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Absolute   /ˈæbsəlˌut/   Listen
Absolute

noun
1.
Something that is conceived or that exists independently and not in relation to other things; something that does not depend on anything else and is beyond human control; something that is not relative.



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"Absolute" Quotes from Famous Books



... he has once got in, is indeed too late; and is something like the literary pastime of the "Englishman," who kept on showing cause against the Frenchman's rule, long after the latter had, on the motion of his soldiers, already made it absolute with costs. ...
— The True Legend of St. Dunstan and the Devil • Edward G. Flight

... Point Reyes, but was hindered by an immense arm of the sea, which, extending to a great distance inland, compelled them to make an enormous circuit for that purpose. In consequence of this and other difficulties—the greatest of all being the absolute want of food,—the expedition was compelled to turn back, believing that they must have passed the harbor of Monterey without discovering it. We started on return from the Bay of San Francisco on the 11th of November; passed ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... Gladstone (Feb. 19), on the other hand, 'as one who has perhaps too often made it his business to call attention to the failings of his countrymen,' contended that if national honour was not henceforth to be a shadow and a name, it was the paramount, absolute, and imperative duty of Her Majesty's ministers to protest against the imputation upon us of favour for assassination, 'a plant which is congenial neither to our soil nor to the climate in which we live.'[370] One of the truest things ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... know, and to which they are unknown; it is to live to weep for the generations passed away, for lovers, for parents, for children, for friends, in the grave; it is to see every thing turned upside down by the fickle hand of fortune, and the absolute despotism of time; it is, in a word, to behold the vanity of human life in all its ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various

... inhabitants of the town of Quincy, in which he controverted the doctrine of Blackstone, the great commentator upon the laws of England, who maintained "that there is, and must be, in all forms of government, however they began, and by what right soever they subsist, a supreme, irresistible, absolute, uncontrolled authority, in which the jura summi imperii, or the rights of sovereignty, reside." "It is not true," Mr. Adams remarks, "that there must reside in all governments an absolute, uncontrolled, irresistible, and despotic power; nor is such a power absolutely ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... here, perhaps, we are met by some who grant all that we say on the subject of decoration by works of art, and who yet impatiently exclaim, "But I have no money to spare for any thing of this sort. I am condemned to an absolute bareness, and beauty in my case is not ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... you were thus bearing the weight of an honour which was not the highest, your Sovereigns used to lay upon you those duties, properly belonging to other offices, which their own holders were unable to discharge[196]. All these duties you discharged with absolute freedom from corruption, following your father's example in receiving, from those who hoped for your favour, nothing but the obligation to serve them, and bestowing on petitioners all that they had a right to ask for without ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... my dear! The doctor orders me absolute quiet, and if you came I should have the knocker going all day, and Fanny's lovers would never be out of the house," answered the Baroness, who was quite weary of ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... be absolute sneaking (to use an elegant word), I suppose," said Beatrice, "to go ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge

... I stood there knocking at a bolted door, having at last to go off silent and bowed down. It makes me furious to think of this, and yet continually the idea haunts me, leaving me no rest, until the remembrance of these two dreadful hours becomes absolute torture. O father! why have you wrenched this secret from my heart?—why have you persuaded me to tell you, what I have not even ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... most countries. The President of the American Federation, Mr. Gompers, understands this thoroughly and quotes with approval the action taken recently by the labor unions in Sweden, Hungary, and Italy, which demand the enforcement of this policy of absolute "neutrality." Formerly the federation of the unions of Sweden, for example, agreed to use their efforts to have the local unions become a part of the local organization of the Social Democratic Party. These words providing for this policy were struck ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... fair way to make it better, death swept him away, and in him deprived the world of one of the best men, as well as one of the best geniuses of the age. He died like a christian and a philosopher, in charity with all mankind, and with an absolute resignation to the will of God. He kept up his good-humour to the last; and took leave of his wife and friends immediately before his last agony, with the same tranquillity of mind, and the same indifference for life, as though ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... method by which the actual synchrony (or the reverse) of any two distant deposits can be ascertained, no such method can be heard of; it being admitted by all the best authorities that neither similarity of mineral composition, nor of physical character, nor even direct continuity of stratum, are 'absolute' proofs of the synchronism of even approximated sedimentary strata: while, for distant deposits, there seems to be no kind of physical evidence attainable of a nature competent to decide whether such deposits were formed simultaneously, or whether they possess any given difference of antiquity. ...
— Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life • Thomas H. Huxley

