names of Palgrave, Freeman and Stubbs are not household words, to buy a copy of London (Williams and Norgate) for inclusion in his permanent library. If I should insist upon his reading it then and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... floored with brick and lit by one candle, were two fine old peasants, with faces like apostles, playing a game of cards. There also was a woman playing with a strong boy child, that could not yet talk: and the child ran up to me. Nothing could persuade the master of the house but that I was a very poor man who needed sleep, and so good and generous was this old man that my protests seemed to him nothing but the excuses and shame of poverty. He asked me where I was going. I said, 'To Rome.' He came out with a lantern to the stable, and showed ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... he did over the plates. This letter was signed simply "Meryon, 20 Rue Duperre." The acute accent placed over the "e" in his name by the French poet and by biographers, critics, and editors since was never used by the etcher. It took years before Baudelaire could persuade the Parisians that Poe did not spell his name "Edgard Poe." And we remember the fate of Liszt and Whistler, who were until recently known in Paris as "Litz" and "Whistler." With the aid of Champfleury and Banville, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... she said at length, drawing a long breath, "nothing on this earth ought to persuade us to forego it; no one has the right to hold one back ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... take upon your shoulders his sin? He may have committed the one unpardonable sin, for he discovered the true philosopher's stone, that can transmute metals, make mountains nod, the stars to stop, and command the throne of Jehovah—oh, what blasphemy has been his in his daring music! If he could persuade one other soul besides mine to help him, he might be released from his woe. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... Russian Consul will be at our house. Olga, dear, add your entreaties to mine. Persuade ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... United States, at once enfranchise all the negroes in their midst. I am not sure that they ought to do it; but we are dealing with the matter now as it presents itself as a practical question. What will they probably do? My belief is, that if you persuade them to do right, if you hold out to them an inducement for letting their negroes vote, and striking out these disqualifications and putting all upon the basis of manhood, they will probably begin, after the amendment becomes part ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... as they used to be, and they'll have a hard time gettin' through this winter. Now, there isn't any piece of furniture that you can put in your house that will give it 'such an air of distinction,' as Miss Eleanor calls it, as she herself will give it if you put her there! If you could persuade Miss Eleanor to come and sit in your parlor when you are having company to see you, it would set you up in Plainton a good deal higher than any money ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... illustrious personages, he was struck with admiration of some of their laws, and resolved at his return to make use of them in Sparta. Some others he rejected. Among the friends he gained in Crete was Thales, with whom he had interest enough to persuade him to go and settle at Sparta. Thales was famed for his wisdom and political abilities: he was withal a lyric poet, who under colour of exercising his art, performed as great things as the most excellent lawgivers. For his odes were so many persuasives to obedience and unanimity, as by ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... the problem convinced me that an audience is only a larger person—a great collective individuality—and therefore that whatever, in manner and matter, will please, persuade, and convince a person, will have the same effect upon an audience. Hence one readily deduces that a simple, quiet, but direct, earnest address; a straightforward, unartificial honest manner, without tricks of oratory, is ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... more and more dispirited and nervous. Every footstep that came to the door made him tremble, for fear it should be the signal for the unhappy disclosure. He tried hard to persuade himself it would be kinder after all to say nothing about it. What good could it ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... purposes to accept the challenge of the Democratic bosses was made by him. Certain things in the way of accommodation were necessary to be done before this definite step was taken. It was decided that until the Governor-elect had conferred with the Democratic bosses in an effort to persuade them that the course they had adopted was wrong, it would be best not to make an immediate issue by the Governor-elect's announcement. We thought that by tactfully handling Smith and Davis we would be able by this method of conciliation to convince their friends, at least those in the ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... of the afternoon for me. I looked around me rather nervously, and regretted that I was unarmed. Then I thought that the man I had just seen had been clothed in bluish cloth, had not been naked as a savage would have been; and I tried to persuade myself from that fact that he was after all probably a peaceful character, that the dull ferocity ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... God, and muche quyet my mynde, which wolde nott be indebeted. I am nowe towardes the Cowrte, in hope of answer for the dispatch of my buysness. Yow shall nether loase creddytt nor monney by me, the Lord wyllinge; and nowe butt persuade yourselfe soe, as I hope, and you shall nott need to feare, butt, with all hartie thanckefullness, I wyll holde my tyme, and content yowr ffrende, and yf we bargaine farther, you shal be the paie-master yowrselfe. My tyme biddes me ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... in the rags of misery or decked in the sumptuous vestments of luxury, I restore you to that state of luminous nudity which neither the fumes of wealth