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Inflict   /ɪnflˈɪkt/   Listen
Inflict

verb
(past & past part. inflicted; pres. part. inflicting)
1.
Impose something unpleasant.  Synonyms: bring down, impose, visit.



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"Inflict" Quotes from Famous Books



... well to mention that the sharp-pointed leaves have been known to inflict serious injury. In the Lancet, No. 313, vol. ii., a case is recorded of a young gardener, who whilst watering some plants in a gentleman's garden, at Camberwell, accidentally struck his hand against an aloe plant, one of the prickles of which passed into the last ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various

... in groups, and the Mutual Admiration Society always figures largely. To enumerate instances would be to inflict good folks with triteness and truism. I do not wish to rob my reader of his rights—think it out for yourself, beginning with Concord and Cambridge, working backward ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... on earth, should lay all their strength together, they cannot kill or annihilate one soul. No, I will speak without fear, if it may be said, God cannot do what He will not do; then He cannot annihilate the soul: but, notwithstanding all His wrath, and the vengeance that He will inflict on sinful souls, they yet shall abide with sensible beings, yet to endure, yet to bear punishment. If anything could kill the soul, it would be death; but death cannot do it, neither first nor second; the first cannot, for when Dives was slain, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... replied, "that God will not inflict so severe a punishment on me as to deprive me of you; but if this calamity should befall me, I shall not marry again, for I shall follow you to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... car-warrior he was celebrated throughout all the worlds. He was the saviour of the Dhartarashtras, and the proceeder in their van! A slayer of hostile troops, he was the crusher of large bands of foes. Ever engaged in Duryodhana's good, he was always prepared to inflict woe on us! He was invincible in battle by the very gods with Vasava at their head. In energy and might he was equal unto the god of fire and the god of wind. In gravity he was unfathomable as the Nether world. The enhancer of the joys of friends, he was like the Destroyer himself ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... good-naturedly, returned my salutation (or rather my valediction), and we parted (though he knew it not) for ever. I could not reverence him intellectually, but he had been uniformly kind to me, and had allowed me many indulgences; and I grieved at the thought of the mortification I should inflict upon him. ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey

... an evil in itself. Even the presence of those gloomy buildings, devoted to all the wretched purposes of incarceration, is, we should say, a public calamity. The more men see of misery, the more callous do they become to it; the less effort do they make to relieve; the more ready are they to inflict it. Punishments should be multiplied as little as possible. Very slight offences had better be left to the correction of public opinion, and very grave offences should be severely visited, as well to spare punishment as to prevent crime. We at once admit that it is an evil—the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... We met with an individual of intelligence who told us that he himself had killed between ten and fifteen.... We [the Richmond troop] witnessed with surprise the sanguinary temper of the population, who evinced a strong disposition to inflict ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... arriving at the truth but in order to inflict a defeat on opponents and to establish the ascendency of some particular school of thought. It was often a sense of personal victory and of the victory of the school of thought to which the debater adhered that led him to pursue ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... the village of Cari led us into several Indian huts, where extreme neatness and order prevailed. We observed with pain the torments which the Carib mothers inflict on their infants for the purpose not only of enlarging the calf of the leg, but also of raising the flesh in alternate stripes from the ankle to the top of the thigh. Narrow ligatures, consisting of bands of leather, or of woven ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... old gentleman, planting his sturdy frame in the middle of the floor as if he meant then and there to demand and exact an ample apology, or to inflict condign and terrible chastisement, for past misdeeds; "you appear to be making yourself quite ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... the esteem and affection of my brave comrades. When I review these circumstances, I feel a secret and internal consolation which no reverse of fortune, no sentence in the power of this court to inflict, can deprive me of, or weaken in any degree. Under the flag of the French Republic I originally engaged with a view to save and liberate my own country. For that purpose I have encountered the chances of war amongst ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various

... not silent, Vala! I will question thee, until I know all. I will yet know who on Hoedr vengeance will inflict, or Baldr's ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... his two steamers came in sight, was to obtain hold of the Futai (Governor Li) and inflict summary justice on that high official. General Ching, however, gave timely warning of Gordon's incensed state, and Li very wisely hurried into the city, thus avoiding a meeting. For some days after this Gordon's anxiety to meet with the Futai ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... he should feel himself bound in duty to acquaint his teacher with the affair, and to request him to call him to account for absenting himself thus from the school without permission, and to inflict such punishment on him as might be ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott

... case I must take the liberty, sir, of begging you to hand me that order in writing. I consider it my duty to inflict as much injury upon the enemy as possible. A man that I let off to-day may be cured and come back two months later and perhaps kill ten ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko

... I will not inflict another description of similar scenery upon you, but this, though perhaps exceeding all others in beauty, is not only a type, perhaps the finest type, of a species of canon very common on these islands, but is also so interesting geologically that you must tolerate a very ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... he was, poor Mona got some terrific pecks, one of which nearly blinded him; for a parrot's beak can inflict a bad wound, especially if he ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin

... advice that can be given for this month is to be prepared for either heavy rain or sharp frost, so that extreme variations of temperature may inflict the least possible injury in the garden. Let the work be ordered with reference to the weather, that there may be no 'poaching' on wet ground, or absurd conflict with frost. Accept every opportunity of wheeling out manure; and as long as the ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... certain why she accepted the quest from which she shrank with loathing, at first. While her husband proceeded to substantiate the truth of his statement, she was conscious of rage and shame, as well as a profound contempt for him; and, because of it, she felt an illogical desire to inflict suffering upon the man whom she now considered had too readily accepted his rejection. Naturally, she disliked Miss Savine. She was possessed by an abject fear of poverty, and so, turning a troubled face ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... upon whom the Christians were able to inflict any suffering was the child. At first when he used to go out into the street to play, the other children, acting on their parents' instructions, refused to associate with him, or taunted him with his parents' poverty. Occasionally he came home heartbroken ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... a deep vermilion, and paint the face and breast of the same color. Their weapons consist of a bow of chonta (Guilielma speciosa), with which they use two kinds of arrows. One kind are very long, with round points and barbs of chonta; the others are shorter, and have points made of reed, which inflict deep wounds, very difficult to be healed. They also use the great wooden sword, the macana. A cross having been put up in the forest, they fastened to it a few days afterwards a macana and two arrows, as symbols of irreconcilable enmity to Christians. Their warlike instrument is a reed, two feet ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... Protestant Henry of Navarre was now the heir to her Catholic throne, that efficacious intervention could no longer be looked for from that quarter, and it seemed at last as if the gigantic Southern power was about to inflict punishment upon the little northern kingdom which had insulted ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... are free, and the slaves, by the protection afforded them by the Danish laws, are about as well satisfied with slavery as they would be with freedom. No slave can be taken from the island without security for his or her return; masters cannot inflict punishment without the intervention of public authority; no slave can be sold against his or her consent, except with the estate; and cheap and easy provisions are made for emancipation. Such is the expectation of a general abolition, that the prices of slaves ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... for our forefathers in Egypt, and ten at the Red Sea. Ten plagues did the Holy One—blessed be He!—inflict on the Egyptians in Egypt, and ten at the sea. Ten times did our ancestors tempt God in the wilderness, as it is said (Num. xiv. 22), "And have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... times, it is true, when Polly rebelled against all restraint; but such moments were of short duration, and, for the most part, she yielded easily to the pleasant, firm discipline which made duty enjoyable, and punishment the necessary result of wrong-doing, a result as hard for the mother to inflict as for the child to bear. In her gentler moods, Polly realized that nowhere else could she find so good a friend, so interested and sympathetic in all that concerned her, and the two spent long hours together, now talking quite seriously, ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray

... time, after heroic efforts, I was, at about the age of ten, able to read to myself, and my attention was at once directed to a class of stories congenial to my reputation. It would hardly be fair to inflict upon the patient reader a digest of my studies, but the one impression they left upon my mind was that a young man, if he is to be worth the name, must on every possible occasion both be a hero and ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... feel regret at times that I have not the option of passing a less severe sentence than I am compelled to do. But yours is no such case; on the contrary, had not the capital punishment for consumption been abolished, I should certainly inflict it now. ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... tabooed, and that is why we are going to travel—to have something else to talk about. You see I am so unforgiving that I cannot bear to hear Mr. Greyfield's story, and too magnanimous, notwithstanding, to inflict mine upon him. To put temptation out of my way, I proposed ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... court) directed her minister to inform him, "that the law of England had not yet protected embassadors from the payment of their lawful debts; that therefore the arrest was no offence by the laws; and that she could inflict no punishment upon any, the meanest, of her subjects, unless warranted by the law of the land[o]." To satisfy however the clamours of the foreign ministers (who made it a common cause) as well as to appease the ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... he, "and lay her in the middle of the floor." The slaves obeyed, one holding me by the head, another by the feet; he commanded the third to fetch a cimeter, and when he had brought it, "Strike," said he, "cut her in two, and then throw her into the Tygris. This is the punishment I inflict on those to whom I have given my heart, when they falsify their promise." When he saw that the slave hesitated to obey him, "Why do you not strike?" said he. "What ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... kinds of resistance are alike serviceable; yet that which is required may not always consist with pleasure, nor even with safety. Our most customary actions are rendered possible by forces and conditions that inflict weariness at times upon all, and cost the lives of many. Gravitation, forcing all men against the earth's surface with an energy measured by their weight avoirdupois, makes locomotion feasible; but by the same attraction ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... then, {any ground} why one should hesitate to affront Juno, and dread my being offended, who only benefit them by my resentment? See what a great thing I have done! How vast is my power! I forbade her to be of human shape; she has been made a Goddess; 'tis thus that I inflict punishment on offenders; such is my mighty power! Let him obtain {for her} her former shape, and let him remove this form of a wild beast; as he formerly did for the Argive Phoronis. Why does he not marry her as well, divorcing Juno, and place ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... distinguished families in which he had the privilege of being educated, from first to last certain poetic notions were deeply rooted in his mind. He loved castles, chivalry; all the theatrical part of it. He was ready to cry with shame that in the days of the Moscow Tsars the sovereign had the right to inflict corporal punishment on the Russian boyars, and blushed at the contrast. This stiff and extremely severe man, who had a remarkable knowledge of military science and performed his duties admirably, was at heart a dreamer. It was said that he could ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... face or form, or of both. They are, with scarcely an exception, poor; from infancy they have been well dressed, too well in fact; very few are qualified in domestic art, and those who are would almost rather do anything than be subjected to such humiliations as some people in social standing inflict upon their maids—maids who ofttimes both by birth and breeding are their ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts

... seven and sixpence apiece; knowing that he is not bullet proof, and that every king in Europe has been shot at in the streets; he must smile and bow and maintain an expression of gracious enjoyment whilst the mayor and corporation inflict upon him the twaddling address he has heard a thousand times before. I do not ask you to be loyal, Erskine; but I expect you, in common humanity, to sympathize with the chief figure in the pageant, who is no more accountable for the manifold evils ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... interview. I attended to the feelings that were suggested in this new state of my knowledge. I found reason to confide in my newly-acquired equanimity. "Remorse," said I, "is an ample and proper expiation for all offences. What does vengeance desire but to inflict misery? If misery come, its desires are accomplished. It is only the obdurate and exulting criminal that is worthy of our indignation. It is common for pity to succeed the bitterest suggestions of resentment. If the vengeful mind be delighted with the spectacle of woes of its own contriving, at least ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... to the well-being of society than the warlike munitions which we had already seen consumed. A body of reformers had travelled all over the earth in quest of the machinery by which the different nations were accustomed to inflict the punishment of death. A shudder passed through the multitude as these ghastly emblems were dragged forward. Even the flames seemed at first to shrink away, displaying the shape and murderous contrivance of each in a full blaze of light, which of itself was ...
— Earth's Holocaust (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... followed the Squire's instructions, to the best of his disposition and abilities. He never flogs the boys, because he is too easy, good-humoured a creature to inflict pain on a worm. He is bountiful in holidays, because he loves holidays himself, and has a sympathy with the urchins' impatience of confinement, from having divers times experienced its irksomeness during the time that he was seeing ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... . . . Vodka!" He was evidently convinced that the disreputable father had got his respectable son flogged by "treating" the judges. In such cases flogging can no longer be used, for the Volost Courts, as we have seen, were recently deprived of the right to inflict ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... there was no love lost), accompanied the convoy, and joined Mr. Webb with a couple of hundred horse just as the battle was over, and the enemy in full retreat. He offered, readily enough, to charge with his horse upon the French as they fell back; but his force was too weak to inflict any damage upon them; and Mr. Webb, commanding as Cadogan's senior, thought enough was done in holding our ground before an enemy that might still have overwhelmed us had we engaged him in the open territory, and in securing ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... but he was too well accustomed to the use, or rather the misuse, of his fists to allow his opponent to escape him. Ernest was again retreating. Blackall caught him under his arm, and was about to inflict the most severe and disagreeable of punishments, by gibbing him, when poor Ellis, who had hitherto stood trembling at a distance, in obedience to Ernest's directions, could bear it no longer; and, throwing himself forward, leaped on Blackall's back, and held ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston

... inclined to accompany me. They knew too well how cruel the Tibetans were. Many of them had been tortured, and men could be seen in Garbyang who had been mutilated by the Tibetans. Indeed, the Tibetans often crossed the border to come and claim dues and taxes and inflict punishment on the helpless Shokas, who were left unprotected by the ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor

... the approach of ships of war, the people would desert their villages by the seashore and take to the interior—where it would, in most cases, be impossible to follow them—and all the damage we could inflict would be to burn their villages, which could be rebuilt after the ships had sailed away. To exterminate piracy would be the work, not of months, but of many years. However, I shall consult my council, and will draft a reply to the ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... changed once more. We were again on board the ship, and in the power of the enraged mutineers, about to suffer whatever their vengeance might impel them to inflict. Poor Spot was swinging, a livid corpse, at one of the yard-arms. Browne was bound to the main-mast, while Luerson and his fiendish crew were exhausting their ingenuity in torturing him. The peculiar expression ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... escape, and Ney had to be guarded by men of good position disguised in the uniform of privates. Ney had written to his wife when he joined Napoleon, thinking of the little vexations the Royalists loved to inflict on the men who had conquered the Continent. "You will no longer weep when you leave the Tuileries." The unfortunate lady wept now as she vainly sought some mercy for her husband. Arrested on the 5th of August, sentenced on the 6th of December, Ney was shot on the 7th of December, and the very ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... wisdom; not saying properly that which is proper, is like doing that which is not fit to see. Let all be done in right and proper order, according as the meaning of the sentence guides, for he who grasps a sword unskilfully, does but inflict a wound upon his hand. Not skilfully to handle words and sentences, the meaning then is hard to know; as in the night-time travelling and seeking for a house, if all be dark within, how difficult to find. Losing the meaning, then the law is disregarded, disregarding ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... run in arrear; he may suddenly come down upon the defaulter with 'a fell swoop;' he may require the rents to be paid up to the day; he may, without reason assigned, call in 'the hanging gale;' he may abate or increase the rents at will; he may inflict fines for delay or give notices to quit for the sole purpose of bringing in fees to his friend or relative, the solicitor. But whatever he may choose to do, the tenant has nothing for it but to submit; and he must submit with a good grace. Woe to him if the agony of his spirit ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... papa and I had better walk gently home?' suggested Urania; 'I am sure it would be cruel to inflict such an ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... authorities. Not the wisest kind of treatment, one would think, this which Red Iron received, taking all the circumstances into account. The reader will be surprised, however, that Governor Ramsey, not content with 'breaking' the chief, as he called it—the greatest dishonor which he could inflict upon an Indian of rank—sent him, when the council broke up, to the guard house, under an escort of soldiers! This impolitic official ought to have remembered that the fire was even then ready for the kindling, which finally burst out in such fearful devastation over ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... stipulated that privateers should give bonds, with security, to make equivalent restitution for any injury they might inflict upon neutrals, in the event of the condemnation of any prize. Other provisions, favorable to neutral property captured by privateers, were made; and it was determined that the list of contraband articles should include, besides ammunition and warlike implements, all ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... face 'from shame and spitting.' He gives 'His back to the smiters.' Meek endurance and passive submission are not all which we have to behold there. This is more than an uncomplaining martyr. This is the sacrifice for the world's sin; and His bearing of all that men can inflict is more than heroism. It is redeeming love. His sad, loving eyes, wide open below their bandage, saw and pitied each rude smiter, even as He sees us all. They were and are eyes of infinite tenderness, ready to beam forgiveness; but they were and are ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... association "for regulating public grievances and abuse of powers." The royal governor, Tryon (the same who later originated the infamous plot to poison Washington), raised an army of eleven hundred men, and marched to inflict summary punishment on the defiant sons of liberty. On May 16, 1771, the two forces met on the banks of the Great Alamance. After an engagement of two hours the patriots failed. These men were sturdy, patriotic members of three Presbyterian churches. On the field ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... the Lord make thee able. Thou canst never follow Christ in thine own strength. But 'His strength is made perfect through weakness.' I know well, my dear heart, 'tis vastly harder to forgive them that inflict suffering on them we love dearly— far harder than when we be the sufferers ourselves. But God can enable us to do ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt

... and to which they owed a natural allegiance, they were doomed to suffer all the penalties of capital offenders. Those of them who acted from principle felt no consciousness of guilt, and could not but look with abhorrence upon a Government which could inflict such severe punishments for what they deemed a laudable line of conduct. Humanity would shudder at a particular recital of the calamities which the Whigs inflicted on the Tories and the Tories on the Whigs. It is particularly ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... neither heart nor right to do; but for that fact, she would certainly exercise her constitutional right as an American citizen, and go to Charleston to visit her relatives, and if for that, the authorities should inflict upon her pains and penalties, she would willingly bear them, assured that such an outrage would help to reveal to the free States the fact that slavery defies and tramples alike upon constitutions and ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... undeniably good looks and somewhat engaging manners should stoop to deceit. The fact that people are considered innocent until proved guilty did not concern her. With scarcely any hesitation she summed up against him, the only thing that troubled her being what sentence to inflict, and how to inflict it. She wondered what excuse he could make for such behaviour, and then blushed hotly as she thought of the one he would probably advance. Confused at her own thoughts, she quickened her pace, in happy ignorance of the fact that fifty yards behind her ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs

... away and walked toward the picnic ground. Henry followed in a demoralized frame. His mind was in a ferment. He could not realize what had happened. He could scarcely believe that he had actually done it. He could not conceive how he had dared it. And now what penalty would she inflict? What if she should not forgive him? His soul was dissolved in fears. But, sooth to say, the young lady's actual state of mind was by no means so implacable as he apprehended. She had been ready to be very ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy

... the light of the Christian revelation of His Love. The attitude of GOD towards sinners is never anything but love, though a love that is holy and righteous, and never merely sentimental. GOD as Christ reveals Him can never impose or inflict a merely external penalty upon a sinner, other than the supreme penalty of being simply what he is, viz. a soul who by his own deliberate actions has separated himself from goodness and from GOD. It is important ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson

... to listen to all this well-meant twaddle was misery indeed. Perhaps, upon the whole, good honest dullness does unknowingly inflict more grievous wounds ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... seldom she managed to soften his rough severity. The Children learned to make use of this feature in his character; and would thereby save themselves from the first outburst of his anger. They confessed beforehand to the Mother their bits of misdoings, and begged her to inflict the punishment, and prevent their falling into the heavier paternal hand. Towards the Son again, whose moral development his Father anxiously watched over, his wrath was at times disarmed by touches of courage and fearlessness ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... like man's. The ideas of atonement so abstracted are essentially false; and to convince us of their falsehood is one of the objects of Christ's death. It is to show us that God does not demand this full restitution, does not intend to inflict this punishment, and is not alienated from the penitent sinner. The death ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... ladies; it is certain, at least, that when Massillon first entered the profession he was to the soul something like the spear of Achilles to the body; and, though very efficacious in healing the wounds of conscience, was equally ready in the first instance to inflict them." ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... just to wither up the fig-tree, since it was not the fruit season; to ask such a question is foolish in the extreme," because such things cannot commit a fault or be punished: "but look at the miracle, and wonder at the worker." Nor does the Creator "inflict" any hurt on the owner, if He choose to make use of His own creature for the salvation of others; rather, as Hilary says on Matt. 21:19, "we should see in this a proof of God's goodness, for when He wished to afford an example of salvation as being ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... officer has withdrawn all his men among the wagons, where their shelter will be nearly as good as yours. They have, doubtless, abundant stores of ammunition in those wagons, together with food and wine, and if you force them to fight to the last man they can hold out for a very long time, and will inflict a heavy loss upon your men before they ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... hot countries: they are very bold and watchful: when any thing approaches, they erect their tails, and stand ready to inflict the direful sting. In some parts of Italy and France, they are among the greatest pests that plague mankind: they are very numerous, and are most common in old houses, in dry or decayed walls, and ...
— The History of Insects • Unknown

... stage you will understand how to inflict all manner of diseases, and work all sorts of spells; such, for instance, as bewitching milk, causing people to have fits, bad dreams, etc. You will also know how to create plagues—plagues of insects, or of ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... characterizes the American people. Mr. Lecky has more than once remarked upon this humane temperament which is so characteristic of our peaceful civilization, and which sometimes, indeed, shows the defects of its excellence and tends to weaken society by making it difficult to inflict due punishment upon the vilest criminals. In respect of this humanity the American of the nineteenth century has without doubt improved very considerably upon his forefathers of the seventeenth. The England of Cromwell and Milton was not, indeed, ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... must have been dormant, and that this is so, is shown by the young leaves of oaks and others, which, when unfolding in the spring show a similar but paler hue. Moreover, there is a way of awakening the concealed powers at any time. We have only to inflict small wounds on the leaves, or to cut through the nerves or to injure them by a slight bruising, and the leaves frequently respond with an intense reddening of the living tissues around and especially above the wounds. Azolla ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... hands, Highness," sturdily. "In a mad moment I committed a crime. I shall abide by whatever punishment you may inflict." ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... it otherwise:—have the professors of these opinions ever considered the huge responsibility which they arrogate to themselves by such a course? Let these men remember that, by seeking to coerce the slave-labour producer in distant countries, they inflict a severe punishment on the millions of hard-working, ill-fed consumers among their fellow countrymen; but they seem always to overlook the fact, that there is a consumer to consider as well as a producer;—and ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... have been unfortunate. Your father tried hard enough, but he just doesn't seem to have the money-making faculty like so many men. Now, we've had a little luck I'm really hopeful. I've just had a nice letter from your Aunt Eliza Goring—I named you for her, but I couldn't inflict you with Eliza. You know she is many years older than I am and has no children. She was out here once just before you were born. We—we were very hard up indeed. It was she who furnished this cottage for us and paid a year's rent. Soon after, your father got his present position ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... the sovereign gift of reason, with all the torture it can inflict. I thank God for returning memory, even ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... again assaulted the enemy's works, in the hope of driving him from his position. In this attempt our loss was heavy, while that of the enemy, I have reason to believe, was comparatively light. It was the only general attack made from the Rapidan to the James which did not inflict upon the enemy losses to compensate for our own losses. I would not be understood as saying that all previous attacks resulted in victories to our arms, or accomplished as much as I had hoped from them; but they inflicted upon the enemy severe ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... one should be constructed at about the height he carries his head. Having to reach too high or too low may cause so much pain that the animal would rather forego satisfying what little appetite he may have than inflict pain by craning his head for feed or water. A supply of fresh water should be before him all the time; he will not drink too much, nor will the cold water hurt him. Constipation (if present) must be relieved by enemas of warm water, administered three or four times ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... but indeed you can," he retorted, laughing. "And now," he added hastily (to prevent her from protesting any longer), "I am not going to inflict myself upon you for the entire day. You must be very tired; and, besides, after you are rested, we must decide upon the next thing to be done. I have cabled to my uncle, and there is no doubt that he will ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge

... Sergeant Corney appeared sadly disappointed when the tumult of battle died away, and I asked if he believed that the people from the fort should have made an attempt to inflict more punishment ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis

... by the buttons from his overalls jacket; by the ease with which he could have obtained from Lucy Thomas the kitchen key to No. 5; by the possible motive of robbery; and by the brutal means, choking, employed to inflict death. ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.

... "who knew nothing of this plot. Nevertheless, as I was sure that you would think thus, I am come from Jerusalem, leaving the princess and my brother there, to tell the truth and to surrender myself to you, that I may bear in her place any punishment which you think fit to inflict ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... with whom even a superannuated nurse can venture to take many liberties. He was a good master, paid his servants their wages with unfailing punctuality, and gave very little trouble. But he was the last person in the world upon whom a garrulous woman could venture to inflict her rambling discourse; as Nancy Woolper—by courtesy, Mrs. Woolper—was fain to confess to her next-door neighbour, Mrs. Magson, when her master was the subject of an afternoon gossip. The heads of a household may inhabit a neighbourhood for years without becoming acquainted even ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... tortured and butchered without using his weapons, because nobody has ever been able precisely to define the amount of danger which justifies homicide. Nor is a society bound to endure passively all that tyranny can inflict, because nobody has ever been able precisely to define the amount of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... after the fashion of Laurence Sterne, have dwelt upon the imaginary woes of the creatures. Associations of well-meaning people have endeavored to diminish the cruelty which people of the towns, rarely those bred on the soil, often inflict upon them. It seems, however, desirable that we should place this consideration upon a plane more fitting the knowledge of our time. It should be made plain, not only that the success of our civilization depends now as in the ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... pressure of half a dozen wild-looking desperadoes, and he was powerless in their grasp. They evidently designed murder, but not a quick and merciful "taking off"; they first heaped upon their victim the vilest epithets, seeking in their thirst for revenge to inflict all the terrors of death in anticipation. The good man, however, now face to face with his fate, grew calm and resigned. Exasperated by his courage, they began to cut and torture him with their swords and knives. Phebe ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... the outward tolerance of whatever is not itself intolerant. These phrases are so familiar that they sound now rather dead in our ears. Once they had a passionate inner meaning. Such a passionate inner meaning they may easily acquire again if the pretension of our nation to inflict its own inner ideals and institutions vi et armis upon Orientals should meet with a resistance as obdurate as so far it has been gallant and spirited. Religiously and philosophically, our ancient national doctrine of live and let live may prove to have a far deeper meaning than our people now ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... regret of many of the Committee, who thought he should have been punished. The executive committee called together the board of delegates, and issued a statement showing that death and banishment were the only penalties optional with them. Death they could not inflict, because Hopkins had recovered; and banishment they thought impractical at that time, as it might prolong discussion indefinitely, and enforce a longer term in service than the Committee cared for. It was the earnest wish of all to disband at the first moment that they considered ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough

... upon Fate, as the Japanese advised. He knew he must speak. Moto was quietly massaging his deadly fingers, and Martin did not relish the torture he knew those digits could inflict. But should he ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... bank. This place of interment is without the relief of trees: at the present day it is uninclosed, and in the opinions of those who have set it apart for heretic and Jew, it is unblessed. And yet, though condemned alike to this, the last indignity which man can inflict on his fellow, the two proscribed classes furnish a melancholy proof of the waywardness of human passions and prejudice, by refusing to share in common the scanty pittance of earth which bigotry has allowed for their everlasting repose! While the Protestant sleeps by ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... safe, though he was afraid to risk an engagement with men driven to desperation. At any time that he was forced into a combat he came out victorious as the result of prudence mingled with daring. Hannibal now undertook to inflict injury upon those regions which he was unable to occupy, being influenced by the reasons aforementioned as also by the fact that the cities in his alliance had either abandoned him or were intending to do so, and by some other causes. He hurt a great many ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio

... Prudentius Maranus renders the words "... scripturam declarare," and Otto "... effatum declarare." They occur in reference to passages from the Old Testament quoted in controversy with a Jew. The next passage is [Greek: kata korrhes propelakizein], which Dr. Lightfoot says is rendered "to inflict a blow on one side," but this is not the case. The phrase occurs in contrasting the words of Matt. v. 39, [Greek: all' hostis se rhapisei epi ten dexian sou siagona, strepson auto kai ten allen], with a passage in Athenagoras, [Greek: alla tois men kan kata korrhes prospelakizosi, kai to eteron ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels

... thought of what he had done—how he had disgraced himself by going to a public bar, and there drinking to intoxication—caused him the deepest sorrow and regret; but when he fully realized what a severe wound his conduct would inflict upon his mother and father, and how they would grieve over it—when he thought what the people of the town would say, and remembered that he had actually called in this lamentable state at Dr. Dutton's ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey

... Sovereign, whose virtues and whose mildness are celebrated in verse and prose, causing rivers of blood to run, in order that the little island over which she rules may swell out, like the frog in the fable, to dimensions that nature has denied, and which will one day inflict the unfortunate death that befell the ambitious inhabitant of the pool. The gallows awaits the pickpocket; but your robber under a pennant is dubbed a knight! The man who amasses wealth by gainful industry is ashamed of his origin; ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... "beneficent despotism" of the Calverts, notwithstanding every concession on their part, was ended for the time by the efforts of an "Association for the Defense of the Protestant Religion," and Maryland became a royal colony. Under the new regime it was easier to inflict annoyances and disabilities on the petty minority of the Roman Catholics than to confer the privileges of an established church on the hardly more considerable minority of Episcopalians. The Church of England became in name the official ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... of bushrangers in these parts who inflict wanton injury upon the goods of carriers. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... ye dogs: I'll bridle all your tongues, And bind them close with bits of burnish'd steel, Down to the channels of your hateful throats; And, with the pains my rigour shall inflict, I'll make ye roar, that earth may echo forth The far-resounding torments ye sustain; As when an herd of lusty Cimbrian bulls Run mourning round about the females' miss, [211] And, stung with fury of their following, Fill all the air with troublous bellowing. I will, with engines never exercis'd, ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe

... Oxford hack, that to general showiness of exterior, it must add the power of enduring any amount of hard riding and rough treatment in the course of the day which its pro-tem. proprietor may think fit to inflict upon it; it being an axiom which has obtained, as well in Universities as in other places, that it is of no advantage to hire a hack unless you get out of him as much as you can for your money; you won't want to use him to-morrow, so you don't care ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... to be injured as much as if his property had been interfered with. Here, indeed, it may be readily shown, that it is as much the interest of society that men should not interfere with one another's freedom, or mutually inflict positive or negative pain, as that they should not meddle with one another's property; and hence the obligation of justice in such matters may be deduced. But, if a man merely thinks ill of another, or feels maliciously towards him without due ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... the lash bestow; Poachers, and drunkards, idle rogues, who feed At others' cost, a mark'd correction need: And all the better sort, who see your zeal, Will love and reverence for their pastor feel; Reverence for one who can inflict the smart, And love, because he deals them not a part. "Remember well what love and age advise: A quiet rector is a parish prize, Who in his learning has a decent pride; Who to his people is a gentle guide; Who only hints at failings ...
— Tales • George Crabbe

... suggest, my lord; I am sensible of the wound such a proceeding must inflict on a parent's heart, for am I not myself a father?" And he hung his head, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... place, humbly to intercede for her servants, are fruitless There is no help for the juggling diplomatists. The punishment was sharp. Was it more severe and sudden than that which betrayed monarchs usually inflict? Would the Flemings, at that critical moment, have deserved their freedom had they not taken swift and signal vengeance for this first infraction of their newly recognized rights? Had it not been weakness to spare the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... that he knew Miss Hamm and her uncle ere their removal to these parts. It would appear also that he arrived here this afternoon with the avowed intention of remaining several days in our peaceful community—why, though, I know not, unless it be that perversely he would inflict himself upon a young lady who conceivably cannot possibly be interested in his society or in the idle ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... strengthening Angels. The agony of the Garden brought them to Christ. I thank God, mine did not fail me. If they had not come, I think I could never have borne this last misery that earth can inflict upon me. My mother ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... tyrannised over; cuffed, kicked, abused, and ill-treated. I had never known kindness. Most truly was the question put by me, "Charity and mercy—what are they?" I never heard of them. An American Indian has kind feelings—he is hospitable and generous— yet, educated to inflict, and receive, the severest tortures to, and from, his enemies, he does the first with the most savage and vindictive feelings, and submits to the latter with indifference and stoicism. He has, indeed, the kindlier feelings of his nature exercised; still, this changes him not. He has been from earliest ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... that the King ventures to use Blake's name," Sydney whispered, as they moved away, "considering the indignities that he allowed the judges to inflict on the body ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... be convinced, but on trying to raise the poor fellow he seemed to inflict so much agony that he gave up, and felt disposed to return to his first ideas of coming to see the poor fellow from time to time, and ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn

... greatness,'" resumed Edna severely, "if you do not feel within yourself both the will and the power to inflict great suffering! And 'through it all you must exhibit the joyous innocence of a child that is ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... For love hath many avenues; the path of pleasure is opened to some by grace, to others by bravery of soul, and to some by skill in accomplishments. Courtesy brings to some stores of Love, while most are commended by brightness of beauty. Nor do the brave inflict a shallower wound on maidens ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... myself!"—agreed Julian—"I am proud of my own skill! That pious porpoise will not forget me in a hurry. You see, my dear Walden, you merely threatened punishment,—you did not inflict it,—I suppose out of some scruple of Church conscience, which is quite a different conscience to the lay examples,—and it was necessary to act promptly. The air of St. Rest is remarkably free ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... one man's heart. She did not desire to sing on the present occasion. She did not wish to annoy him by the contrast between her song and Miss Wildmere's performance, feeling that he would naturally take sides in his thoughts with the woman outvied; nor had she any desire to inflict upon her rival the disparagement that must follow; but something in Miss Wildmere's self-satisfied and patronizing tone had touched her quick spirit, and the arrogant girl should receive the lesson she had invited. But, as Madge sang, the noble art soon lifted her ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... of Monmouth the counties that had risen against the Government endured all the cruelties that a ferocious soldiery let loose on them could inflict. The number of victims butchered cannot now be ascertained, the vengeance being left to the dissolute Colonel Percy Kirke. But, a still more cruel massacre was schemed. Early in September Judge Jeffreys ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... most probable ones being that there were 6,000 Germans drawn up about two miles behind their lines, and the other that there was a fierce fight proceeding to the right of us. What those fights result in is the loss of anything up to 350 men and 14 or 15 officers, and we probably inflict twice that damage on the enemy. Well, this afternoon we have been covered with six-inch shells. Fortunately none have hit the house; but it is a constant strain. Yesterday we left our ruin and went ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie

... to pain is one of the most difficult problems, and yet one of the most fundamental, in the whole range of sexual psychology. Why is it that love inflicts, and even seeks to inflict, pain? Why is it that love suffers pain, and even seeks to suffer it? In answering that question, it seems to me, we have to take an apparently circuitous route, sometimes going beyond the ostensible ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... only that I have quite forgiven it. Man is far too mean a creature to be justified in withholding forgiveness for any personal wrong. It is far more hard to forgive one's-self when one has done wrong. I have determined to bury the whole matter in oblivion, and to inflict no punishment either on you or on any of the other boys who were concerned in this folly and sin. I will not forgive by halves. But, Walter, I will not wrong you by doubting that from this time forward you will advance with a marked improvement. You will have something to bear, ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... of a wearisome load and of an image of slavery." Johnson might well call Economy the mother of Liberty. No man can be free who is in debt. The inevitable effect of debt is not only to injure personal independence, but, in the long run, to inflict moral degradation. The debtor is exposed to constant humiliations. Men of honourable principles must be disgusted by borrowing money from persons to whom they cannot pay it back;—disgusted with drinking wine, wearing clothes, and keeping up appearances, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... creed. How should it have been otherwise? Knowing woman chiefly, as he obviously did, only in the ranks of the demi-monde, he was not likely to regard the fairest face, after the first heyday of his youth was past, as worth the pain its owner's caprices could inflict. For, as seen under that phase, woman was apt to be both mercenary and capricious; and if the poet suffered, as he did, from the fickleness of more than one mistress, the probability is—and this he ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... But Lincoln could never have claimed this happy immunity from ideal trials. His published speeches show how much the poet in him was constantly kept in check; and at this time of his life his imagination was sufficiently alert to inflict upon him the sharpest anguish. His reverence for women was so deep and tender that he thought an injury to one of them was a sin too heinous to be expiated. No Hamlet, dreaming amid the turrets of Elsinore, no Sidney creating ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... people to some growing sense of the real state of the case. Still, however, we are so far dominated by these influences of the past, that we are not fighting the South upon anything like a fair approximation to equal terms. They have no other thought than to inflict on us of the North the greatest amount of evil; the animus of deadly war. We, on the other hand, fight an unwilling fight, with a constant arriere pensee to the best interests of the people whom we oppose—not even as we might ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... when they act most liberally in the distribution of their rewards; and here the good they receive is often more to be considered than the motive from which they receive it. Example alone is the end of all public punishments and rewards. Laws never inflict disgrace in resentment, nor confer honor from gratitude. "For it is very hard, my lord," said a convicted felon at the bar to the late excellent judge Burnet, "to hang a poor man for stealing a horse." "You are not to be hanged sir," answered my ever-honored and beloved ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding

... my life; but now there are others to consider. Unless I misjudge the man, he would more quickly strike at me through my wife or son than directly at me, for he doubtless realizes that in no other way could he inflict greater anguish upon me. I must go back to them at once, and remain with them until Rokoff is ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... discredit these assertions, it is not improbable that such operations were performed. In an age when human life was held so cheap, and among a people accustomed to torturing condemned prisoners for comparatively slight offences, it is not unlikely that the surgeons were allowed to inflict perhaps less painful tortures in the cause of science. Furthermore, we know that condemned criminals were sometimes handed over to the medical profession to be "operated upon and killed in whatever way they thought best" even as late as the sixteenth century. Tertullian(1) ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... There we were, in that memorable spring of a certain year in the late seventies, dodging to and fro, baffled on every tack, and with our stores running down to sweepings of bread-lockers and scrapings of sugar-casks. It was just like the East Wind's nature to inflict starvation upon the bodies of unoffending sailors, while he corrupted their simple souls by an exasperation leading to outbursts of profanity as lurid as his blood-red sunrises. They were followed by ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... hundred and eighty pounds of bone and muscle detached themselves from the couch and loomed up massively before him, was conscious of a weakening of his determination to inflict bodily chastisement. The truth of Steve's remark, that it made a difference whether one's intended victim is a heavyweight, a middle, or a welter, came upon him ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse

... very humane to animals, and never inflict unnecessary pain upon the meanest. In the street in which I lived in Paris, there was a hospital ...
— True Stories about Cats and Dogs • Eliza Lee Follen

... Portugal. In retaliation, all Roman Catholics in Bombay were forbidden to recognize the authority of the Italian bishop and friars, and the Portuguese General of the North was ordered to prohibit all intercourse with Bombay, and to inflict the severest penalties on all persons attempting to go there or ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph

... stalwart grand-father—for the sermon's begun, and all eyes are fastened on the preacher—look at her till your heart melts, as if she were your ain, and God had given you that beautifu' wee image o' her sainted mother, and tell me if you think that a' the tortures that cruelty could devise to inflict, would ever ring frae thae sweet innocent lips ae word o' abjuration o' the faith in which the flower is growing up amang the dew-draps o' her ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various

... They name this result one of 'arrest of development.' Is it not barely possible that our studies and recitations are yet in general so mal-adapted to the habitudes of the tender brain and opening faculties of childhood, as not merely often to allow, but even to inflict on the intellectual and moral being of the child a positive arrest of development? And if it be possible, what question can take precedence of one concerning the means of averting such a mischief? Pestalozzi intuitively saw and deeply ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... sensitiveness, and an abounding humanity and sympathy. He could be almost ruthless in the assertion of his will when the interests of his art or of justice seemed to demand it, yet there was a tender-heartedness in him which made it distressing to him to inflict pain on any one. The conflict of these elements in his nature sometimes made his actions seem inconsistent and indecipherable even to those who knew him. He would be long-suffering, compromising, disinclined to strike; but ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox

... honourable." The attainment of glory exceeding even his own great aspirations coincides with dereliction from the plain rules of honor between friends, and with public humiliation to his wife, which he allowed himself to inflict, notwithstanding that he admitted her claims to his deferential consideration to be unbroken. In this contrast, of the exaltation of the hero and the patriot with the degradation of the man, lie the tragedy and the misery of Nelson's story. And this, too, was incurred on behalf ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... often remain earth-bound after death, and usually select as their haunts, spots little frequented by man. From what I have heard they are by far the most malignant of all bird ghosts, and have even been known to inflict physical injury on those who have had the misfortune to pass the night within ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... If he could only make up his mind that he would shoot himself, would it not be a pleasant thing to inflict some condign punishment on this odious man before he left the world? But Crosbie knew that he was not going to shoot himself, and he knew also that he had no power of inflicting condign punishment on Sir Raffle Buffle. He could only hate the man, ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... the King. He was executed on Tower Hill, January 28, 1697. This was the last instance in English history in which a person was attainted by Act of Parliament, and Hallam's opinion of this Act of Attainder is that "it did not, like some acts of attainder, inflict a punishment beyond the offence, but supplied the deficiency of ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... often make use, he had brought himself to believe that he was now the injured one, and that Ellen, by her distrust of him, had fairly subjected herself to whatever evil it consisted with his will and power to inflict upon her. Her only restraining influence over him, the consciousness, in his own mind, that he possessed her confidence, was now done away. Ellen, as well as her enemy, felt that this was the case. She knew not what to dread; but she was well aware ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... would soon have been terminated from the mere want of respectability. But had it assumed a more serious phase and become the protege of such pious men as Semler was at heart, there would have been no limit to the damage it might inflict upon the cause of Protestantism. And there were indications favorable to either result. However, by some plan of fiendish malice, skepticism received all the support it could ask from the learned, the powerful, and the ambitious. ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... passed over as a peccadillo in France or the Netherlands, or turned into a diverting novel or pasquinade by the wits of his own wandering Court, was likely to have the aspect of horrid ingratitude and infamous treachery among the English gentry, and would inflict a deep, perhaps an incurable wound upon his interests, among the more aged and respectable part of his adherents. Then it occurred to him—for his own interest did not escape him, even in this mode of considering the subject—that he was in the power of the Lees, father and son, who were always ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... prophet. He farther added, that Mahomet was an impostor, in any other country of Asia, in which Mahomet is zealously followed, this bold attempt had surely forfeited his life, with all the tortures which cruelty could invent, or tyranny inflict; but in this country every one is permitted to follow his own religion, and may even dispute against theirs ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... my intelligent Fullah, that while the Mahometan courts of his country rescued by law the people of their own faith from slavery, they omitted no occasion to inflict it, as a penalty, upon the African "unbelievers" who fell within their jurisdiction. Among these unfortunates, the smallest crime is considered capital, and a "capital crime" merits the profitable punishment of slavery. Nor was it difficult, he told ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... Haldane passionately, "this is my first and only offence. You surely cannot be so cold-blooded as to inflict upon me this irreparable disgrace? It ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... no chance to consider, as now she reviewed in thoughtful illumination, what had seemed to her strange. She tried to recall exactly what he had said. Of a sudden she knew, and was startled to know. She had come into possession of the power of a woman innocent of intention to inflict pain on a strong and high-minded man. A lower nature might have felt some sense of triumph. It left her with no feeling but the utmost distress and pitiful thinking of what had gone wrong in this man's life. Once before she had been thus ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... descended from that great Albanian hero and patriot. But he was an educated and travelled man, having lived for many years in Venice, spoke an excellent Italian and correspondingly atrocious German, which latter he delighted to inflict upon us. He was most amusing in his hatred and ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... left alone. I need not describe my grief: I will only say, that with bitter imprecations I cursed the gods. 'Who are ye,' I cried, 'who sit above in your secure seats, and make your sport of human wo? Ye are less than men. Man though I am, I would not inflict upon the meanest slave the misery ye have poured upon my defenceless head. Where are your mercies?' I was frantic. How long this lasted I cannot tell, for I took no note of time. I was awakened, may I not say saved, by a kind neighbor ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... have a place at my court, or, if you please, I will recommend you to another prince in whose service you may rise to wealth and honor. If you refuse, I shall kill you; no, I shall not kill you, for death is sweet to a slave; I shall inflict on you the tortures I reserve for those who provoke my anger; you shall lose your ears, your ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... for though Eumenes had long intended to fly, yet he did not, and was taken. The death of Sertorius did not disgrace his life, for he met at the hands of his friends with that fate which none of his enemies could inflict upon him; but Eumenes, who could not escape before he was taken prisoner, and yet was willing to live after his capture, made a discreditable end; for by his entreaties to be spared, he proved that his enemy had conquered not merely his ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... on arriving at the house, for Mr. Henderson was a man who did not believe in inflicting punishment in the heat of passion. He wanted to calm down before he decided how his son ought to be made to realize the wrong he had done. To tell the truth, he was quite at a loss just what punishment to inflict. ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster

... with the agony of remorse, that a very large aunt can by means of a brooch inflict exquisite torture on a very ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss

... impress his very critics by his attitude and his eloquence. But his distrust of himself, his mental instability, his habitual weakness of reasoning, all these enemies of poise league themselves together to inflict upon him a defeat, of which the memory will only aggravate his nervousness and his desire never to repeat such ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke

... regular police force or law of the land was responsible for the protection and good conduct of the entire community. Some capable man was elected as president and chief, before whom all cases of misdemeanour were heard, and whose decisions and powers to inflict punishment were final. Under such rule, crude as it was, the utmost good conduct usually prevailed, and any glaring instances of robbery or crime were not only rare, but severely ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth

... dwell on the after conduct of this hot-headed young man. It was the more disgraceful as I offered but little resistance, and endured a beating such as I would have hesitated to inflict upon a dog. Nor was this all. He warned me that if I dared to remain in the city after a week he would shoot me. In the East I should have thought but little of such a threat, but here it was only too likely to be practically carried out. Accordingly, with my usual decision of character, ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell

... the envelopment of his flanks. This is historically true, and yet the German critics cannot be said to have established their case, for they omit to take the tactics of the Boers into consideration. Stated briefly, these were to hold on to a position and inflict such losses as they could upon the attacking troops, until the final assault became imminent; and then to mount their ponies and gallop away. Against such tactics as these, it would have been of no avail to push in a frontal attack with the certainty of ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... inflict you with a ride in that circus-wagon. It's all right for me, but—you're one of the decent kind. If you have a reputation it won't do to parade it in a show-case. We'll take a taxi." Lorelei's relief must have been obvious, for Adoree sped swiftly ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... at first closed by a red velvety-looking substance. If opened in this state a nest of small greenish aphides is distinctly visible, and at a certain period, or when they have acquired maturity, which is towards the end of the summer, the mouth of the cell opens and the insects fly off to inflict a similar injury upon the nascent buds of the year. In some instances the leaves of only a portion of the circumference of a shoot are affected, in which case, though a slight distortion may take place, ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... her speak of another man; he did not venture to utter her name lest he should betray his misery and expose himself to ridicule. It was agony to him to watch her in conversation with any one else, though he could hardly endure to be in her company, lest she should inflict some slight upon him. Not once but a hundred times a murderous impulse swept over him. He could have killed his mistress, together with the rival whom, for the moment, she chose to honour with her preference, but was forced ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson

... Mr. Faringfield now stride forth at all risk and inflict upon Master Ned some chastisement inconceivable; and Ned himself took a backward step or two. But his father, after a moment of dark glowering, merely answered, though in a voice somewhat ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... the whole of that great sphere which belongs to Beauty, Propriety, and Taste, his sense of delicacy was always at work, and not seldom in pain. "Ah," he exclaimed, quoting from Rivarol, "no one considers how much pain any man of taste has to suffer, before ever he inflicts any." To inflict pain was not, indeed, in his way, but to suffer it was his too-frequent lot. From first to last he was protesting against hideousness, rawness, vulgarity, and commonplace; craving for sweetness, light, beauty and colour, instead of the bitterness, the ugliness, the ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell

... or mind, are egotistical. Griffith was no exception: bent on curing his own deep wound, he never troubled his head about the wound he might inflict. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... the justice of God is satisfied with suffering, is a piece of the darkness of hell. God is willing to suffer, and ready to inflict suffering to save from sin, but no suffering is satisfaction ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... imprint?[40] Simply because, as Mark frankly confesses, he "dreaded (and could not bear) the disapproval of the people around" him. He knew how hard his fight for recognition had been; he knew what direful penalties outraged orthodoxy could inflict; he had in him the somewhat pathetic discretion of a respectable family man. But, dead, he is safely beyond reprisal, and so, after a prudent interval, the faithful Paine begins printing books in which, writing knowingly behind six feet of earth, ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... not only praise administered by others which may inflict evil upon us,—we must also be specially careful not to have too "gude a conceit of ourselves," lest we thereby draw down upon us the fate of a certain Eutelidas, who, having regarded his image in the water with peculiar self-satisfaction and laudation, immediately lost his health, and from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... there is no other suitable conveyance for passengers or freight. It is for these reasons that the United States has taken the control of interstate commerce into its own hands and regulated it, while the States have shown a disposition to inflict penalties upon recalcitrant corporations operating within State boundaries. It is the policy of government, also, to prevent control of one railroad by another, to the added inconvenience and expense of the public. But since 1890 there has ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... their pictures caricatured, there is, of course, another side to the question. It is indeed most true that nothing kills like ridicule, and in the course of my experience I have found it is just as easy unconsciously to inflict an injury with my pen and Indian ink as it is to do good. Let us suppose, for instance, that a great painter has just finished a very sentimental work—a picture so brimful of beauty and pathos ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... McNutt, with bulging eyes—and neat partitions were placed for the offices. There was no longer any secret as to the plans of the "nabobs"; it was generally understood that those terribly aggressive girls were going to inflict a daily paper on the community. Some were glad, and some rebelled, but all were excited. A perpetual meeting was held at Cotting's store to discuss developments, for something startling occurred every ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne

... with lightsome glee, when, by none of the clouds of care o'ercast, the sun of their joy shone cheerily. But, oh! they surely forget that the boy may have grief of his own that strikes deep in his heart; that an angry frown, or a broken toy, may inflict for a time a cureless smart; and that little pain is as great to him as a weightier woe to an older mind. Aye! the harsh reproof, or unfavoured whim, may be sharp as a pang of a graver kind. Then, how dim-sighted and thoughtless are those, who would they were frolicsome ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various

... who loves a young woman has paid her the highest compliment in the possession of man. Perpetrate almost any sin, inflict any other torture, but spare him the agony of disappointment. It is a crime that can never be forgiven, and a debt ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... instances where I have been brought in contact with you. But in your solicitude for this young girl you have shown, for the first time in my experience of you, some lack of good judgment, and have inflicted, and do inflict, severe ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... Shepstone's proclamation we see in all its repulsive nakedness the hypocrisy which openly masqueraded in the guise of the disinterested and pitiful Samaritan, while its true and secret object was to inflict a fatal wound upon ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz

... at the reference to Chow's nickname for the robot creature. Then he became serious, knowing that Bud's words were all too true. The space visitor might also take back impressions of the suffering and warlike threats that some earth countries inflict on one another. Maybe one day, Tom reflected, it ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton

... blade, very long, and with a large basket hilt, which made a perfect protection for the hand—altogether a weapon which, wielded by a brave man, was by no means to be despised, and which could give, as well as parry, good hard thrusts. Though scarcely able to inflict a mortal wound, as the point and edge had been blunted, according to the usual custom of theatrical sword owners, it would be, however, all that was requisite to defend its wearer against the cudgels of the ruffians that the Duke of Vallombreuse had despatched ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier



Words linked to "Inflict" :   communicate, prescribe, clamp, intercommunicate, intrude, dictate, foist, bring down, give, obtrude, order



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