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Constraining   /kənstrˈeɪnɪŋ/   Listen
Constraining

adjective
1.
Restricting the scope or freedom of action.  Synonyms: confining, constrictive, limiting, restricting.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Constraining" Quotes from Famous Books



... as sweet as the summer wind from a garden under the sun Cometh forth on the topmost Hindfell the breath of that sleeping-one. Then he saith he will look on the face, if it bear him love or hate, Or the bonds for his life's constraining, or the sundering doom of fate. So he draweth the helm from the head, and, lo, the brow snow-white, And the smooth unfurrowed cheeks, and the wise lips breathing light; And the face of a woman it is, and the fairest that ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris

... common eye upon all its members, has to a large extent disappeared. The influence of the family is at the same time being constantly weakened by the migratory habits modern industrialism entails on the population; in a word, the old constraining force, which used to hold society together, are almost gone, and nothing effective has sprung ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison

... advantage to the poor. Afterwards, when the tribunes of the people again brought their motion for dividing the city to the vote, Camillus appeared openly against it, shrinking from no unpopularity, and inveighing boldly against the promoters of it, and so urging and constraining the multitude, that, contrary to their inclinations, they rejected the proposal; but yet hated Camillus. Insomuch that, though a great misfortune befell him in his family (one of his two sons dying of a disease), commiseration for this could not in the least make them abate of their malice. And, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... up, and met the young man's eyes. Their expression could not be mistaken; they were lover's eyes—such as never in her life she had met before. They seemed constraining her to do what out of pity or mechanical impulse she at once did—silently ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... community and consensus between the opponents. It is really a unity of a lesser degree which is constituted by the parties to a compact or to a commercial transaction, a presupposition of which is the recognition, along with the antithesis of interests, that they are subject to certain common, constraining, and obligatory rules. The common presuppositions, which exclude everything that is merely personal from the legal controversy, have that character of pure objectivity to which, on its side, the sharpness, the inexorableness, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... invincible repugnance to our leaving the neighbourhood of the house. The rest of the savages were equally opposed to our wishes, and seemed grieved and astonished at the earnestness of my solicitations. I clearly perceived that while my attendant avoided all appearance of constraining my movements, he was nevertheless determined to thwart my wishes. He seemed to me on this particular occasion, as well as often afterwards, to be executing the orders of some other person with regard to me, though at the same time feeling towards me ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... contrary to the Macedonian customs. When Ptolemy II. Philadelphus married his sister Arsinoe, it seems to have been thought necessary to excuse it by the relative positions of Venus and Saturn at that period, and the constraining influences of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... strict accordance with their instincts; but, unlike them, man possesses freedom of will and power of choice. This freedom, if rightly exercised, is a noble possession, but, perverted, it is an instrument of destruction. The lower animals cannot sin because the law of their lives is within them, constraining them to act in accordance with its dictates. Upon man, free to choose, God imposed law. With freedom of will he received the gift of conscience, which, enabling him to distinguish between right and wrong, invested him with responsibility, and made disobedience sin. That he can ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds

... who have made themselves his enemies by discouraging him, by spurning him, expelling him, by constraining him to go a-begging from country to country with an invention of incontestable superiority! Now all notion of patriotism is extinct in his soul. He has now but one thought, one ferocious desire: to avenge himself upon those who have denied him—and ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne

... himself in them day and night; let him meditate in them; let him live in them; let him draw all his wisdom from them; let him compare all his thoughts with them; let him embrace nothing in religion which he does not find there. The attentive study of the Scriptures has a sort of constraining power. It fills the mind with the most splendid form of heavenly truth. It soothes the mind with an inexpressible sweetness; it satisfies the sacred hunger and thirst for knowledge; ... it imprints its own testimony so firmly on the mind, that the believing ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule

... century, or to the latest scientific magazine. We cannot relate facts as they are; they must first pass through ourselves, and we are more or less than mortal if they gather nothing in the transit. The great outlines alone lie around us as imperative and constraining; the detail we each fill up variously, according to the turn of our sympathies, the extent of our knowledge, or our general theories of things: and therefore it may be said that the only literally true history possible is the history which mind has left of itself ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... of his pupils an influence which, for depth, feeling, and elevation, was certainly never surpassed by that of any philosophical instructor. Among his pupils there are not a few who, having lived for a season under the constraining power of his intellect, and been led to reflect on those great questions regarding the character, origin, and bounds of human knowledge, which his teaching stirred and quickened, bear the memory of their beloved and revered instructor inseparably blended with what is highest in ...
— Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.' • George Grote