nor the poisons of envious poverty dim. How persuade the rich that the difference of conditions arises from an error in the accounts; and how can the poor, in their beggary, conceive that the proprietor possesses in good faith? To investigate the sufferings of the laborer is to the idler the most intolerable of amusements; just ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... from perfect, caused me a misery proportionate to my longing to have her all that was lovely and excellent. It is indeed unfair to write of faults which are so easy to portray, and to say nothing of the beauty of feature and charm of manner, which might have been enough to persuade any one who looked into her face that she was one of God's own angels. What does beauty mean if it be not the blossoming of inner perfection into outward loveliness? And Georgina Lenox was beautiful to every eye. Let every one ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... Captain Wybrow had heard from his uncle the result of the interview with Caterina. He thought, 'If I could have a long quiet talk with her, I could perhaps persuade her to look more reasonably at things. But there's no speaking to her in the house without being interrupted, and I can hardly see her anywhere else without Beatrice's finding it out.' At last he determined to make it a matter of confidence with Miss Assher—to tell her that he wished to talk ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... ultimately value? What would make me judge one sort of society more desirable than another sort? What sort of ends should I most wish to see realized in the world? Different people will answer these questions differently, and I do not know of any argument by which I could persuade a man who gave an answer different from my own. I must therefore be content merely to state the answer which appeals to me, in the hope that ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... he could start for Barport. La Fleur was somewhat frightened when she found that her wilful delay of the telegram might occasion Mr. Haverley an harassing and anxious night in Thorbury, and was urgent in her endeavors to quiet him and persuade him to remain at home until morning. But it was not until Cicely had put in her last plea that the young man consented to give up his intention of going in search of ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... is not in my hands, prince," he said to him, "but in that of my brother Harold. As, however, you have used your influence to persuade your people to submit, I shall do my best to induce him to take a ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... said he to a friend of mine, who was standing by, "if it hadn't been for that confounded headache of mine this morning, I'd have had a coat on that man, in spite of himself, before he left the store." A passing throb, only,—but it deranged the nice mechanism required to persuade the accidental human being, x, into a given piece of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... with the Italian "Ma!"—and those he approved of with mysterious signs which she who followed him through the volumes could not always decipher. Mr. Knowles, she reported, the busy editor of the Nineteenth Century, was trying to persuade the great man to review it. But "Mr. G." had not made ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a movement which was meant to express baffled patience. "I have tried to persuade you not to use pronouns instead of proper names. Can't you hear ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... that's right," Mrs. Procter agreed. "What with going round and trying to persuade people to be good and understand what He was trying to tell them, there couldn't have ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... that the world owed them a living and collected it as they could, are turning truck farmers. They are planting potatoes, and gardening, and learning the secret of life that the living is his who can earn it. The world "do move." No argument is needed now to persuade those who hold the purse strings that all this is "good business." Instead, the mayor of the city is asking the Board of Education to tell him of more and better ways of putting the machinery to use. The city will ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... preaching near by, sent them a message wishing them God-speed and testifying to her own purpose to live entirely for the Saviour who had died for her. Her friends failing in their attempt to persuade her husband to exert his influence against what they considered fanaticism, enlisted the aid of Dr. Benson, Bishop of Gloucester, who had been Lord Huntingdon's teacher. But the bishop, as many another ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... brightened by touches of blue at belt and collar. David's young eyes surveyed her appraisingly and approvingly, and later he effected a thorough effacing of the family. He obtained from Barnabas permission for Jud to go to town with the Gardner boys. His next diplomatic move was to persuade Pennyroyal to go with himself and Janey to Uncle Larimy's hermit home. When she wavered, he commented on the eclipse of Uncle Larimy's windows the last time he saw them. That turned the tide of Pennyroyal's resistance. Equipped with soft linen, a cake of strong soap, and a bottle of ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... persuade Bragg to reconsider his resignation, Davis appointed General Hardee as his successor to command the Western army. Hardee declared the responsibility was more than he ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... most might not be involved in the perils he felt certain he was about to encounter and that his resolution and his movements might not be hampered by their presence and their fears, he found means to persuade his wife to take the children for a visit to their grandfather, and setting his affairs in order and providing himself with two revolvers, a bowie knife, and an Italian stiletto, he even began to look forward to the approaching struggle with something of that pleasure which man experiences ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... entrance by the people, who feared they came to betray