"Powerless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tax-gatherers to the land. In this great cycle of give and take of the elements, the affairs of men cut but a momentary figure; how puny they are, how transient! How the great changes, which in time amount to revolutions, go on over our heads and under our feet, and we rarely heed them, and are powerless to stay them! A summer shower carries the soil of my side-hill, which is mainly disintegrated Silurian rock and shale, into the river, and some millions of years hence, when it has become stratified rock, and been lifted ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... and then appeared on the scene a beautiful young woman, carrying in her harid a necklace of gold and silver beads. Casting but one glance at the beads, the old man flew swifter than the wild sheep of the mountains, for the sight of metal rendered him powerless to ...
— The Cat and the Mouse - A Book of Persian Fairy Tales • Hartwell James
... the General tried to impose silence upon the terrible termagant: but he soon discovered that he was powerless; besides, all his subordinates were laughing. Accordingly he turned his back upon her, and, advancing toward the murderer, he said: "You, at least, will not refuse ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... she groaned; and then, powerless to speak another word, she laid her head upon a chair, while Mr. Carrollton, preferring to be alone, sought the solitude of his own room, where unobserved he could wrestle with his sorrow and conquer his inborn pride, which whispered to him that a Carrollton ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... of Poitiers, who felt much elated at getting the better of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, who of course was powerless against an order issued by the cardinal-duke, took exception to Pere l'Escaye and Pere Gaut, the exorcists appointed by his superior, and named instead his own chaplain, who had been judge at Grandier's first trial, and had passed sentence on him, and Pere Lactance, a Franciscan monk. These two, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... two Vibbard's eyelids, which fell powerless while he listened, remained shut, and a shock of pain seemed to strike downward from the brain, across his face and through his ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... to dig a well, but the spade fell out of our powerless hands. We then lay down and scraped with our hands, but could not do much. Instead we collected all the dry branches we could find and made a blazing fire as a beacon for Islam, and to attract attention from the east, for we knew ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... equally matched—Powers of high civilisation, with elaborate systems of credit and complicated interdependence of trade. But most recent wars have been attacks—defensive attacks, of course—upon small, powerless, and semi-civilised nations by the great Powers. Under the pretext of extending law and order, justice, peace, good government, and the blessings of the Christian faith, a great Power attacks a small and half-organised people with the object of taking up the White Man's Burden, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... mockery, which entirely frustrated his purpose. He dropped the subject; yet from that moment a new life began for the husband and wife. There was no outward sign of the change. Anna continued to meet Vronsky, and Aleksei felt himself powerless to intervene. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Individual shippers are powerless as against strong corporations. Railroads apply to the courts for what they are pleased to term redress, and in the meantime refuse with impunity to accept an official tariff; but the shipper has no protection: he must pay their rates or go out of business. What reason can be assigned ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... powerless to help ourselves. But while we sat there in utter despair, a neighbour rode by and hailed us. He told us that Red Cross committees had started out from Milwaukee and Chicago at first tidings of the fire, with car-loads ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... 'T was no bird he saw before him! 'T was a beautiful young woman, With the arrow in her bosom! "When her blood fell on the planet, 280 On the sacred Star of Evening, Broken was the spell of magic, Powerless was the strange enchantment, And the youth, the fearless bowman, Suddenly felt himself descending, 285 Held by unseen hands, but sinking Downward through the empty spaces, Downward through the clouds and vapors, ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the awful event. Not a word of complaint had she to make because she had not been apprised of his movements; but said repeatedly, that, had she known ever so much of his intentions, she would have been totally powerless in opposing him if she had felt so disposed, and as an illustration of the true character of the man, from his boyhood up to the day he died for his fellow-man, she related his eventful career, and recalled ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Carians and Ionians, who felt themselves disgraced by the defection of their captain, called loudly for them just before the commencement of the action. They were killed immediately in front of the lines, their father being a powerless onlooker; their blood was thrown into a cask half full of wine, and the horrible mixture was drunk by the soldiers, who then furiously charged the enemy's battalions. The issue of the struggle was for a long time doubtful, but the Egyptians were inferior in numbers; towards evening ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... us. It was disgraceful and irritating to know that within two or three leagues of us, the Germans were victorious and insolent, to feel that we were protected by our captivity, and to feel that on that account we were powerless ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... how could you suffer your prejudiced partiality to me to run away with you so extravagantly, as to call me one of the greatest characters of the age? You are too honest to flatter, too much a hermit to be interested, and I am too powerless and insignificant to be an object of court, were you capable of paying it from mercenary views. I know then that it could proceed from nothing but the warmth of your heart; but if you are blind towards me, I am not so to myself. I know not how others feel on such occasions, but ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... leaving you all to nearly famish for bread, would you not remonstrate? Nay, would not feelings of outraged confidence, of soul-anguish, sorrow, and shame coin themselves into bitter chiding words which you would be powerless to repress? ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... way. They make the laws, settle questions of trade and commerce, decide really on peace and war, and, in a word, hold the whole control, while the nominal sovereign takes rides in the royal parks, or holds drawing-rooms in the palaces, in empty and powerless parade. There is no question that the British House of Commons has exerted a far wider influence on the destinies of the human race than any other governmental power that has ever existed. It has gone steadily on for five, ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... thing to do. The woman was weary and travel-stained and afraid, and longed for nothing so much as a place of refuge. She knew that she was a sinner; she knew that she was, and had been for many a year, powerless to help herself. Why should she not hail with joy the story of ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... conscious as the men bore him to the edge of the well, but powerless to resist four stout fellows who cast him headlong amongst the dead and dying to mingle his groans and blood with theirs. Oh, that God should permit to men such deeds, and grant that men should witness them! When the last body ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... the friend. The young man again looked at both his companions, endeavoring to penetrate their real meaning, or their real feelings, with the utmost strength of his intelligence; but his look was powerless upon the smiling countenance of the musketeer, or upon the calm and composed features of the Comte de la Fere. "Where are you going, Raoul?" inquired the latter, seeing that Bragelonne was preparing to ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... to Prijepolje, the furthest military outpost of Austria. There were but one hundred Christian houses in it. Nevertheless there was a schoolmaster industriously teaching "Great Serbia" and "patriotism." The Turkish Government was powerless to prevent this revolutionary work, as any interference would have brought protests from ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... In their terror of thy coming vengeance they might oppose thy coming, and such is the temper of the people just now that all the strength of thy legions—half-spent in this last expedition—might be powerless against it; thy chosen soldiers even might turn ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... shame. And Peter's kinsfolk are still having the same struggle. A great many stop here. This is going too far! They prefer staying by the easier "Follow Me's," and forgetting this one. Yes, and go on living powerless lives, and engaging in powerless service, when the crowds ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... reached before the water in the hold should extinguish the fires. How had this peril overtaken us? Simply enough: During the night I had in some way—a way still unknown to me—opened a porthole below the water-line; and those in charge of the vessel seemed powerless to close it. Every now and then I could hear parts of the ship give way under the strain. I could hear the air hiss and whistle spitefully under the resistless impact of the invading waters; I could ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... those which cover a large extent of space or time (sometimes called general facts), customs, doctrines, institutions, great events; they were easier to observe than the others, and are now easier to prove. Historical method is not, however, essentially powerless to establish facts of short duration and limited extent (those which are called particular facts), such as a saying, a momentary act. It is enough that several persons should have been present when the fact occurred, that they should have recorded it, and that their writings should have come ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... deeper, more permanent ethical influence than a dozen generations of professed moral teachers. It is a commonplace to the wise, and an everlasting puzzle to the foolish, that direct inculcation of morals should invariably prove so powerless an instrument, so futile a method. The truth is that nothing can be more powerfully efficacious from the moral point of view than the exercise of an exalted creative art, stirring within the intelligence of the spectator ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... instant stood powerless to move. How he had entered I could not guess, nor did I ever discover. Sufficient was the awful ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... trace to its beginning every process which we can now see going on in space. But before questions of the absolute beginning of things, or of the boundary beyond which nothing exists, our means of inquiry are quite powerless. ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... ordinary component of a foreground for instance, a pleasantly colored stone. Any of its pure outlines are not only without beauty, but absolutely powerless to give you any notion of its character, although that character is in itself so interesting, that here Turner has made a picture of little more than a heap of such stones, with blue water to oppose their color. In consequence of these difficulties and insufficiencies, most landscape-painters ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin
