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Decline   Listen
verb
Decline  v. i.  (past & past part. declined; pres. part. declining)  
1.
To bend, or lean downward; to take a downward direction; to bend over or hang down, as from weakness, weariness, despondency, etc.; to condescend. "With declining head." "He... would decline even to the lowest of his family." "Disdaining to decline, Slowly he falls, amidst triumphant cries." "The ground at length became broken and declined rapidly."
2.
To tend or draw towards a close, decay, or extinction; to tend to a less perfect state; to become diminished or impaired; to fail; to sink; to diminish; to lessen; as, the day declines; virtue declines; religion declines; business declines. "That empire must decline Whose chief support and sinews are of coin." "And presume to know... Who thrives, and who declines."
3.
To turn or bend aside; to deviate; to stray; to withdraw; as, a line that declines from straightness; conduct that declines from sound morals. "Yet do I not decline from thy testimonies."
4.
To turn away; to shun; to refuse; the opposite of accept or consent; as, he declined, upon principle.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Decline" Quotes from Famous Books



... Liberals over the party was due, not to their social reform program, but to their passing of the trade-union law permitting picketing after the elections of 1906, and that he feared them more than he did the Conservatives. However, he thought that this Liberal influence was now on the decline, and said that if the Liberals attempted to strengthen the House of Lords, as suggested in the preamble to their resolution, abolishing its veto power, the Labour Party would be ready to ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... Holmstoke and the adjoining parish, and, having sold every head of his stock, he went away to Port- Bredy, at the other end of the county, living there in solitary lodgings till his death two years later of a painless decline. It was then found that he had bequeathed the whole of his not inconsiderable property to a reformatory for boys, subject to the payment of a small annuity to Rhoda Brook, if she could be ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy

... and what is more, to relatives residing in Paris. She had previously only spoken of them in general terms, giving people to understand that her relatives had not been unfortunate like herself—that they still retained their exalted rank, though she had fallen, and that she found it difficult to decline the favors they longed to heap ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... observers, from the pert Templar to the Sovereign himself, who was pleased to bestow encomiums upon the excellence of her beauty. Many persons of consequence, who had dropped the acquaintance of Peregrine in the beginning of his decline, now made open efforts to cultivate his friendship anew; but he discouraged all these advances with the most mortifying disdain; and one day when the nobleman, whom he had formerly obliged, came up to him in the drawing-room, with the salutation of "Your servant, Mr. Pickle," ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... to admit that possibility. I decline to admit it now." The chin of Charlie Fox squared perceptibly, so that Billie Louise caught a faint resemblance to Marthy in his face. "I saw a man accused of a theft once," he said. "The evidence was—or seemed—absolutely unassailable. And ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... problem,—What was the ancient notion of the allowable in Fiction? That different ideas have prevailed in different ages of the world as to where fiction ends and fabrication begins;—that widely discrepant views are entertained on the subject even in our own age;—all must be aware. I decline to investigate the problem on the present occasion. I do but claim to have established beyond the possibility of doubt or cavil that what we are here presented with is not the testimony of Jerome at all. It is evident that ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... of ground. This state of things continued until the period when Mexico underwent a change in its political form of government, which so disheartened the feelings of the loyal missionaries, that they became regardless of their establishments, and suffered them to decline for want of attention to their interests. At length, civil discord and anarchy among the Californians prepared a more effective measure for their destruction, and they were left to the superintendence of individuals who plundered them of all ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant

... I; we discussed possible combinations and possible developments, and the chances of some great constructive movement coming from the heart-searchings the Boer war had occasioned. We would sink to gossip—even at the Suetonius level. Willersley would decline towards illuminating anecdotes that I capped more or less loosely from my private reading. We were particularly wise, I remember, upon the management of newspapers, because about that we knew nothing whatever. We perceived that great ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... away, as all great races do. The rise and decline of a people are as a day. They have a sunrise, a noon, a sunset, and there remains of them and their splendor nothing but a gloaming, a twilight of a thousand years, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various

... and destruction of the movables there, during the Revolution. I recommend all travellers to take a lunch, and enjoy a bottle of vin ordinaire, at Les Trois-Negres. I was obliged to summon up all my stock of knowledge in polite phraseology, in order to decline a plate of soup. "It was delicious above every thing"—"but I had postponed taking dinner till we got to Bolbec." "Bon—vous y trouverez un hotel superbe." The French are easily pleased; and civility is so cheap and current a coin abroad, that ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... unprophetic either of its approach or its departure. Could this influence be durable in its original purity and force, it is impossible to predict the greatness of the results; but when composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline, and the most glorious poetry that has ever been communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of the original conception of the poet. I appeal to the greatest poets of the present day, whether it is not ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... that our distinction of higher from lower states of rational development is valid; that we can really attach some absolute meaning to the terms "progress" and "decline;" that there is some vaguely conceived standard of human excellence which such terms refer to. Else we are flung into the very whirlpool of scepticism. Measured back from infinity it may be infinitesimal, but measured forward from zero, the difference of mental and, partly, of ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell

... the decline of day he bent his solitary way home, emotions and passions to which his life had hitherto been a stranger, and which, alas! he had vainly imagined a life so tranquil would everlastingly restrain, swelled ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... number, and to sell them, to stand the sale of them was his expression, but I must do Dr. Johnson the justice to say, that, that advice was given me with a proviso that no person was in the secret but himself, for on my informing him to the contrary, he declined or seemd to decline the affair of getting them printed for me, which I perceiving sent to him for the manuscript, foolishly entertaining a slight suspicion which I much reproach myself for, that some other motives besides the want of ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of - our Ideas of Beauty, etc. • Frances Reynolds

... enemies with whom to contend, and as a result his later history was one of decline and fall, in which he lost all that he had won and remained for years practically a ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... same with the other two powers. By means of charity, the two other theological virtues, faith and hope, are introduced. Faith so strongly seizes on the understanding, as to make it decline all reasonings, all particular illuminations and illustrations, however sublime. This sufficiently demonstrates how far visions, revelations and ecstasies, differ from this, and hinder the soul from being lost in God. Although by them it appears lost in Him for some ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon

... Christians—a confused pile of men, women, children, and goods. A little boat from the city, in which there are representatives from the two hotels, hovers around us, and cards are thrown to us. The zealous agents wish to supply us immediately with tables, beds, and all other household appliances; but we decline their help until we arrive at the mysterious spot. At last we float off—two lighters full of infected, though respectable, material, towed by oarsmen of most scurvy appearance, but free ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... decline to say more upon this subject until I have your Excellency's answer, which I am persuaded can be dictated only by wisdom. Should your answer not be favorable to my ardent desire, I declare to you that I ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... lament the Expiration of those august and adorable Princes, by whom they were tenderly belov'd and esteemed. This is the usual Vicissitude of Things in this World; and we daily see, that whatever is sublunary must of Necessity decline. Let us leave the Tears to the Heart, ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi

... these days. It was not that he never paid. He did pay something; but as he ordered more than he paid, the sum-total against him was always an increasing figure. But then he was a most engaging, civil-spoken young man, whose order it was almost impossible to decline. It was known, moreover, that his prospects were so good! Nevertheless, it is not pleasant for a breeches-maker to see the second hundred pound accumulating on his books for leather breeches for one gentleman. "What does he do with 'em?" old Neefit ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... Musteazem might be at the audacity which prompted a Frankish king to send ambassadors to the heir of the prophet, he did not venture to decline receiving the message of a prince who so recently had threatened the empire of Egypt with destruction, and might have the power of doing so again. Besides, Musteazem was not in the most celestial humour with the Mamelukes, who seemed inclined to defy his ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar

... jerkily, as his feet pounded on the last decline, "is a chance to argue it out with the men themselves before this Denver feller gets his work in. I'm entitled to talk to 'em. I've got my own card, and am as good a union man as any of 'em. The boys'll be reasonable if they stop ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton

... clergy might now flatter themselves that the Church of England had been effectually secured without any violation of the order of succession. The King and the heir presumptive were nearly of the same age. Both were approaching the decline of life. The King's health was good. It was therefore probable that James, if he came to the throne, would have but a short reign. Beyond his reign there was the gratifying prospect of a long series ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... music, a spiritual thing unfettered by rules, and utterly misunderstood by the world. You cultivate this faculty, regardless of cost; you suffer, and you will suffer more. In proportion as your powers in music grow, so will your health decline. Go to Heliobas; he will do for you what he did for me. Surely you will not hesitate? Between years of weak invalidism and perfect health, in less than a fortnight, there can be no ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... Charles, like the advocates of other malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is produced, generally decline all controversy about facts, and content themselves with calling testimony ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... hypocritical refinements of diplomatic craft? Are not such conditions, with the luxurious licentiousness so natural thereto, combined with the stolid indifference and poverty of the masses, most potent factors in the decline ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... Burton was struck down with the prevailing epidemic of influenza; and though she rallied a little after a month or two, she never recovered. She was no longer able to walk up and down stairs without assistance, or even across the room. Her decline set in rapidly after this illness; for the influenza gave a fresh impetus to her internal malady, which she knew must be fatal to her sooner or later. She remained in Baker Street a sad invalid the first six months of the year, and then she ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... friend was pertinent and edifying, at times close and searching; in the exercise of her gift, she travelled at different intervals in several of the English counties. In the summer of 1848 her health began to decline; her demeanour under pain and suffering evinced her humble dependence upon the Lord, and the language of her soul was, "not my will, but thine, oh Father, be done!" Some alleviation was permitted, and she so far recovered as to be able ...
— The Annual Monitor for 1851 • Anonymous

... period of his life, feeling his bodily strength decline, he was anxiously desirous that no service required of him should be omitted. His zeal increased with his years, and he became more abundant in labor for the promotion of the Christian cause. In a memorandum made about a year before his death, he writes, "This day I attained the seventieth year ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley

... through her jealous misconception of his relation to Vanessa, and that it was the sense of his own weakness, which admitted of no explanation tolerable to an injured woman, and entailed upon a brief folly all the consequences of guilt, that more than all else darkened his lonely decline with unavailing regrets and embittered it with remorseful self-contempt. Nothing could be more galling to a proud man than the feeling that he had been betrayed by his vanity. It is commonly assumed that pride is incompatible with its weaker congener. But pride, after all, is nothing more than ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... possession of the whole district between the Alps, the Rhine, and the Baltic, which formed their limits at the period when they first came into contact with the Roman power. The Goths, living in closest proximity to the empire, fell upon it during the decline and decay of Rome, settled in Italy, Gaul, and Spain, and becoming absorbed in the mass of the native population, disappear altogether from history as a distinguishable nationality. But the High and Low Germans retain to the present day their distinctive language and features; and the latter branch, ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen

... appraisement that was satisfactory to anybody and, what was more, as the years went by the local governments found their assessed values decreasing and the burden of government materially increasing with the decline in amount of standing timber. The annual taxation of the land upon which the timber stands meets this difficulty, while the taxation of the product at the time of harvesting provides a plan that is fair both to the local government and to the owner ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen

... was in his movements, hardly had he made a dozen sliding steps down the decline, the action of the whole scene being almost instantaneous, when he felt, rather than saw, some one else glide swiftly past him still more expeditiously; and then, there was another heavy plunge in the water below, where Bob and Rover were ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... artists, financiers, soldiers, and other representative classes. The method adopted for discovering the qualities in question is to consider groups of individuals, and to compare the qualities that distinguish such groups as flourish or prosper from others of the same kind that decline or decay. This method has the advantage of giving results more free from the possibility of bias than those derived ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... their more modern style of living, they do not require so many baskets, and the industry of making them is fast on the decline. Some of the old women, however, still continue to make such as are required for their own use, and a ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark

... been lost, and even its name is gone. A proof of the decline into which the present Filipinos have fallen is the comparison of the weapons that they manufacture now, with those described to us by the historians. The hilts of the talibones now are not of gold or ivory, nor are their ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair

... socialist-oriented economy depends primarily upon revenues from the oil sector, which contributes practically all export earnings and about one-third of GDP. Since 1980, however, the sharp drop in oil prices and the resulting decline in export revenues have adversely affected economic development. In 1988 per capita GDP was the highest in Africa at $5,410, but GDP growth rates have slowed and fluctuate sharply in response to changes in the world oil market. Import restrictions and inefficient ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... all occidental Russia, thus ravaged by interminable wars, desolated by famine and by flame, was rapidly on the decline, and was fast lapsing into barbarism. Davidovitch had hardly ascended the throne ere he was driven from it by Rostislaf, whom Georges had dethroned. But the remote province of Souzdal, of which Moscow was the capital, ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... assaults of the Norwegian and Danish rovers by whom those seas were infested, and by them it was repeatedly pillaged, its dwellings burned, and its peaceful inhabitants put to the sword. These unfavorable circumstances led to its gradual decline, which was expedited by the subversion of the Culdees throughout Scotland. Under the reign of Popery the island became the seat of a nunnery, the ruins of which are still seen. At the Reformation, the nuns were allowed ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... slaying of a seven-headed giant (F5), and the removal of an enormous decaying fish (F3). The diminutive hero receives the hand of the king's daughter in return for this last service,—an honor which the heroes of our other versions decline. The incident of the small hero being swallowed by an animal and ultimately emerging into the light of day alive, at once suggests Tom Thumb's adventure in the cow and the wolf. For "swallow" tales in general, see Macculloch, 47-51; ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... the Xanthorrea affords an inexhaustible supply of fragrant grubs, which an epicure would delight in, when once he has so far conquered his prejudices as to taste them; whilst in proceeding to the northward, these trees decline in health and growth, until about the parallel of Gantheaume Bay they totally disappear, and even a native finds himself cut off from his ordinary supplies of insects; the same circumstances taking place with regard to the roots and other kinds of ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... battle bravely—and, when the day was done, Full many a corse lay ghastly pale, beneath the setting sun. And midst the dead and dying, were some grown old in wars,— The death-wound on their gallant breasts, the last of many scars! But some were young,—and suddenly beheld life's morn decline,— And one there came from ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... and pagan opposition. Vast numbers who had professed membership and many who had been officers in the ministry deserted the Church; while a few were stimulated to greater zeal under the scourge of persecution. The general effect of opposition from the outside—of external causes of decline in faith and works considered as a whole—was the defection of individuals, resulting in a widespread apostasy from the Church. But immeasurably more serious was the result of internal dissension, schism and disruption, whereby ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... chance, come upon something which excited my curiosity, and made me anxious to know something more. I have had no deeper feeling than curiosity; and if you think that my search will make me an enemy of your father, I hereby give up the search, and decline to pursue it any farther. In fact, I'll fall back upon my old name and rank, and become plain ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille

... however favourable our international relations. We shall soon, therefore, be faced by the question, whether we wish to surrender the coming generations to foreign countries, as formerly in the hour of our decline, or whether we wish to take steps to find them a home in our own German colonies, and so retain them for the fatherland. There is no possible doubt how this question must be answered. If the unfortunate ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi

... have no interest in the affair I come about. I may appear officious; and if I thought I should, I would decline any concern in it, after I have ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... was prodigal of smiles and civilities. Alas! no one was found any longer to cut it voluntarily. The new comers seemed to decline the honor. The "old favorites" reappeared one by one like dethroned princes who have been replaced for a brief spell in power. Then, the chosen ones became few, very few. For a month (O, prodigy!) M. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... The decline of Spain as a great power was largely due to the unsuccessful attempt to coerce the Dutch people. Out of the struggle arose the Republic of the United Provinces, and Holland, won from the sea, and almost an amphibious state, became in ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... regard to statements made by her on a different occasion, and which were rather different from the statements she made here: did she make any different statement to you at any time from what she made here yesterday?-Unless compelled, I would decline to say anything that would criminate myself or her; but give it as my opinion generally that the witnesses, without naming any of them, gave a statement which I won't call untruthful, but which I say was not at statement in accordance with ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... Cologne, Augsburg, and Nuremberg. The splendour of these edifices and the munificence of their wealthy inhabitants could only be equalled in the maritime regions of Italy. But in the fifteenth century the power of the League began to decline. The Russian towns, under the leadership of Novgorod the Great, commenced a crusade against the Hanse Towns' monopoly in that country. The general rising in England, which was one of the great warehouses, ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... books dealt with this parallelism, they exercised a charm over Lord Cramer's imagination which may sometimes have led him a little astray about their positive value. I recall a moment when he was completely under the sway of M. Ferrero's Greatness and Decline of Rome, largely because of the pertinacity with which the Italian historian compares Roman institutions with modern social arrangements. It was interesting to the great retired proconsul to discover that Augustus "considered that in the majority of cases subject peoples had ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... which, had it hit his eye, had put it out. This a while troubled us, but not proving very bad, we to our business consulting what to do; at last resolved, and I to Mr. Coventry, and there had his most friendly and ingenuous advice, advising me not to decline the thing, it being that that will bring me to be known to great persons, while now I am buried among three or four of us, says he, in the Navy; but do not make a declared opposition to my Lord FitzHarding. Thence I to Creed, and walked talking in the Park an hour with ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... them, but he was very rarely feed himself. It so happened that nobody consulted us, and the unavoidable consumption of the family infected my master's pocket, and his little resources were in a rapid decline. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 400, November 21, 1829 • Various

... serve his country with manifest advantage to her interests. At this juncture the offer of the King was renewed. It came now just at the right time, and the young statesman was found as ready to accept as he had before been prompt to decline. Mr. Pitt became the Prime-Minister of George III., and henceforth his history is blended with the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... squander, misspend, fritter away, dissipate, dawdle; desolate, devastate, despoil, sack, pillage, ravage, strip; decline, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... as the germ of it, presents a field for the very highest academic ambition? To my mind it appears that existing types of university have reached a point where further development in the same direction would mean decline. In English universities the ideal is 'scholarship.' Scholarship is a good thing, and we produce it. But the system which turns out a few good scholars every year passes over the heads of the great mass of university students without having awakened ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner

... deposits (copper, gold, bauxite) are small. The ongoing conflict with Azerbaijan over the ethnic Armenian-dominated region of Nagorno-Karabakh and the breakup of the centrally directed economic system of the former Soviet Union contributed to a severe economic decline in the early 1990s. By 1994, however, the Armenian Government had launched an ambitious IMF-sponsored economic liberalization program that resulted in positive growth rates in 1995-2006. Armenia joined the WTO in January 2003. Armenia also has managed to ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... is the man who never steps outside of his specialty or dissipates his individuality. It is an Edison, a Morse, a Bell, a Howe, a Stephenson, a Watt. It is Adam Smith, spending ten years on the "Wealth of Nations." It is Gibbon, giving twenty years to his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." It is a Hume, writing thirteen hours a day on his "History of England." It is a Webster, spending thirty-six years on his dictionary. It is a Bancroft, working twenty-six years on his "History of the United States." It is a Field, crossing the ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... decline, then?" said Mrs. Belding, easily persuaded of the substantial truth of the story, and naturally inclined, as is the way of woman, to the man's side. Then, laughing at Arthur's discomfiture, she added, "I was ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... period here treated extends only to the end of 1810. These years witnessed the beginning of the movement and the first period of considerable activity in this field. During the years immediately following 1810 there was a decline in the German literary influence in the ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... provinces or from other lands; the next floor had been divided into a succession of private rooms, comfortably furnished, where, screened behind thick curtains, dined somewhat "irregular" patrons: lovers who were in either the dawn, the zenith, or the decline of their often ephemeral fancies. On the top floor, spacious salons, richly decorated, were used for large and elaborate receptions of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... to the influence of the works and the fame of Petrarch. It cannot, however, be doubted that they have arisen, in a great measure, from a neglect of the style of Dante. This is not more proved by the decline of Italian poetry than by its resuscitation. After the lapse of four hundred and fifty years, there appeared a man capable of appreciating and imitating the father of Tuscan literature—Vittorio Alfieri. Like the prince in the nursery tale, he sought and found the sleeping ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... unusual to decline an invitation from the President, Mollie," Mr. Hamlin continued. "Only a death in the family is regarded as a reasonable excuse. Now the President most distinctly stated that he desired a visit from ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane

... to trust in appearances, and that he has no servant more faithful than I. The Cardinal is on the decline, and my conscience tells me to warn against his faults him who may inherit the royal power during the minority. To give your great Prince a proof of my faith, tell him that it is intended to arrest his friend, Puy-Laurens, and that he had better be kept out of the ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny

... the child went down the steps, a gentleman ascended them, and made his entrance into the shop. It was the portly, and, had it possessed the advantage of a little more height, would have been the stately figure of a man, considerably in the decline of life, dressed in a black suit of some thin stuff, resembling broadcloth ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... said to his father, "why I decline to break a crust with you. I must go and help uncover this wicked deed. The rewards are great"—he smiled blandly—"and I should like to win one of them at least—the first one, for I have seen the girl ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... fall of the Spanish Empire does not challenge the imagination like the decline and fall of that other Empire with which alone it can be compared, possibly because no Gibbon has chronicled its greatness. Yet its dissolution affected profoundly the history of three continents. While the Floridas were slipping from the grasp of Spain, the provinces to ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... for hoarding jewels, has disappeared in the night, carrying her jewels with her. A hand, identified as hers, because of the rings on it, was found on the beach next day. On those grounds, practically, we are asked to say that she is dead. I can only say that I decline to come to any such conclusion, and furthermore, I am quite satisfied that if Sir Matthew Hale were sitting on this bench to-day he would be in favour of quashing ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward

... Doric order The Parthenon The Ionic order The Corinthian order Roman architecture The arch Vitruvius Greek sculpture Phidias Statue of Zeus Praxiteles Scopas Lysippus Roman sculpture Greek painters Polygnotus Apollodorus Zeuxis Parrhasius Apelles The decline of art Authorities ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord

... sufficiently for recognition beyond doubt; that accomplished, it was short shrift. He was lifted into the boat by the tail, the triangles came out easily under the knife, and off went a well-mended fish of about 13 lb. That is to say, I call him a fish; the boatmen decline to render even this nominal honour, and I appear in the returns of yesterday as having killed one fish, whereas I had ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... conquering inflow from Central Asia in the first century of our era that Kanishka, the greatest of a new dynasty which had set itself up at Purushpura, situated close to the modern Peshawar, shed a transient gleam of glory over the decline of Buddhism and even restored it to the position of a state religion. But it was a Buddhism already far removed from the purity of Asoka's reign. The most striking feature of this short-lived revival is the artistic inspiration which it derived from ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... was like the explosion of a bomb-shell in the household when a letter came from Virginia. Sometimes I used to read and suppress them: they were filled with shrieks and lamentations. Harry was in a rapid decline; the mental torture was more than she could bear; some one must come immediately out to her, etc. The first winter my eldest brother went, to the serious injury of his business: he is a lawyer. I went when they were in Europe, my wound not yet healed. By George! Harry ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... "That I decline to say," Ronald answered. "It seems to me that any one may be in a house by the consent of its owners, without having to ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... there still are in great numbers; to these you shall do the sacred rites: but these, under a Saladin bound by his word, need little protection by the sword. And as for Crusading in the armed fashion, that has fallen visibly into the decline. After Barbarossa, Coeur-de-Lion and Philippe Auguste have tried it with such failure, what wise man will be in haste to try it again? Zealous Popes continue to stir up Crusades; but the Secular Powers are not in earnest as formerly; Secular Powers, when they do go, "take Constantinople," ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle

... submits to such a line of action, all tone and pride must have departed; but the navy only shared in the general decline which made Spain henceforward have an ever lessening weight in the ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... dynasties; have seen men like Wagner emerge from northern mists and die in the full glory of a reverberating sunset. And I have also remarked that this same Richard the Actor touched his apogee fifteen years ago and more. Already signs are not wanting which show that Wagner and Wagnerism is on the decline. As Swinburne said of Walt Whitman: "A reformer—but not founder." This holds good of Wagner, who closed a period and did not begin a new one. In a word, Wagner was a theater musician, one cursed by a craze for public applause—and shekels—and ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... of these were the true solution of the difficulty or not, Kearney's popularity was on the decline at the moment when this unfortunate narrative of the attack on his castle aroused the whole county and excited their feelings against him. Mr. McGloin took every step of his proceeding with due measure and caution: and having secured a certain number of promises of attendance at the meeting, ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... him in his dark scheme. Yudhishthir with all his piety and righteousness had one weakness, the love of gambling, which was one of the besetting sins of the monarchs of the day. Sakuni was an expert at false dice, and challenged Yudhishthir, and Yudhishthir held it a point of honour not to decline ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous

... was going to decline to be a member of the Campfire and beg them all not to mention it to me any more, and try not to worry over me but to just forget about me, something so horrible came over the wall, in the shape of the news that Mr. Douglass Byrd brought, that I and they forgot all about the ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess

... 2, 1864. "My Dear Sir:—Some days since I informed the secretary of the state central committee that I would, as far as possible, fill the appointments which ill-health had obliged Gov. Tod to decline. Seeing afterwards, however, that he had determined to meet them himself, I acceded to requests from other quarters to given them what help I could. The first intimation I had that he would fail in any of them was your letter, put into my hands just as I was leaving Cincinnati for New ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... returned to all invitations to evening entertainments, large or small. Mr. Ridley very well understood why his wife, who was social and naturally fond of company, was so prompt to decline. He knew that the excuse, "We are not able to give parties in return," was not really the true one. He knew that she feared the temptation that would come to him, and he was by no means insensible ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur

... to many other tribes, but even if they had not been greatly superior, their surroundings would probably have made them stand relatively high in the scale of civilization. Southward from the Haidas, around Puget Sound and in Washington and Oregon, there was a gradual decline in civilization. The Chinook Indians of the lower Columbia, beyond the limits of the great northern archipelago, had large communal houses occupied by three or four families of twenty or more individuals. Their villages were thus fairly permanent, although ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington

... Lord love you, no! I decline to mix myself up in the matter at all. Dick's a grown man and Mrs. ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason

... well! since you're an author and insist, I will be ready, in an hour, to decline ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... Why am I alive? What's the use? [Jumps up] Well now, tell me why am I alive? What's the purpose of this uninterrupted series of mental and physical sufferings? I understand being a martyr to an idea, yes! But to be a martyr to the devil knows what, skirts and lamp-globes, no! I humbly decline! No, no, no! ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov

... relinquishing this flattering distinction, and humble himself under the mighty hand of God. But at length the time came when this once dreaded chieftain must lose his influence. His bodily vigour began to decline, and he saw and feared an enemy in every one of those whose relations he had murdered. He began to grow poor, and his numerous wives either deserted him or were carried away by force; of the whole number one only clave to him in his adversity. Amid this extraordinary change ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous

... after all that has occurred. As the Countess is with you only a friend of late date, you are probably unaware of the former friendship which existed between us. There was a time in which I certainly did not think that Lady Lovel would ever decline to speak to me about her daughter. But all this is nothing ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... his nook At morning by the lilied brook, And all the noon his rod he plied By that romantic riverside. Soon as the evening hours decline Tranquilly he'll return to dine, And, breathing forth a pious wish, Will cram his belly full ...
— Moral Emblems • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the few beneficent spirits they never hurt any one, simply supply the bereaved women with comfort in the shape of food, for the temporary loss of their male relatives. Should an uninitiate have a wife, which of course is improper, the Kumbuy decline to recognise her; and should she presume to answer their spirit back, they make in token of displeasure a thudding noise as if earth were being violently banged with a yam stick. She has encroached on the Kumbuy preserves, for prior to his initiation a man should ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker

... would never present any woman with such diamonds; but I deserve them for my wonderful acting. This poor count is convinced that I am the noblest, most unselfish, and most loving of women. How well conceived, how wise it was to decline his first gift! I knew that he would replace it with something more costly and elegant, hoping to move me to change my resolution. How my heart bounded with delight when he drew forth this great case! I could scarcely withhold ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... Then, to crown all, Captain Polkington had a fit of virtue and repentance on the second day after his return. It was not of long duration, and was, no doubt, partly physical, and not unconnected with the effects of his decline from the paths of temperance. But while it lasted, he read some of the bills and talked about the way ruin stared him in the face and the need there was for retrenchment, turning over a new leaf, facing facts and kindred things. Also, which was more important, ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... criticism, one is generally thinking of prose. But, when we speak of Arnold's criticism, it is necessary to widen the scope of one's observation; for he was never more essentially the critic than when he concealed the true character of his method in the guise of poetry. Even if we decline to accept his strange judgment that all poetry "is at bottom a criticism of life," still we must perceive that, as a matter of fact, many of his own poems are as essentially critical as his Essays ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell

... incomprehensible to men who shall live in the light of sounder opinion than prevailed at the beginning of this century. A soldier, it was reasonable that Hamilton should feel very differently on the point of honor from a mere civilian, and that he should not have felt himself at liberty to decline Burr's challenge. He believed that his ability to be useful thereafter in public life would be greatly lessened, should he not fight. In the paper he drew up, giving his reasons for the course he pursued, he says,—"The ability to be in future useful, whether in resisting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... bitterly, and perhaps even sincerely; for being unable to foresee, at that period, all that was to befall her in the issue, she probably entertained the hope of attaching herself for good to this excellent princess. In losing her, she foresaw, or feared, if not adversity, at least a decline. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... Romans. We can trace the growth of the epic from its infancy in the third century before Christ as it develops in strength in the poems of Naevius, Ennius, and Cicero until it reaches its full stature in the AEneid, and then we can see the decline of its vigor in the Pharsalia, the Punica, the Thebais, and Achilleis, until it practically dies a natural death in the mythological and historical poems of Claudian. The way also in which tragedy, comedy, ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott

... the flavor would become grateful. They would learn to think of it, ask for it, contrive ways of obtaining it, and be very accessible to the snares of those who used it to excess. Thus easily would they slide into the pit. And thus the history of the decline, and fall, and death of multitudes must commence, not at the dram-shop, but at the tables of parents; not with describing the influence of seductive companions, but with a lamentation over the examples of inconsiderate parents, who furnished those companions with their strongest argument, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... one among the numerous causes of the decline of the district. The contract for it was held for a year and half, in A.D. 1847-48, by Ahmed Allee. Feeling insecure in his tenure of office, he wanted to make as much as possible out of things as they were, and resumed Guhooa, a small rent-free village, yielding four hundred rupees a-year, ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... go to the treasury, and Prince Kaid has refused. Why should he decline help from his friend?" Suddenly Lacey changed his tactics. He had caught a look in Nahoum's eyes which gave him a new thought. "Well, if you've any proposition, pasha, I'll take it to him. I'll be ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... leisure requires an occupation. Having nothing better to do, she sets up partitions; she divides a tunnel into cells that will remain empty; she closes with a thick plug reeds containing nothing. Thus is the modicum of strength of her decline exhausted in vain labours. The other Builder-bees behave likewise. I see Anthidia laboriously provide numerous bales of cotton to stop galleries wherein never an egg was laid; I see Mason-bees build and then religiously close cells that ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... and political rights must have in reserve abundant means of subsistence, and beyond this, rugged manhood. If he is going to defend himself in the possession of anything which another covets, he must be prepared to fight down the whole decline from civilization ...
— A Comparative Study of the Negro Problem - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 4 • Charles C. Cook

... authority, whom they were afterward obliged to abandon In 1771, they published a pamphlet entitled, A short Abstract of their Principles and Designs. In this they cunningly evade the acknowledgment of our Confession of Faith and Catechisms, decline to own the doctrine of the holy Trinity in unity, and do professedly adopt and avow the hypothesis of the famous modern Socinian, Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, anent the person of Christ. According to which he is no more than "a glorious being, truly ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery

... fifty. The sale of such a gigantic tusk, as may well be supposed, is considered an affair of almost national importance, and the bargain can only be adjusted through the medium of a "big palaver." The trade in ivory is now on the decline; the demand in England and France not being so great as formerly, and America never having presented a good market for ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... together majestically. "This is too gross!" she cried. "We decline to accept your story, sir—we repudiate it. Urbain, open the door." She turned away, with an imperious motion to her son, and passed rapidly down the length of the room. The marquis went with her and held the door open. ...
— The American • Henry James

... is a task which I should very willingly decline, since it has been lately written by Goldsmith, a man of such variety of powers, and such felicity of performance, that he always seemed to do best that which he was doing; a man who had the art of being ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson

... only one, but on that was the figure of the saint for whom the child was named. Sometimes this rudely molded little figure represented the patron saint of the sponsor or the donor. In 1666 the custom was on the decline. ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase

... bank, which, it would seem, Nature had created for the convenience of lovers. The softest moss, and the brightest flowers decked its elastic and fragrant side. A spreading beech tree shaded their heads from the sun, which now was on the decline; and occasionally its wide branches rustled with the soft breeze that passed over them in renovating and gentle gusts. The woods widened before them, and at the termination of a well-contrived avenue, they caught the roofs of the village and the tall grey tower ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... His own house and premises were now so strongly secured, and his apprehension of nocturnal attacks so strongly justified by the threats he had already received, and the disorganized state of the country around him, that he was forced to decline receiving the tithe at unseasonable hours; it being impossible for him to know whether the offer of payment might not have been a plan of the people to get into his dwelling, and wreak their vengeance ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... "I decline to rest assured of anything of the kind," asserted Audrey with determination. "Don't be such a fool, Garth—or so unfair to your friends. Just because you chance to have met a women who, for some reason, chooses to cut you, doesn't alter our friendship for you in the ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... the ammonium nitrate facility owner with respect to such a purchase or transfer or attempted purchase or transfer, including— (i) exercising the right of the owner of the ammonium nitrate facility to decline sale of ammonium nitrate; and (ii) notifying appropriate law enforcement entities; and (C) additional subjects determined appropriate to prevent the misappropriation or use of ammonium nitrate in an act of terrorism. (2) Use of materials and programs.—In providing ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives

... to "decline with thanks," and others to enter in a book and send up to the composing-room; there were some letters to write and others to answer; there were reporters' notes to string together and telegrams to transcribe. And all the while a dropping fire of proofs ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... before midnight to-night nothing can be done for sometime. We have the Germans fixed. They will do what they have thus far agreed to do, but if any technical hitch arises, such as a failure to sign within the time-limit, they will decline to renew negotiations. That was all we could get from them, but it ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin

... description of my ideals. He knows what they have been and what they still are. So far as they touch on this case, absolute loyalty and truth are the ones paramount. Tell him that I have studied my own heart as well as one can, and I know its weakness as well as I do its needs. That is why I decline to hear his pleas, whatever they may be. I did not condemn him through hearsay or doubtful evidence, and that is why I made no charge. But, since he persists in hearing what he already well knows, you may ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry

... good may be done by such broth, taken in sufficient quantity at the beginning and decline of bowel complaints and fevers; half a pint taken at a time. See the last two pages of the 7th chapter ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... only an implanted dogma. Nature and the child's pugnacity at times revolted. A cad from the Potterrow once struck him in the mouth; he struck back, the pair fought it out in the back stable lane towards the Meadows, and Archie returned with a considerable decline in the number of his front teeth, and unregenerately boasting of the losses of the foe. It was a sore day for Mrs. Weir; she wept and prayed over the infant backslider until my lord was due from Court, and she must resume that air of tremulous composure with which she always greeted him. The ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... should see somewhat, which he expressed by crossing his fingers, and the Portuguese instantly conceived that he meant to express a cross. Just as our people were putting off, the horsemen in the European dress came up, but the officer not having his commission about him, thought it best to decline a conference. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... him under no cloud in so far as social opportunities were concerned; on the contrary, he found himself being showered with invitations, most of which he managed to decline on the grounds of pressure of business. When such an excuse would have been too transparent he accepted and made the best of it, and he found no lack of encouragement in the one or two incipient amorous flurries which resulted. From such positions he always succeeded in extricating himself, ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... by our masters to speak a few words concerning the departed, before this so distinguished and highly esteemed assembly, I might surely have ventured to decline to do so, in the conviction that not a fleeting hour, not loose notes superficially jotted down, but whole years, and even several well weighed and well ordered volumes are requisite worthily to celebrate his ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... thus demanded by the ascendant Girondist party broke out in April, 1792. Their enemies, the extreme radical party called "Jacobins," had opposed the war, and when the campaign opened in disaster the beginning of their ascendancy and the Girondin decline had appeared. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... than the stage ever produced in its most prolific days of vice; and it is deplorable to reflect that the former is rapidly increasing, while the vitiation of the latter has been for a century on the decline. The licentiousness of the stage in the reign of Charles II was enormous: but it was a licentiousness which the theatre in common with the whole nation derived from the court, and from a most flagitious monarch whose ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... causes, which then weakens or render useless, the action of the former. It is impossible that the best arguments should be adopted by men, who are interested in error, prejudiced in its favour, and who decline all reflection; but truth must necessarily undeceive honest minds, who seek her sincerely. Truth is a cause; it necessarily produces its effects, when its impulse is not intercepted by causes, ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... was right, for when Mark and his mother joined their guests and learned that Aunt Betsy's intention was unchanged, he suggested the ride and offered the use of their carriage. Helen did not decline the offer, and ere half an hour had passed, Aunt Betsy, with her satchel, umbrella and capbox, was comfortably adjusted in Mrs. Banker's carriage with Helen beside her, while Mark bade his coachman drive wherever Miss Lennox wished to go, taking ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... Dudley Venner was stronger in thought and tenderer in soul than in the first freshness of his youth, when he counted but half his present years. He was now on the verge of that decade which marks the decline of men who have ceased growing in knowledge and strength: from forty to fifty a man must move upward, or the natural falling off in the vigor of life will carry him rapidly downward. At the entrance of this decade his inward nature was richer and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... the department of the Yonne. As soon as I was informed of my nomination I waited on M. de Talleyrand for my instructions, but he told me that, in conformity with the King's intentions, I was to receive my orders from the Minister of Police. I observed to M. de Talleyrand that I must decline seeing Fouche, on account of the situation in which we stood with reference to each other. "Go to him, go to him," said M. de Talleyrand, "and be assured Fouche will say to you ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... quadrille, and a beautiful partner was even presented to his notice; but he wanted confidence and knowledge, and he had no faith in the integrity of the gaiter shoes he had vamped up for the occasion, so that he was forced to decline. This incident revived some of his morbid feelings that had begun to slumber, and he caught himself muttering something about the "frivolities ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... reminded several times to order new clothes for the ceremony,—a visit to his tailor being one of the things he most disliked,—and being indisposed to give a thought to the fit, he used to decline all responsibility in the matter by making me a judge of it. His fancy had been once tickled by hearing a market-woman say that, though she did not know my name, she identified me as "la petite Dame difficile," and he called me so when I found ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... not, without Vizard's consent; and, more than that, the conversation seems to me to be taking the turn of casting blame and ridicule and I don't know what on the best-hearted, kindest-hearted, truest-hearted, noblest, and manliest man I know. I decline to take ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... to be done with it. I shall look out for something permanent and decline joint-stock companies. I thought you would like to know. But that is the last word I shall say about business. Come, Nell, I have only one day; let's spend ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... comfortably for aught I see as peace, quietness, and the certainty of a good dinner every day can make them. Just so much happier than as many old maids who inhabit Milman Street and Chapel Row, as they are sure not to be robbed by a treacherous, or insulted by a favoured, servant in the decline of life, when protection is grown hopeless and resistance vain; and as they enjoy at least a moral certainty of never living worse than they do to-day: while the little knot of unmarried females turned fifty round Red Lion Square may always ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... meditating, without having any capacity for thinking; and in such men a particular notion easily fixes itself fast, which may be regarded as a mental disease. To such a fixed view he always came back again, and was thus in the long run excessively tiresome. He would bitterly complain of the decline of his memory, especially with regard to the latest events, and maintained, by a logic of his own, that all virtue springs from a good memory, and all vice, on the contrary, from forgetfulness. This doctrine he contrived to carry out with much acuteness; as, indeed, any thing may be maintained ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... gold be to me? I have no one to whom either to give it or leave it. I have no longer a country. The woods and prairies are my home, and gold would be of no service to me there. I thank you, young friend, for your offer, but I must decline to ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... which is the seeming arrest of everything, and the ruin and hateful transformation of the visible body, lies in wait for him outwardly in a thousand accidents, and grows up in secret diseases from within. He is still learning to be a man when his faculties are already beginning to decline; he has not yet understood himself or his position before he inevitably dies. And yet this mad, chimerical creature can take no thought of his last end, lives as though he were eternal, plunges with his vulnerable body into the shock of war, and ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... became aware of it only by degrees. I introduce what I have to say with this remark, by way of accounting for the character of this remaining portion of my narrative. A death-bed has scarcely a history; it is a tedious decline, with seasons of rallying and seasons of falling back; and since the end is foreseen, or what is called a matter of time, it has little interest for the reader, especially if he has a kind heart. Moreover, it is a season when doors are closed and curtains drawn, and when the sick ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... into another river, and the inhabitants of the neighbourhood obtain thence abundance of precious stones. Yet they never venture to sell them without having first offered them to us for our private use: should we decline them, they are at liberty to dispose of them to strangers. Boys there are trained to remain three or four days under ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... one wing only, and the disposition of the enemy made it necessary that it should be the left wing. The very instant the battle was going to begin, his majesty ordered the general who commanded the right wing to decline engaging, to take a proper position in consequence thereof, and, above all, to prevent his being surrounded. All the cavalry of the right wing of the Prussians, except two or three squadrons, had already marched to the left at ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... upon this inference, as the history of what befel this country after the decline of the Roman empire is so intimately blended with that of Suabia, the Tyrolese, and the lower parts of the Grisons, which are known to have fallen to the share of the rising power of the Franks, that nothing positive can be drawn ...
— Account of the Romansh Language - In a Letter to Sir John Pringle, Bart. P. R. S. • Joseph Planta, Esq. F. R. S.

... Gambian dalasi (currency) have drawn some of the reexport trade away from Banjul. The government's 1998 seizure of the private peanut firm Alimenta eliminated the largest purchaser of Gambian groundnuts; the following two marketing seasons have seen substantially lower prices and sales. A decline in tourism in 2000 has also held back growth. Unemployment and underemployment rates are extremely high. Shortrun economic progress remains highly dependent on sustained bilateral and multilateral aid, on responsible government economic management ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... help him to his feet again. Memories such as these, however, cannot blind us to the essential worth in the character of the great historian. In the light of his consecration to a worthy purpose his life is not without its heroism. To write The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a monumental achievement. To bend every energy to the fulfilling of a high resolve is heroic. From 1764 to 1787 his one aim in life was to write a scholarly history that should cover the vast field that he had chosen. He may lack that spiritual insight ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... heart of flesh and the spread of vital religion. God the Spirit has actually been absent, so far as concerns his special and peculiar agency, and hence the continuance of the heart of stone, and the decline, and sometimes the extinction of vital religion. Where the Holy Spirit has been, specially and peculiarly, there the true Church of Christ has been, and where the Holy Spirit has not been, specially and peculiarly, there, the Church of Christ has not been; however carefully, ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... the upholders of the former and more popular system mix up revelation with scientific discussion—which we decline to do—they by no means thereby render their view other than hypothetical. Agreeing that plants and animals were produced by Omnipotent fiat does not exclude the idea of natural order and what we call secondary ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... figures, tore down its statues—sometimes because of their crown; lastly, changing fashion, even more grotesque and absurd, from the anarchic and splendid deviations of the Renaissance down to the necessary decline of architecture. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... morning. The battalion had to charge down the hill in the face of heavy machine-gun fire. Some tanks were standing by the farm and one of the officers offered to take me with him in the machine, but as it was to go into the 2nd Divisional area I had to decline the invitation and follow up our men on foot. I passed a number of German wounded. One of them, a young lad, was terribly alarmed when he saw me approaching, thinking I was going to murder him. He held up his hands and shouted, "Kamarad!" ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... be interested to learn the occasion of this reprimand. The concluding portion invests it with a somewhat general character, and may be interpreted as pointing to a lamentable decline from a previous high standard of piety and learning, which only incessant preaching was calculated to rectify. Neglecting this postscript, it is pretty evident that the scandal arising from the observance of vigils was produced by the inconsiderate carousals of craftsmen ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... vast tracts of country that were formerly inhabited by powerful Indian nations which are now extinct; I have myself passed some time in the midst of mutilated tribes, which witness the daily decline of their numerical strength and of the glory of their independence; and I have heard these Indians themselves anticipate the impending doom of their race. Every European can perceive means which would rescue these unfortunate beings ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... season may life's decline come o'er me; Past is manhood's summer, the frosty months are here; Yet be genial airs and a pleasant sunshine left me, Leaf, and fruit, and blossom, to mark ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... health and strength and cooing fond words in my rapacious ear the while I reflected on the noble endowments of a nature that heretofore had been commonplace and meek. But, no! None of these things happened and I decline to perjure myself for the privilege of getting into the list of "six ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... Gonzaga's wedding, and afterwards with his sister the Duchess Elizabeth at Urbino. After his return to Mantua he fell ill, and when he recovered it was already late in August, and Isabella was compelled very reluctantly to decline Lodovico Sforza's pressing invitations. Money was scarce at the court of Mantua, and the expenses of a journey to Milan were heavy. So she contented herself with going to see her mother that autumn at Ferrara, and put ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright

... grenadiers, with caps of prodigious height, and heavy-armed cuirassiers, were seen riding upon lean cows, which certainly did not cut many capers. It was wonderful that the animals shewed no disposition to decline the singular honour. Their knapsacks were fastened to the horns, so that you were puzzled to make out what kind of a monstrous creature was approaching. Carbineers, with cuirasses and helmets polished like ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)

... man, his greater devotion to the children and to his wife. The increase in divorce has its roots in social issues too big to be discussed with profit here, but perhaps the principal item is the emancipation of woman who is now freer to decline unsatisfactory relations ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... he whose verging years decline As deep into the vale as mine When he inhales the vintage cup His feet new winged from earth spring up And as he dances the fresh air Plays ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... attacked, would the others fly to its succor, and spend their blood and money in its defense? Would there be no danger of their being flattered into neutrality by its specious promises, or seduced by a too great fondness for peace to decline hazarding their tranquillity and present safety for the sake of neighbors, of whom perhaps they have been jealous, and whose importance they are content to see diminished? Although such conduct would not be wise, it would, nevertheless, be natural. The history of the ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... conferred the investiture of the grand principality upon Dmitri of Souzdal, though the appointment was received with great dissatisfaction by the other princes. But now the power of the Tartars was rapidly on the decline. Assassination succeeded assassination, one chieftain after another securing the assassination of his rival and with bloody hands ascending the Mogol throne. The swords of the Mogol warriors were turned against each other, as rival chieftains rallied their followers ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... and ward organization, is more perilous every day and more impotent, and unless we are prepared to see a government de facto of rich business organizers override the government de jure, or to relapse upon a practical oligarchy of officials, an oligarchy that will certainly decline in efficiency in a generation or so, we must set ourselves most earnestly to this problem of improving representative methods. It is in the direction of the substitution of the Jury method for a general poll that the only practicable line ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... wife and myself, with three children, the eldest about nine years old, she and the next in age being girls; and the youngest, between six and seven, a boy. To these were added six servants, whom, although for certain reasons I decline giving their real names, I shall indicate, for the sake of clearness, by arbitrary ones. There was a nurse, Mrs. Southerland; a nursery-maid, Ellen Page; the cook, Mrs. Greenwood; and the housemaid, Ellen Faith; a butler, whom I shall call Smith, and his ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... who gave him life, and who set him up an happier object than a monarch: no, no, Philander; he that can cabal, and contrive to dethrone a father, will find it easy to discard the wicked and hated instruments, that assisted him to mount it; decline him then, oh fond and deluded Philander, decline him early; for you of all the rest ought to do so, and not to set a helping hand to load him with honours, that chose you out from all the world to load with infamy: remember that; remember Myrtilla, and then ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... understanding that the money to pay the bills should be forwarded before they fell due. Competition, it is needless to say, was at the bottom of this insanely reckless system of trading. The native firms laid it down as a rule that they would decline to transact business with any house in the trade which refused to grant them their privilege. In the ease of Turlington's house, the foreign merchants had drawn their bills on him for sums large in the aggregate, if ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins

... administrative bureaus of the government. Fortunately for the country, he failed; and no less fortunately, when, later, the territorial governorship of Oregon was offered to him, Mrs. Lincoln's protest induced him to decline it. Returning to Springfield, he gave himself with renewed zest to his law practice, acquiesced in the Compromise of 1850 with reluctance and a mental reservation, supported in the Presidential campaign of 1852 the Whig candidate ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... guide. Here, then, thought the young and impressionable minister, is the living result of two corroding vices; the man is a sot, but something beside the lust for liquor has helped to make him one. He has followed after sin in the shape of his neighbour's wife, and perhaps the latter's decline may be traced to the working of remorse and the futile longing after a ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... speak to the disadvantage of others, even where there is no formed malice or ill-design. Since therefore it is so hard to enter into this subject without offending, the first thing to be observed is that people should learn to decline it; to get over that strong inclination most have to be talking of the concerns ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler

... proceeded to sing in his best style a song composed, as he said, by himself, but which, as the composition was rather an eccentric one, we decline giving. ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... development is to its discrediting. There is no growth in the idea of god, there is only an attenuation. The gods grow fewer as the race approaches maturity. Their activities cease as man becomes aware of the character of the forces around him. And it may be further noted that this decline of the belief in deity is brought about as much by sheer pressure of experience as by pure reason. The majority of people do not reason themselves out of the belief in god, they outgrow it. People cease to believe ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen

... is obiter dicta. The point is that they know the value of books as a source of power and learning, and they know their limitations, too. So does the public. Public speaking will never decline. It is Nature's method of instruction. You will listen with profit to a speech which you cannot drive ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... Croce because things wouldn't fit; how after the death of that obscure Italian he had leant over the parapet by the Arno and said to her: "I shall want to live, I tell you," He wanted to live now, to win at tennis, to stand for all he was worth in the sun—the sun which had begun to decline and was shining in her eyes; and he ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... my bosom, I need not dwell on the anxiety I feel in being obliged, in this instance, to decline a favor which is rendered no less flattering by the manner in which it is conveyed, than it is affectionate in itself. In explaining this I pass over a comparison of my endeavors in the public service, with the many honorable testimonies of approbation which have already so far ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... exactly press him, but I told him that if he felt he must decline my invitation because he was in love with you, we should naturally have to decline his invitation to Spain for the same reason," responded Tony. "I told him he ought to have known you were only amusing yourself to pay him out, ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage

... that Dr. Harvey drinks?" he murmured. "I thought him pure Son of Temperance. And his my family physician, too! I must look into this matter forthwith. Mrs. Simmons, you still decline slating who is your authority ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous



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