Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Reform   Listen
verb
Reform  v. t.  To put into a new and improved form or condition; to restore to a former good state, or bring from bad to good; to change from worse to better; to amend; to correct; as, to reform a profligate man; to reform corrupt manners or morals. "The example alone of a vicious prince will corrupt an age; but that of a good one will not reform it."
Synonyms: To amend; correct; emend; rectify; mend; repair; better; improve; restore; reclaim.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Reform" Quotes from Famous Books



... report of your first meeting arrived in London, O! French Animals, it caused the hearts of the friends of Animal Reform to beat faster. In my own humble experience, I have so many proofs of the superiority of Beasts over Man that in my character of an English Cat I see the occasion, long awaited, of publishing the story of my life, in order to show how my poor soul ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... years ago," he said, "I made a very large sum of money by amalgamating certain shipping interests at a favorable moment. Thus, as it happened, I had at command practically unlimited resources when I was asked to finance the cause of reform in China. The wretched lot of the Chinese Nation had always appealed to my sympathies. Some hundreds of millions of the most industrious and peace-loving people in the world have been exploited for centuries by a predatory caste. Given a chance to ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... did little injury, and a second attack took place, under Lord Nelson, which failed with loss." This certainly is a correct description of the state of the country, in the ninth year of the war against French liberty, waged to prevent a Reform of ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... Workman's Compensation Act is unconstitutional. We regard this decision as of very great importance, because, if the Court has correctly interpreted the Constitution of the United States, that document prevents America from adopting an industrial reform which has been adopted as just and necessary by practically the entire civilized world. We do not believe that the interpretation of the Court is correct. It is, in our opinion, in conflict alike with the progress of civilization, the spirit of democracy, ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... asserting that facts must be observed, and that a large part should be assigned to experience. Their concessions are unavailing, for however sincerely meant, they are not actually carried out. As soon as they set to work the taste for pure speculation again possesses them. Moreover, no reform of what is radically false can be effectual, and ancient psychology is a bastard conception, doomed to perish from the contradictions which it involves."—Ribot, Psychologie ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli

... is known that he is inclined to drink no enemy is so vicious as to lead him on. No enemy slaps him on the back and begs him to take "just another drink." No enemy laughs down his poor, feeble attempts at reform. No enemy tells him that it will not hurt him "just this time," and that he really must not refuse to be a ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane

... conferences with Egyptian skeptics who had not seen Tasper Britt in his new form, and therefore, perhaps, their assertions had caused Elias to doubt the evidences of his own senses. At any rate, the Prophet resolved to put the reform of Pharaoh to the test of texts, and he raised his ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day

... nor complain, that our streets or highways are filled with objects of misery, preferring the cold ground, the unsparing storm, and the inclemency of seasons, to the provisions legally provided for them; if we have not had the industry to ascertain, the courage to reform, and the benevolence to improve, the condition of their ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... mutiny, and, as a last resource, into civil war. Otho was afraid of alienating the centurions by his concessions to the rank and file, and promised to pay the annual furlough-fees out of his private purse. This was indubitably a sound reform, which good emperors have since established as a regular custom in the army. The prefect Laco he pretended to banish to an island, but on his arrival he was stabbed by a reservist[76] whom Otho had previously dispatched for that purpose. ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... I could do to improve things generally in and about Europe, if only I had a free hand. I should not propose any great fundamental changes. These poor people have got used to their own ways; it would be unwise to reform them all at once. But there are many little odds and ends that I could do for them, so many of their mistakes I could correct for them. They do not know this. If they only knew there was a man living in their midst ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome

... in all of those countries an outward show of tranquillity; and there were few, even of the wisest among us, who imagined what wild passions, what wild theories, were fermenting under that peaceful exterior. An obstinate resistance to a reasonable reform, a resistance prolonged but for one day beyond the time, gave the signal for the explosion; and in an instant, from the borders of Russia to the Atlantic Ocean, everything was confusion and terror. The streets of the greatest capitals ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... run the risk of returning, but tell Lord Lake that my orders are that you shall remain with him. I do not think that we shall have much fighting here though, no doubt, later on, Holkar and the Rajah of Berar will reform their armies and try conclusions with us again; while, on the other side, there is likely to be heavy fighting. You must, of course, travel in disguise, but you are already accustomed ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... until he had gone that she spoke out. "Unfort'nate! He's going to bring me an unfort'nate female! Oh! not from my babe can I bear that! Never will I have her here! I see it. It's that bold-faced woman he's got mixed up in, and she've been and made the young man think he'll go for to reform her. It's one o' their arts—that is; and he's too innocent a young man to mean anythin' else. But I ain't a house of Magdalens no! and sooner than have her here I'd have the roof fall over me, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... invent that was discreditable to Britain, to France and Italy, to Wall Street, and to the nation which allowed Wall Street to bamboozle and exploit it. There were many Americans who had "muck-raked" their own country in the interests of social reform, and had praised the social system of Germany. These arguments the German propagandists now found useful, and Jimmie would take them to the Socialist local and pass them about. From the meeting of the local he and Meissner would ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... you were served exactly right," said Aunt Martha; "and I wonder such an experience did not induce you to reform." ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton

... Burke are quarrelling as usual, and Mr. Pitt is making the excesses of France the excuse for keeping back reform in England. It is the old story. I did not care to read it. The French papers tell their side of it. They call Burke a madman, and Pitt a monster, and the Moniteur accuses them of having misrepresented the great ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr

... constitution would hardly have seen the day. Had the government of Japan at the time of the advent of foreigners been in the strong hand of a Taiko or an Iyeyasu, the rulers might have been greatly exercised by the extraordinary event, but public opinion for reform would hardly have been called forth, and the birth of constitutional liberty would long have been delayed. As the vices of King John and the indifference and ignorance of the first two Georges of England ...
— The Constitutional Development of Japan 1863-1881 • Toyokichi Iyenaga