... is one of the first facts of life demonstrated to the pupil of a Mystery school. He is taught to watch a child in the act of dying, also, to watch it in the invisible world from day to day, until it comes to a new birth a year or two later. Then he knows with absolute certainty that we return to earth to reap in a future life ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel

... Parliament, in lieu of the Maynooth Grant, or in lieu of the Regium Donum, it must be given on these terms only—and on that matter I think Lord Russell has committed a great error—that it becomes the absolute property of the Catholics or of the Presbyterians—it must be as completely their property as the property of the great Wesleyan body in this country, or of the Independents, or of the Baptists, belongs to these bodies. It must be ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... boarding-house keeper, promised to close the gate. As the sound of his steps on the gravel grew less and less, as the gate fell to with a loud noise, and an absolute silence followed, Madame Bourrat felt sure that her guest had left the ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... a Peer of the whole Island, and therefore had no Vote in the Northern Election, being one of the Hereditary Council aforesaid; but taking upon him the absolute Direction of the Affair, tho' he had really, as above, nothing to do with it, he rendred himself at the City Reeky, the Capital of that Part of the Kingdom a few Days ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe

... for a period of some three hundred years been worshipping Almighty God in non-liturgical ways, and have not been left without witness that their service was acceptable to the Divine Majesty. Moreover, the fact that absolute rigidity in liturgical use never was insisted upon in any age of the Church until the English passed their Act of Uniformity, makes in the same direction. And yet even after these allowances have been made, there remains a considerable amount of solid satisfaction for those who do adhere ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... in tears and in absolute despair, and wrote to tell him of my conviction. Allowing for difference of time between Quetta and Oxford, my mental telegram reached me in the same hour that my brother, whilst on the march, and only thirty miles beyond Quetta, was suddenly struck down in his tent ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates

... me familiar with his neighborhood. Since I first read him, I have walked over some of his favorite haunts, but I still see them through his eyes rather than by any recollection of actual and personal vision. The book has also the delightfulness of absolute leisure. Mr. White seems never to have had any harder work to do than to study the habits of his feathered fellow-townsfolk, or to watch the ripening of his peaches on the wall. His volumes are the journal ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell

... to the floor-valet and to the telephone for avoiding any rough contact with the world. He felt comparatively safe now; the entire enormous hotel was a nest for his shyness, a conspiracy to keep him in cotton-wool. He was an autocratic number, absolute ruler over Room 331, and with the right to command the almost limitless resources of the Grand Babylon for his own ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett

... pot-metal omnibuses for me without one of them getting in a smash-up about every so often, and I'm carrying accident insurance and liability insurance to cover my risks; but next time you get into a jam I want you to come through with the absolute facts in the case, so's I'll know where I stand and how to protect myself in court or out of it. I don't care two bits whose fault it is—your fault or some other lunatic's fault. The truth is what I want—the truth, the whole truth and nothing but ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... assembly, several of whom were convulsed with laughter while the Brahmans were telling their stories, decided, after hearing them all, that each had given such absolute proofs of folly as to be entitled, in justice, to a superiority in his own way: that each of them, therefore, should be at liberty to call himself the greatest fool of all, and to attribute to himself the salutation ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston

... meditations, was fixedly taken, to preserve, if possible, by her exertions and courage, the property of her absent and beloved husband, for his hoped return and for her children. This steadiness and composure called not forth any imitation. M. de Lally breathed hard with absolute agony of internal debate; and Madame d'Henin now declared she was sure all would blow over in a false alarm, and that she would not hesitate any longer between Brussels and Bordeaux, but remain quietly in Paris, and merely sit up all night ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... lively tourney in some field of cloth of gold, than an excommunicated nation in its time of mourning; there were frequent interchanges of diplomatic courtesies—receptions to special embassies which had lost nothing of their punctilious splendor. There had always been time in Venice for absolute decorum, and now there was not less than usual, since her conduct had been denounced—though Venice and her prestige were untarnished and the ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... this, there must be established sooner or later an absolute equilibrium between births and deaths. Can we really depend upon nature spontaneously to guarantee us this? Is it absolutely certain that nature will, as it were, say to man: 'My child, you have by the exercise of your reason emancipated yourself from my control in many points. You have made ineffectual ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... which we usually attribute to any cause under the sun but the vulgar right one. "The impertinence!" muttered Jane, with a second glance at the note which conveyed; among other humiliating things, an impression of her own absolute lack of importance to Selma Gordon. "Serves me right for lowering myself to such people. If I wanted to try to do anything for the working class I'd have to keep away from them. They're so unattractive to look at and to associate with—not like those shrewd, respectful, interesting peasants one ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... is considered a mortuary color; and, moreover, I like its symbolism. The Mater dolorosa often wears blue vestments; also the priests during Lent; and even the images of Christ are veiled in blue, as holy week approaches. Azure, in its absolute significance, represents truth, and is the symbol of the soul after death; so, as I walk the earth,—a fleshy 'death in life,'—I clothe myself symbolically. In pagan cosmogonies the Creator is always colored ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... [Greek: Te] is an old imperative from a root TA—"formed like [Greek: zen], according to Doric analogy.... In all cases it stands either quite absolute, that is, with the object understood, or the accusative belongs to a verb immediately ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... rising from the sea for nearly a thousand feet, often keep their vicinity in absolute calm, although a heavy gale may be raging on the other side of the island, and it would be highly dangerous for any navigator not accustomed to such a neighbourhood to get too near them. The immense rollers setting inshore, and the absence of wind combined, ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... not for the great change in her position, from absolute affluence to becoming the recipient of another's bounty, Edith would have been, if not quite happy, at least contented. Yet it must not be imagined that she was ungrateful or the less thankful to her kind protectors, the Bartons, for ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... their own Off-spring? The care of which (as has been said) should begin with the first Years of Childrens Lives, in curbing at the earliest appearance thereof, every their least evil inclination; and accustoming them to an absolute, constant, and universal Submission and Obedience to the Will of those who have the disposal of them: Since they will hardly ever after (especially in a great Fortune) be govern'd by their own Reason, who are not made supple to that of others, before they are able ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham

... plagiarism, or even through the simple immensity of its assumptions." These fraudulent reputations he undertook, "with the help of a hearty good will" (which no one will doubt) "to tumble down." He admitted that there were a few who rose above absolute "idiocy." "Mr. Bryant is not all a fool. Mr. Willis is not quite an ass. Mr. Longfellow will steal but, perhaps, he cannot help it (for we have heard of such things), and then it must not be denied that ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter

... four thousand horses; and eight hundred waggons. By the evening of the day on which war is declared, perhaps even earlier, those fifteen thousand men will have crossed the Col du Diable. It's not a surprise which they mean to attempt: that wouldn't be worth their while. It is the absolute crossing of the frontier, the taking possession of our ridges, the occupation of Saint-Elophe. When our troops arrive, it will be too late! They will find Noirmont cut off, Belfort threatened, the south of the ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... of absolute silence, broken only by the hot shrilling of a locust in a tree hard by; then Zerubbabel Chirk, calmly unconscious of any thrill in the air, any tension of the nerves, any crisis impending, paused in his whittling, and instead of carving ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... in his heart, he yet proceeded by the ways of cautious and practical statecraft. He always worked with things as they were, while never relinquishing the desire and effort to make them better. To a hope which saw the Delectable Mountains of absolute justice and peace in the future, to a faith that God in his own time would give to all men the things convenient to them, he added a charity which embraced in its deep bosom all the good and the bad, all the virtues and the infirmities of men, and a patience like that ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... compelled the closing of the lower ports, and produced a still greater inequality between the combatants than at the start, for the Serapis was not only a well-constructed, well-furnished man-of-war, thoroughly equipped, while the Bon Homme Richard had even-disadvantage in these respects: but the absolute weight of metal was, at the outset, greatly in favor of the Englishman. The Richard then passed to windward of the Serapis, receiving her fire, which did much damage to the rotten hull of the old Indiaman. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... sight to see a grizzly bear roaming through the woods and thickets, where he considers himself absolute master of all the animals of the region. He is sometimes brownish, sometimes grey, and a grey bear is supposed to be more dangerous than a brown. He lives like all other bears, hibernates, eats berries, fruit, nuts, and roots, but he ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... with such awkwardness, the fact that he returned home just at the time when for others of his ilk the real harvest was only beginning, and, finally, the few Latin words, spoken, however, with the most correct accent and with absolute fluency. The man had evidently received a good education and had acquired some knowledge, and here he was—a street-musician! I was burning with curiosity ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... down, down, down. Vera was silenced; and Hubert, drenched and nearly beaten out of life, almost welcomed every downward plunge as the last, tried to commend his spirit, and was amazed to find his little boat lifted up again, and the black darkness not so absolute. ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... is derived from the first two syllables of chlorine and alcohol, is made by passing dry chlorine gas in a continuous stream through absolute alcohol for six or eight weeks. It is a hypnotic or sleep-producing drug, and in moderate doses acts on the caliber of the blood vessels of the brain, producing a soothing effect, especially in ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... of neglecting altogether the connection between word and tone, of pronouncing an unimportant syllable to an accentuated note of the melody, and of putting the important word to a weak part of the bar. In this way they gradually became accustomed to the most absolute nonsense, to such an extent that it was frequently quite indifferent whether they pronounced at all or not. It is most amusing to hear German critics boast that only Germans understand dramatic music, while experience teaches that every bad Italian singer in the worst Italian opera declaims ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... been thrown. It was small, not exceeding three miles in length, and at no one part more than five hundred yards across. Water there was none, unless it were to be obtained by digging; fortunately the young cocoa-nuts prevented the absolute necessity for it. On his return, Krantz passed the men in their respective stations. Each was awake, and raised himself on his elbow to ascertain if it were an assailant; but perceiving Krantz, they again dropped down. Krantz passed the raft—the water was now quite smooth, for the wind had ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Palace," "Tamerlane," "The City in the Sea" and "The Raven." What delight for the jaded senses of the reader is this enchanted domain of wonder-pieces! What an atmosphere of beauty, music, color! What resources of imagination, construction, analysis and absolute art! One might almost sympathize with Sarah Helen Whitman, who, confessing to a half faith in the old superstition of the significance of anagrams, found, in the transposed letters of Edgar Poe's ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... objection to the theory that Parliament was the sovereign power, for her authority controlled Parliament; and so we have Sir Thomas Smith writing in 1589 that "the most high and absolute power of the realm of England consisteth ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton

... in the doorway as Madeline attempted to pass by on tiptoe. "Oh, he's a deal better now, Miss Madeline, so that you needn't be afeard of disturbing;—ain't you, Mr. Graham?" So she was thus brought into absolute contact with her friend, for the first time since he had ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... Cleveland, King, Stanley, and some less known authors, I may be permitted to say that it has been in the press for years, and a large part of it is completed. But various stoppages, in no case due to neglect, and latterly made absolute by the war, have prevented ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... of ruling behind a screen, for that is what Prospero really was. Antonio planned to remove his brother and become absolute Duke of Milan. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... Christian people at that time and later,—at least, with extremely rare individual exceptions,—believed in the reality of a hideous crime called witchcraft. They thought they had Scripture for that belief, and they knew they had law for it, explicit and abundant; and with them law and Scripture were absolute authorities for the regulation ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... art then, and much more than the rudiments of all science, are laid first by this great warrior-nation, which held in contempt all mechanical trades, and in absolute hatred the peaceful life of shepherds. From Egypt art passes directly into Greece, where all poetry, and all painting, are nothing else than the description, praise, or dramatic representation of ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... city the sharp contrast between labor and recreation increases without doubt the appeal of the city to many. The factory system not only satisfies the gregarious instinct, it also gives an absolute break between the working time and the period of freedom. In so far as labor represents monotony, it emphasizes the value of the hours free from toil. This contrast is often in the city the difference between ...
— Rural Problems of Today • Ernest R. Groves

... courted by the people, and was the idol of his father and mother. All this brought him much into company. But at that time the brewers and saloonkeepers exercised a despotism over the politicians and public men of the city as absolute as is the despotism of the Czar over the Russians. But there was this difference: instead of being slaves to a great monarch, these politicians were tools and lick-spittles to a set of coarse, brutal, low-bred liquor dealers, who were exceptionally ignorant, degraded and vile. These ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... almost afraid even of his mother. Now that the brilliant marriage had broken down, and seemed to be altogether beyond hope, now that he had to depend on her household for all his comforts, he was no longer able to treat her with absolute scorn,—nor was she willing to yield as she ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... stand the truth, can't you? Don't say you can't. That would hurt me horribly. Perhaps you do not know how sometimes I mentally lean on you. And I like to feel that if you knew the absolute truth of me you would still look upon me with the same kind, understanding eyes as now. Perhaps no one else would. Would you, ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... my dear brother! Into how many risks, and, forgive me for saying, some of them little creditable, has this absolute and violent temper led you! Do not let such clouds darken the time you are now to pass in our neighbourhood, but let our old benefactor see his kinsman as he isgenerous, kind, and lively, without being ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... campaigns of the American Revolution strongly impressed on the mind of Washington the absolute necessity of forming a regular and systematic army organization. But so difficult was it to obtain properly instructed engineers, that he was obliged to seek his engineer officers in the ranks of foreign adventurers, and to make drafts from the other arms of service, and have them regularly ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... let us suppose that an invading army, superior in force, is marching against a city: however much the weaker population, whilst they are still outside their walls, may feel the stress of danger, yet once within their trenches one and all expect to find themselves in absolute security. But the tyrant is not out of danger, even when he has passed the portals of his palace. Nay! there of all places most, he feels, he must maintain the strictist watch. (7) Again, to the private citizen there will come eventually, either through truce or terms of peace, respite ...
— Hiero • Xenophon

