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Dignify   Listen
verb
dignify  v. t.  (past & past part. dignified; pres. part. dignifying)  To invest with dignity or honor; to make illustrious; to give distinction to; to exalt in rank; to honor. "Your worth will dignify our feast."
Synonyms: To exalt; elevate; prefer; advance; honor; illustrate; adorn; ennoble.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dignify" Quotes from Famous Books



... and reasonings regarding the forces of nature, we perpetually make use of symbols which, when they possess a high representative value, we dignify with the name of theories. Thus, prompted by certain analogies, we ascribe electrical phenomena to the action of a peculiar fluid, sometimes flowing, sometimes at rest. Such conceptions have their advantages and their disadvantages; they afford peaceful lodging ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall

... last for months—might last for years; but the Carlists owed the vitality they had as much to the divisions and inefficiency of their adversaries as to their own strength. There would be no important engagements—to dignify them by the epithet—until the organization of the insurrectionary forces was regularized, and they had a stronger artillery and an adequate cavalry. M. Thieblin did not stray far from the ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... fellow might say, and to maintain it before the world. He was at once troubled to see Hammer mixed up in the case, for he detested Hammer as a plebeian smelling of grease, who had shouldered his unwelcome person into a company of his betters, which he could neither dignify ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... replied, good-humouredly, "some naturalists, and I believe the great Linnaeus amongst them, class me with the Castor or Beaver race, and dignify me with a very long and learned-sounding name, Zibethicus. But I am quite content, for my part, to own my relationship to the race of Mus, and to be known by the simple name Musk-Rat, which they give me on ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.

... make yourself so; for it is virtue, not pedigree, that renders a man either valuable or happy. Philosophy does not either reject or choose any man for his quality. Socrates was no patrician, Cleanthes but an under-gardener; neither did Plato dignify philosophy by his birth, but by his goodness. All these worthy men are our progenitors, if we will but do ourselves the honor to become their disciples. The original of all mankind was the same, and it is only a clear conscience that makes any man noble, for that derives ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... universal conceptions, they would have done well to look at the trees. Instead of fostering a number of little souls on the pabulum of varying theories of future life, they should have been concerned to improve their present shapes, and thus to dignify man's ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... and confidential talk to mothers and their daughters on the responsibility, power and maternal duties of woman. These counsels should do much to dignify and elevate parenthood to the place ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... Swedish Agent at this Court gives the Ambassador much uneasiness." Grotius's patience being therefore worn out, he wrote to Sweden, desiring the Queen to recall him: his request was granted with great readiness. As she did not dignify to him where he must go[417], he wrote to Baron Oxenstiern, the Swedish Plenipotentiary to the peace of Munster and Osnabrug, and son of the High Chancellor, desiring him to inform him of the Queen's intentions, if he knew them; or to advise him whither he ought to go, to Osnabrug or elsewhere; ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny

... northern nations did not escape the study of one who read rather to awaken the imagination than to benefit the understanding. And yet, knowing much that is known but to few, Edward Waverley might justly be considered as ignorant, since he knew little of what adds dignify to man, and qualifies him to support and adorn an elevated situation ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... my letters are absolute jest-and-story books, unless you will be so good as to dignify them with the title of Walpoliana. Under that hope, I will tell you a very odd new story. A citizen had advertised a reward for the discovery of a person who had stolen sixty guineas out of his scrutoire. He received a message from a condemned criminal in Newgate, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... necessarily complete and final. We must remember that at bottom the generalisations of science or, in common parlance, the laws of nature are merely hypotheses devised to explain that ever-shifting phantasmagoria of thought which we dignify with the high-sounding names of the world and the universe. In the last analysis magic, religion, and science are nothing but theories of thought; and as science has supplanted its predecessors, so it may hereafter be itself superseded by some more perfect hypothesis, perhaps by ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... Union, passed by the operatives of Manchester, who were the great sufferers from this contest, indicate a sublimity of feeling, and a devotion to principle on the part of these noble martyrs, which exalt and dignify the character of man. (Cheers.) The working classes of England, of France, and of Germany, who are all with us, in case of foreign intervention, must have constituted the armies that would have been ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... illustrious surname of Caesar he had assumed, as the adopted son of the dictator: but he had too much good sense, either to hope to be confounded, or to wish to be compared with that extraordinary man. It was proposed in the senate to dignify their minister with a new appellation; and after a serious discussion, that of Augustus was chosen, among several others, as being the most expressive of the character of peace and sanctity, which he uniformly affected. [25] Augustus was therefore a personal, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... born in Wexford, where her father kept a "general shop." Moore used to say playfully, that he was called, in order to dignify his occupation, "a provision merchant." When on his way to Bannow in 1835 to spend a few days with his friend Thomas Boyse,—a genuine gentleman of the good old school,—he records his visit to the house ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... hill. He smiled faintly in anticipation of the things Francis and the rest of them would say about the new Governor's arriving on foot. Leyman had requested that the inaugural parade be done away with—but one would suppose he would at least dignify the occasion by arriving in a carriage. Francis would see that the opposing papers handled it as a grand-stand play ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell

... proportioning the pecuniary mulcts imposed by them for all, even the highest crimes, according to the dignify of the person injured, and to the quantity of the offence. For this purpose they classed the people with great regularity and exactness, both in the ecclesiastic and the secular lines, adjusting with great care the ecclesiastical to the secular dignities; and they ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Kashmeer Civaites claim Cankara as their teacher. The sect of Basava started in the south, Mysore. They have some trashy literature (legends, etc.) which they dignify by the name of Pur[a]nas. Buehler has given an account of the Kashmeer school. For further details ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... understood its mission. We can see, any day, the great law officers, attorney-generals, peers of France in omnibuses, judges who live on their salaries, prefects without fortunes, ministers in debt! Whereas the bourgeoisie, who have seized upon those offices, ought to dignify them, as in the olden time when aristocracy dignified them, and not occupy such posts solely for the purpose of making their fortune, as scandalous ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... education, language or religion. I now proceed to show, that these circumstances have engendered towards the colonists in the, mass of the Mexican nation, feelings of unconquerable jealousy and hostility. Yes! our superiority in enterprise, in learning, in the arts and in all that can dignify life, or embellish human nature, instead of exciting in them a laudable ambition to emulate, to equal, or excel us—excites the most hateful of all the passions—envy—and has caused them to endeavor for ...
— Texas • William H. Wharton