the city. I immediately fetched honest Broussel, and, taking some torches to light us, we posted to the said gate through a prodigious crowd of people; it was broad daylight before we could persuade the people that they ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... dared hope it might itself contribute to the restoration of your tranquillity; since your ignorance of the danger, and force of your attachment, might possibly prevent that despondency with which young people, in similar circumstances, are apt to persuade themselves, that what is only difficult, is ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... There was no girl's home to which Louis could take me and where I might be introduced to girls. I knew none. And Louis' several girls he wanted for himself; and anyway, in the very human nature of boys' and girls' ways, he couldn't turn any of them over to me. He did persuade them to bring girl-friends for me; but I found them weak sisters, pale and ineffectual alongside the choice ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... sign. His thoughts were back with Hassim and Immada. The young chief and his sister had gone up country on a voluntary mission to persuade Belarab to return to his stockade and to take up again the direction of affairs. They carried urgent messages from Lingard, who for Belarab was the very embodiment of truth and force, that unquestioned force which had permitted Belarab to indulge in all his melancholy hesitations. But ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... early as 1814 John Stevens applied to New Jersey for a railroad charter, and when it was granted, he sought to persuade the New York Canal Commission to build a railroad instead of a canal. In 1823 Pennsylvania granted Stevens and his friends a charter to build a railroad from Philadelphia to the Susquehanna. In 1825 Stevens ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... devoid of warmth and action. In their endeavor to avoid the dramatic and sensational, they have refined and subdued many of their most natural and effective means of expression. The function of preaching is not only to impart, but to persuade; and persuasion demands something more than an easy conversational style, an intellectual statement of facts, or the reading of a written message. The speaker must show in face, in eye, in arm, in the whole animated man, that he, himself, is moved, before he ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... came, and was with me for an hour. Each of us tried to cheer the other. I did all I could to make him hope that even yet he would have news of the brocade bag and its contents. He, thinking me ill and tired out, did all he could to persuade me that he was not miserable with anxiety. At least, he was no longer jealous of Godensky or of any man, and was humbly repentant for his suspicions of me the night before. When Raoul is repentant, and wishes ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... their own way through, without King or Queen or army, his charity bade him stay with them and lead them, as he only could, to live or die with them, rather than to go safely by water. So it was hard to decide which he should do, and he would not see Beatrix, lest she should persuade him; nor would he let himself think too much of the people, nor mix with them, for they knew him, and honoured him greatly, and would have carried him on their shoulders to make him their leader if he would. Therefore ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... cause, and each day the longing to sit once more grew upon him until it became almost painful. It was this longing which occasioned Valentine's avoidance of Julian. He knew that if they were together he would yield to this foolish, witless temptation, and at any rate try to persuade Julian into an act which might be attended with misfortune, if not with disaster. And then Valentine's profound respect for Doctor Levillier, a respect which the doctor inspired without effort in every one ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... man can see the vilest animal courting his regard, and shrinking at his anger, playing his gambols of delight before him, calling on him in distress, and flying to him in danger, without more kindness than he can persuade himself to feel for the wild and unsocial inhabitants of the air and water. We naturally endear to ourselves those to whom we impart any kind of pleasure, because we imagine their affection and esteem secured to us by the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... and amateurs. To him who can help us better to appreciate works of art let us be duly grateful: to him who, from their extraneous qualities, can deduce amusing theories or pleasant fancies we will listen when we have time: but to him who would persuade us that their value can in any way depend on some non-aesthetic quality we must be positively rude. Now, if we are to get rid of those misleading labels from which works of art are supposed to derive a value over and above ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... diem, but this was so scanty a pittance that he became ravenous, and had not patience to pick all the feathers off before he commenced his meal. The consequence was, that he became very ill, and refused even this small quantity of food. Those around tried to persuade me that he suffered from the colder climate; but his dry nose and paw convinced me that he was feverish, and I had him taken out of his cage; when, instead of jumping about and enjoying his liberty, he lay down, and rested his head upon my feet. I then made him three pills, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... throw yourself at his feet, and persuade him to come back, while I prepare a propitiatory offering for him, ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... of expiation of the past took place. He worked with right good-will for the benefit of the exiled nobles, many of whom were recalled through his influence, which was so great that he found means to persuade the unkempt rulers of the Republic to invite to their banquets the pardoned emigres, and to show that they felt no rancor and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various |