... Salvarsan.—Salvarsan is an absolute essential in the treatment of those early infections in which an abortive cure can be hoped for, and in them it must be begun without a day's delay. To some extent, the abortive cure of the disease, with its 100 per cent certainty, ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes

... during the day Judithe attempted to have a tete-a-tete with Mrs. McVeigh, and learn more about Miss Loring's silent maid, who was the first person she saw on her return from the ride that morning. The absolute self-effacement of an individual whose repose suggested self-reliance, and whose well shaped head was poised so admirably as to suggest pride, made the sad-faced servant a fascinating personality to any one interested in questions concerning her ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... will—unites us to the world; for everywhere in the world reason is at home, and gradually finds itself; it makes us aware of a great order in which we move; it breaks down the barriers of sense between us and the absolute consciousness, the eternal life—"not ourselves," yet in us and akin to us!—whence, if there is any validity in human logic, that order must spring. And so, in its most perfect work, it carries us to God—it bids us claim our ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... intellectuality, genius; brains, cognitive powers, intellectual powers; wit &c 498; ability &c (skill) 698; wisdom &c 498; Vernunft [G.], Verstand [G.]. soul, spirit, ghost, inner man, heart, breast, bosom, penetralia mentis [Lat.], divina particula aurae [Lat.], heart's core; the Absolute, psyche, subliminal consciousness, supreme principle. brain, organ of thought, seat of thought; sensorium^, sensory; head, headpiece; pate, noddle^, noggin, skull, scull, pericranium [Med.], cerebrum, cranium, brainpan^, sconce, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... danger in such association. Northern sentiment toward slavery was complacent enough, even servilely so, but it might change. The South thought it had too much at stake to take the chances when the opportunity for absolute safety and permanent rule was within its reach. It resolved to make the whole country, not only pro-slavery, but slaveholding. If, through any mischance, it failed in its calculation, the next step would be to tear down the house ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume

... found, like that of Rembrandt, in his truth to nature; but the field of truth presented to the stately Spaniard, while it had its own ample share of humour, was a widely different field from that which offered itself to the Dutch burgher. Together with absolute truth, Velasquez had the ease and facility in expressing truth which are only acquired by a great master. Like Rubens, Velasquez made essays in many branches of painting. In sacred art, if we except his 'Crucifixion,' ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... from you reluctantly," Andre-Louis continued. "The more reluctantly since I do not perceive the absolute necessity for parting." ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... said Lalage, "and Hilda's mother will have absolute confidence in her the moment she sees her. Remember how she agreed to that Portugal trip once she knew Pussy was to be with us, and she hadn't even seen her then. When I trot her out there'll be absolutely no further trouble. Good-bye, I ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham

... not clear why Moore, the originator of the pills, was not taken into the new business or otherwise recognized in the agreement. As we have seen, White claimed absolute ownership of Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills, but Moore evidently did not agree, for he continued to manufacture and peddle his own pills, at the same time denouncing those prepared by A.J. White & Co. under Comstock control as forgeries. Moore had previously been in business ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw

... the Sons of Liberty, they accordingly agreed to "a general importation of goods from Great Britain, except teas and other articles which are or may be taxed." Boston and Philadelphia soon followed the lead of New York, and before the year was out the policy of absolute ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... accompanied Ramsey—and a red, red Ramsey he was when he beheld his father and mother and sister and brother-in-law staring up at him from the pavement below. They were kind enough not to come to an absolute halt, but passed slowly on, so that he was just able to avoid parading up the street in front of them. The expressions of his father, mother, and sister were of a dumfoundedness painful to bear, while such lurking jocosity as that apparent all over his brother-in-law no dignified man should either ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington

... mode of misrepresentation was this: qualified propositions, the whole meaning of which depended on the qualifications, were stripped of these and taken as absolute. Thus, the attempt to establish a presumption against giving poisons to sick persons was considered as equivalent to condemning the use of these substances. The only important inference the writer has been able to draw from the greater number ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... his young mistress led him back to the piano. Several teachers experimented with him. They found he had absolute pitch, and a remarkable memory. As a very young child he could repeat, after a fashion, any composition that was played for him. No matter how many wrong notes he struck, he never lost the intention of a passage, he brought the substance of it across ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... in her absolute gentleness there was a power of intent expressed, which rougher outlines could but give with less emphasis. The blood spoke for her eloquently before Faith could find any sort of words to speak for herself, brought ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... the literal freedom of will. Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible only to himself. This principle is the philosophical foundation of anarchism, and, for anything that science has yet proved, may be the philosophical foundation of the universe; ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... perfect way, for classification presupposes that a thing has absolute limits whereas there is nothing that does not partake of the universal infinity—nothing whose boundaries do not vary. Everything is one thing at one time and in some respects, and another at other times and in other respects. We ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... troops barred all the exits of the hall and carried off by night to Siberia those members who protested against the overthrow of their nation: how the group of Poles, deprived of all other means of defending their country, opposed an absolute silence to every proposal of their enemies, till the deed was signed that left only a shred of territory, in its turn doomed to fresh destruction, ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner

... to an immense forest, in the centre of which stood Yaga's house. All around were oaks and pines hundreds of years old, untouched by the axe of man. These enormous trees, lit up by the rays of the setting sun, seemed to look with astonishment at their strange guest. The silence was absolute; not a bird sang in the branches, not an insect hummed in the air, not a worm crawled upon the ground. The only sound was that made by the horse as he broke through the underwood. Then they came in sight of a small house supported by a cock's foot, round which ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko

... so much snow and ice are stored up in the winter that the utmost efforts of the summer heat cannot melt it all. He adds, that the existence of permanent snow in holes or caves must depend more upon the amount of winter snow, and the freedom from hot winds, than on the absolute elevation of the locality. ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... called upon to vindicate the majesty and liberty of religion so grossly outraged in his person? Surely it will not be asserted at this day that the head of the State, by virtue of his temporal power, should be the head of the Church; or does that beautiful logic still exist, which denied an absolute spiritual supremacy in the successor of St. Peter, yet admitted it as an incidental prerogative to the crown of England? But we have yet to see the last act of this ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... but the impression left on my mind by the discussion was that the liberty of thought and action claimed was the liberty of thinking as "we" think and doing what "we" want to have done—a process which has been before now mistaken for absolute freedom. Stripped of its aggressive adjuncts, Praxagora's advocacy of her main subject would be telling in the extreme from the fact of her blending such thorough womanliness of person, character, and sentiment with such vigorous championship of a doctrine against which I do not believe ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... success. Mrs. Gould, an orphan from early childhood and without fortune, brought up in an atmosphere of intellectual interests, had never considered the aspects of great wealth. They were too remote, and she had not learned that they were desirable. On the other hand, she had not known anything of absolute want. Even the very poverty of her aunt, the Marchesa, had nothing intolerable to a refined mind; it seemed in accord with a great grief: it had the austerity of a sacrifice offered to a noble ideal. Thus even the most legitimate touch of materialism was wanting in Mrs. Gould's ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... there must be some connection between these two persons. Some frightful tragedy had been enacted. But he also felt that absolute secrecy was due the two unfortunates, till at last it was plain that there was no ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina

... birth there seemed to be no mean between the Chakravartin or absolute monarch and the recluse who had renounced all ordinary duties and enjoyments, and was subjecting himself to all deprivations and sufferings. Buddha taught the middle course of diligence in daily duties ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles

... between us a continual emulation of attentions and of love. I felt no regret at quitting Europe; on the contrary, the nearer we approached America, the more did I feel my heart expand and become tranquil. If I had not felt a dread of our perhaps wanting, by and by, the absolute necessaries of life, I should have been grateful to fate for having at length given so favourable ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost

... "Be absolute for death: either death or life Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:— If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art, (Servile to all the skiey influences) That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st, Hourly ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson

... given full and free permission to eat, drink and be merry to such extent as they may prescribe for themselves. I set no limit, suggest no reforms, urge no cutting down or cutting out. Go to it—and peace be with you! And for an absolute teetotaler I reckon I buy as many drinks for others as any one ...
— The Old Game - A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon • Samuel G. Blythe

... the rise of the evolution theory, which teaches that there is no absolute break between man and the higher animals in the matter of mental endowment, and that what difference there is must itself be the result of the laws of mental growth; and the second reason is that the more adequate the science of the human mind has become the more evident has it also become that ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin

... is a false quantity, and when the big happinesses of life depend on a woman's capacity to realize this and her courage to act upon it. To Sara, it seemed that such a moment had come to her, and the absolute sincerity of her nature ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... study, Cora, to see who will rule in this new firm. I believe it is universally conceded that when an old man marries a pretty young wife, he becomes her slave. But our honored grandfather has been absolute monarch so long that I doubt if he can be ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... say the parliament is absolute and arbitrary is a contradiction. The Parliament cannot make two and two five. Omnipotency cannot do it.... Parliaments are in all cases to declare what is for the good of the whole; but it is not the declaration of parliament that makes it so: there must be in every instance a higher authority, ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck

... eternally lighted up by some goddess or other; and, as in every other warfare in this world, my fortune was various; sometimes I was received with favour, and sometimes I was mortified with a repulse. At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook, I feared no competitor, and thus I set absolute want at defiance; and as I never cared farther for my labours than while I was in actual exercise, I spent the evenings in the way after my own heart. A country lad seldom carries on a love adventure ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... validity of the methods upon which she is obliged to depend, not indeed for her existence, but for her demonstration. There is no opening for Catholics to deny, in the gross, that political science may have absolute principles of right, or intellectual science ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... hunt the next morning, and Sinclair took them on a tour of the house. They walked through long corridors looking into all the rooms, eventually winding up in the kitchen, and the three boys marveled at the simplicity yet absolute perfection of the place. Every modern convenience was at hand for the occupant's comfort. When the sun had dropped a little, they all put on sunglasses with glareproof eye shields and walked around ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell

... voices and the tread of feet in the passages and the rooms about him. These, at all events, were companionable, and they assured him of safety. But in a while they ceased, and he was left in a silence as absolute as the darkness. He endured this silence for perhaps half an hour, and then all manner of infinitesimal sounds began to stir about him. The lightest of footsteps moved about his bed, faint sighs breathed from very close at hand, even his ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... 'The date of those towers and arches is matter of absolute certainty from the details. That they should have been built before the Conquest is as unlikely as, say, that the rustiest old gun with a percussion lock should be older than the date ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... fallen, only one window showing yellowly in the peak of its top story. A white-net screen door was unhooked from without by inserting a hand through a slit in the fabric. An uncarpeted pocket of hall lay deep in absolute blackness. Miss Hoag fumbled for the switch, finally leaving the Baron to the meager ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst

... an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that, with his 'tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide,' supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank-verse as the best of you; and, being an absolute Johannes Fac-totum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... activity. Such series of facts point to an association between the mental side of sensations and physical structure of the machine. But they do not prove any correlation between them. The unlikeness of mental and physical phenomena is so absolute that we must hesitate about drawing any connection between them. It is impossible to conceive the mental side of a sensation as a form of wave motion. If, further, we take into consideration the other phenomena associated ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn

... on the throne of the Csars!" This Fr: William IV wished to be an absolute monarch, after the traditional Hohenzollern style, yet he had so few soldierly instincts that the ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... with her for lunch and the bright red Y.M.C.A. triangle on the envelope was so conspicuous. Dottie was crazy over soldiers and all things military. She would be sure to exclaim and ask questions. She was one of those people who always found out everything about you that you did not keep under absolute lock ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill

... years to come you learn better and better the simple woods lesson of substitution or doing without. You find that discomfort is as soon forgotten as pain; that almost anything can be endured if it is but for the time being; that absolute physical comfort is worth but a very small price in ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... there the same ripe, joyous burst of the heart at the recollection of later friendships, which belonged to those of boyhood; and are not the later ones more the suggestions of judgment, and less the absolute conditions ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell

... noble and accomplished thing. Pliny would have loved it who said: "Ea est stomachi mei natura ut nil nisi merum atque totum velit," which signifies "such is the character of my taste that it will tolerate nothing but what is absolute and full." ... It is no use grumbling about the Latin. The nature of great disasters calls out for that foundational tongue. They roll as it were (do the great disasters of our time) right down the emptiness of the centuries until they strike ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... preparations for her nuptials; Louis was himself obliged to direct all arrangements. He was virtually master of Fieldhead weeks before he became so nominally—the least presumptuous, the kindest master that ever was, but with his lady absolute. She abdicated without a word or a struggle. "Go to Mr. Moore, ask Mr. Moore," was her answer when applied to for orders. Never was wooer of wealthy bride so thoroughly absolved from the subaltern part, so inevitably compelled ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... chain which passes by Yusma, Villa de Cura and Ocumare, particularly near Buria, Los Teques and Los Marietas.); and some grains of gold have been found in the mountains of Parima, near the mission of Encaramada. How can we infer the absolute sterility of the primitive rocks of Guiana from testimony merely negative, from the circumstance that during a journey of three months we saw no auriferous vein ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... held his rights by birth, and not by election, enjoyed relatively an absolute authority, proportioned according to the power of his abilities, to the extent of his dominions, and to the devotion of his vassals. Invested with a power which for a long time resembled the command of a general of an army, he had at first no other ministers than the officers to whom he gave ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... principal strength of an army, it is very important for every superior to obtain absolute respect, and instant obedience from ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... she had made an unhealthy marshy country quite salubrious. She had a salon, where I met very clever men and women—English and French—and which made me wish for such things in Adelaide. The kindness and hospitality that were shown to me—an absolute stranger—by all sorts of people were surprising. Mr. and Mrs. Westlake took me on Sunday to see Bishop Colenso. He showed me the photo of the enquiring Zulu who made him doubt the literal truth of the early books of the Bible, ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... the legislative council he deemed it as proposed the very worst kind of government ministers could have invented. He remarked:—"If it is not the proper time to give to Canada an assembly like those which exist in our other American colonies, it is better to let the governor be absolute—better to let him be without a council. He will then be responsible. But what have we here? Seventeen or eighteen gentlemen, who may be removed or suspended by the governor; so that, if an act of oppression should come from ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... when the lawyer employed by the market-gardener discovered what old Clark must have known all the time, and that is that the Field had a cloud upon its title, or rather an absolute restriction which would render worthless any title that Samuel might give alone. To explain this legal obstacle we must go back before the war and my day into the previous generation. There had been a family quarrel between Samuel and his older brother, which had resulted finally in Edward ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... considered as a territory, or as the original seat of the Hellenic people, ceased to have much importance, in the eyes of historians, from the time when it became a conquered province; and it declined into absolute insignificance after the conquest of so many other provinces had degraded Hellas into an arithmetical unit, standing amongst a total amount of figures, so vast and so much more dazzling to the ordinary mind. Hence it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... the organic matter in the soil is that which contains nitrogen. This forms but a very small portion of the soil, but it is of the greatest importance to vegetables. As the nitrogen in food is of absolute necessity to the growth of animals, so the nitrogen in the soil is indispensable to the growth of cultivated plants. It is obtained by the soil in the form of ammonia (or nitric acid), from the atmosphere, or by the application of animal matter. In some cases, manures called nitrates[S] ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring

... between 1865 and 1885, Turkmenistan became a Soviet republic in 1924. It achieved its independence upon the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. President NIYAZOV retains absolute control over the country and opposition is not tolerated. Extensive hydrocarbon/natural gas reserves could prove a boon to this underdeveloped country if extraction and delivery projects were to be expanded. The Turkmenistan Government ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... trees with spouting fires at their backs. We still our breathing to catch the full grandeur of the volleys that are to tear them to shreds. Minute after minute passes and the sound does not come. Then for the first time we note that the silence of the whole region is not comparative, but absolute. Have we become stone deaf? See; here comes a stretcher-bearer, and there a surgeon! Good ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... apart sate on a Hill retired, In Thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate, First Fate, Freewill, Foreknowledge absolute, And found no End ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... Senators were elected by the Legislatures of their own States through a procedure similar to that of the Conclave of Cardinals which elects a Pope; if there were several candidates and no one of them had an absolute majority of the votes first cast, the candidate with most votes was not elected; the voting was repeated, perhaps many times, till some one had an absolute majority; the final result was brought about by a transfer of votes from ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood



Words linked to "Absolute" :   complete, direct, unquestioning, unequivocal, abstraction, relative, univocal, absolute frequency, abstract, living, infinite, unalienable, unambiguous, arbitrary, inalienable, implicit



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