... have not been at the pains to accomplish or distinguish themselves, are very apt to detract from others; as ignorant men are very subject to decry those beauties in a celebrated work which they have not eyes to discover. Many of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the name of critics, are the genuine descendants of these two illustrious ancestors. They are often led into these numerous absurdities in which they daily instruct the people, by not considering that, first, there is sometimes ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... a curious fact, makes a very curious mistake. "To dignify his capital," he says, "having discovered that the ancient name of Porto-Ferrajo was Comopoli (the city of Como), he commanded it to be called Cosmopoli, or the city of all nations." Now the old name of Porto-Ferrajo was in reality not ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... measure yourself with men; and there are those about you who seem to your untaught eye to be men already. Your chum, a hard-faced fellow of ten more years than you, digging sturdily at his tasks, seems by that very community of work to dignify your labor. You watch his cold, gray eye bending down over some theorem of Euclid, with a kind of proud companionship in what so ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell

... into bass-ropes; besides, the truncheons make a far better coal for gun-powder than that of alder it self; Scriblets for painters first draughts are also made of its coals; and the extraordinary candor and lightness, has dignify'd it above all the woods of our forest, in the hands of the Right Honourable the White-Stave officers of His Majesty's Imperial Court. Those royal plantations of these trees in the parks of Hampton-court, and St. James's, will sufficiently instruct any man how these (and indeed ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... feat, feit> (make, do): (1) fact, factory, faction, manufacture, satisfaction, suffice, sacrifice, office, difficult, pacific, terrific, significant, fortification, magnificent, artificial, beneficial, verify, simplify, stupefy, certify, dignify, glorify, falsify, beautify, justify, infect, perfect, effect, affection, defective, feat, defeat, feature, feasible, forfeit, surfeit, counterfeit, affair, fashion; (2) factor, factotum, malefaction, benefaction, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... being possessed by the Greek emperor, with whom Charles was in league. About this time Pascal I. occupied the pontificate, and the priests of the churches of Rome, from being near to the pope, and attending the elections of the pontiff, began to dignify their own power with a title, by calling themselves cardinals, and arrogated so great authority, that having excluded the people of Rome from the election of pontiff, the appointment of a new pope was scarcely ever ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli

... never-ceasing topics of reproach and lamentation. Mr. Day's deep-seated prejudice in favour of savage life was somewhat shaken by this view of want and misery, which philosophers of a certain class in London and Paris chose at that time to dignify by the name of simplicity. The modes of living in the houses of the gentry were much the same in Ireland as in England. This surprised my friend. He observed, that if there was any difference, it was that people ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth

... has become what the self should be, we say that tomorrow, next year, in ten or twenty or thirty years, when we have arrived at certain coveted possessions or situation, we will be happy. Some philosophers dignify this postponement with the name ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... years clouded with imputed ill, And the soft, youthful couples there may move, As chaste as stars converse and smile above. Th' hast taught their language and their love to flow Calm as rose-leaves, and cool as virgin-snow, Which doubly feasts us, being so refin'd, They both delight and dignify the mind; Like to the wat'ry music of some spring, Whose pleasant flowings at once wash and sing. And where before heroic poems were Made up of spirits, prodigies, and fear, And show'd—through all the melancholy flight— Like some dark ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... clay twenty feet from the level of the flood tides. We crossed on a penny ferry which the current pushed over in the manner of the earliest ferries, near the tobacco factory, and came back into the heart of the town through streets of low stone houses, with few buildings of note to dignify their course. Small craft lay along the steep muddy shores, and at one place a little excursion steamer was waiting for the tide to come in and float it for the fulfilment of its promise of sailing at ten ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells

... was something so extraordinary that no really sane man could dignify it with the credit of having actually happened. I was standing, the last evening I was with you, half- hidden in the hedgegrowth by the orchard gate, watching the dying glow of the sunset. Suddenly I became aware of a naked boy, a bather from some ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)

... will, ere long, achieve much in all the ranks of life and especially in their own peculiar sphere of womanly activity and influence. Woman will do more for the progress and development of the country than the sterner sex, as she has hitherto done more than he to conserve and dignify the past. And it is safe to conclude that the womanhood of India will discover its chief glory as it now finds its largest opportunity in Christianity. And I may add that the mission of Christianity to, and in behalf of, the women of that ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... voice, I have got the ghost of it! When I pitch it low, you may say how weak it is, When I pitch it high, heavens! what a squeak it is! But I never mind; for what does it signify? See my graceful hands, they're the things that dignify: All the rest is froth, and egotism's dizziness— Have I not played with Phelps? (To Wenman) I'll ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various