... and though silent in the House of Commons, was otherwise indefatigable in maintaining his political sentiments. He supported strict conservative principles, and was not without the apprehension of civil disturbance through the impetuosity of the advocates of reform. As Lieutenant-Colonel of the Ayrshire Yeomanry Cavalry, he was painstaking in the training of his troops; the corps afterwards acknowledging his services by the presentation of a testimonial. In 1821, his zeal ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... finally, that there are some points of public interest which demand some reform, in what pertains to the religious estate of the Filipinas, we shall not be the ones to deny that. But the Church has the desire and the means to remedy these supposed or recognized evils. If, peradventure, it do not remedy ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... things does a man need to live under the best conditions? A healthful diet, simple clothing, a sanitary dwelling-place, air and exercise. I am not going to enter into hygienic details, compose menus, or discuss model tenements and dress reform. My aim is to point out a direction and tell what advantage would come to each of us from ordering his life in a spirit of simplicity. To know that this spirit does not rule in our society we need but watch the lives of men of all classes. Ask different ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner

... met with base ingratitude from a pressed man whose manners he attempted to reform was Capt. Bethel of the Phoenix. At the Nore he was once grossly abused by the crew of a Customs-House boat, and in retaliation took one of their number and carried him to sea. Peremptory orders reaching him at one of the Scottish ports, however, he discharged the man and ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... his first thought was upon the change of his condition from what it formerly was; and his first resolution was to reform. He thought of the deep plots he and his companion had laid to amass a fortune; but, supposing that the latter would be convicted, and condemned to serve a long time in confinement, he concluded that that ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... reform in Persia there seem to be many conflicting accounts. The learned Faber concludes that there were two Zarathustras or Zoroasters, the former being identical with Menu, the law giver and triplicated deity ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble

... which place them quite outside the pale of human mercy, if justice alone is to be considered. But for my own part I believe that they have repented of their past misdeeds—at any rate they say so, and we have no reason to doubt the truth of their assertion. They ask for an opportunity to reform; they desire a chance of making amends, as far as possible, for the past evil of their lives; and I have an idea, gentlemen, that though, in giving them such a chance, we might not be acting in accordance with man's idea of ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... around them—if it is not an insult to the Chinese to compare the wall they erected as a protection against barbarism with the barrier set up by Nicholas against Western ideas of culture and freedom. At first, Alexander II. did not hold out any hope of reform. Driven to straits, he busied himself with throwing a sop to public opinion by various small relaxations in administrative matters. They were small enough; and they were given with a ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... least one of the most prominent cardinals, and with relations at court with the ministers of Louis-le-Gros, Abelard seemed to himself as strong as Bernard of Clairvaux, and a more popular champion of reform. The year 1137, which has marked a date for so many great points in our travels, marked also the moment of Abelard's greatest vogue. The victory of Aristotle and the pointed arch seemed assured when Suger effected the ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... These sweeping schemes of reform, however, agreeable as they sounded, seemed none of them likely to receive the assent of ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... pains to cultivate. We know him well in our capacity as physicians. He comes to us constantly the prey to loathsome diseases, the results of his vicious life; which diseases he will communicate to his wife, for they are contagious, and to his children, for they are hereditary; and which no reform can purge from his ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... War was going to reform ideas on dress and make things more simple for those whose trouser-knees go baggy so soon and remain thus for so long; but, like too many of the expectations which we used to foster, this also has failed. It ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various

... Turkey. There the Young Turks, who seized power in July 1908, were overthrown in April 1909, when Abdul Hamid II. was deposed. He was succeeded by his weakly complaisant brother, Mohammed V. This change, however, did not promote the cause of reform. The Turkish Parliament became a bear-garden, and the reformers the tools of reaction. In the four years 1908-12 there were seven Ministries and countless ministerial crises, and the Young Turks, copying the forms ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... ascribed to Chosroes is a reform of the administration of the army. Under the system previously existing, Chosroes found that the resources of the state were lavishly wasted, and the result was a military force inefficient and badly accoutred. No security was taken that the soldiers possessed ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... political or social movement before it was strong enough to control the forces which it evoked. Hence her shrinking from all idea of this Society plunging, as a Society, into political work or social reform. Not that individuals of the Society might not do it, not that members of it might not use their best thought and energy in order to bring forward and strengthen any movement which was really for the benefit of mankind; but that the Society as a Society, as the vehicle of this great torrent ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant

... of the fish when I had caught them. And in those days he would talk of all his hopes of the future, of his work, of his duty to the thousands who looked to him for guidance, of the time when he would sit in Parliament as member for Northampton, and help to pass into laws the projects of reform for which he was battling with pen and tongue. How often he would voice his love of England, his admiration of her Parliament, his pride in her history. Keenly alive to the blots upon it in her sinful wars of conquest, in ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... America (1718), and continued for fifty-six years: the rigid discipline permitted by the colonial law, the kind of labor usually performed by the servants, and their diffusion over an extensive surface, tended alike to restrain, to reform, and ultimately to merge them undistinguished. Many, endowed with good natural abilities, such as an accomplished thief usually possesses, succeeded in their pursuits, and became masters themselves, by the purchase of the servitude of those afterwards ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... said Mr. Hemingway with gallantry, "could lead a young gentleman to so sweeping a reform, it ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... be understood as advocating or teaching the duty, necessity, or propriety of crime, sabotage, violence or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform. This booklet is not issued for the purpose of advocating, advising, or teaching the doctrine that industrial or political reform should be brought about by crime, sabotage, violence or unlawful methods of terrorism; ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown

... Hebrews twenty-five hundred years ago, and to which Mother Nature herself gives the lie in the instincts of imitation and repetition. It is conceivable that these radical doctrines were justified as means of reform, especially in secondary and higher education, but, even granting this, their function is fulfilled when the reform that they exploited has been accomplished. That time has come and, as palpable untruths, they should either be modified ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley

... within, the shattered statues were buried in a garden, and the turnips and radishes planted there came up in the form of the cross. But even this did not convince the savages, whom it became necessary to burn, in order to smooth the way to reform. ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... was erected by the people of Beauport in gratitude to the Virgin, for her goodness in promoting the cause of temperance in that parish. Perhaps I do not sufficiently sympathize with the people of Beauport in attributing to the Virgin so direct an influence upon this moral reform; but in the spirit with which they erected that monument I do most cordially sympathize with them. For, under whatever influence the cause may be promoted, the cause itself can never fail to make its votaries ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... mathematicians in Europe, named Stoffler, who flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and who long worked at the reform of the calendar, proposed at the Council of Constance, foretold a universal flood for the year 1524. This flood was to arrive in the month of February, and nothing is more plausible; for Saturn, Jupiter and Mars were then in conjunction in the sign of Pisces. All the peoples of Europe, Asia and ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... great reformers were and are actuated by the very spirit of intolerance, makes that scorning of the ways of others seem to us essential as the root of all great reform. Amidst the necessity for and strength in the reform, the petty spirit of intolerance intrudes unnoticed. But if any one wants to see it in full-fledged power, let him study the family of a reformer who have inherited ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call