... us draw one lesson. Unless there be this manly, honest, though oftenest silent, Christian affection, the sooner you and I part the better. Unless it be in my heart I can do you no good. No man ever touched another with the sweet constraining forces that lie in Christ's Gospel unless the heart of the speaker went out to grapple the hearts of the hearers. And no audience ever listen with any profit to a man when they come in the spirit of carping criticism, or of cold admiration, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... of a constraining inspiration, it is not easy to conceive how the master of such a work, at the time when he had brought it to perfection, and beheld it in its lustre, the labour of so much opulent magnificence and curious art, and designed to be 'exceeding magnifical, of fame, and of glory throughout ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... effusions of academic oratory. Over and over, during the last decade of his official career, did he declare that the only thing which kept him from throwing aside the worry and vexation of governmental duties and retiring to the much coveted leisure of home and hearth, was the oath of vassal loyalty constraining him to stand at his post until his imperial master released him of his own accord. And at the very height of his political triumphs he wrote to his sovereign: "I have always regretted that my talents did not allow me to testify my attachment ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... provided by your royal decrees that the ships should set sail for Nueva Espana from this port, under any circumstances, during the month of June, because of their peril of having to make some port in distress, or of being wrecked, if they sail later. It would be expedient to apply a more constraining remedy, in order that this be executed; for were your Majesty's decrees observed in these islands, as I have many times said, there would be no errors made in what pertains to the service of our Lord and that of your Majesty, the welfare of these islands, and the profit of their inhabitants. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various

... the natives, the present injuries, although fewer, will be felt more severely, because of the distress, need, and wretchedness in which things are, and to which they have come. Our only hope is in the law and charity of God, and in the will of your Majesty constraining them to remedy the above, as well as in the tolerance and mercy of our Lord in preserving this country and island by saving therein those whom He has chosen for Himself. He has not chosen them for us ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair

... had seen, and his heart fluttered and sank. For here were plots, possibly dangers, most certainly trepidations. He turned his back as though he had seen nothing, and constraining himself to a slow pace walked towards the door of the villa. But the hawker was now at his side, whining in execrable German and a strong French accent the remarkable value of his wares. There were samplers most exquisitely worked, jewels for the most noble gentleman's ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... permanent legislation. This practice opens a wide door to hasty, inconsiderate, and sinister legislation. It invites attacks upon the independence and constitutional powers of the Executive by providing an easy and effective way of constraining Executive discretion. Although of late this practice has been resorted to by all political parties when clothed with power, it did not prevail until forty years after the adoption of the Constitution, and it is confidently believed that it is condemned by the enlightened judgment of the ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson

... Mondes," Paris, August, 1891, Louis Wuarin, an interested observer of Swiss politics for many years, writes: "A people may indicate its will, not from a distance, but near at hand, always superintending the work of its agents, watching them, stopping them if there is reason for so doing, constraining them, in a word, to carry out the people's will in both legislative and administrative affairs. In this form of government the representative system is reduced to a minimum. The deliberative bodies resemble simple committees charged with preparing work for an elected assembly, ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan

... on the Boulevard Raspail. The Darbois had not cared to leave their box. After every act, Mlle. Frahender carried their comments and tender messages to Esperance. Francois Darbois had great difficulty in constraining himself to remain in the noisy vestibule. He suffered too acutely at seeing his daughter, that pure and delicate child, the focus of every lorgnette, the subject of every conversation. Several phrases he had overheard from a group of men had brought him to his feet in a frenzy; then he fell ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... the Portuguese retired, without giving vent to his anger; but it was easy to see that nothing would stop him from constraining Mrs. Weldon ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne

... not he resumes, set free From my constraining love, alas for me! His part in our tune goes with him; my part Is locked in me for ever; I stand as mute As one with full strong music in his heart Whose fingers stray upon ...
— Poems • Alice Meynell

... the deepening twilight, I seemed to be clasping a Hand, And to feel a great love constraining ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor

... past, I could make out, through rents in the vaporous curtain, a line of rocky coast; and rugged as it was, my heart bounded toward it as a sign of help in the hour of need. Yet the sense of our lonely and forsaken condition weighed heavily upon me as I returned to my family, constraining myself to say with a smile, "Courage, dear ones! Although our good ship will never sail more, she is so placed that our cabin will remain above water, and to-morrow, if the wind and waves abate, I see no reason why we should not be able ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... an opportunity of removing the foul slander. But if it is a caprice, or a late repentance in her choice, that induces your daughter to adopt this strange behaviour, let her speak frankly—Gomez Arias is above the thought of constraining a woman's inclinations—and she shall be at once ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... the door, and which must needs propagate a hellish breed within them. But, if they seek to glorify God, let them not lift heavenward their unclean hands! If they would serve their fellow-men, let them do it by making manifest the power and reality of conscience, in constraining them to penitential self-abasement! Wouldst thou have me to believe, O wise and pious friend, that a false show can be better—can be more for God's glory, or man's welfare—than God's own truth? Trust ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... students of the schools of to-day, who are to become the leaders of thought and the teachers of to-morrow, find little restraint and no formative element in the creeds and dogmas that in the past have been so much in evidence, and so constraining. Intensity of feeling has given place to breadth and inclusiveness, and under the name of "Comparative Religions," ancient faiths and modern, are classified, and studied like fossils in the different ages ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck

... hero-worshipping Public. Fighting hero, had the Public known it, was not his essential character, though he had to fight a great deal. He was essentially an Industrial man; great in organizing, regulating, in constraining chaotic heaps to become cosmic for him. He drains bogs, settles colonies in the waste-places of his Dominions, cuts canals; unweariedly encourages trade and work. The FRIEDRICH-WILHELM'S CANAL, which still carries tonnage from the ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... to the chickens was an excellent stroke of policy of aunt's; she felt the small hand, which she held, tighten in hers, and an inward feeling of satisfaction came over her spirit, as she said within herself, 'Love is a constraining power.' ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring

... "Mad fool!" he said, constraining himself no longer. "Win for yourself a woman to kiss. Leave mine without question. Such an one as I should desire to kiss is such an one as shall never allow a kiss ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman

... his arms to clasp her then. But he mastered himself so far. Lying at full length in the grass, leaning upon his elbow, he rested his head upon his hand, and drank her in with thirsty eyes. And that something emanating from him enveloped her, delicately and yet forcefully, constraining and urging and compelling her to meet his gaze. And the perfume of the great honeyed flower came to her in waves of sweetness, growing in strength, and the monotonous buzzing of the black honey-bees mingled with the drumming of the crickets, and the flowing of the river, and the beating of ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... upon such an eventuality. Her future was ordered. She was married—to be a mother. Here lay her home. All about her ties were in process of formation, ties that with time would grow stronger than any shackles of steel, constraining her to walk in certain ways,—ways that were pleasant enough, certain of ease if not ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... encouraged Nuno de Cuna to continue hostilities against Diu and the king of Cambaya, in hopes of constraining him to allow of the construction of a fort in that city. Malek Tocam[187], lord of Diu, was then fortifying the city of Basseen, and as that place might prove injurious to the designs of Nuno against Cambaya, he determined to destroy it. For this purpose he fitted out ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... pacifying, cleansing, enlightening, directing, and we get all these in the good news of One that has died for us, and that lives to be our Lord. The will needs authority which is not force. And where is there an authority so constraining in its sweetness and so sweet in its constraint as in those silken bonds which are stronger than iron fetters? Hope, imagination, and all other of our powers or weaknesses, our gifts or needs, are satisfied when they feed ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... To a constraining, restraining vision of little Polly, Mahony obeyed, stifling the near retort that she was not too young to earn her living among strangers. The two men faced each other on opposite sides of the table. John Turnham ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... movement human lives are offered as fuel, keeping up the steam-power. It represents the active aspect of inertia which has the appearance of freedom, but not its truth, and therefore gives rise to slavery both within its boundaries and outside. The present civilisation of India has the constraining power of the mould. It squeezes living man in the grip of rigid regulations, and its repression of individual freedom makes it only too easy for men to be forced into submission of all kinds and degrees. In both of these traditions life is offered up ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore

... dear friend?" Emilie began; but, on hearing the sound of her voice, Mrs. Somers started up with sudden anger; then, constraining herself, she said, "Pardon me, Mlle. de Coulanges, if I tell you that I really am tired to-night—body and mind—I wish to have rest for both if possible—would you be so very obliging as to pull that bell for Masham?—I ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... child's soul, instead of in isolation and detail. In the feeling of respect culminating in worship almost all educational motives are involved, but especially those which alone can bring the will to maturity; and happy the child who is bound by the mysterious and constraining sympathy of dependence, by which, if unblighted by cynicism, a worthy mentor directs and lifts the will. This unconscious reflection of our character and wishes is the diviner side of childhood, by which it is quick and responsive to everything ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... judge-conservator was declared by the Audiencia to be legal, he proceeded, constraining the archbishop with censures so that he should furnish an official statement of the acts issued against the Society. He did so, sending the original act already mentioned, the original [record of the] meeting that he held with the religious, and the act that was issued ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various

... cannot be generally true; it is perhaps generally, if not universally false. It cannot be doubted, but that many of those who corrupt their minds and bodies with these pernicious draughts, are above the necessity of constraining their appetites to escape so small an expense as that which is now to be imposed upon them; and even of those whose poverty can sink no lower, who are in reality exhausted by every day's debauch, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... function of Matter, it would be unreasonable not to recognize within us the existence of a gigantic power, the effects of which are so incommensurable that the known generations of men have never yet been able to classify them. I do not speak of man's faculty of abstraction, of constraining Nature to confine itself within the Word,—a gigantic act on which the common mind reflects as little as it does on the nature of Motion, but which, nevertheless, has led the Indian theosophists to explain creation by a word to which they give an inverse power. ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac

... characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon when his blood is up. The soldiers were wholly in the wrong: they had no right to be where they were; they had no right to wantonly annoy and provoke citizens in their own town; their presence in the colony, for the purpose of constraining a peaceful population, was a crime; but consciousness of this fact did not lessen their animosity. As for the Boston people, they felt, as they faced the emissaries of their oppressors on that wintry night, the accumulated exasperation of ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... moved in the autumn wind. He lifted his head to mark its melancholy cadence, and while he listened, the moonlight was suddenly crowded from the door as three men rushed in, half helping and half constraining a fourth ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... condition with so much fatherly consideration that I could take no offence, but told him honestly that I was little of a partisan, finding it hard enough to keep my own feet from temptation without judging others. "I am weary," I said, "of all covenants and resolutions and excommunications and the constraining of men's conscience either by Government or sectaries. Some day, and I pray that it may be soon, both sides will be dead of their wounds, and there will arise in Scotland men who will preach peace and tolerance, and heal the grievously irritated ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... Genoese courier, constraining himself to speak a little louder), we were all at Rome for the Carnival. I had been out, all day, with a Sicilian, a friend of mine, and a courier, who was there with an English family. As I returned at night to our hotel, I met the little ...
— To be Read at Dusk • Charles Dickens

... Greece and an Asia into one; a Napoleon might resolve to create of a diversified Europe one consolidated state; and by dint of skill and determination they might for a moment appear to be accomplishing that which they desired; but the constraining individual will being withdrawn, the object of their toil has melted away, as the little heap of damp sand gathered under the palm of a child's hand on the sea-shore, melts away, scattered by the wind and washed out by the waves, the moment the hand that shaped it is withdrawn; ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... and Charmides and Lucius were being made ready, each at his own time, to leave their little pleasures and ordered lives of happiness, and to follow heavenwards in due course. Because it was made plain to me that it was the love and worship of some other soul that was the constraining force; but what the end would ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson

... it would have been a pleasure to me if I could apply with success the same war tactics to England. We must not forget that it is not really a question of actually starving to death tens of millions of men and women, but only of constraining them to ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... to comprehend more truly and more fully, "the length and breadth and depth and height" of that "manifold wisdom of God" which is made "known by the Church" even to "the principalities and powers in heavenly places"; and our hearts have kindled into that constraining love of Christ, in which we rejoice, with joy unspeakable, to work together with Him in bringing men to the knowledge of the one way of salvation, while, in the same deep love, we also endeavor to "keep the unity of the Spirit in the ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut

... to our active or practical nature, certain suggestions have been made which are thought to relieve us from these effects. It is said sometimes that this fatal—if beneficent or beneficial, still fatal—progress leaves as it were certain interstices in the universe within which it loses its constraining force, petty provinces but sufficient, where man is master and determines all events, from which even, it is sometimes conceded, some obscure but important influences are permitted to flow, modifying his immediate surroundings, little sanctuaries where the spirit that is in him and is his ...
— Progress and History • Various

... by myself, a mighty yearning—a most constraining longing seizes me to go to him—fall at his feet, and tell him the truth even yet. After all, God knows that I have no ugly fault to confess to him—no infidelity even of thought. But as soon as I am in his presence the desire fades; or at least the power to put ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... only felt richly rewarded for the steep climb, from which the good pastor of Bobbio sought to dissuade me, but I gained an enlarged view of the wonderful power of the gospel of Christ in ennobling and constraining the souls of these valley men to such deeds of daring and suffering. If, as I firmly believe, the gospel teaches that willingness to do and suffer for Christ is the evidence of our belonging to Him, how luminous ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold

... but another sort of necessity which lovers know, and which is far more convincing and constraining to the ...
— The Republic • Plato

... shouldst be much in praying for the Spirit to testify assurance to thee, so also thou shouldst look to the end of it when thou thinkest thou hast it; which is this, to show thee that it is alone for Christ's sake that thy sins are forgiven thee, and also thereby a constraining of thee to advance Him, both by words and works, in holiness and righteousness all the days of thy life. From hence thou mayst boldly conclude thy election—"Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... was the result of no unkindly feeling, but of consistent principle; and consistency of principle is what even children learn to appreciate and revere. The law of obedience and of reverence for the Sabbath was constraining so equally on the young and the old, that its claims came to be regarded like those immutable laws of nature, which no one thinks of being out of patience with, though they sometimes bear hard on personal convenience. The effect of the system was to ingrain into our ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... but seldom to speech. He sat quiet and unmoved amid the family hubbub, his long limbs twisted together, his arms folded above his somewhat hollow chest, and his protruding tusks of teeth firmly fastened over his nether lip, as if constraining it to silence. ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... Draws back constricted in its icy urns The genial flame of Earth, and there With torment and with tension does prepare The lush disclosures of the vernal time. All joys draw inward to their icy urns, Tormented by constraining rime, And there With undelight and throe prepare The bounteous efflux of the vernal time. Nor less beneath compulsive Law Rebuk-ed draw The numb-ed musics back upon my heart; Whose yet-triumphant ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... thinks of their hunger, before His own fatigue, and will not send them away fasting. So He ends that day of labour by the miracle of feeding the five thousand. The crowds gone to their homes, He can at last think of Himself; and what is His rest? He loses not a moment in 'constraining' His disciples to go away to the other side, as if in haste to remove the last hindrance to something that He had been longing to get to. 'And when He had sent them away, He departed into a mountain to pray' (Mark ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... bitter. Thus Life's thirst quenches itself With draughts which double thirst; but who is wise Tears from his soul this Trishna, feeds his sense No longer on false shows, fills his firm mind To seek not, strive not, wrong not; bearing meek All ills which flow from foregone wrongfulness, And so constraining passions that they die Famished; till all the sum of ended life— The Karma—all that total of a soul Which is the things it did, the thoughts it had, The "Self" it wove—with woof of viewless time, Crossed on the warp invisible of acts— The outcome of him on ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold

... he was carrying it and threw it all over the lamb, covering his head and body; and the lamb began plunging and kicking and bucking and rolling and heaving and sliding and rearing and pawing and most vigorously wrestling with the clerical and hierarchically constraining garment of darkness, and bleating all the while more and more angrily and loudly, for all the world like the great goat Baphomet himself when the witches dance about him on All-hallowe'en. But when ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... prepared to recommend that any violent and coercive resolutions should be adopted for the purpose of constraining our brethren in Amoy to a course of procedure which would rudely sunder the brotherly ties that unite them with the missionaries of the English Presbyterian Church. But a Christian discretion will enable ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg

... had more difficulty in constraining myself to be silent under his words, if I had had less difficulty in impressing upon Peggotty (who was only angry on my account, good creature!) that we were not in a place for recrimination, and that I besought her to hold her peace. She ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... conversation exactly as it occurred. I have no doubt that it is, word for word, the same. I describe everything exactly as it took place, constraining my mind not to wander from the task. Where I make the broken marks that follow here, I leave off for the time, and put my paper ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... from his standpoint, trying to realize always how they affect Him, and then entering into his emotions. It has been said that "the woman who loves thinks with the brain of the man she loves", and surely if we love Christ with a constraining passion, we shall think his thoughts and feel his joys, and no longer live unto ourselves, ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... are, that the things we observe should every of them be dearer unto us than ten thousand lives; that they are the peremptory commandments of God; that no mortal man can dispense with them, and that the magistrate grievously sinneth in not constraining thereunto? ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... that I had not the trouble to bring a luncheon for myself: that little girl was my daily purveyor; and not infrequently in satisfying my simple need from her frugal store I combined pleasure and profit by constraining her attendance at the feast and making misleading proffer of the viands, which eventually I consumed to the last fragment. The girl was always persuaded that she had eaten all herself; and later in the day her tearful complaints of hunger surprised the teacher, entertained ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... mercury drum which forms the most novel feature of this device; the fluid, constrained in 12 chambers so as to just fill 6 of them, must slowly filter through small holes in the constraining walls. In practice, of course, the top mercury surfaces will not be level, but higher on the right so as to balance dynamically the moment of the applied weight on its driven rope. This curious arrangement shows point of resemblance to the Indian ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price

... more of constraining love of Christ to love our cousins and neighbors as members of the heavenly family than to feel the heart warm to our suffering brethren in Tuscany and Madeira. ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... self-control, despite a nervous trembling which shook his whole body as the wind does the leaves, that he added, constraining his thin lips to ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau

... enough; their hearts burst out together like twin fountains, rolling their joyful sorrows together towards the sea of endless love, as a swollen river that has broken through some envious and constraining dam! It was enough; they wept together, rejoiced together, kissed and clasped each other in the fervour of full love: the babe lay smiling and playing on the bed: Maria, in a torrent of happiest tears, fondled that poor old man, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... the review of life beyond the grave. We shall bear in mind that we, too, are to have survivors, to whom it will be the greatest favor if we leave a good assurance, based upon their remembrance of our piety, that we are happy, thus constraining them to follow us to heaven. We shall do well if we habitually say, as Elijah said to Elisha, "The Lord hath sent me to Jordan;" and that we are one day to be taken up and conveyed to that same heaven whither Elijah went, and from which ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams

... friend, no mate, By all abandoned, I make war on all: At me they aim the piercing shafts of hate; Say, do you dare with me to stand or fall? Henceforth along the beaten walks I'll move Heedful of each constraining etiquette; Spread, like the rest of men, my board, and set The ring upon the finger of love! [Takes a ring from his finger ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen

... incandescent lamps in place of the conventional age-enumerating candles, cable-ship birthday cakes being eminently scientific and up-to-date. Other people may have had birthdays en route, for we were away from Manila many weeks, but none were acknowledged; modesty doubtless constraining those older than Half-a-Woman from making a too ostentatious display ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel

... never went out of her way to make a new acquaintance, was here the centre of the situation, grasping the identities of all these strangers with wonderful quickness, flitting about from one to another, making friends with them all, and constraining Philip to do the same. Anderson followed her closely, evidently feeling a responsibility for the party ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... results of careful study and observation among the Zuni Indians of the Southwest: "Primitive man when abroad never lightly quit hold of his weapons. If he wanted to count, he did as the Zuni afield does to-day; he tucked his instrument under his left arm, thus constraining the latter, but leaving the right hand free, that he might check off with it the fingers of the rigidly elevated left hand. From the nature of this position, however, the palm of the left hand was presented to the face of the counter, so that ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant

... discovered, to some extent, the secret of the earth's magnetic power, we can turn it to account. In the line of 'dip' I hold a poker formed of good soft iron. The earth, acting as a magnet, is at this moment constraining the two fluids of the poker to separate, making the lower end of the poker a north pole, and the upper end a south pole. Mark the experiment: When the knob is uppermost, it attracts the north end of a magnetic needle; when undermost it attracts the south end of a magnetic needle. ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... told you that it is not him you are to follow, but Him whom he followed, 'Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.' This alone can be our strength. Time is strong against our deepest sorrow, and no influence can permanently hold, except the constraining love of Christ. Never lose the habit of looking steadily to Him, and to Him alone, for daily ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar

... inference at which we arrive for the third or fourth time is, that education is the constraining and directing of youth towards that right reason, which the law affirms, and which the experience of the eldest and best has agreed to be truly right. In order, then, that the soul of the child may not be habituated to feel joy and ...
— Laws • Plato

... under the constraining influence of a nightmare, Fenton obeyed when Mr. Irons, having seated himself in an easy chair, waved him into another with a commanding gesture. The artist felt himself to have lost his place as the stronger of the two, of which he had hitherto ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... with a by no means doubtful music, shouting his vigorous songs as he rides in pursuit of wild bush horses, constraining us to listen and applaud by dint of his manly tones and capital subjects . . . We turn to Mr. Paterson's roaring ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... praise Him for anything His loving hand doth send us? And as one has beautifully said, 'What God takes it is always gain to lose.' Heaven is nearer now our little Robbie is there; Jesus is dearer, and has quickened us all by His constraining love. ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe

... and charm. "This brahma of Visvamitra protects the tribe of Bharata." "Atri with the fourth prayer discovered the sun concealed by unholy darkness."(2) The complicated ritual, in which prayer and sacrifice were supposed to exert a constraining influence on the supernatural powers, already existed, Haug thinks, in the time of the chief Rishis or hymnists of ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... stout, self-constraining man, silent unless when he had something to say. Then he could become loud enough, or perhaps it might be said, eloquent. To his wife he had been inwardly affectionate, but outwardly almost stern. To his daughters he had been the ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... as I first began. This worthy Phoebus did all that he can To please her, weening, through such pleasance, And for his manhood and his governance, That no man should have put him from her grace; But, God it wot, there may no man embrace As to distrain* a thing, which that nature *succeed in constraining Hath naturally set in a creature. Take any bird, and put it in a cage, And do all thine intent, and thy corage,* *what thy heart prompts To foster it tenderly with meat and drink Of alle dainties that ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... till night to all the women who came, so that each one might hear the glad tidings of salvation before returning to a distant home. Could such faithful work, done through the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and through the constraining love ...
— Everlasting Pearl - One of China's Women • Anna Magdalena Johannsen

... force equal to their force had to be installed against their outbreaks and devastation, graduated according to their scale, all the firmer as they are more menacing, despotic if need be against their despotism, in any event constraining and repressive, at the outset a tribal chief, later an army general, all modes consisting in an elective or hereditary man-at-arms, possessing vigilant eyes and vigorous arms, and who, with blows, excites fear and, through fear, maintains order. In the regulation and limitation ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... why should they be called upon to sanction the new convention until the negotiations now pending, as to the future relations between Holland and Belgium, were brought to a close. There were rumours that a French and English fleet were to be united for the purpose of constraining Holland to submit to the treaty. He trusted such was not the case; but, if it were, it was most unfair, in such a state of affairs, to compel a decision by the House of Commons as to the policy of a new pecuniary engagement to Russia. With respect ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... had not looked at Durrance while she spoke. She kept her eyes fixed steadily in front of her, and indeed she spoke without feeling on one side or the other, but rather like a person constraining herself to speech because speech was a necessity. Nor did she turn to look at Durrance when ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... examination came to a stop, and they saw the shoe-prints in the rug go over to the black table and remain there, heels toward them, while various pieces of apparatus were invisibly moved across the table top. For a moment the compelling will did not seem, to Clee, to be constraining him as much is it had, and he began to wonder if he might not have a little control over his body again. Tentatively he tried to break through the oppressing blanket of foreign will; his arms and legs moved a little; ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... boom, and growing ties with China have been key factors behind the economy's 16 solid years of expansion. Drought, robust import demand, and a strong currency have pushed the trade deficit up in recent years, while infrastructure bottlenecks and a tight labor market are constraining growth in export volumes and stoking inflation. Australia's budget has been in surplus since 2002 ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... and stood looking down on her with the full purpose of constraining her to his will. She sprang up ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... they ought to fill with quick activities. They seem to have no true appreciation of the value of time, or of their own accountability for its precious moments. They live conscientiously, it may be, but they have no strong constraining sense of duty impelling them to ever larger and fuller achievement. They have a work to do, but there is no hurry for it; there is plenty of time ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller

... more pronounced current of life on its confines, the "shadow of approaching humanity" gradually deepening, the latent intelligence winning a way to the surface. And at this point the law of development does not lose itself in caprice: rather it becomes more constraining and incisive. From the lowest to the very highest acts of the conscious intelligence, there is another series of refining shades. Gradually the mind concentrates itself, frees itself from the limitations of the particular, ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater

... that James Otis had, in the meantime, received the appointment to the crown office of Advocate General, to which an ample salary was attached. In this relation it would be his especial duty to support the petition of the custom-house officers in upholding the Writs of Assistance and in constraining the executive officers of the province to support them in ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath

... Chatellerault linen, was a portrait of any of the little boys who trembled at their ferules. . . . Pantagruel is in his cradle; he is bound and swathed in it like all children at that time; but, ere long, Gargantua, his father, perceives that these bands are constraining his movements, and that he is making efforts to burst there; he immediately, by advice of the princes and lords present, orders the said shackles to be undone, and lo! Pantagruel is no longer uneasy. . . . And ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... said Mr. Grey, constraining himself to argue patiently with his old friend's daughter; "it does not simply lie between you and him—a silly girl who has let herself be taken in by a sharper. That would be no more than giving a sixpence to a fellow that tells me he lost his arm at Sebastopol when he has got it sewn up ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... its constitution, requires the means of constraining its subjects to discharge their obligations, and of protecting its privileges from their assaults. As far as the direct action of the government on the community is concerned, the constitution of the United ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... extended on a cross so vilely in eternal exile. Thereafter he addressed this speech to the Friar, "May it not displease thee, so it be allowed thee, to tell us if on the right hand lies any opening whereby we two can go out without constraining any of the Black Angels to come to deliver us from this deep." He answered then, "Nearer than thou hopest is a rock that from the great encircling wall proceeds and crosses all the savage valleys, save that ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... was necessary, since nothing was to follow but conversation. There could, under the circumstances, be no dancing. And the talk at the table, through course after course, was somewhat hectic, even under the constraining presence of King Karl. There were two reasons for this: Karl's presence and his purpose—as yet unannounced, but surmised, and even known—and the ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... is none of self or for self, but all of Thee and for Thee. And if such be the sweet fruits of going down to the garden of nuts, and caring for His garden with Him, she will need no constraining to continue ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor

... religion, was declining in favor and interest. Nothing now remained but to open the door in the church and universities to the intrusion of the Catholics. It was not long before the king made this rash effort; and by constraining the prelacy and established church to seek protection in the principles of liberty, he at last left himself entirely without friends ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... himself, and not finding how to end the interview, Caius waited a minute, and then turned suddenly from the fence, without knowing why he turned until he saw that the constraining force was the presence of Day's wife, who stood at the end of the barn, out of sight of her husband, but looking eagerly at Caius. She made a sign to him to come. No doubt she had heard ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... could not comprehend or avert, is foreign to the Roman conception of life. As Schlegel has observed, a truly Roman tragic drama would have found an altogether different basis. The binding force of "Religio," constraining the individual to surrender himself for the good of the Supreme State, and realising itself in acts of patriotic self-devotion; such would have been the shape we should have expected Roman tragedy to take, and if it failed to do this, ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... worship!), to spoil for a time the beautiful and pleasing prospect, and give us, in its stead, I know not what—our enemies will tell the rest with pleasure." Writing to Bishop Burnet, he expresses himself still more strongly: "I am afraid England has lost all her constraining power, and that France thinks she has us in her hands, and may use us as she pleases, which, I daresay, will be as scurvily as we deserve. What a change has two years made! Your lordship may now imagine ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer

... himself entered, accompanied by Fronto. Livia, at the same time, arose and withdrew, not caring, I thought, to meet the eyes of that basilisk, who, with the cunning of a priest, she saw to be usurping a power over Aurelian which belonged of right to her. I was about also to withdraw, but the Emperor constraining me, as he often does, I remained, although holding the priest in still greater abhorrence, I believe, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... experience in some imaginative shape; and in the course of the following year he actually addressed himself to the task. But his inspiration flagged, and it was not till the beginning of 1774 that a new experience supplied a fresh impulse constraining him to complete the "prodigious little work" which was to take his ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... cannot take away. Blessed are they that take sanctuary in the name of Jesus, as in a strong tower; they shall get power over their sins, and over the vanity of their minds, that die to sin and live to God, and feel the constraining power and efficacy of the love of Christ, "who hath loved them, and washed them from their sins, in his own blood, and made them kings and ...
— A Sermon Preached at the Quaker's Meeting House, in Gracechurch-Street, London, Eighth Month 12th, 1694. • William Penn