... a natural right to dispose of her life as she thinks fit. This being so I have of course no option but to endorse her decision, so far as I have anything to do with the matter. It is a decision which I for some reasons regret, but which I am quite powerless to alter. ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... swerving of the heart, That words are powerless to express, And leave it still unsaid in part, Or say it ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... depart, burdened by the sorrowful conviction that he was powerless against his niece's malevolent purpose, he was detained by the representation that every fresh piece of intelligence would first reach the Sebasteum and her. Some question might easily arise which his calm, prudent mind could decide far better than hers, whose troubled condition ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... on his divan, in the midst of the great hall of the many-coloured walls, looking as if he were sitting in a tulip; but he was stiff and powerless in all his limbs, and lay stretched out like a mummy. His family and servants surrounded him, for he was not dead, though one could not exactly say that he was alive. The healing moor flower from the North, which was to have been found and brought home by her who loved him best, never ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... and fought with the energies of despair. But they were powerless before the trampling horses and the sharp weapons of their foes. They were cut down mercilessly, and it was the genius of De Soto which guided in the carnage, and the strong arm of De Soto which led in the bloody fray. And we must not ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... unspeakably; but he knew himself powerless. He was only an humble messenger in the service of a far-off daimyo; and for the time being he was at the mercy of a much more powerful daimyo, whose wishes were not to be questioned. Moreover Tomotada knew that he had acted foolishly,—that he had brought about ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... had clung to while in outlawry—all, like scales, seemed to fall away from him. He stood stripped bare, his soul naked—the soul of Cain. Always since the first brand had been forced and burned upon him he had been ruined. But now with conscience flayed to the quick, yet utterly powerless over this tiger instinct, he was lost. He said it. He admitted it. And at the utter abasement the soul he despised suddenly leaped and quivered with the ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... said indignantly. "What do you mean? The government is a constitutional monarchy with the king merely a powerless symbol. The standard of living is high. Elections are honest and democratic. They've got a ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... the newspapers of the time speak; for our own pen will be powerless to give an account of the successes of the eminent artist. The "Gazette Musicale" of the 3d of August, ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... humanity, a product of evolution which fitted a certain need. Of such was Captain West, who, engaging hostile troops, was attacked by seven machines. Early in the engagement, one of his legs was partially severed by an explosive bullet and fell powerless into the controls, rendering the machine for the time unmanageable. Lifting his disabled leg, he regained control of the machine, and although wounded in the other leg, he manoeuvred his machine so skilfully that his observer was able to get several good bursts into ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... powerless," said the Vicomtesse. "A seigneur can do little for his people, but in Anjou we have some privileges, and our peasants are better off than those you have seen, though indeed I grieved much for them when first I came among them ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they were filed in hundred lots. Some of the men were still in the hospital, some had died, most of them gone back to the front. There were many of these foot cases: "While on outpost duty in the Carpathians during a snow-storm I felt the lower part of my body becoming powerless. Not being able to walk, was carried back and put on train. Next day we were stopped, because Russians were ahead of us, and obliged to leave train. Waited two days without food or medical attention; then put ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... But his better sense prevailed. Even supposing he could get the drop on the negro—which was by no means sure—he could not mount guard on him perpetually. Moreover, if he got near enough to try and tie him up, one sweep of those brawny arms would render him powerless. ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... by tempest and haunted by beasts of prey, are the hiding-places of fear and the cradles of ever-deepening superstition. Wild fancies sway the untaught mountaineers, responsive to Nature's wonders, though powerless to interpret their signification. The constant struggle for existence produces a character utterly opposed to that of the suave and facile Malay. The graces of life are unknown, but the strenuous temperament ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... chagrin were close to his ears, and he felt her hair against his face. But he was powerless to aid in her struggles to regain the lost equilibrium. However good his wishes, he could do nothing but stand as a cushion—poorly upholstered at ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... when her gentle influence was removed, his conduct altered for the worse. But a stronger influence was at work on him; for his brother of Lancaster had come home; and though Gloucester moulded York at his will when Lancaster was absent, yet in his presence he was powerless. So ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... was this prince among men, her champion, beaten to his ornamental knees by Fate, and contemplating a miserable, uncertain career to keep his godlike body from actual starvation. And she—she with more money than even she knew what to do with, powerless to aid him, prevented from flinging open her check book and bidding him to write and write till he could ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... doctrines to be prejudicial to the stability of our rule in India, and to the welfare of the people, which depends on it. The Court of Directors is our only safeguard against these Machiavellian doctrines; and it may be rendered too powerless to stem them by the new arrangements for the Government of India. The objects which they propose for attainment—religion, commerce, &c.