... ample revenge upon the usurper. But though the king, by detaining James in the English court, had shown himself somewhat deficient in generosity, he made ample amends by giving that prince an excellent education, which afterwards qualified him, when he mounted the throne, to reform in some measure the rude and barbarous manners ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... England—how Gladstone's denunciation of those atrocities aroused a wave of moral indignation and wrath which swept furiously from one end of Great Britain to the other, and even aroused the governments and peoples of the Continent of Europe. The Porte refusing to adopt satisfactory measures of reform, Russia declared war and her victorious army advanced to the very gates of Constantinople. The Treaty of San Stefano, which Russia then enforced upon Turkey, created a "Big Bulgaria" that extended from the ...
— The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 - Third Edition • Jacob Gould Schurman

... suffer in silence; in bitter, bitter silence. And," eagerly, as the young man tried to interrupt her, "you are doing the man himself an injustice. If he is bad enough to ill-treat his dog, he will ill-treat his wife and children. If he is checked and punished now for his cruelty, he may reform. And even if his wicked heart is not changed, he will be obliged to treat them with outward kindness, through fear ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders

... King still retained. While he could not enact laws without the consent of the other two coordinate branches of the government, he still had the power to prevent legislation. The same was true of the Lords and Commons. As each branch of government had the power to block reform, the system was one which ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith

... Wallace says, for humanity. Years ago, when a little child, I lost my mother, and I was brought up by a man. If I have not a man's brain I had at least a man's instruction. He taught me that to work in the cause of reform for women was just as great as to work in the cause of reform for men. But in every effort I made in the cause of reform I was combated in one direction or another. I never took part with the suffragists. I never ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.

... will probably have the fate of all freedom; it will not be introduced into our laws until after it has taken possession of our minds. But if it be true that a reform must be generally understood, in order that it may be solidly established, it follows that nothing can retard it so much as that which misleads public opinion; and what is more likely to mislead it than ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat

... public revenues, and the evils arising from the riches of Asia. "The importers of foreign gold," said he, "have forced their way into parliament by such a torrent of private corruption, as no private hereditary fortune could resist." He then offered several suggestions on the propriety of a reform in parliament—suggestions, he observed, not crude and undigested, but ripe and well-considered, as the subject had long occupied his attention. His scheme was, not that the rotten boroughs should be disfranchised, though he considered them as the rotten part of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... He earnestly resisted, in the Convention of 1820, the abolition of the property qualification for voters, and of the obligation of all citizens to be taxed for the support of religious worship. He took early and deep interest in the temperance reform, and gave much time, labor, and money to promote it. "The strength and beauty of the man," says Mr. Emerson, "lay in the natural goodness and justice of his mind, which in manhood and in old age, after dealing all his life with weighty private ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... workmen; and he was now occupying a respectable place in his village, and was one of the voters of the county. Let Chartism assert what it pleases on the one hand, and Toryism what it may on the other, the property-qualification of the Reform Bill is essentially a good one for such a country as Scotland. In our cities it no doubt extends the political franchise to a fluctuating class, ill hafted in society, who possess it one year and want it another; but in our villages and ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... touching flagons. And upon these occasions, the kings would often send back word to old Bello, that instead of troubling himself with their concerns, he might far better attend to his own; which, they hinted, were in a sad way, and much needed reform. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... the greatest woman of our times," he said, stepping backward a pace or two and surveying her as if she were a cathedral. "I should never have thought of those ideas. You ought to be a legislator and reform our laws." ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... in a large class of such words for the sake of the historical association. Perhaps one in a thousand would choose to do so, but others of us are more intent on saving time and ink. When the spelling reform idea becomes operative with English speaking people, a great many silent letters will go the way of the u in ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins

... walking through the town with a wisp of alfalfa in one hand and exhibiting the callouses on the other? or will you be drawn on a float by Jag Ear—a float labeled, 'The Idler Enjoying His Own Reform?' We'll all turn ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... though he had been going to write a book instead of merely to propose a remedy. To a man of his intensity and singleness, there is no question but that this survey was melancholy in the extreme. His dissatisfaction is proved by the eagerness with which he threw himself into the cause of reform; and what would have discouraged another braced Yoshida for his task. As he professed the theory of arms, it was firstly the defences of Japan that occupied his mind. The external feebleness of that country was ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... you are one that doth not only pretend to reform, but effects it amongst People of any Sense; makes me (who are one of the greatest of your Admirers) give you this Trouble to desire you will settle the Method of us Females knowing when one another is in Town: For they have now got a Trick of never sending to ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... be serious, and reform that Thought: Think of my past Service, and judge by that my future; weigh all the respect I have paid you long, and ever lov'd you beyond ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris

... "you can tell her to take the religious or moral reform dodge, and invite all the friends of some cause to meet some distinguished leader of that cause. Bishop Whipple, if she could capture him, would bring all the Friends of the Red Man, just as Miss Willard or Mrs. Livermore would fetch the temperance and woman-suffrage ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... the measures pursued in regulating our military preparations, I shall not confine myself entirely to the present question, but lay before the house my thoughts upon some parts of the establishment, which may, perhaps, require a reform, and which are at least proper objects of consideration, though not absolutely necessary to the determination of our opinion upon the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson

... country are to have the opportunity of shewing their skill in the requisite designs; and, last, dealers in bullion will no longer be allowed to refine their gold at the public cost, for all the metal sent in in future 'must not exceed the standard weight.' Thus, a most important reform is accomplished—one that will give general satisfaction, stimulate talent, and save L.11,000 a year to the country, when the L.8000 now paid as pensions ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various