... argumentative parts. I felt, as I have so often done before, if I were a man, the gift I would choose should be that of eloquence. That power of forcing the vital currents of thousands of human hearts into ONE current, by the constraining power of that most delicate instrument, the voice, is so intense,—yes, I would prefer it to a more extensive fame, a ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... enforcing it; and those who swore to uphold it were so divided by conflicting class interests that they could not co-operate with any cordiality. The second of these defects, though not the first, can also be perceived in the German system of the Land-peace. Periodically we find an Emperor constraining a particular province, or even the whole German kingdom, to accept a set of rules which are partly modelled on those of the Treuga Dei and partly in the nature of criminal legislation. Thus in 1103 the ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... they steadfast built, To 'vantage us and ours, The Walls that were a world's despair, The sea-constraining Towers: Yet in their midmost pride they knew, And unto Kings made known, Not all from these their strength they drew, Their ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling

... appear enraged, as I have often seen them when squirrels, hawks, and mischievous boys attempted to rob their nests, or catch their young ones; but they seemed to be drawn by some allurement or enticement, and not by any constraining or provoking power; indeed, I thoroughly searched all the fences and trees in the vicinity, to find some nest or young birds, but could find none. What this fascinating power is, whether it be the look or effluvium, or the singing by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various

... you know, Mr. Smallweed," urges the trooper, constraining himself to speak as smoothly and confidentially as he can, holding the open letter in one hand and resting the broad knuckles of the other on his thigh, "a good lot of money has passed between us, and we are face to face at the present moment, and are both well aware ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... known on earth shouldst thou be fain, Thee will I satisfy." To him the sprite: So sweet it seems to me, in fame again Thus to return into the glorious light, My huge desire such favour to obtain, Forces my words from me in my despite, Constraining me to tell the things ye seek; Though 'tis annoyance and fatigue ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... talent for organization was marvellous; no statesman has ever compelled alliances, no general has ever collected an army out of unyielding and refractory elements with such decision, and kept them together with such firmness, as Caesar displayed in constraining and upholding his coalitions and his legions; never did regent judge his instruments and assign each to the place appropriate for him ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... and reverence of her book, as of some mighty presence, some constraining power outside herself. She saw it complete, beautiful—an entrancing vision, inaccessible, as ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... any basic defect in his own theories? And was not the same imperfect social system partly responsible for the quasi-criminal attitude which had been forced upon him? He was willing to believe it; willing, also, to believe that he could rise above the constraining forces and be the man he wished to be. That he could so rise was proved, he decided, on the morning of the third day, when he chanced to overhear the hotel clerk telling the man whose room was across the corridor from his own that Andrew Galbraith still had a fighting chance ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... obedience. It is made the very sum and compend of the law, the fulfilling of it; for the truth is the most effectual and constraining principle of obedience, and withal the most sweet and pleasant. The love of Christ constrains us to live to him, and not henceforth to ourselves, 2 Cor. v. 14, 15. As I said, a man and his will is one; if you ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... mysterious spectral look. The Baron still kept his temper. But when on the third night the stranger appeared again and fixed his eyes, burning with a consuming fire, upon the Baron, the latter burst out, "Sir, I must beg you to choose some other place. You exercise a constraining ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... learned, of which you have at present no idea! I assure you I should be almost afraid myself of what is before us yet, if I did not rely upon my own strong desire to instruct you, and the tender affection I bear to you. Believe me, the greatest of constraining powers is love; and when I get bewildered in the midst of some difficult explanation which will not come out clearly, I have only to place before me those laughing eyes of yours, where sleeps a soul that must soon awaken ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... Adam at this moment could only feel that he had been robbed of Hetty—robbed treacherously by the man in whom he had trusted—and he stood close in front of Arthur, with fierce eyes glaring at him, with pale lips and clenched hands, the hard tones in which he had hitherto been constraining himself to express no more than a just indignation giving way to a deep agitated voice that seemed to shake him ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... over to this Isle, Whereas I hear a troop of Phrigians Under the conduct of Postumius' son, Have pitched up lordly pavilions, And hope to prosper in this lovely Isle. But I will frustrate all their foolish hope, And teach them that the Scithian Emperour Leads fortune tied in a chain of gold, Constraining her to yield unto his will, And grace him with their regal diadem, Which I will have mauger their treble hosts, And all the power their ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]



Words linked to "Constraining" :   confining, restricting, limiting, constrictive, restrictive



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