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Refrain   Listen
verb
Refrain  v. i.  To keep one's self from action or interference; to hold aloof; to forbear; to abstain. "Refrain from these men, and let them alone." "They refrained therefrom (eating flesh) some time after."
Synonyms: To hold back; forbear; abstain; withhold.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Refrain" Quotes from Famous Books



... course a copy of this volume will be sent to each of our guests. The celebration itself, I think you will all agree with me, has been a moving one, with an underlying note of philanthropic endeavor as high as the stars. You heard its refrain in the pageant on the lawn this afternoon. As I have listened to-day to these words of profound wisdom, uttered in so noble a spirit of human ministry, my mind has gone back to the sentence from Cicero's plea for Ligarius,[18] ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various

... the thews and sinews," said he. "I think he will be the most useful at this task. I must beg, however, that you will kindly refrain from thinking for yourself, and that you will do exactly ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... an agent because we are so passionately addicted to payments. If the thing he seeks does not appear in the contents proper he knows exactly where to look for it. "See appendix," says the historian to you in a footnote. "See appendix," says the surgeon to himself, the while humming a cheery refrain. And ...
— "Speaking of Operations—" • Irvin S. Cobb

... that solemn thought of a remembered previous existence there is this other one—that the words are the assertion by Christ Himself of a previous, deep, mysterious, ineffable union with the Father. On such a subject wisdom and reverence bid us speak only as we hear; but I cannot refrain from emphasising the fact that, if this fourth Gospel be a genuine record of the teaching of Jesus Christ—and, if it is not, what genius was he who wrote it?—if it be a genuine record of the teaching of Jesus Christ, then nothing is more plain than that over ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... consequence, a much finer set of men there than in any of the neighbouring islands. We remarked, that, by discontinuing the use of this root, the noxious effects of it soon wore off. Our good friends, Kaireekeea and old Kaoo, were persuaded by us to refrain from it, and they recovered amazingly during the short time we ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... after such numerous and violent persecutions, crowds of heathen who wished to assume the Christian religion were kept back because, having been accustomed to celebrate the feasts connected with idols in revelling and drunkenness, they could not easily refrain from these pleasures so hurtful and so habitual; and it seemed good to our ancestors that for a time a concession should be made to this infirmity, that after they had renounced the former festivals they might celebrate other feasts, in honor of the ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... half-trumpet note, half bellow, swelled up ahead. Then another answered it, and another and another took up the refrain. ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... able to refrain from running. The pack horses, however, hadn't left their tracks. And now the brave Mulvaney had gained the shore and was standing motionless, gazing out over the troubled waters. No man might guess the substance of his thoughts. He scarcely ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... concerned about this discovery, and could scarce refrain from tears on beholding these sad remains. After some time, we began to talk about what we had seen, and to examine in and around the hut, in order to discover some clue to the name or history of this poor man, who had thus died in solitude, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... have peace, and Thy blessing, Lord of the Wind and the Rain, When we shall cease from oppressing, From all injustice refrain; When we hate falsehood and spurn it; When we are men among men. Let us have peace when we earn it— ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor

... on board the fleet, as Boyd passed from St. Philip's to the fleet easily and back again. Jefferies (strange that Lord Tyrawley should not tell him) did not know till he landed here,,what succour had been intended—he could not refrain from tears. Byng's brother did die immediately on his arrival.(717) I shall like to send you Prussian journals, but am much more intent on what ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... dipsomaniacs, or for opium and chloral in those subjugated, is of a strength of which normal persons can have no conception. 'Were a keg of rum in one corner of the room, and were a cannon constantly discharging balls between me and it, I could not refrain from passing before that cannon in order to get that rum. If a bottle of brandy stood on one hand, and the pit of hell yawned on the other, and I were convinced I should be pushed in as surely as I took one glass, I could not refrain.' ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... either to suppose that creative power here acted in a different way, or to believe unexaminingly that the inquiry is one beyond our powers? Taking the last question first, I would reply that I am extremely loth to imagine that there is anything in Nature which we should, for any reason, refrain from examining. If we can infer aught from the past history of science, it is that the whole of Nature is a legitimate field for the exercise of our intellectual faculties; that there is a connection between this knowledge and our well-being; and that, if we may judge from things ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... with some, yet with very many (so great is the number of fools) has become an object of ridicule and scorn. I should certainly venture to publish my speculations if there were more people like you. But this not being the case, I refrain from such an undertaking." ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... cannot be virtuous if she longs for sensuality, or dallies with it, or dwells upon it in her thoughts, even though she refrain from any sinful act. Nor can a married woman be a truly virtuous wife if she yields to perverse revellings of the imagination which defile body and soul—even with her husband! From all ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... peak. The movement of the sails is controlled by ropes, called sheets, which take their names from the sails they control. There is a mainsheet, a jibsheet, and a foresheet. The reader should take note of this term and refrain from confusing it ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates

... circumstances of his marriage illustrate his character, I cannot refrain from relating them. One of his most intimate friends was a merchant who, from a flourishing state, fell, through numerous mischances, into poverty. This man, whose name was Beaufort, was of a proud and ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

... you," Major Baraquin repeated, resolved upon ignoring demands which he considered subversive and childish. This refrain was as far as he ever got in ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois

... BENSON, ESQ.—My Dear Sir—Yours of the 14th is before me for answer, and, although very busily engaged in court, I can not refrain from answering at some length. First, I will say, "I have kept the faith." Though "the fight" is not yet over, my emancipation from the terrible thralldom is measurably complete. Occasional twinges of appetite yet admonish me to maintain ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson

... belongs to him, or how it came into the tomb of his father. Henceforward, let him not deceive himself, or fancy thus, "I have now done with it; there's nothing that he can say to me." I recommend him not to be mistaken, and to refrain from provoking me. I have many other points, as to which for the present he shall be pardoned, which, {however}, shall be brought forward hereafter, if he persists in attacking me, as he has begun to do. After the AEdiles had purchased the Eunuch of Menander, {the Play} which ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... she replied. 'Are you not afraid of being carried away bodily, whenever you mention the devil's name? I warn you to refrain from provoking me, or I'll ask your abduction as a special favour! Stop! look here, Joseph,' she continued, taking a long, dark book from a shelf; 'I'll show you how far I've progressed in the Black Art: I shall soon be competent ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... which the doctor could not consent; but he was utterly unable to refrain from laughing. There was an earnest look of entreaty about Sir Roger's face as he made the suggestion; and, joined to this, there was a gleam of comic satisfaction in his eye which seemed to promise, that if he received the ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... citizens and spoke these words: "To me, as ye know as well as I, has been entrusted the sceptre of Polycrates and all his power; and now it is open to me to be your ruler; but that for the doing of which I find fault with my neighbour, I will myself refrain from doing, so far as I may: for as I did not approve of Polycrates acting as master of men who were not inferior to himself, so neither do I approve of any other who does such things. Now Polycrates for his part fulfilled ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... 'Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him, but weep sore for him that goeth away; for he shall return no more, nor see his native country;' with so remarkable a melancholy and beauty in his voice, that she could hardly refrain from tears, and it also greatly struck Philip, who had been so near 'returning no more, neither seeing ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... bride herself, as well as the bridegroom, who, decked in shells and teeth, advanced from the opposite side along the path to meet her, looked up with grateful smiles at the two Europeans. Muriel, in return, smiled her most gracious and girlish recognition. As the bride drew near, she couldn't refrain from bending forward a little to look at the girl's really graceful costume. As she did so, the skirt of her own European dress brushed for a second against the bride's train, trailed carelessly many yards on the ground ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... greeting, however, which welcomed her before, met her again; and as they lifted their hats, she saw, or thought she saw, that they looked on her with a more tender interest. Several policemen moved about through the crowd, who, though they saluted her respectfully, could not refrain from scrutinising her appearance and watching her as she went. With that air of haughty self-possession which well became her—for it was no affectation—she swept proudly along, resolutely determined not to utter a word, or even risk a question as ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... to mention the various well-known works of authority and illustration, as they are referred to in the text. But I cannot refrain from bearing my grateful testimony to the value of the "Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society" and the "New-England Historical and Genealogical Register." The "Historical Collections" and the "Proceedings" of the Essex Institute have afforded me inestimable ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... had of spending his leisure, was that of playing music on an instrument, in which it was said he made a wonderful proficiency; but being long and thin, and of a delicate habit of body, he was obligated to refrain from this recreation; so he betook himself to books, and from reading he began to try writing; but, as this was done in a corner, nobody jealoused what he was about, till one evening in this year he came to the manse, and asked a word in private with ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... bristled along the wall, a mocking bird preened, then spread his wings, soared and finally swept downward, thrilling the air with the bravura of the "tumbling song"; and over the rampart that shut out the world, drifted the refrain of a ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... he buys the right to abuse it, nay incurs the manly duty of abusing it. Every editor knows that the highest praise he can expect is silence. If his readers are pleased with his remarks, they nobly refrain from comment. But if they disagree with one jot or tittle of his high-speed dissertations, he must be prepared to have quarts of ink ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... her achievement, she ought carefully to refrain from boasting or flaunting her superiority in ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn

... more nervous atmosphere a sort of youthful giddiness. The robust nature of Jansoulet, that civilized savage, was more susceptible than another to these strange refinements; and he had to exert all his strength to refrain from inaugurating with a joyful hurrah an unseasonable out-pouring of words and gestures, from giving way to the impulse of physical buoyancy which stirred his whole being; like the great mountain dogs which are thrown into ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... prosperity continued to advance together. Both attained their meridian in the age of Lorenzo the Magnificent. We cannot refrain from quoting the splendid passage, in which the Tuscan Thucydides describes the state of Italy at that period. "Ridotta tutta in somma pace e tranquillita, coltivata non meno ne' luoghi piu montuosi e piu sterili che nelle pianure e regioni piu fertili, ne sottoposta ad altro ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... no place in a holy man. Yet holy and spiritual men are found to omit fraternal correction: since Augustine says (De Civ. Dei i, 9): "Not only those of low degree, but also those of high position, refrain from reproving others, moved by a guilty cupidity, not by the claims of charity." Therefore fraternal correction is not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... motive here is taken from Rinaldo (canto v.), and the spirit from Aminta (act i. sc. 2). Guarini's Satyr is a studied picture from the sketch in Tasso's pastoral. The dialogue between Silvio and Linco (act i. sc. 1) with its lyrical refrain: ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... naive way in which this was said seemed so absurd on the face of it that the cousins could not refrain from smiling: but the sight of a great mass of rock ahead dividing the swift stream into two, and toward which the raft seemed to be rushing fast, made all turn to seize their poles and fend it off from a ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn

... far enough in that little betrayal about Dore's Gallery. She refuses to take another step; she is already, indeed, a little frightened by what she has done If Joyce should hear of it—oh——And yet how could she refrain from giving that small push ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... Russia and Germany to refrain from pressing their products on the market that now regulates and depresses prices, it would be required that they should have great numbers of mills and furnaces, at which their now surplus food could ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... what he had done, burst out into tears. The widow could very readily have done so also, but she was able to refrain herself, and merely ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope

... were so affected, that they sobbed aloud, and I could scarcely refrain from doing the same thing myself. After this I prayed that the word spoken might be blessed to those who had heard it, and then took my leave. It was not easy to dismiss this sad scene from my mind, nor have I ever lost the impression it made ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... the refrain over and over. She had sung it with abandon, tenderness, lightness. For one glimpse of her face! He took the rise and dip which followed. Perhaps a hundred yards ahead a solitary woman cantered easily along. Hillard had not seen her before. He spurred forward, only faintly curious. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... enter them, not as assistant planters, but as Christian missionaries, rightly trusting to Danish protection. Charles Grant had advised them well, but it is not easy now, as in the case of their predecessors in 1795 and of their successors up to 1813, to refrain from indignation that the British Parliament, and the party led by William Pitt, should have so long lent all the weight of their power to the East India Company in the vain attempt to keep Christianity from the Hindoos. Ward's journal thus simply tells the story of the ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... alighting flat on his back. It was so funny that the players on both sides refused to play. They just fell in their tracks and howled. Judd crawled slowly to his feet, his face crimson, his jaws set tight. The field was ringing with laughter. Even immobile as he usually was, Coach Phillips could not refrain from smiling. Luckily a scrub recovered the ball, but eight yards had been lost on ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman

... sent to convey the prisoners to the British ships. In one of these Farragut was carried to the "Phoebe," and there fell into a second battle, in which the victory remained with him. "I was so mortified at our capture that I could not refrain from tears," he writes. "While in this uncomfortable state, I was aroused by hearing a ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... again, sounding another strain; not always of glory—it is not the way of God; but of prison, downfall, distress. "Be not astonished at it," they said to her; "God will be with you." From day to day they had spoken in the same strain, with no joyful commands to go forth and conquer, but the one refrain: "Before the St. Jean." Perhaps there was a certain relief in her mind at first when the blow fell and the prophecy was accomplished. All she had to do now was to suffer, not to be surprised, to trust in God that He would support her. To Jeanne, ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... he. 'And he said my home address was Jerusalem.' He left me humming the refrain of 'The Holy City.' Like Ollyett I found myself afraid of ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling

... amused at this sudden outbreak of enthusiasm on the part of the usually cautious lawyer, the consul could not refrain from accenting it by a marked return to ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... beside him. It had not gone so far as this in the judge's experience of a neurotic invalid without his learning to ask her no questions about herself. He had always a hard task in refraining, but he had grown able to refrain, and now he merely looked unobtrusively glad to see her, and asked ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... they looked and dressed, and what they talked about in private life. It is impossible altogether to approve of the Penciller—his absurdities were too marked, and his indiscretions too many—yet it is probable that few who have followed his meteor-like career will be able to refrain from echoing Thackeray's dictum: 'It is comfortable that there ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... remaking of popular conscience, but used means until then unknown in the Graeco-Latin civilisation. Not in the name of the ancestors, of the traditions, of ideals of political power, did he seek to persuade men to work, to refrain from vice, to live honestly and simply; but in the name of a single God, whom man had in the beginning offended through his pride, in the name of the Son of God, who had taken human form and volunteered to ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero

... lyre; let Nature breathe In her immortal breath of song; Then wilt thou sing a song most sweet, The song by Nature's vesper choir, Through all the countless ages sung,— And still is singing day by day. Then all the world will join thy sweet Refrain in praise and ardent love Of this fair ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones

... minds are not always the best acquainted with their own feelings. Had Fanshawe, moreover, acknowledged to himself the possibility of gaining Ellen's affections, his generosity would have induced him to refrain from her society before it was too late. He had read her character with accuracy, and had seen how fit she was to love, and to be loved, by a man who could find his happiness in the common occupations of the world; ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... intention, in the present stage of "my Confessions," to delay on the road towards an event which influenced so powerfully, and so permanently, my after life; yet I cannot refrain from chronicling a slight incident which occurred on board the packet, and which, I have no doubt, may be remembered by some of those who throw their ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever

... the golden-backed woodpecker, the screams and the trills of the white-breasted kingfisher, the curious harsh clamour of the cuckoo-shrike, and, last but by no means least, the sweet and cheerful whistling refrain of the fan-tail flycatcher, which at frequent intervals emanates from a tree in the garden or the mango tope. Nor is the bird choir altogether hushed during the hours of darkness. Throughout the year, more especially on moonlit nights, the shrieking ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar

... came up clearly and distinctly to him, and softened his heart with the indefinable and exquisite pathos of the refrain whenever it is sung by the sweet voices ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... raged throughout, and we had to stick to our novel apartment and breathe until daylight the awful smoke from the fire we were compelled to keep alight. Yet our spirits were not entirely damped, for we found ourselves in the morning, and often during the night, singing the refrain of an old song: ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... left to do but look longingly forward to the great night. On Monday, as he dressed, John found himself repeating, "Only four more days." His last thought on Tuesday was, "That makes just three." Thursday afternoon at school, as he chanted a silent refrain, "Day after tomorrow's Halloween, day after tomorrow's Halloween," the boy in the seat just behind tapped him stealthily on the shoulder and passed over a bit ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... Before he had passed Enoch's chair, which was placed discreetly near the exit, the pair of gamblers were at it again. Not even the luck had been turned by the interruption. Christie was sweeping in the chips to the same refrain ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... the man turned and began sliding and slipping down the steep ashy sides of the mountain cone with a dexterity which carried him to the bottom in a few moments; and on he went, sending back after him a cheerful little air, the refrain of which is still to be heard in our days in that neighborhood. A word or two of the gay song fluttered back on the ear of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... and retired for a time from all company; and it is said that to the end of her life she could never hear or pronounce his name without tears. Although she was not sufficiently mistress of herself in those fits of rage to which she was occasionally liable, to refrain from treating him with a harshness and contempt which sometimes moved the old man even to weeping, her behaviour towards him satisfactorily evinced on the whole her deep sense of his fidelity and various merits as a minister, and her affection for him as a man. He was perhaps the only person of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... the Swedish and Dutch on account of their "foul injuries" offered the New Haven settlers on the Delaware. In March, 1644, letters came from the Swedes and Dutch full of expressions of regard for the English and "particularly for Massachusetts." They promised to refrain from interfering with visitors who should bring authority from the commissioners, which so encouraged some Boston merchants that they sent to the Delaware a pinnace to search for a great lake reported to be its source. But when they arrived at the Delaware, the ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler

... "Neither can we refrain from telling you that to use victory well is a greater and more difficult achievement than to be victorious. If the present day recalls to you any other period of your history, let the children profit by the errors of their forefathers. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... ones which added the sale of liquor to that of more innocent commodities. In one a smart-looking schoolboy was reading the Weekly Freeman aloud to a group of frieze-coated hearers. At the door of another a ballad-singer was plaintively piping the "Mother's Farewell," with its practical refrain:— ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various

... your aunt's house, young gentleman, I shall be careful to refrain from criticism. I am come upon a visit to a lady: that visit I shall pay; when you desire (if it be possible that you desire it) to resume this singular conversation, select some fitter place. Mr. Fenwick, this afternoon, may I present you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Fatherland"). Bjornson there and then, to the composer's great gratification, protested that he must write words to fit the air. (It must be mentioned that each strophe of the melody starts with a refrain consisting of two strongly accented notes, which suggest some vigorous dissyllabic word.) A day or two later Grieg met Bjornson, who was in the full throes of composition, and exclaimed to him that the song was going splendidly, and that he believed all the youth ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson

... repeated to myself half-consciously, as a sort of refrain, the words in which I had heard Manderson tell his wife that I had induced him to go out. "Marlowe has persuaded me to go for a moonlight run in the car. He is very urgent about it." All at once it struck ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... not press for an answer. Within a few minutes a long growl of thunder was heard. It was as if Jove could not refrain from testifying his jealousy of Somerset for taking this covetable woman so presumptuously in ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... How can I urge my daughters now to go and raise large families? It means by the time you have lost your figure and charm for them they are all ashamed of you. Now, as a believer in woman's rights, do a little talking to the men as to their duties to their wives, or else refrain from urging us women to have children. I am only one of thousands of middle-class respectable women who give their lives to raise a nice family, and then who become bitter from the injustice done us. Don't let this go into the waste-basket, but ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... in offering our thanks to Almighty God for the return of health to our cities and for the general prosperity of the country, we can not refrain from lamenting that the arts and calumnies of factious, designing men have excited open rebellion a second time in Pennsylvania, and thereby compelled the employment of a military force to aid the civil authority in ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson

... arm again at the service of the Milanese. A little later, however, Venice afforded him the coveted honour, and for the rest of his life he was true to her, although when she was miserably at peace he did not refrain from a little strife on his own account, to keep his hand in. Venice gave him not only honours and money but much land, and he divided his old age between agriculture and—thus becoming still more the darling of ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... shall exclude him from paradise, and his habitation shall be hell fire; and the ungodly shall have none to help them. They are certainly infidels, who say, God is the third of three: for there is no God besides one God; and if they refrain not from what they say, a painful torment shall surely be inflicted on such of them as are unbelievers. Will they not therefore be turned unto God, and ask pardon of him? since God is gracious and merciful. Christ, the son of Mary, is no more than an apostle; other ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... be a doubt that the younger will not strike or do any other violence to an elder, unless the magistrates command him; nor will he slight him in any way. For there are two guardians, shame and fear, mighty to prevent him: shame, which makes men refrain from laying hands on those who are to them in the relation of parents; fear, that the injured one will be succoured by the others who are his brothers, ...
— The Republic • Plato

... the Rumanians had hoped, perhaps, even believed, that Bulgaria would refrain from attacking in Dobrudja. Not a word had come from Sofia indicating that Bulgaria intended to begin hostilities. But on this day, September 2, 1916, a strong force composed of Bulgarians, Turks, and Germans, which had been quietly mobilizing ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... great many years back, to other times and other manners? The Articles of War were now on the table of Congress for revision, and in the second and third of those articles officers and soldiers had been earnestly recommended to attend divine service diligently, and to refrain, under grave penalties, from profane cursing or swearing. And here legislators deliberately set themselves to raise money by means which we have deliberately condemned as gambling. But years were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... him along. She halted at last in a corner of the gardens where was a large, overhanging chestnut and a wooden seat. Here the shouts and cries of the children came more dimly, the splashing of the fountain could be heard like a melodious refrain with a fascinating note of hesitation in it, and the deep green leaves of the tree made a cool, thick covering. "Very nice," he said, and sat down on the seat, tilting his hat back and feeling ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole

... Christmas presents to his friends. It is not surprising that he should have been interested as well in the rude songs of the British sailors, which he heard on crossing the ocean. He was mightily amused at their simple refrain: ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns

... that affected Bettina. The telegrams sent to the lawyers, the rector, and others had been signed "Hurdly." Several of these she had seen. It seemed to her, therefore, a very delicate instinct which had caused him to refrain from the use of her husband's name in addressing her. He had always been delicate in his intuitions and expressions, or at ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder

... lacquered cylinder in which he kept his reed pens. Beharilal had two girls also, but they were with the women folk in the interior of the house, where he was content they should stay. This was his only boy, the pride and joy of his heart. Engrossed as he was in recording his gains, he could not refrain from lifting his eyes now and again to feast them on that rotund little body, like a goblet set on two pillars. No clothing concealed the tense and shiny brown skin, but there were silver bracelets on the fat wrists and massive anklets where deep creases divided the fat little feet ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... these nineteen centuries anew Comes the hoarse-throated, brutalized refrain, "Give us Barabbas, crucify the Jew!" Once more a man must bear a nation's stain,— And that in France, the chivalrous, whose lore Made her the flower of knightly age gone by. Now she lies hideous with a leprous sore No skill can ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson

... Henry, Henry! I call for Mr. Henry!" With a word to the speaker, the chairman stepped to the front of the platform and remarked that it would oblige the audience very much if the gentleman in the rear of the hall would refrain from any further calls for Mr. Henry, as that gentleman ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... weakening to pink, deepening to russet and brown, shading into crimson, and so on and so on. And this is true not only of biological species. It is true of the mineral specimens constituting a mineral species, and I remember as a constant refrain in the lectures of Professor Judd upon rock classification, the words, "they pass into one another by insensible gradations." It is true, ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... kind drop unto his watery tomb; Weep, ye relenting eyes and ears; See, Death himself could not refrain, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... also refrain from making many recommendations. Believing that too frequent changes of the laws and too much legislation are serious evils, I respectfully suggest that upon many subjects it may be well to defer legislation until the people have acted ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard

... register, his hand taking the telephone and the receiver. At that instant came a powerful electric flash. Dodge sank on the floor grasping the instrument, electrocuted. Below, the master criminal could scarcely refrain from exclaiming with satisfaction as his voltmeter registered the powerful current ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve

... for them were positions reversed. I am sure of this. Many precious acknowledgments have I received. Some venture to tell me they remember me every night in their prayers and ask for me every blessing. Often I cannot refrain from giving expression to my ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... I felt reckless and despairing—almost reckless enough to refrain from taking any steps to hinder the rats from returning to the box. It was my belief, that I must in the end succumb to this misfortune—must starve—and it was no use procrastinating my fate. I might as well die at once, as at the end ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid

... refrain from this characteristic polissonnerie; and reading it out is always followed by a roar of laughter. Even serious writers like Al- Hariri do not, as I have ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... primness could not withstand the witchery of the gentleman's superb tenor voice, with its high culture and feeling; because even into that humdrum refrain he put a pathos and longing which ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond

... three days Purchas faithfully adhered to his promise to refrain from taking enough liquor to "capsize" him; when, again at midnight, on going below to call him, Leslie found the fellow so completely intoxicated that it was impossible to arouse him; and he had perforce ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... said I; 'but the punishment passeth the limits of justice. For simple theft is not so great an offence that it ought to be punished with death, nor doth that refrain them, since they cannot live but by thieving. There be many servitors of idle gentlemen, who, when their master is dead, and they be thrust forth, have no craft whereby to earn their bread, nor can find other service, who ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... of the propriety of them in point of amount, will wait till the necessity for it strikes them, which, in most cases, is as injurious to the service as inability or want of inclination; disappointment being the consequence of delay. This observation I could not refrain from making, because in all combined operations, especially those which may depend upon the season or a limited period for their execution, it is of the utmost ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... these provisions of the Secretary's order, the Court has departed from many principles it has previously announced in connection with its supervision over administrative agents. Under these principles, the Court would refrain from setting aside administrative findings of fact when supported by substantial evidence; we would give weight to the interpretation of a statute by its administrators; when, administrators have interpreted broad statutory terms, such, as here ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... (we assume the possibility of this,) refrain, carefully, from communicating with the police on the subject of the events of the day. The publicity that would follow would render you an object of derision, and no possible good could result to you from disclosure of the facts. But you should at once ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various

... Gabinius. Gabinius had crept back from his province into the city, and had been received with universal scorn and a shower of accusations. Cicero at first neither accused nor defended him, but, having been called on as a witness, seems to have been unable to refrain from something of the severity with which he had treated Piso. There was at any rate a passage of arms in which Gabinius called him a banished criminal.[36] The Senate then rose as one body to do ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... with which she disposes of the feathers when she picks the bird. There is a thorough sympathy between master and man so far. Hilary himself, with all that great estate to sport over, cannot at times refrain from stepping across the boundary. His landlord once, it is whispered, was out with Hilary shooting, and they became so absent-minded while discussing some interesting subject as to wander several fields beyond the property before they ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies

... tilted body helping also to maintain equilibrium. Almost more than she could manage—why didn't that broad-backed thick-legged lump of a dairy-maid carry the house-pail? He would have liked to go out and carry the pail himself; but that was one of the many things which he must carefully refrain from doing. ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... and Him who watched the noble patience and sacrifice of a daily heroism. Of her own unsatisfied cravings, and the dense motherly horrors that sometimes brooded over her while she nursed these infants, let me refrain from speaking, since if as vividly depicted as they were real, you, Madam, could not endure to read of them. Her poor, unintelligent mind clung tenaciously to the controverted aphorism, "Where God sends mouths he sends food to fill them." Believing that there was a God, and that He ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins

... fact, said very little of all that he had come out to Plumstead on purpose to say. Nor could anything more be said till the servants were gone after dinner. The joy of Dr Grantly was so uncontrollable that he could not refrain from calling his father-in-law Mr Dean before the men; and therefore, it was soon matter for discussion in the lower regions how Mr Harding, instead of his daughter's future husband, was to be the new dean, and various were the opinions on the matter. The cook and butler, who were ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... have disapproved of the way my Philosopher takes his poetry. His favorite poem is "A frog he would a-wooing go,"—especially the first quatrain. His analysis is very defective; he takes it as a whole. He likes the mystery of it, the quick action, the hearty, inconsequent refrain:— ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers

... to its beginnings in Aristophanes and by following its development through Latin, new Latin (Erasmus, Thomas Morus, etc.), French and English writers. Among the latter Sterne is named. Unfortunately for the present purpose, the author is led by caution and fear of giving the offense of omission to refrain from naming the German writers who might be classed with the cited representatives of humor. In closing, he recommends heartily to those teased with melancholy a "portion of leaves of Lucian, some half-ounces of 'Don Quixote' or some drachms of 'Tom Jones' ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer

... Australian cruiser Sydney, but it is worth bringing to notice that the captain of the Emden was of a different type from the pirates who have made the German sailor the most loathed creature that breathes. It is hard to believe that he was a German, for it seems incredible that a German sailor would refrain from sinking a ship because there was a woman on board. One can imagine that he would be ostracized by his brother officers of the wardroom, for he actually had accompanying him a spare ship on which to put the crews of the ships he sank. One can hardly imagine him sitting ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... JUDITH,—You have been so kind to your aunt, the only human being, at last, who was left to love her, that she could not refrain from telling you the one passage in her history which is of any importance ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford

... coming out towards us. The sea breeze began to set in, which drove us more on the shoal, notwithstanding that we had carried out two anchors ahead. At length she thumped so violently that we jumped at least a foot high from the deck. I could not refrain from smiling to see the captain and officers with serious, long, anxious faces, cutting capers against their will. The rudder and false keel soon parted company, and we all expected to see the masts jerked out of their steps. On sounding the well we found the ship making water rapidly. The pumps ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... as far as possible in this narrative, I cannot refrain from saying, after a careful study of the documents available, that the staff work of the 5th Army (General Gough) was thoroughly bad as far as our Division was concerned. Time after time units were set impossible tasks, with inadequate support from artillery and ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell

... rooms. I was up and dressed. I found him solemnly seated beside the fire in the drawing-room, looking more thoughtful than usual. He pointed to the armchair opposite to him. Divining his meaning, I sank into it with a gravity, which so well aped his, that he could not refrain from smiling, though the ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac

... provided for them. Such protection is given by a European or American woman, who has the independence and the resolution to go where no missionary family resides, and carry on the work of female education. Even at the risk of offending the modesty of the persons concerned, I cannot refrain from putting on record my admiration of the course of Miss Wilson in Zahleh, Miss Gibbon in Hasbeiya, and Miss Williams in Tyre, in making homes for themselves, and carrying on their work far from European ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... to acid fruits during the latter years of life is that they thin the blood and cause chilliness. This is true if they are partaken of too liberally. It is not necessary to refrain from eating acid fruits, but they should be taken in moderation and the mild ones should be selected. Pears, mild apples and grapes are better than oranges, grapefruits and apricots. Those who have learned moderation can eat all the fruit desired, for they ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker

... it steady, notwithstanding those rapid and frightful oscillations. Captain Hull, his eye on his prey, did not cease making his eternal refrain: ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne



Words linked to "Refrain" :   help, avoid, act, fast, chorus, let it go, teetotal, leave alone, music, consume, vocal, spare, save, abstain, forbear, song, tra-la, keep off, leave behind, help oneself, stand by, desist, leave, sit out, hold back, tra-la-la



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