—are plausible; and the false logic by which they attempt to justify ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... negro soldiery, who gathered round him almost to a man, and with the quietness which became their superior force. Jean Francais and Biasson were left with scarcely twenty followers each; and those few would do nothing. The whites felt themselves powerless amidst the noonday heats, and opposed to threefold numbers: and their officers found that nothing was to be done but to allow them to look on quietly, while Jacques led away his little army, with loud music and a streaming white flag. A few horsemen led the van, ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... a moment, on the edge of flight. This was Bank Holiday, and until to-morrow's sunrise a constable was powerless as Satan in a charmed circle. Still, the man might have the ejectment order in his pocket—would, if not already furnished with it, almost certainly know about it. On the other hand there was a chance—it might be worth while—to discover how much ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... made to this decree; it was not fresh in the minds of the Savii and the six most venerated Councillors without whose acquiescence the mandate of the Doge was powerless, and they had listened to the bold declaration with a surprise not unmingled with resentment, that so young a man should make, in their presence, an assertion touching matters of State which they could neither affirm nor deny! At a sign from one of the chancellors, one of the three counsellors ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... by a rope and taking it in after him. The Indians had unlimited belief in Valerio's mysterious and wonderful powers. Pancho says that he could make himself invisible at will, that locks and keys were powerless against him; and that no one could hinder his taking money, horses, or food. All sorts of things disappeared mysteriously by day and by night, and the robberies were one and all laid to the door of Valerio. But after ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Mr. Jeorling? We are powerless. There is nothing to be done, and the persistent fog is the worst part of our ill luck. I no longer know where we are. It is impossible to take an observation, and this befalls us just as the sun is about to ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... was flung upon his side as though his neck had been broken, and Thor was at his throat. Still the black fought, his gaping and bleeding jaws powerless now as the grizzly closed his own huge jaws on ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... have been caught in the false interpretation of the Vedas, with the criminal intention of appropriating the widows' wealth, they insist on the fulfilment of this cruel precept, and make what once was the exception the rule. They are powerless against British law, and so they revenge themselves on the innocent and helpless women, whom fate has deprived of their natural protectors. Professor Wilson's demonstration of the means by which the Brahmans distorted the sense of the Vedas, in order to justify the practice of widow-burning, ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... fifteen thousand men. It seemed as though the whole army was being stampeded. We soon had a vast throng of these fugitives dammed up in our front, a terrible menace to the integrity of our own line as well as of all in our rear. We were powerless to do anything should the enemy break through, and were in great danger of being ourselves swept away and disintegrated by this frantic mob. All this time the air was filled with shrieking shells from our own batteries as well as those of the enemy, doing, however, ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... his face white as the cliffs above him, his undried limbs almost powerless for cold, and his clothes wetted through and through with spray—pushing aside every moment the dripping locks of hair which the wind scattered over his forehead, that he might look with hollow, staring ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... red substance towards them. Having lighted a fire, they threw some charms into it and hastened away, uttering frightful screams, believing that they should thus frighten the strangers and render them powerless. The Makololo, however, laughed at their threats, but the doctor, fully believing that a skirmish would take place, ordered an ox to be killed to feast his men, following the plan Sebituane employed for giving his ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... Lancelot's head away from all but thoughts of Fame, even if Mary Ann had not been luckless enough to be again discovered cleaning the steps—and without gloves. Against such a spectacle the veriest idealist is powerless. If Mary Ann did not immediately revert to the category of quadrupeds in which she had started, it was only because of Lancelot's supplementary knowledge of the creature. But as he passed her by, solicitous as ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem, cannot conceal their disgust that anyone has been sent from Persia to look after the welfare of Jerusalem. So far they have trampled the Jews under foot as much as possible, and the Jews have been powerless to resist them. But now here is a man come direct from the court at Shushan, with letters from their royal master in his hand, and with orders to rebuild ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... accompanied by a small force of local police, went up to the mines to investigate. They found themselves powerless; "keep yourselves out of danger," they were told, "and let us settle our own affairs." The carnage was in full swing; it was hell let loose. Not content with killing, they mutilated each other's corpses, bit off noses, gouged out eyes, and thrust stones ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... parts. There are some cases where a tear, and a good tear, is impossible to guard against. It is not a question of patience, or tact, or skill; it is a combination of conditions which patience, tact, and skill are powerless against. ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... corpses of those words on paper; but my art is powerless to tell you how they were uttered, those words, potent as a king's, for ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... the country, and the cruelty of the slave-hunters. Were we to begin quoting from those letters, we should outrun the limits of this sketch. He had broken the neck of the piratical army of man-stealers, and their forces were scattered and comparatively powerless. So many slaves were set free that they became a serious inconvenience, as they had to be fed and ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... Throughout he acted like a man bereft of sense and memory. With quaint assiduity he busied himself about the bier—now straightening the candlestick on the dead man's breast, now snuffing and lighting the other candles. Clearly his thoughts were powerless to remain long fixed on any subject. Neither my mother nor Anna Thedorovna were present at the requiem, for the former was ill and the latter was at loggerheads with the old man. Only myself and the father were there. During the service a sort of panic, a sort of premonition of the future, came ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Blanka felt as powerless in the hands of this woman as a rabbit in the clutches of a lion. The beautiful Cyrene closed ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... leaves and buds,—held them in foul embrace,—polluted their sweetness with hateful breath. I could almost feel the shudder of the trees in that slimy clasp,—could almost hear the shrieking and moaning of the young fruit that saw its hope of happy life thus slowly consuming; but I was powerless to save. For weeks that loathsome army preyed upon the unhappy, helpless trees, and then spun loathsomely to the ground, and buried itself in the reluctant, shuddering soil. A few dismal little apples escaped the common ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... like thin wool from the heavens down to the face of the waters, against which the wind, which had shifted round considerably towards the north, and blew in quicker coming and more menacing gusts, appeared powerless. He would have gone to the sands and paced the shore till nightfall, but that he would not expose himself thus to unfriendly eyes and false judgments. He turned to the right instead, and walked along the top of the cliffs eastward. Buffeted by winds without and hurrying ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... two years ago, shortly after his father had suffered an attack of apoplexy and paralysis of the right side. He is spiritless, restless, not able to work, cannot use his right arm to write, is powerless to put his attention on anything, sleeps badly, etc. No treatment has any helpful effect. He is advised to seek distraction in Paris, but this, too, is of no avail. Then, after months of torture, he came to Zurich to Dr. Jung, who ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... when he first saw them; or whether the Jack o'lanterns sailed near the ground (when they were carried by a little Jack), or whether they were high (when a tall Jack bore them), it made no difference. His herbs were powerless, and Dame Martha did ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... possible, Piero's life. The plot failed, chiefly owing to the coolness and the cunning of the young Lorenzo, Piero's eldest son. Public sympathy was strongly excited against the aggressors. Neroni, Acciaiuoli, and Soderini were exiled. Pitti was allowed to stay, dishonoured, powerless, and penniless, in Florence. Meanwhile, the failure of their foes had only served to strengthen the position of the Medici. The ladder had saved them the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... in other cases, we approach this Epistle with a very strong guarantee of its authenticity, which can only be invalidated by solid and convincing proofs, and against which hypothetical combinations and ingenious surmises are powerless [105:2]. Whether the objections adduced by the impugners of this Epistle are of this character, the reader ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... defensor urbis. This office came into prominence when Roman despotism found that it was overreaching itself by grinding down the defenseless curiae below the margin of productiveness. The duties of the defensor were, as his name implies, to protect the powerless inhabitants of the cities against the exactions of the imperial ministers. He enjoyed many important privileges of jurisdiction, and these were materially increased by the legislation of Justinian; and soon the defensor became an important officer of the municipality.[8] What ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams
... powerful subject, who, to save himself, wrote to Da Cunha, professing his unalloyed friendship for the Portuguese, and inviting them to take possession of certain tracts on the mainland; declaring that his master, the Sultan, was powerless to defend himself against the armies of Vijayanagar. This was, it must be borne in mind, long after the Hindu victory at Raichur. Da Cunha sent Christovao de Figueiredo, Krishna Deva's valiant friend, to bear his reply, since the latter ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... ought thus to decide, and to decide cheerfully. But he could not. He tried again and again to reach the decision only to recoil from it. His will was powerless to calm the rebellion within. Ah, the pioneer's ragged son had been precipitated into a solemn moral crisis, which tested him, and showed him how weak he was! The tumult of feeling, and sharpness of the battle, had, at length, ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... rejoice and forget thine every woe, For even the wit of the wise is eaten away by care. What shall thought-taking profit a helpless, powerless slave? Leave it and be at peace in ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... unsatisfactory, and the damages awarded the Government amounted to so little that the sheepmen cheerfully paid them as a sort of grazing tax. The point was, that they got the feed—either free or at a nominal cost—and the rangers were powerless ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... matter aright, they are attacking, as vicious and dangerous, a system which has grown up under the natural spontaneous working of your free institutions—are exposing vices which education has proved powerless to prevent? ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... action, to keep the advantage of it. Not so Florence. She is entirely resolved, in these years of victory, to do justice to all men so far she understands it; and in this case it will give her some trouble to do it, and worse,—cost her some of her fine new florins. For her counter-mandate is quite powerless with Guido Guerra. He has taken Arezzo mainly with his own men, and means to stay there, thinking that the Florentines, if even they do not abet him, will take no practical steps against him. But he does not know this ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... no friendships abroad, and to interfere on behalf of every petty princedom oppressed by a powerful neighbour, and every downtrodden subject of some foreign power. It is these same men who wish to dissolve the Union, and to impose obligations at home upon an inadequate army which would leave us powerless abroad. And the longer war delays in coming, the greater will be the danger when it comes. With the increase in armaments, this country must undergo a proportionate sacrifice. If compulsory service should be adopted, it must apply to Ireland as well as the United Kingdom. ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... to bear it. When she turned her miserable eyes toward them again, allured by some strange fascination she was powerless to analyse, Edith was in his arms, ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... and smiled in a subdued way. Malipieri knit his brows angrily, as he felt himself becoming more and more utterly powerless to stave off the frightful catastrophe that threatened Sabina. But the detective was anxious to make matters pleasant by ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... him steadfastly, and her heart sank. The change in his outward appearance seemed typical of some deeper and more final alteration in his whole nature. She felt herself powerless against the absolute impenetrability of his tone and manner. She felt that he had fought a battle within himself and conquered; that for some reason or other he had decided to walk no longer in the pleasanter paths of life. She had ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... laughter to reach. What can this unsociability be? It is the self-love of each one of us in so far as it has anything disagreeable to others in it, an abstraction of every injurious or hateful element. It is the harmless self-love, slight, powerless, which one does not fear but one scorns, yet for all that does not pardon but on the contrary pitilessly pursues, wounds, and galls. Self-love thus defined is vanity, and what is called the moral correction ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... I were to be a young man to-morrow, instead of a day older than I am to-day, I should be powerless to merit such a title in years ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... died down into husky whispers, and they were more alarmed than ever at discovering the extent of their own demoralization. The bottle, one of those small-necked, big-bodied quart-bottles that Western topers carry in yellow-cotton handkerchiefs, was passed round. But even the whisky seemed powerless to neutralize their terror, rather increasing the panic by fuddling ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... population had already become Molokanye; and this change, be it remarked, had taken place without any propagandist organisation. The civil and ecclesiastical authorities were well aware of the existence of the movement, but they were powerless to prevent it. The few efforts which they made were without effect, or worse than useless. Among the Stundisti corporal punishment was tried as an antidote—without the concurrence, it is to be hoped, of the central authorities—and to the Molokanye of ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... on Darwin's presentation of that theory, to the bewilderment of the general public, who are quite unable to decide how far the new views, even if well established, tend to subvert the Darwinian theory, or whether they are really more than subsidiary parts of it, and quite powerless without it ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... was too late to accomplish his object. His hand had scarcely closed upon the letters, when he was, himself, seized. Rotherby and Green, on either side of him, held him in their grasp, each with one hand upon his shoulder and the other at his wrist. Thus stood he, powerless between them, and, after the first shock of it, cool and making no effort to disengage himself. His right hand was tightly ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... him wistfully as he rode away, with an unaccountable pain in her heart. She felt more acutely than ever that there were depths in her lover's nature that she was powerless to stir ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a heavy heart he turned and left the deck-house, not daring to look his commander in the face, and feeling as guilty in his new dignity as though he had voluntarily thrown in his lot with the mutineers, notwithstanding the fact that pressure had been brought to bear upon him which he was equally powerless ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... the aspirations that only last summer had appeared to transform him. Now he was slipping away again. How pitiful it is, this contest of a woman who has only her own love, her own virtue, with the world and its allurements and seductions, for the possession of her husband's heart! How powerless she is against these subtle invitations, these unknown and all-encompassing temptations! At times the whole drift of life, of the easy morality of the time, is against her. The