... she is, and tractable, though wild; And Innocence hath privilege in her, To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes And feats of cunning, and the pretty round Of trespasses, affected to provoke Mock chastisement and partnership in play. And, as a fagot sparkles on the hearth Not less if unattended and alone Than when both young and old sit gathered round And take delight in ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... and aided by his own more or less maudlin condition. The latter sensation quickly undermined the former; he turned his back on the rector and leant over the railings of the lane, shaken by something it is hardly worth while to dignify by the name of emotion. Robert stood by, a pale embodiment of mingled judgment and compassion. He gave the man a few moments to recover himself, and then, as Henslowe turned round again, he silently and appealingly held out his hand—the hand of the ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... number of particulars as to the burial customs of various nations, we find mention made of an odd way in which the natives of Thibet dignify their great people. They do not desecrate such by giving them to the earth, but retain a number of sacred dogs to devour them. Not less strange was the fancy of that Englishwoman, a century or two back, who had her husband burnt to ashes, and these ashes reduced to powder, ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... most of the mechanic arts is, however, far simpler than the science of cutting metals. In almost all cases, in fact, the laws or rules which are developed are so simple that the average man would hardly dignify them with the name of a science. In most trades, the science is developed through a comparatively simple analysis and time study of the movements required by the workmen to do some small part of his work, and this study is usually made by a man equipped merely with a stop-watch ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor

... construe a stanza in Tasso, and now how to spell a very—very long word in her version of it? All these incidents have their fascination on the mind at a certain period of life, but not when a youth is entering it, and rather looking out for some object whose affection may dignify him in his own eyes than stooping to one who looks up to him for such distinction. Hence, though there can be no rule in so capricious a passion, early love is frequently ambitious in choosing its object; or, which comes to the ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... change my clothes. Then we 'll be ready to start. I 'm not even going to dignify this letter by replying to it. And for one principal reason—" he added—"that I think the Rodaines have ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... the most striking protests devised by woman for the purpose of showing her rejection of the conditions under which our mothers lived. It is evidently the mission of "The Woman's Bible" to exalt and dignify ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... showy country-place in a region of farms, merited a name; but no one except Mrs. Herbert, who in the first flush of possession determined so to dignify it, had ever made use of the name she had chosen after much deliberation. General Herbert himself called it simply the farm, while to the neighbors and the dwellers in Mount Hope it was known as the general's place, ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... brook, and by degrees the distant hill behind, for I kept adding to my pictures as I advanced, having to go back farther and farther for a point of view, till at last the hill on the outskirts of the village, overlooking the whole, was my favorite spot for sketching, if I may dignify my stiff little achievements by such a term. Still it was the house that was the centre of the picture; but, as Kate says, one thing leads to every thing, and I found there was no end to the things I must introduce; and yet they did not ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child

... first time, too, the thought of self would not be banished. She saw the whole foolish, irrational, Quixotic scheme in its true light; and flesh and blood shrank from a surrender which had no faintest touch of love—or even passion—to dignify sordidness. ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... and defenseless Lamb of God was led into a den of ravenous wolves, who were thirsting for his blood. They did not dignify his case by even filing a formal charge against him. They sought, contrary to the law, to make him testify against himself. They knew nothing themselves against him; and notwithstanding they sat as the high and dignified ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford

... its true sense is supposed to ennoble and dignify a man; and love has shed refinements on innumerable Cymons. But Mr Pecksniff—perhaps because to one of his exalted nature these were mere grossnesses—certainly did not appear to any unusual advantage, now ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... manhood the probability is that you will marry. If then you should ever think of marriage, think of it as a duty; and not merely as the means of self gratification, or the indulgence of some childish and irrational passion, which irrational people dignify with the name of love. Let the affection you conceive for woman be founded on ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... Commence is hol' Down at de gr'ad beeg hall, W'ere plaintee peopl' can gat seat For dem to see it all. De School Board wid dere president, Dey sit opon front row, Dey look so stiff an' dignify, For w'at I ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various

... of the work of skilled fingers serve to dignify the art of which it is capable, and to sing a varied song in the ears of the modern embroiderer, who follows her own will in spite of time-hallowed examples. The women of today, 1920, have been called to work that is widely different from ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler

... attempts of a savage libertine. I know to whom I write; and will own that it has been my wish in a most particular manner. As to the young lady, I say nothing of her, yet how shall I forbear? Oh, sir, believe me, she will dignify your choice. Her duty and her inclination through every relation ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... charge of the chauffeur, we cautiously made our way over the bridge into the city of Termonde, or what was once Termonde, for it is difficult to dignify with the name of city a heap of battered buildings and crumbling brick—an ugly scar upon ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams

... upon human flesh, the reader, who has once gratified his appetite with calumny, makes, ever after, the most agreeable feast upon murdered reputation. Such readers generally admire some half-witted thing, who wants to be thought a bold man, having lost the character of a wise one. Him they dignify with the name of poet; his tawdry lampoons are called satires, his turbulence is said to be force, and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... brought out in 1853, in spite of the Elector's opposition. In 1857 he was pensioned, and two years later died. He was born a musician and died one, and in his long and honorable life he was always true to his art and did much to ennoble and dignify it, notwithstanding the curious combinations in his musical texture. He never could understand or appreciate Beethoven. He proclaimed himself a disciple of Mozart, though he had little in common ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... honourable, it is his to draw the line; and those questions are so blended in their nature, that they enter into every cause. On such important topics, who can hope to bring variety of matter, and to dignify that matter with style and sentiment, if he has not, beforehand, enlarged his mind with the knowledge of human nature? with the laws of moral obligation? the deformity of vice, the beauty of virtue, and other points which do not immediately ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... movement. Ruskin, too, an equally agile mind, said that his assurance of immortality depended upon the observed facts of Spiritualism. Scores, and indeed hundreds, of famous names could be quoted who have subscribed the same statement, and whose support would dignify any cause upon earth. They are the higher peaks who have been the first to catch the light, but the dawn will spread until none are too lowly to share it. Let us turn, therefore, and inspect this movement which is most certainly destined to revolutionise ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle

... I after love: He leaves his friends to dignify them more; I leave myself, my friends, and all for love. Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphosed me,— Made me neglect my studies, lose my time, War with good counsel, set the world at naught; Made wit with musing weak, heart sick ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... the interior life, suggestion of which this vacant shadow-haunted house of innumerable memories presented to his mind! Was there any method by which the interior and exterior life could be brought into sane and fruitful relation, so that the former might sensibly permeate and dignify ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... I am never ashamed! I ask for whatever I want, and I do not always wait to ask before I take it. Those who are deprived by their own diffidence dignify their privation by the name of modesty. The world into which we are born is the world of reality. When a man goes away from the market of real things with empty hands and empty stomach, merely filling his bag with big sounding words, I wonder why he ever came into this hard world at ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... his experiments, and far more adventurous in his conclusions. With organic infusions he obtained the results of his celebrated predecessor, but he did much more—the atoms and molecules of inorganic liquids passing under his manipulation into those more 'complex chemical compounds,' which we dignify by calling them 'living organisms.' [Footnote: 'It is further held that bacteria or allied organisms are prone to be engendered as correlative products, coming into existence in the several fermentations, just as independently ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... Confessions. Rousseau, like most explorers, became obsessed by his own discoveries; he pushed the introspective method to its farthest limits; the sanctity of the individual seemed to him not only to dignify the slightest idiosyncrasies of temperament and character, but also, in some sort of way, to justify what was positively bad. Thus his book contains the germs of that Byronic egotism which later became the fashion all over Europe. It is also, in parts, a morbid book. Rousseau was not content ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey

... "Yoritomo, convinced by observation and experience that the beautiful and the splendid appeal most to human nature, made it his aim to inculcate frugality, to promote military exercises, to encourage loyalty, and to dignify simplicity. Moral education he set before physical. The precepts of bushido he engraved on the heart of the nation and gave to them the honour of a precious heirloom. The Hojo, by exalting bushido, followed the invaluable ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... go; And I am weary of my lonely ease. Better a perilous journey overseas Away from thee, than this, the life I lead, To sit all day in the sunshine like a weed That grows to naught,—I love thee more than they Who serve thee most; yet serve thee in no way. Father, I beg of thee a little task To dignify my days,—'tis all I ask Forever, but forever, this denied, I perish." "Child," my father's voice replied, "All things thy fancy hath desired of me Thou hast received. I have prepared for thee Within my house a spacious chamber, ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay

... irregular intervals. In the junctions of the story itself there are signs of roughness and want of skill, which make one suspect that the prose was only put together to connect a series of songs—a series of songs so moving and attractive that people wished to heighten and dignify their effect by a regular framework or setting. Yet the songs themselves are of the simplest kind, not rhymed even, but only imperfectly assonant, stanzas of twenty or thirty lines apiece, all ending with ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater

... the twentieth year. This wonder Athenaean Pallas wrought, She cloath'd me even with what form she would, For so she can. Now poor I seem and old, 250 Now young again, and clad in fresh attire. The Gods who dwell in yonder heav'n, with ease Dignify or debase a mortal man. So saying, he sat. Then threw Telemachus His arms around his father's neck, and wept. Desire intense of lamentation seized On both; soft murmurs utt'ring, each indulged His grief, more frequent wailing than ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... vanity will induce them to search at the roots of the dead languages; but erudition does not naturally furnish them with its resources. The most ignorant, it sometimes happens, will use them most. The eminently democratic desire to get above their own sphere will often lead them to seek to dignify a vulgar profession by a Greek or Latin name. The lower the calling is, and the more remote from learning, the more pompous and erudite is its appellation. Thus the French rope-dancers have transformed ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... I have chosen some 'golden opinions' to gild its obscurity. One year more may confirm my destiny and ripen hope into success: then—then, I may perhaps throw off a disguise that, while it befriended, has not degraded me, and avow myself to her! Yet how much better to dignify the name I have assumed than to owe respect only to that which I have not been deemed worthy to inherit! Well, well, these are bitter thoughts; let me turn to others. How beautiful Flora looked ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... ground or meaning of what they do, they feel content and safe if at least they have done it properly. Sacrifices are often performed in this spirit; and when a beautiful order and religious calm have come to dignify the performance, the mind, having meantime very little to occupy it, may embroider on the given theme. It is then that fable, and new religious sentiments suggested by fable, appear prominently ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... of earth, but the untainted and unwearying joy of heaven; the Beethoven I do not think I understood, but there was a grave minor movement, with pizzicato passages for the violoncello, which seemed to consecrate and dignify the ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson

... suffering of the slave mother, who has given all the best of her life to a large family, battling with poverty in her efforts to dignify her little home, and to give her children an education, when she realizes that she is losing ground intellectually, yet has no time or strength for reading, or self-culture, no opportunity for broadening her mental outlook by traveling or mingling with ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... of Paris. Cousin elevated the soul while he intoxicated the mind, and created a spirit of inquiry which was felt wherever philosophy was recognized as one of the most ennobling studies that can dignify ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... political differences or other accidental circumstances, he lived less familiarly, had all gathered round him, and renewed the full warmth of early affection in his later days. There was enough to dignify the connexion in their eyes; but nothing to chill it on either side. The imagination that so completely mastered him when he chose to give her the rein, was kept under most determined control when any of the positive obligations of active life came into question. A high and pure ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... come upon one of the unities most coveted in our literature, and most valued by us when attained, — the portrait, the individuality, the character. The construction of a plot we call invention, but that of a character we dignify with the name of creation. It may therefore not be amiss, in finishing our discussion of form, to devote a few pages to the psychology of character-drawing. How does the unity we call a character arise, how is it described, and what is the basis ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana

... from my heart Did not approve all sorts of means to obtain a victory Die well—that is, patiently and tranquilly Difference betwixt memory and understanding Difficulty gives all things their estimation Dignify our fopperies when we commit them to the press Diogenes, esteeming us no better than flies or bladders Discover what there is of good and clean in the bottom of the po Disdainful, contemplative, serious ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne

... assemblage of mountains. Yet, as far as respects the formation of such receptacles, the general observation holds good: neither Derwent nor Lowes-water derive any supplies from the streams of those mountains that dignify the landscape towards ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... worth while for Thomson to pen such a passage as this:—'Your example sir, has recommended poetry with the greatest grace to the example of those who are engag'd in the most active scenes of life; and this, though confessedly the least considerable of those qualities that dignify your character, must be particularly pleasing to one whose only hope of being introduced to your regard is thro' the recommendation of an art in which you are a master.' Warton adding ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... sleep with his own; and after a decent period allotted to his memory, need we say that our hero and heroine, if we may be permitted so to dignify them, were crowned in the enjoyment of those affections which were so severely tested, and at the same time so worthy of their ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... lover spirit will conquer the brute. He will regret the pain he has caused; he will want to forget and be forgiven quickly though he may not go through the formality of an apology. A formal apology and reconciliation will, in his judgment, dignify the episode and make a mountain out of a molehill. The wife will be wise to so regard it though it is an injustice to her. The husband will not underestimate the importance of the event, however, and in many ways will be a better husband ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... approaching to madness, which might have justified his misogyny, are absent. It is difficult not to feel that in this climax of his anguish he was a poor creature, and that the Maenads served him right. Nothing illustrates the defect of real dramatic imagination better than this failure to dignify the catastrophe. Gifted with a fine lyrical inspiration, Poliziano seems to have already felt the Bacchic chorus which forms so brilliant a termination to his play, and to have forgotten his duty to the unfortunate ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... testimony of the mail-carrier; now be good enough to tell the jury where you were on the night of the robbery—how many miles from this mail-sack?" and he waved his hand contemptuously toward the bag. It was probably the first time in all his life that Bud had heard any man dignify his personality with ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... as a unit should pay its respects to Reuben. From Sarah, comforting herself behind her widow's weeds with the doctrine of original sin, to Archie, eager to give his sweetheart a drive, one and all had been moved by a genuine impulse to dignify as far as lay in their power the ceremonial of decay. Even Abner, the silent, had remarked that he'd "never heard a word said against Reuben Merryweather in his life." And now at the end of that life the neighbours had gathered ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... glitterers of the London night; But none of these possessed a sting to wound her— She was a pitch beyond a coxcomb's flight. Perhaps she wished an aspirant profounder; But whatsoe'er she wished, she acted right; And whether Coldness, Pride, or Virtue dignify A Woman—so ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... myself to dignify it with a higher name —is a wretched parody on the last French revolution. Were I King William, I would banish the Belgians, as Coriolanus banishes ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... Soporiferous quality, ever was, and still continues the principal Foundation of the universal Tribe of Sallets; which is to Cool and Refresh, besides its other Properties: And therefore in such high esteem with the Ancients; that divers of the Valerian Family, dignify'd and enobled their ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn

... emphasizing this chance. Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington

... said Jo to herself, when she at length discovered that genuine good will toward one's fellow men could beautify and dignify even a stout German teacher, who shoveled in his dinner, darned his own socks, and was burdened ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... with him, when, by all his laws, it appeared that he had agreed to depart from it? especially AS he had put it entirely out of his power to retract that resolution. It is in vain, therefore, to dignify this civil war, and the parliamentary authors of it, by supposing it to have any other considerable foundation than theological zeal, that great source of animosity among men. The royalists also were very commonly zealots; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... playthings, dress and undress their dolls, and attentively watch the cupboard, where mamma has locked up her sweet things, and, when at last they get a delicious morsel, eat it greedily, and exclaim, "More!" These are certainly happy beings; but others also are objects of envy, who dignify their paltry employments, and sometimes even their passions, with pompous titles, representing them to mankind as gigantic achievements performed for their welfare and glory. But the man who humbly acknowledges the ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe

... to yourself without being neglected. Your bell may not be emulously answered by all the menials on the establishment, but a smug or shock-headed drawer appears in good time; and if mine host may not always dignify your dinner by the deposition of the first dish, yet, influenced by the rumour that soon spreads through the premises, he bows farewell at your departure, with a shrewd suspicion that you are a ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... are moderation, gentleness, a little indulgence to others, and a great deal of distrust of ourselves; which are not qualities of a mean spirit, as some may possibly think them, but virtues of a great and noble kind, and such as dignify our nature as much as they contribute to our repose and fortune; for nothing can be so unworthy of a well-composed soul, as to pass away life in bickerings and litigations, in snarling and scuffling with every ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens

... temple-chains, and are put upon us for good; some to prevent our ruin, some to dispose our minds the better, and some to dignify and to make us noble. Temple-chains are brave chains. None but temple-worshippers must ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... as in the case of the stickleback, the father helps the mother to build a sort of nest, and does "sentry-go" outside it to keep off marauders. In this common care of the young we see what is in all essentials marriage, though some may prefer to dignify the word by confining it to those human associations which have been blessed by Church and State, even though the father throws the baby at the mother, or sends her into the streets to earn her bread ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby

... not what a man is inside of his own consciousness, but what he does—the consequences which issue, the charges he actually effects. Inner morality was attacked as sentimental, arbitrary, dogmatic, subjective—as giving men leave to dignify and shield any dogma congenial to their self-interest or any caprice occurring to imagination by calling it an intuition or an ideal of conscience. Results, conduct, are what counts; they afford the sole measure of morality. Ordinary morality, and hence that ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... negro minstrelsy, and the ballet, and prestidigitation. No one of these is to be despised in its place; but we had better understand that it is not the highest place, and that it is hardly an intellectual delight. The lapse of all the "literary elect" in the world could not dignify unreality; and their present mood, if it exists, is of no more weight against that beauty in literature which comes from truth alone, and never can come from anything else, than the permanent state ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... said Coryston, with a sarcastic mouth. "Or to put it in another way—there's a hot coal in me that makes me do certain things. I dignify it by calling it a sense of justice. What is it? I don't know. I say, Lester, are ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... and whose acknowledged mission is not to fight, but to rob, to burn, and to fly. Although the smoke of burning ships has everywhere marked the track of the Georgia and the Florida upon the ocean, they have never sought a foe or fired a gun against an armed enemy. To dignify such vessels with the name of ships-of-war seems to me, with deference, a misnomer. Whatever flag may fly from their mast-head, or whatever power may claim to own them, their conduct stamps them as piratical. If vessels of war even, they would by this conduct have ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... birth, were it to be bought, I would not buy,' said Miss Broadhurst, 'unless I could be sure to have with it all the politeness, all the noble sentiments, all the magnanimity—in short, all that should grace and dignify high birth.' ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... justice of an ineffectual or salutary law. If the ecclesiastics were checked in the pursuit of personal emolument, they would exert a more laudable industry to increase the wealth of the church; and dignify their covetousness with the specious names ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... face of our planet. Both these species of additions to our knowledge are important; but their value and their rarity are very different in degree. To make and to repeat observations, even with those trifling alterations, which it is the fashion in our country (in the present day) to dignify with the name of discoveries, requires merely inflexible candour in recording precisely the facts which nature has presented, and a power of fixing the attention on the instruments employed, or phenomena examined,—a talent, which can be much improved by proper Instruction, and which is ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage

... man." Cowboy, miner, man-o'-war's man, even enlisted man, though that were bad enough—any of these he might have been in an accidental way, that at least would have been picturesque; but it is only the possession of land, by whatsoever means or title, that can dignify an habitual personal contact with it in the form of soil. That is one of the accepted prejudices which one does not meddle with at nineteen. "Youth is conservative because it is afraid." Moya, for all her fighting blood, was traditionally ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... with the honorable name of Teacher of Music (and I refer to music in its grand, complete, and ancient signification), by which you, esteemed gentlemen, dignify me, I am well aware that I have undertaken the duty of ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... an appearance at once so grotesque and pitiful that his bitterest enemy must needs have felt some twinges of compassion. That tight-waisted and wide-skirted coat, those faultless trousers, served only to give a waspish effect, and to emphasize the insignificance of the figure they were meant to dignify. He wore a solitary pink carnation, selected with solicitous care. His thin face seemed to shrivel under the fierce rays of scorn concentrating from thousands of eyes, and his large, bald crown began to glisten with slow drops of sweat. Even his voice, when he was permitted to speak, ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... in all harmony. By numbers harmony can be expressed far more severely than by Poetry, and so successfully up to a point, that poets have borrowed the very word to dignify their poor efforts. They "lisp in numbers"—or so they say: and the curious may turn to the Parmenides, to Book vii. of The Republic and others of the Dialogues and note how Plato, hunting on the trail of many distinguished predecessors, pursues Mathematics up to the point ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... trumpet, crown with laurel. confer honor on, reflect honor on &c. v. ; shed a luster on; redound.to one's honor, ennoble. give honor to, do honor to, pay honor to, render honor to; honor, accredit, pay regard to, dignify, glorify; sing praises to &c. (approve) 931; lock up to; exalt, aggrandize, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... and I left the room. Since that day I have only met her in society, where we exchange a friendly bow, and occasionally a sarcasm. I talk to her of the inconsolable women of Lancashire; she makes allusion to Frenchwomen who dignify their gastric troubles by calling them despair. Thanks to her, I have a mortal enemy in de Marsay, of whom she is very fond. In return, I call her ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... and read the name with a little cry of satisfaction. "Lord Risborough," she said to me. "At last! How nice of him to call. They live at Risborough Park, you know. I always said they would never condescend to dignify 'Sheltered End' with their presence; but I somehow knew they would." She purred a little. And then, "Where is his lordship?" she asked; but the girl's reply was rendered unnecessary by the nobleman himself, who advanced briskly upon Mrs. Brock, hat ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various

... seek some quiet haunt where we may indulge our reveries and build our air castles undisturbed. In such a mood I was loitering about the old gray cloisters of Westminster Abbey, enjoying that luxury of wandering thought which one is apt to dignify with the name of reflection, when suddenly an irruption of madcap boys from Westminster school, playing at football, broke in upon the monastic stillness of the place, making the vaulted passages and mouldering tombs echo with their merriment. ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... new optimism in the English view of Ireland seems to be based, not upon a recognition of the development of what I have ventured to dignify with the title of a new philosophy of Irish progress, but upon a belief that the spirit of moderation and conciliation displayed by so many Irishmen in connection with the Land Act is due to the fact that my incomprehensible countrymen have, under a sudden emotion, put away childish things ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett

... community; he has, apparently, the manners of the well bred and accomplished gentleman." "And for that very reason, Sir, is the better qualified to 29 carry on his profession with impunity; he whom you dignify with the appellation of a well bred and accomplished gentleman, is all that you have expressed of him, with the exception of one word, that is, substitute for gentleman, swindler, and the character is justly delineated. This fellow, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... absurdities of those who have gone before, and devising new errors and absurdities, to be detected by those who are to come after us. Theories are the mighty soap-bubbles with which the grown-up children of science amuse themselves while the honest vulgar stand gazing in stupid admiration, and dignify these learned vagaries with the name of wisdom! Surely Socrates was right in his opinion, that philosophers are but a soberer sort of madmen, busying themselves in things totally incomprehensible, or which, if they could be comprehended, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... reproach had killed the King; her summons brought him at once within the ban of that judgment to which she had called him. It would be well if one could believe the story; there would seem a dramatic justice—a tragic retribution—about it. Its very terror would dignify the story of a life that, on the whole, was commonplace and vulgar. But, for ourselves, we confess that we cannot believe in the mysterious letter, the fatal summons, the sudden fulfilment. There are too many ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... delicious views over the water; but the general surface of the country is poor, and looks as if it ought to be rich and well peopled, for it is not mountainous; nor had we passed any hills which a Cumbrian would dignify with the name of mountains. There was many a little plain or gently-sloping hill covered with poor heath or broom without trees, where one should have liked to see a cottage in a bower of wood, with its patch of corn and potatoes, and a green field with a hedge to ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth

... self-abnegation and self-sacrifice in the cause of suffering humanity having been absolute, and who have nobly vindicated every claim made by their sex to full equality with men in all that serves to dignify human nature. Her rightful place is among "the noble army of martyrs," for her life was undoubtedly very much shortened by her many cares and heavy responsibilities and excessive labors in behalf of the pitiable objects of her sympathy ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... cause of happiness to receive this distinguished consideration here in this temple devoted to science, to literature, to the arts, to those pursuits which dignify, ennoble, and delight mankind, which give the charm and grace to life, which make possible the continuance of mankind in the paths of civilization. Here in this Atheneum, in this atmosphere of scientific and literary discussion and thought, already exists that world-wide republic ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root

... roadside was no longer open, but had the low stone walls so familiar to Scottish eyes. As they drew near Elsie could see that the tiny tenement was only some crofter's cottage, and that the walls enclosed his bit of land, not large enough to dignify with the name of farm. Then it suddenly dawned upon her that their friend of the cart was most likely one of these crofters, whose poverty and hardships she had often heard her ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various

... currency; all very necessary but secondary topics. They touch nothing deeper than the pocket. In this respect, there would be a marked contrast between the subjects which occupy us, and the grander life-themes that dignify European thought, were it not for one subject—Slavery. THAT is the ONLY question, in our day and in our community, full of vital struggles turning ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher

... followeth therefrom, that by the blood of Christ we have not redemption from law, and justice, as to the condemning part of both, but that rather this title is given to it for honour and glory, to dignify it; as the name of God is also given to him: for they that affirm the one, are bold to affirm the other. For as by them is concluded, that there is no necessity why the blood of Christ should be counted the absolutely necessary ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... Those little glitterers of the London night; But none of these possess'd a sting to wound her— She was a pitch beyond a coxcomb's flight. Perhaps she wish'd an aspirant profounder; But whatsoe'er she wish'd, she acted right; And whether coldness, pride, or virtue dignify A woman, so she 's good, what ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... voice, I have got the ghost of it! When I pitch it low, you may say how weak it is, When I pitch it high, heavens! what a squeak it is! But I never mind; for what does it signify? See my graceful hands, they're the things that dignify; All the rest is froth, and egotism's dizziness— Have I not played with Phelps? (To Wenman) I'll teach you all ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... helped him through the recitation as much as he did any one else; in the dormitory they exchanged a cold good-night. Irving did not press Westby for a retraction of the charge which he had overheard the boy make; it seemed to him unworthy to dignify it by taking such notice of it. He knew that none of the boys really believed it and that Westby himself did not believe it, but had been goaded into the declaration in the desperate effort to maintain a false position. Irving wondered if the boy would not have the fairness to make some ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier

... the description of the globe. On the day the first colonists of New South Wales entered Port Jackson, the expedition of La Perouse was seen by the astonished English approaching the coast. After an interchange of those civilities which dignify the intercourse of polished nations, he ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... Roman history; while the latter, though less elegant, conveys probably to our minds a more exact idea of the import and expression of the name as it sounded in the ears of the Roman community. The name certainly was not an attractive one, though the family had contrived to dignify it some degree by assigning to it a preternatural origin. There was a tradition that in ancient times a prophet appeared to one of the ancestors of the line, and after foretelling certain extraordinary events which were to occur ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... proven that the greatest piety is scarcely [1] sufficient to demonstrate what you have adopted and taught; that your work, well done, would dignify angels. ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... bring imaginary subjects and fictitious names upon the stage, the safety of individuals from those butcher slanderers was secured, and that safety begat tranquillity—thus the theatre was gradually purified and enriched; and shortly after Menander arose to dignify comedy and rescue the drama, and the public taste of Greece from barbarism. This is the third division alluded to, and is called the NEW COMEDY. A sad proof of the danger to a nation of allowing a false or corrupt practice ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... invited the Baron, his eyes more friendly than those of his guest. "I, too, have taken to the highway, Poynter, on yonder motorcycle and I have lost my way." He sniffed in disgust. "I am dining," he added dryly, "if one may dignify the damnable proceeding by that name, on potatoes which I do not in the least know how to bake without reducing them to cinders. I bought them a while back at a desolate, God-forsaken farmhouse. Heaven deliver ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... around the table in the dingy bar-room, silent as four owls, mirthless as high priests at a sacred rite. Observing the full ceremonials which dignify draw-poker, they let the chips and cards do all the talking—and made signs when ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt

... Critics, venal, vex'd and vain, Seems recompens'd at full;—and so wou'd seem Did not maturer Sons of Phoebus deem My verse Aonian.—Thou, in time, shalt gain, Like them, amid the letter'd World, that sway Which makes encomium fame;—so thou adorn, Extend, refine and dignify thy lay, And Indolence, and Syren Pleasure scorn; Then, at high noon, thy Genius shall display The splendors ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... the vale of Orcia; Monte Amiata soaring in aerial majesty beyond. Its old name was Cosignano. But it had the honour of giving birth to AEneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who, when he was elected to the Papacy and had assumed the title of Pius II., determined to transform and dignify his native village, and to call it after his own name. From that time forward Cosignano ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... almost, I believe, a singular instance of this kind—for I would not dignify the brawls and assassinations which have disgraced some of our southern cities, the offspring of low principles and an unregulated society, by comparing them to the class of crimes in question, which imply even in their atrocity a something of perverted honor, of extravagant ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... the Transvaal and Orange River Constitutions and the great settlement resulting therefrom will be by itself as a single event sufficient to vindicate in the eyes of future generations the administration of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and to dignify his memory in Parliaments and periods which we shall not see. But our work abroad is not yet completed, has not yet come to its full fruition. If we should continue, as I expect we shall, to direct public affairs for the full five years which are the normal and ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... open had shaken his nerves. Until then there had been left to him at least a few grounds upon which he could base his unblushing demands upon his neighbours' stores. Now he must beg instead of borrowing. The most brazen sophistry could not dignify by the name of "loan" the coin contemptuously flung to a beachcomber who slept on the bare boards of ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... that Echevarria sent for the nearest Jesuit priest to mediate, and he luckily, or unluckily, proved to be that Father Thadeus Ennis, who played so prominent a part in the futile rising which the enemies of the Jesuits have chosen to dignify with the high-sounding title of the ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... especially disturbed or irritated by the telegram of condolence I received on board ship from Tarnowsy himself. He could not resist the temptation to gloat. I shall not repeat the message for the simple reason that I do not wish to dignify it by putting it into permanent form. We were two days out when I succeeded in setting my mind at rest in respect to Aline, Countess Tarnowsy. I had not thought of it before, but I remembered all of a sudden that I held decided scruples against marrying a divorced woman. Of course, that ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... Dolores or Mercedes in prison. "Virgin of Atocha, Virgin of the Pillar, Virgin of Sorrow, of Divine Compassion, send happy sleep to thy handmaid Manuela, shed the dew of thy love upon her eyelids, keep smooth her brows, keep innocent her lips. Dignify me, thy servant, Gil Perez, more than other men, that I may be worthy to sustain this high ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett

... his consideration of fertilizers was superfluous in a country that was hardly past the sod-corn stage, but he longed to dignify this work to John Hunter, since John would give his formative years here and be unable to do other things if he ever made money enough to get away, as he hoped. Hugh had had enough work in the agricultural department of an eastern university before he had come to Kansas, ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... brush or chisel to the last." "Believe me," he concludes, in a striking passage that may very fitly serve us, too, with a conclusion to these passages, "believe me, whatever of dignity, whatever of strength we have within us, will dignify and will make strong the labours of our hands; whatever littleness degrades our spirit will lessen them and drag them down. Whatever noble fire is in our hearts will burn also in our work, whatever purity is ours will also chasten and exalt it; for as we are, so our work ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys

... feeling is one and the same thing with a feeling of the quality q? The quality q, so far, is an entirely subjective fact which the feeling carries so to speak endogenously, or in its pocket. If any one pleases to dignify so simple a fact as this by the name of knowledge, of course nothing can prevent him. But let us keep closer to the path of common usage, and reserve the name knowledge for the cognition of 'realities,' meaning by realities things that exist independently of the feeling through which their ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James

... of stick or rag one might dignify with the name of furniture. Two chairs, one with a broken back, the other on three legs, beside a rickety table that stood upright only by leaning against the wall. On the unwashed floor a heap of straw covered with dirty bedtick for a bed; a foul-smelling ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and action may be more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together than they have been; a conjunction like unto that of the two highest planets: Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, and Jupiter, the planet ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry

... that the play-rhymes, originating from the "call" and "response," are really little dramas when presented in their proper settings. "Caught By The Witch" would not be ineffective if, on a dark night, it were acted in the vicinity of a graveyard! And one ballad—if I may be permitted to dignify it by that name—called "Promises of Freedom" is characterized by an unadorned narrative style and a dramatic ending which are associated with the best English folk-ballads. The singer tells simply and, one feels, with a grim impersonality of how his mistress promised to set him free; ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley

... with her for the first time a mood of solemnity, seeing that their intercourse had always before been in the vein of pleasantry and badinage common to the first stages of courtships. This new experience appeared to dignify their relation, and weave them together with a new strand. ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy

... glad, because there we shall see the Bornouese population, in a purer state. Here it is mixed somewhat with the Kailouees and other tribes. At any rate, the manners of the people are somewhat influenced by the great number of foreigners. En-Noor and Lousou have both houses in Zinder, which the people dignify by the name of belad or "villages," but which are simply enclosures ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... as to wrest from Chinese leaves, from Egyptian beans, from seeds of Mexico, their perfume, their treasure, their soul; going so far as to chisel the diamond, chase the silver, melt the gold ore, paint the clay and woo every art that may serve to decorate and to dignify the bowl from which he feeds!—how can this king, after having hidden under folds of muslin covered with diamonds, studded with rubies, and buried under linen, under folds of cotton, under the rich hues of silk, ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... I can manage here On brocoli and mutton round the year, 'Tis true no turbots dignify my boards, But gudgeons, ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith

... society! As a class of mankind they have the strongest claim to pity! the education of the rich tends to render them vain and helpless, and the unfolding mind is not strengthened by the practice of those duties which dignify the human character. They only live to amuse themselves, and by the same law which in nature invariably produces certain effects, they soon only ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... Consideration of what has been said, it will be easy to imagine how and why, soon after Fortitude had been honoured with the Name of Virtue, all the other Branches of Conquest over our selves were dignify'd with the same Title. We may see in it likewise the Reason of what I have always so strenuously insisted upon, viz. That no Practice, no Action or good Quality, how useful or beneficial soever they may be ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville

... awaking and rushing to crowd around the altar as worshippers at the shrine of learning. What lover of letters would doubt for a moment that if Thomas Carlyle could re-enter the world of letters and dignify the profession with the fertility of his brain, instead of captivating the world with his beautiful outline of heroes and hero worship, he would summon all his powers as an agency to do reverence, as a worshipper at the shrine, not of things ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various



Words linked to "Dignify" :   honour, lift, honor, raise



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