"Backbone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you were weak and irresolute, but I thought I could put some backbone into you. I hoped for her sake to make something of you after all. Your intentions seemed good enough, but you never had the strength to carry them out.' Alec had been watching the smoke that rose from his ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... pistol shot and several stabs with a knife, and of having similarly killed the said Marie-Anne Bastien, wife of the said Favre, with a spade and a knife, and of having stolen from them the money that was in their house; for punishment of which that he be condemned to have his arms, legs, thighs and backbone broken, he alive, on a scaffold, which shall be erected for that purpose in the market place of this city, at noon, then on a rack, his face turned towards the sky, he be left to die. The said Jean Baptiste Goyer ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... existing position; the lesser expecting that as they grew up to manhood they would be treated as men, and emancipated from childish restraints. The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man were contented with their sturdy dependent independence, loyal to the backbone. One member only stood aloof, sulky and dissatisfied, and though in law integrally united with the dominant community, practically was dissociated from it by forming within Parliament (the controlling body of the whole) a separate section, of which the whole aim was to fetter the action ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... capital is to-day, whatever it may have been in the twelfth century, as German as any portion of the German Empire. Moreover, it is the stronghold of Junkerdom, that arrogant but virile squirearchy which still forms the backbone of the old Prussian system; and while it is doubtless the desire to undermine this caste by robbing it of hearth and home that prompts such drastic schemes of conquest, it cannot be too clearly realised that ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... horse he spurs, gallops with great effort, Wields Durendal, was worth fine gold and more, Goes as he may to strike that baron bold Above the helm, that was embossed with gold, Slices the head, the sark, and all the corse, The good saddle, that was embossed with gold, And cuts deep through the backbone of his horse; He's slain them both, blame him for that or laud. The pagans say: "'Twas hard on us, that blow." Answers Rollanz: "Nay, love you I can not, For on your side is arrogance and ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
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