... illustrative commentary—his book of Antichrist—his solemn and striking treatise on the resurrection and final judgment—in fact, all his works, are peculiarly calculated to inform the minds of the millions—to reform bad habits, and, under the divine blessing, to purify the soul with that heavenly wisdom which has in it the promise of the life that now is as well as of that which is to come. It is also a fact ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... his long connection with the movement party, and the countenance he has from time to time given to measures of a decidedly liberal cast, he never was, and is still as far from being, a Democrat. Throughout his career he has been a consistent Liberal: always advocating such measures of reform as were calculated to remove abuses, while they in no way affected the stability and integrity of the institutions of the country. While, on the one hand, he has declared his most unequivocal opposition to the ballot and universal suffrage, on the other he has advocated ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... your Looks. Read, proud Usurper, read with conscious Shame, Pathetic Behn, or Mauley's greater Name; Forget their Sex, and own when Haywood writ, She clos'd the fair Triumvirate of Wit; Born to delight as to reform the Age, She paints Example thro' the shining Page; Satiric Precept warms the moral Tale, And Causticks burn where the mild Balsam fails; [sic] A Task reserv'd for her, to whom 'tis given, To stand the Proxy of ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... dull, and negligent also. Correction may reform the latter, not amend the former. All the whetting in the world can never set a razor's edge on that which hath no steel in it. Such boys he consigneth over to other professions. Shipwrights and boat-makers will choose those crooked pieces of timber which other ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... once written, plans were laid to obtain the indorsement of the people who were to be humbugged. It was not only necessary to humbug the members of the Reform and Progressive party, but to present—as I have before said—such serious arguments that Democrats should be led to believe it as a bona fide revelation of the "infernal" designs of their antagonists. In both respects there was ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... she was, could neither set the fashions nor reform the tastes of Gallinas. After a sojourn of ten days, she bade her kindred an eternal adieu, and returned to Havana, disgusted with the manners and customs ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... basis of Russian society backed by the most corrupt set of officials to be found in the whole world. The middle and upper classes are often full of ardent wishes for the advancement of society and projects for the reform of the State. These are generally of the wildest and most terrible description, but their objects are anything but unreasonable. They desire to share in political power and the government of their country, as is the privilege of ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... conferred upon Narses. And it is the same with his successor Longinus. All the texts that mention him, including the Liber Pontificalis, call him Praefectus. But the transformation from which the exarchate arose was more obscure and far more slow than any official reform of Justinian's could have been. It is in part the result of the new condition of the country, which Justinian had had to take into account, but it is much more the result of the progress of the Lombard conquest ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... few guests; among them Sir George Grey and lady; he is nephew to Earl Grey, of reform memory, and she is the eldest daughter of the pious and learned Bishop Ryder, of Lichfield. Sir George is a man of great piety and worth, a liberal, and much interested in all benevolent movements. There was also the Earl of Albemarle, who is a colonel ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... class of society which the preachers and the world's army of conventional merchants, lawyers, judges and reputable citizens generally are presumably, if one may judge by the moral and religious literature of the day, trying to reach and reform. Yet here at his sanitarium are gathered representatives of those same orders, the so-called better element. And here we see them suddenly dominated, mind and soul, by this being whom they, theoretically ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... the Bethel Mission; at first it was independent, but afterwards became a regular part of Plymouth Church work. General Horatio C. King was among the leaders in somewhat later days. A son of Horatio King, United States Postmaster-General under Buchanan, he always identified himself with the various reform movements, especially the anti-slavery ones, and was thus in hearty sympathy with Mr. Beecher and Plymouth Church in its activities, and has for many years served as clerk of the church. Always interested ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold

... now under our notice, that we are to estimate the power and the purposes of that important corporation. It had been rapidly brought into the form which it now bore, by the political exigencies of the age. Its members had no less in hand than a wide religious and political reform—whether to be carried out in New England, or in Old England, or in both, it was for circumstances, as they should unfold themselves, to determine. The leading emigrants to Massachusetts were of that brotherhood ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... judged, the Uitlander had only been judged. It therefore seemed proper that somebody should attempt to present the case for the Uitlander. The writer, as a South African by birth, as a resident in the Transvaal since 1884, and lastly as Secretary of the Reform Committee, felt impelled to do this, but suffered under the disability of President Kruger's three years' ban; and although it might possibly have been urged that a plain statement of facts and explanations of past actions could not be fairly regarded as a deliberate interference in ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... alleys with its thousand rills,— In each pale draught if generous feeling blend, And o'er the goblet friend shall smile on friend, Even cold Cochituate every heart shall warm, And genial Nature still defy reform! ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... purpose. They are the impeaching body. In their legislative capacity it is their most wise and wholesome prerogative to institute rigid examinations into the manner in which all departments of the Government are conducted, with a view to reform abuses, to promote economy, and to improve every branch of administration. Should they find reason to believe in the course of their examinations that any grave offense had been committed by the President or any officer of the Government rendering ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... reasonable recreation may be allowed; but in that which touches the essential aspects of it, it does not seem right that it be lost, for never have I seen that what is once lost in point of religion is regained. It appeared, therefore, easier to our father St. Ignatius to found a new order than to reform an old one, where its members were already used to such and such a manner of life. It is a hard thing, when established, to reduce them to a greater degree of virtue. And since those men must remain in the same order, it is always an impossible thing to reduce them to that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various

... whose views advanced proportionably as he worked less, and read and thought more. He so bitterly resented and deplored the burning of Tindal's Bible that there was constant fear that he might bring on himself the same fate, especially as he treasured his own copy and studied it constantly. The reform that Wolsey had intended to effect when he obtained the legatine authority seemed to fall into the background among political interests, and his efforts had as yet no result save the suppression of some useless and ill-managed small religious ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... ago the same Academy asked, "What are the causes of misery?" The nineteenth century has, in fact, but one idea,—equality and reform. But the wind bloweth where it listeth: many began to reflect upon the question, no one answered it. The college of aruspices has, therefore, renewed its question, but in more significant terms. It ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... Mr. Bigler, "it's devilish ingenious and goes ahead of my calculations; it's cleaned me out, when I thought we had a dead sure thing. I tell you what it is, gentlemen, I shall go in for reform. Things have got pretty mixed when a legislature will give away ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... exasperating. If the trait is a fundamental one, marriage should be even more searchingly questioned, although the wedding date may be only a few weeks off. Much has been written about the girl who marries a man to reform him; if the reformation is not completed during the engagement, the chances of success after ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various