current is so strong ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... lift and level his rifle; his arm collapsed and dangled broken and powerless; his rifle clattered ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... the following morning by the sound of a horse's feet; and, looking out of the window, saw Bob dismounting from his mustang. The last twenty-four hours had told fearfully upon him. His limbs seemed powerless, and he reeled and staggered in such a manner, that I at first thought him intoxicated. But such was not the case. His was the deadly weariness caused by mental anguish. He looked like one just taken ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... at my ignorance, since as a chemist I had originally been supposed to know only of atoms and valences and such like matters. Seeking a way out of these contradictions I asked: "How is it then that labour is so powerless, since you say that it owns the state, and even the ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... been denied by subsequent legislation. A bill is now pending in congress to disfranchise the women of Utah, thus interfering to deprive United States citizens of the same rights which the Supreme Court has declared the national government powerless to protect anywhere. Laws passed after years of untiring effort, guaranteeing married women certain rights of property, and mothers the custody of their children, have been repealed in States where we supposed all was safe. Thus ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the door. But with the first glimmer of dawn it faded out, and the sounds ceased, too; and that convinced me that the thing or things were creatures of darkness, and could not stand the daylight; and so I was sure that if anyone could put back the stone, it or they would be powerless until someone else took it away again. I had to wait until you came to get that done. Of course, I couldn't send Brown to do it by himself, and still less could I tell anyone who ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... George, in a low tone. "We do not even know how to fight the burning oil, and are powerless to do anything, at least until others shall come to direct ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... the Jesuits, had led to constant quarrels between the Knights and the ecclesiastics, and from these had arisen the evil practice of appeals to the Curia. In the seventeenth century the Popes regarded the valuable patronage of the langue of Italy as in their gift, and the Grand Masters were powerless to protect their defrauded Knights. The depths of the Order's humiliation were shown by the demand of Pope Urban XIII., in 1642, that the Order's galleys should help him fight the League of Italian Princes ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... Rodolph dropped on one knee, supported his bleeding son on the other, and taking a deliberate aim at the Indian, who was preparing to leap from the rock into the path behind them, he fired. The upraised arms of the savage fell powerless—the heavy axe dropped from his hand—and, falling forward over the rock, he lay expiring in the narrow pathway. The feathery coronets of several of his comrades were seen above the bushes at some distance: and again the father raised his son, who now hung fainting in his arms, ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... devilish voice on the roof went on. 'And your baby, vile thing! You shall see it writhe in the flames, and hear it cry to you, and watch the blood spout from its skin. You shall see the dogs tearing it, while you lie in anguish, powerless to aid it. Yes, we will kill the child first, and slowly—slowly! It shall cry a long time before ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... pace slackened, and he fell. We were only too glad to be able to reduce our speed likewise, but we had no sooner stopped to breathe, than he was again up and after us. At length, however, we gained the tree, and we beheld him with satisfaction stretched powerless upon the ground, but not dead, within two hundred yards ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... sat in the sledge, powerless to act, he felt as though within him opened a big, empty ice-cold void. It was the awful certainty that they would ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... confess, that he often talked nonsense; but I strove to be unfailingly patient with him. I had had my lesson: I had learned how severe for me was the pain of crossing, or grieving, or disappointing him. In a strange and new sense, I grew most selfish, and quite powerless to deny myself the delight of indulging his mood, and being pliant to his will. He still seemed to me most absurd when he obstinately doubted, and desponded about his power to win in the end Miss Fanshawe's preference. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... but was only more entangled in the maze: the sky had become black as midnight, the rain fell in torrents, the lightnings flashed fearfully, and all nature appeared convulsed. Rudolph had never before witnessed such a storm, and brave boy as he was, his heart quaked with terror—he felt how powerless a human being is, when, unsheltered, he is brought face to face with the elements, lashed up to fury. He now realized, in addition, that he had lost his way, and feared that in his efforts to extricate himself, he ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... the state of affairs, but powerless to alter it for the better, save in his own jurisdiction, Major Hester appealed to Sir William Johnson, begging him to visit the western country and use his powerful influence to quiet the growing discontent. This Sir William did with great pomp and ceremony in 1761, ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... shores?—Even during the most arduous prosecution of war, the cause of humanity, and the progress of civilization, would be eminently promoted by these noble and generous efforts, for the rescue of those, whom the fury of the elements had divested of all hostile character, and thrown helpless and powerless on a ...
— An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1825) • William Hillary |