... Krebs yet," said Grierson, wrathfully. Miller Gorse alone made no remarks, but in spite of his silence he emanated an animosity against reform and reformers that seemed to charge the very atmosphere, and would have repressed any ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... standin' thar talkin' long. If thar's one reform to which the entire West devotes itse'f, it's breakin' people of this habit of hoss-stealin'. It ain't no time when four of us is off on the dumb party's trail, an' half of that is consoomed in takin' ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis

... older, most of us, I am afraid, are only too glad to keep our faith in great principles, without hoping much for them. The usual product of experience, and more especially experience gained in attempting some great reform, is, as Dr. Martineau remarks, "a certain caution and lowering of hope. When the spent enthusiast looks back upon the riches of his early hopes, and the poverty of his achievements, he is tempted to regret the magnitude of his aims, and ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd

... lucky enough to have, or neglected it if he pleased, without asking the opinion of his neighbor. In those days nobody meddled with concerns above his comprehension, nor thrust his nose into other people's affairs, nor neglected to correct his own conduct and reform his own character, in his zeal to pull to pieces the characters of others; but in a word, every respectable citizen ate when he was not hungry, drank when he was not thirsty, and went regularly to ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... appreciation of his greater friends Moliere and Racine; and pointed out to authors what their purpose should be. With a greater creative power seeking self-expression, he might have accomplished less in literary reform. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... is the ancient and dishonored institution of marriage which must feel the blow of the iconoclast. Reform marriage, and the whole woman question will ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson

... what is the matter with her," Bobby growled. "I had always supposed that Beatrix was a reasonable girl; but no girl in her senses would tackle the job of marrying Sidney Lorimer to reform him." ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... yet to get a word out of Rodney about any of his things. He dodged when I asked him how his Criminal Procedure Reform Society was getting on, and he changed the subject when I wanted to know about his model Expert Testimony Act." He turned on Rodney. "But there's one thing you're not going to get out of. I want to know how far you've come along with your book on Actual ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... to find anyone who is honest and industrious, pure and prosperous, who has not had a fair education, if he ever had the opportunity, as all children in the United States now have. It is an interesting fact developed from a study of the Jukes that it is much easier to reform ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship

... forward with a barrage, keeping about 50 yards distance and interval between platoons. All would cross the Bellenglise road and finally, when the leading platoons were level with the farther, i.e., South, edge of Pontruet, "A" and "B" would turn to the right, sweep through and reform on the West side of it. "D" would turn left and capture Forgan's trench, having a platoon of "C" Company to help them. The rest of "C" would assist which ever party seemed to be in difficulties. The Headquarters ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills

... holding a fullblown waterlily, begins a long unintelligible speech. They would hear what counsel had to say in his stirring address to the grand jury. He was down and out but, though branded as a black sheep, if he might say so, he meant to reform, to retrieve the memory of the past in a purely sisterly way and return to nature as a purely domestic animal. A sevenmonths' child, he had been carefully brought up and nurtured by an aged bedridden parent. There might have been lapses ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... are alike. Indeed in their very prime of manhood their vicissitudes are such as to make them seem human. Some rise in the world some sink; some start along the road of grandeur or obliquity, and then backslide or reform. Some are social climbers, and mingle in company where verbal dress coats are worn; some are social degenerates, and consort with the ragamuffins and guttersnipes of language. Some marry at their own social level, some ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... Navarre, whom he accompanied to the battle of Coutras in 1587. Henry promised to him the hand of his sister, Catherine de Navarre, to whom he presented him immediately afterwards, when a reciprocal affection was the result. M. de Soissons, however, abandoned the reform party, and did not return to it until after the death of Henri III. He served actively and zealously during the League; but having discovered that the King did not intend to fulfil his promise of marrying him to the Princess, he quitted him during the siege of Rouen ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... the multitude of books increase upon their hands, ye must be fain to catalogue all those printers who are found frequently offending, and forbid the importation of their whole suspected typography. In a word, that this your Order may be exact and not deficient, ye must reform it perfectly according to the model of Trent and Seville, which I know ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton

... me with so abundant a supply. And note a peculiar fact: I have seldom seen a neater, more legible handwriting than that unbalanced fellow's. And the wording of his letters was exceedingly correct, just a little flowery. Invariable entreaties for assistance, always attended with resolutions to reform, vows, and promises on his honour.... All of it seemed—and perhaps was—sincere. Misha's signature to his letters was always accompanied by peculiar strokes, flourishes, and stops, and he made great use of marks of exclamation. In this first ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... to reform our spelling, which has always been a mere rag-bag of lawlessness, I hoped that they would do it right; but I was too deeply immersed in completing the index of my forthcoming volume to spend thought upon this question; nor did I court interruption. My waste-paper ...
— How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee • Owen Wister

... case ingeniously, but scarcely with fairness. It is the duty of the parent to educate and correct the child, but it is the duty of the citizen to reform and improve the character of his country. How can the latter be done, if nothing but eulogies are dealt in? With foreigners, one should not deal too freely with the faults of his country, though even with the liberal among them one would wish to be liberal, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... The reform-monging suffragists seem to be equally devoid of the more caressing gifts. They may be filled with altruistic passion, but they certainly have bad complexions, and not many of them know how to dress their hair. Nine-tenths of them advocate reforms aimed at the alleged lubricity of the male-the single ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... done. The doctors have exorced themselves. They tried this, that, and the other, but nature only flew worse against them. 'Tis a thing as was never heard of till the Constitooshon was knocked on the head and to pieces by the Reform Bill. And though they couldn't cure it, they done what they could do, miss. They discovered a very good name for ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... acquired during the solitude of the first years of his childhood. This excellent woman first made him familiar with the maternal feminine solicitude, closer observation of which afterwards led him, as well as Pestalozzi, to a reform of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... crudest beginnings, closely associated with two movements. First with the tendency to organize it in communities or churches, living under special sanctions and rules. Next, with the tendency of its greatest, most arresting personalities either to revolt from these organisms or to reform, rekindle them from within. So that the institutional life of religion persists through or in spite of its own constant tendency to stiffen and lose fervour, and the secessions, protests, or renewals which are occasioned by its greatest sons. Thus our Lord protested against Jewish formalism; ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill

... greater than Moses and Christ, because Moses had taught mankind to hope, Christ to believe, but he to love; which last being of more worth than both the former, he was consequently greater than both those prophets."—See Brandt's Hist. of the Reform, &c., in the Low Countries, vol. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 34, June 22, 1850 • Various

... virtue is no less sensible of the desire to please, she makes her glory consist in securing homage and adoration. But without ignoring the fact that those she expects attention from are induced to bestow them only for reasons that wound her pride; unable to reform this defect, the only part she can take is to use it to her advantage to keep them by her side; she knows how to keep them, and not destroy the very hopes which, however, she is determined never to gratify. With care and skill she succeeds. Hence, as soon as a ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... must have led a wicked life for a long time' (she was very severe now). 'You are young yet; why should you carry on your nefarious schemes in a new country, where, if you would, you could easily reform?' (Again a little gasp for breath.) 'I have promised to let you go without giving you into the hands of the law. I am afraid I did a selfish and weak thing, because others may suffer from your crimes, and I wish you could take this opportunity, which my leniency gives you, and try to ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall

... time, too, he came to be honored instead of execrated for his noble efforts. Wilmington became an abolition city, and for once, at least, a prophet was not without honor in his own city. Mr. Garrett continued his interest in every reform up to his last illness, and probably his last appearance in any public capacity, was as president of a Woman Suffrage meeting, in the City Hall, a few months ago, which was addressed by Julia Ward Howe, Lucy Stone, and ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... convinced that it is always best to dodge. A good dodger seldom gets into trouble in this world, and lives to a green old age, while the noble patriot and others of his kind die in dungeons. I remember an honest man who set out to reform the parish in the matter of drink. They took him and—but, no matter; I must be getting on with ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... not find such a story of cruel and relentless punishment inflicted upon advocates of woman suffrage as is related in the earlier volumes of this History, but the passing of rack and thumbscrew, of stake and fagot, does not mean the end of persecution in the world. Those who stand for this reform to-day do not tread a flower-strewn path. It is yet an unpopular subject, under the ban of society and receiving scant measure of public sympathy, but it must continue to be urged. If the assertion had been accepted as conclusive, that a measure which after years ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... to reform the Democratic party of Kansas, and to strengthen the Democratic party of the nation against the assaults and dangers of "abolitionism," the Governor was not entirely frank; else he would at the same time have ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... Eustache. The critic and dictionary-maker, Fetis, declared that the whole affair was simply an advertising scheme of Liszt's. But Liszt was taking himself seriously. The Pope had called him "My dear Palestrina," and he desired to reform church ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes

... milk gave the baby colic. Old Slott intended the boy to be a minister; but as soon as he was old enough to take notice he cried for every newspaper that he happened to see, and no sooner did he learn how to write than he began to slash off editorials upon "The Need of Reform," etc. He ran away from school four times to enter a newspaper office, and finally, when the paternal Slott put him in the House of Refuge, he started a weekly in there, and called it the House of Refuge Record; and one day he slid over the wall and went down to the Era office, ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... be said, was not only a bloody pirate, but a blooded one; he was thoroughbred. From the time he had been able to assert his individuality he had been a pirate, and there was no reason to suppose that he would ever reform himself into anything else. There were no extenuating circumstances in his case; in his nature there was no alloy, nor moderation, nor forbearance. The appreciative Esquemeling, who might be called the Boswell of the buccaneers, ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton

... the basis of every salutary reform, a comfortable provision for the officers, which should render their commissions valuable; to effect which the future, as well as the present, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... full of genius, Ottoboni takes no end of pains to educate Italy; he writes little books to enlighten the intelligence of the children and the common people, and he smuggles them very cleverly into Italy. He takes immense trouble to reform the moral sense of our luckless country, which, after all, prefers pleasure to freedom,—and ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac

... strength as that life had was exerted in behalf of the empire. This is only in part true of the city but it is absolutely true of the provinces, where after all in the long run the balance of power was bound to lie. In every case the religious reform, begun in the city, spread rapidly through the rest of Italy and out into the provinces. There the negative elements, which hindered its growth in Rome itself, were absent. For the provinces the empire was all gain, and even a bad emperor was ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter

... it one needs two things: a great idea and a great talent, and they did not have either of them. Hence the uneasiness increases, and the same authors who arouse against rough pessimism of naturalistic direction fell into pessimism themselves, and by this the principal importance and aim of a reform became weaker. What remains then? The bizarre form. And in this bizarre form, whether it is called symbolism or impressionism, they go in deeper and become more entangled, losing artistic equilibrium, common sense, and serenity of the soul. Often they fall into the ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,

... an ideal which is the best for all to pursue, I am far from maintaining. It may be so, or not; I have long known the idleness of advocating reform on a basis of personal predilection. Enough to set my own thoughts in order, without seeking to devise a new economy for the world. But it is much to see clearly from one's point of view, and therein ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... than ever. Now when the king was riding through the country he came to the neighbourhood where Asmund was, and he sent out men-at-arms to seize him. The king then had him laid in irons, and kept him so for some time in hope he would reform; but no sooner did Asmund get rid of his chains than he absconded again, gathered together people and men-at-arms and betook himself to plunder, both abroad and at home. Thus he made great forays, killing and plundering all around. When ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... time to reform. Grant seized a new position along a line of hills, in front of which ran a deep ravine filled with brushwood. He and his officers appreciated the advantage and they massed the troops there ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... study of its vital constitution. The examination finished, he felt that he had a right to offer the diagnosis. Not that his modesty permitted him to foretell the future or to dictate reforms. When his opinion was asked in relation to any reform he generally declined giving it. "I am merely a consulting physician," he would reply; "I do not possess sufficient details on that particular question—I am not sufficiently familiar with circumstances which ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... physical force, the cardinal now projected the boldest schemes of reform, especially in the finances, which had fallen into some disorder in the latter days of Ferdinand. He made a strict inquisition into the funds of the military orders, in which there had been much ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... Passion, according to Acts 14:21: "Through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God." Therefore it was fitting that He should show His disciples the glory of His clarity (which is to be transfigured), to which He will configure those who are His; according to Phil. 3:21: "(Who) will reform the body of our lowness configured [Douay: 'made like'] to the body of His glory." Hence Bede says on Mk. 8:39: "By His loving foresight He allowed them to taste for a short time the contemplation of eternal joy, so that they ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... The admiral obtained the concession besides, that all the punishments in use in Spain should be changed into transportation to the islands. He was thus the precursor of the English in the intelligent idea of peopling new colonies with convicts, whom labour was to reform. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... to the Reform Club, and made one of those who were buzzing there in little crowds and uttering their prophecies as to future events. Lord de Terrier was to go out. That was certain. Whether Mr. Mildmay was to come in was uncertain. That he would go to Windsor to-morrow morning was not to be ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... farmer's calling and make it what it should be. It is very easy to see why these men have not been retained in the past; it is safe to predict that they will not be retained in the future, unless a thorough reform be instituted. These men cannot be kept on a routine farm, or tied to a home which has no higher life than that of a workshop or a boarding-house. It is not because the work of the farm is hard that men shun it. They will work harder and longer in other callings ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... familiar names, just as mere fragments of the words of Scripture, put together in any form and applied to any subject, have a power of their own. They are a substitute for poetry and mythology; and they are also a reform of mythology. The moral of them may be summed up in a word or two: After death the Judgment; and 'there is some better thing remaining for the ...
— Gorgias • Plato

... the life to come. Sometimes an appreciation of what he is doing comes upon him. His nervous system is all a tangle. From crown of head to sole of foot he is one aching, rasping, crucifying, damning torture. Where is he? In hell on earth. Does it reform him? ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... know," answered Gay. "Nothing like this has happened since I have been at the Hall, but I've heard her say that this is not a reform school, and girls who have to be punished and scolded are not wanted here. If they can't measure up to the standard of good behaviour, they can't stay. As long as this is the first offence, she'll probably be given another trial, but I'd not care ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston

... statesmen, and the solution of the Danubian difficulty will materially affect our trade with the whole of Eastern Europe; whilst the peaceable creation of a peasant proprietary in Roumania about sixteen years since, and the advantages which have accrued to her from this social and political reform, present features of peculiar interest for those who favour the establishment of a similar ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... canvassers found an old man whom his neighbours reported to be a Radical. He did not disclaim the title, but no inducements could induce him to go to the poll. Gradually, under persistent cross-examination, he revealed his mind. He was old enough to remember the days before the Reform Bill of 1832. His father had been an ardent reformer. Everyone believed that, if only the Bill were passed, hunger and poverty and misery would be abolished, and the poor would come by their own. He said—and ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... it was in those days, for twelve and fourteen hours out of the twenty-four, was gall and wormwood to a temperament like Daddy's. He developed a taste for reading, fell in with Byron's poems, and caught the fever of them; then branched out into politics just at the time of the first Reform Bill, when all over Lancashire the memory of Peterloo was still burning, and when men like Henry Hunt and Samuel Bamford were the political heroes of every weaver's cottage. He developed a taste for itinerant ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... has changed many times, France, for instance, from King and Republic, then to citizen kingship, then to Republic, then to Empire, and finally to Republic. In England the form has remained the same, but the power passed, in 1830, with the passage of the Reform Bill, from nobles to commoners, as great a revolution as any ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... gained by persuading the multitude that ignorance is as good as knowledge, and better, it is terrible odds that they would believe and act upon the lesson."—(Article in Fraser's Magazine for April, 1859, headed "Recent Writers on Reform.") ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... excused her, she did not excuse herself. Without being shaken awake by an earthquake, or forced to action by a devastating fire or flood, she set to work, calmly and of her own volition, to reform her character. ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... take my Counsell, considering the league at Barwick[218] and the late expeditions, wee may find some of these things in the North or else speake with some reform'd Captaine, though he bee a Catholike; and it may bee wee may have them ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... enormities and dastardly agreements this might lead need hardly be suggested; and I am quite confident that the members of the honourable profession of physic, to which I am proud to belong, have no desire whatever for such a reform of the law or of their ethics. Then we are told in the same address (Bateson, British Association Addresses in Australia, 1914) that on the whole a decline in the birth-rate is rather a good thing, and that families averaging four children are quite enough to keep the ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle

... term trying to reform her clothes, but I can't improve her one bit, except when I set to work and do it all myself. I should think you'd be afraid she'd drag me into dowdiness, I have to see so ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton

... home was made comfortable. On Sunday, the reformed man took the hand of his little girl and entered the infant class to learn something about the Savior 'who saves to the uttermost.' He entered upon a new life. His reform was thorough. He found good employment, for when sober he was an excellent workman; and next to his Savior, he blesses God for the faith of his little girl, who believed in a Savior able to save to the uttermost all that come ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw

... they blame and bear witness against their bad deeds, and punish themselves therefor. Our Lord, most compassionate, pitiful, noble, and precious, let a time be given the people to repent; let the past chastisement suffice; let it end here, to begin again if the reform endure not. Pardon and overlook the sins of the people; cause thine anger and thy resentment to cease; repress it again within thy breast that it destroy no further; let it rest there; let it cease, for of a surety none can avoid death nor ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... were attached to the address that was presented to me; at the Governor's reception many stout, smiling heads provided with pigtails were seen; and Chinese had taken part in the meetings at which the Governor's scheme of reform was under discussion. There have also existed in the country from time immemorial secret societies, which are said only to wait for a favourable opportunity to endeavour to link their fates to the new paths.[386] The observations ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... deadly silence. He, who sold His conscience to preserve a worthless life, Even while he hugs himself on his escape, Trembles, as, doubly terrible, at length, Thy steps o'ertake him, and there is no time For parley, nor will bribes unclench thy grasp. Oft, too, dost thou reform thy victim, long Ere his last hour. And when the reveller, Mad in the chase of pleasure, stretches on, And strains each nerve, and clears the path of life Like wind, thou point'st him to the dreadful goal, And shak'st thy hour-glass in his reeling eye, And check'st ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... wrote to Carlyle, "We are all a little wild here with numberless projects of social reform. Not a reading man but has a draft of a new community in his waistcoat pocket. I am gently mad myself, and am resolved to live cleanly. George Ripley is talking up a colony of agriculturists and scholars, with whom he threatens to take the field and ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... their own, a rationalism of their own, gained quite apart from the great European tumults, and gained prematurely, in comparison with the rest of Europe. Without the labour of the Middle Ages, without the storm and stress of the reform of learning, they had the faculty of seeing things clearly and judging their values reasonably, without superstition. They had to pay the penalty of their opposition to the forces of the world; there was no cohesion in their society, and when once the ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... responded the pope. "For even the greatest forbearance must at length come to an end; and when I am compelled to forget that you are Alessandro Albani's nephew, I shall then only have to remember that you are the criminal Francesco Albani, whom all the world condemns, and whom I must judge! Repent and reform, my son, while there is yet time; and, above all things, renounce this love, which heaps new disgrace upon your family and overwhelms your relatives with ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... valet of La Grange. In order to reform two silly, romantic girls, La Grange and Du Croisy introduce to them their valets, as the "marquis of Mascarille" and the "viscount of Jodelet." The girls are taken with their "aristocratic visitors;" but when the game has gone far enough, the masters enter and unmask the trick. By this ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... regiments of his brigade, which had been repulsed, and were returning from the front, the General's voice rang out like trumpet notes, above the din of battle, 'Back, the "Harris Light!" Back, the "Tenth New York!" Reform your squadrons and charge!' With magical alacrity the order was obeyed, and the two regiments, which had been so humbled by their first reverse, now rushed into the fight with a spirit and success which redeemed them from censure, ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... better by age; I fear rather worse; always harder. A young liar will be an old one; and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older. But should a bad young heart, accompanied with a good head (which, by the way, very seldom is the case), really reform in a more advanced age, from a consciousness of its folly, as well as of its guilt; such a conversion would only be thought prudential and political, but never sincere. I hope in God, and I verily. believe, that you want ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... furious politicians, as one could hardly help being in 1832. She knew the names of the two ministries; the one that resigned, and the one that succeeded and passed the Reform Bill. She worshipped the Duke of Wellington, but said that Sir Robert Peel was not to be trusted; he did not act from principle like the rest, but from expediency. I, being of the furious radical party, told her 'how could any of them trust one another; ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... the young visitor; brought up as she had been, like her mother before her, to the standard of a man's acquirements. Only one art had she been denied, she must not learn the violin—the thought was too monstrous even for the Austins; and indeed it would seem as if that tide of reform which we may date from the days of Mary Wollstonecraft had in some degree even receded; for though Miss Austin was suffered to learn Greek, the accomplishment was kept secret like a piece of guilt. But whether this stealth was caused by a backward ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... school together, and the tyranny of the big boys over him,—a little curly, motherless boy. So he enlarged upon his life; talked a mildly bitter misanthropy; informed Miss Hyde by gradual insinuations that she was an angel sent on earth to console and reform a poor sinner like him; and before the last September rose had droped, so far had Abner Dimock succeeded in his engineering, that his angel was astounded one night by the undeniably terrestrial visitation of an embrace ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... do it always would as soon think of being conceited of eating their dinner as of doing their duty. What honest boy would pride himself on not picking a pocket? A thief who was trying to reform would.—George MacDonald. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... and holy, nor do we go to confession because we are pure and without sin, but the contrary because we are poor miserable men and just because we are unworthy; unless it be some one who desires no grace and absolution nor intends to reform. ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... be made up of men who have been in prison once before, and for whom there is still hope that they may reform. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 19, March 18, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... despising the native processes, and substituting others that have been found wholly inapplicable—and by introducing British labourers, who when abroad reverse all the good qualities for which they are valuable at home. A reform in this system we believe to have been generally adopted, and we are sure that a reduction of expense, a management purely European, and native labour, with only such modifications in working, smelting, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various

... enthusiasm to the study of astronomy, being from the first an ardent advocate of the Copernican system. His teacher, Maestlin, accepted the same doctrine, though he was obliged, for theological reasons, to teach the Ptolemaic system, as also to oppose the Gregorian reform ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... that a thorough reform of the whole moral status of the German army was now under way, or that it had been at least initiated by this action of the Kaiser. Certainly, there is no one in all Germany who takes a deeper interest than he in the welfare of his army, or who has a profounder conviction ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... weak Man hanging there, he will find a mightier revelation of the power of God than anywhere else. Let the Greek come to the Cross, and there he will find wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption. The bases of all social, economical, political reform and well-being, lie in the understanding and the application to social and national life, of the principles that are wrapped in, and are deduced from, the Incarnation and the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We have not learned them all yet. They have not ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... piece of smouldering brown paper had done what a terrier could not do. The machine at one period of its career had been enlarged, and the neat seaming of the metal was an ecstasy to the eye of a good workman. Long ago, it was known, this machine had printed a Reform newspaper at Stockport. Now, after thus participating in the violent politics of an age heroic and unhappy, it had been put to printing small posters of auctions and tea-meetings. Its movement was double: ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... and faces. He saw that where life entered, it brought greater beauty, with evanescence and reproduction,—an endless fountain flow and fall. Many were the strange, gladsome, hopeful, corrective thoughts born in him of the gems in Mr. Burns's shop, and he owed the reform much to the man whose friendship he had cast from him. For every ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... contrast to this programme of reform, the aliens, who had opposed the charter of Runnymede, were among the lords by whose counsel and consent the charter of Bristol was issued. In its weakness the new government sought to stimulate the zeal both of the foreign mercenaries ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... social reform, including political economy, science, sociology, statistics, anarchism, charities, civil service, currency, land, etc. 1897. Q. Funk & Wagnalls, ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana

... other people's time as agreeably as one's own, and for helping rich men to get rid of their money with infinite pleasure and no profit at all, and for making every woman believe that she can certainly convert and reform the prodigal by the simple process of allowing him to fall in love with her, which, of course, must elevate him to her moral ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... hand to hasten to some wholly different experience, to be contrived immediately with a beating heart and with flying banners. The imagination of the age was intent on history; its conscience was intent on reform. ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... progress of science and the rapid march of moral improvement the most effectual spur that has ever been applied was the Reform Bill. Before the introduction of that measure, electioneering was a simple process, hardly deserving the name of an art; it has now arrived at the rank of a science, the great beauty of which is, that, although complicated in practice, it is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various



Words linked to "Reform" :   regenerate, create from raw stuff, Reform Judaism, effort, reform-minded, create from raw material, reformist, chemistry, moralisation, moralization, reform school, meliorate, cause, reformative, reform movement, amend, movement, housecleaning, straighten out, moralise, improvement, better, ameliorate, land reform, see the light, crusade, self-improvement, improve, change, modify, chemical science, campaign, self-reformation, reformation, reformatory, reformer



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com