"Safety valve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Illinois, in 1814, shown the possibilities of colonization in the West Indies. He felt that because Santo Domingo had become an independent Negro republic it would offer a solution of the problem as to where the Negroes should be colonized. In this way these islands would become a sort of safety valve for the United States. He became more and more convinced that all the West Indies would remain in the hands of the people of color, and a total expulsion of the whites sooner or later would take place. It was high time, he thought, that Americans should foresee ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... superfine was his broad-cloth, glossy his linen, and perfect the fit of his gloves. While pride and happiness so fermented in his youthful bosom, there would have been danger of spontaneous combustion if dancing had not proved a safety valve, for his strong sense of the proprieties would not permit him to vent his emotions in any ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... said: "The right to vote makes a safety valve of every voter, and the best way to teach a man to vote is to give him a chance to practice. It is cheaper, too, in the long run to lift men up than to hold them down. The ballot in their hands is less dangerous than a sense of ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... which is filled by pouring water into the reservoir, B, until the same, entering the boiler at its lowest part through the tube, C, rises to the desired height in the water gauge, G. C acts also in the place of a safety valve. D is the fire space, E a movable grate, and F the coal hopper. The fuel consists of charcoal or coke. The boiler is emptied by the cock, H. I is a steam pipe connecting the steam space with the hot air tube, L. K is an auxiliary pipe to admit the steam into ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... in the doorway and furtively watched Joe until the latter disappeared beyond an angle of the building. Then he went in and meditatively drew the water from the glass gauges, tested the safety valve, wiped off the engine and finally locked ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... under his huge brow like sapphires lit by flame. His spare form clothed in a seedy Prince Albert frock towered with a singular dignity. His features worked convulsively a moment, and then he burst forth like the explosion of a safety valve:— ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... and smiled as though we had exchanged some acceptable commonplaces. "Poor dear!" she said, dismissing everything, and put out her arms, and it seemed to me that I could hear the Lettish girl in the background—doomed safety valve of purity in this intolerable world—telling something in indistinguishable German—I know ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... Sibilation. — N. sibilance, sibilation; zip; hiss &c. v.; sternutation; high note &c. 410. [animals that hiss] goose, serpent, snake (animal sounds) 412. [animals that buzz] insect, bug; bee, mosquito, wasp, fly. [inanimate things that hiss] tea kettle, pressure cooker; air valve, pressure release valve, safety valve, tires, air escaping from tires, punctured tire; escaping steam, steam, steam radiator, steam release valve. V. hiss, buzz, whiz, rustle; fizz, fizzle; wheeze, whistle, snuffle; squash; sneeze; sizzle, swish. Adj. sibilant; hissing ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the district fountains of honour, had hitherto conferred on them the stamp of no rank. Hitherto their crinoline petticoats, late hours, and mincing gait had been a fair subject of Mrs Greenacre's raillery, and this raillery had been a safety valve for her envy. Now, however, and from henceforward, the case would be very different. Now the Lookalofts would boast that their aspirations had been sanctioned by the gentry of the country; now they would declare with some show of truth that their claims ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... let a man learn, and study, and work—and clamp a lid on so that nothing he takes into his mind can be let out—one way or another he'll blow a safety valve! ...
— Security • Ernest M. Kenyon
... on a trivial provocation. The charge of bluffing comes nearer the fact, for President Cleveland probably had never a moment's doubt that the forces making for peace between the two nations would be victorious. If he may be said to have thrown a bomb, he certainly had attached a safety valve to it, for the investigation which he proposed could not but give time for the passions produced by his message to cool. It is interesting to note in passing that delay for investigation was a device which that other great Democrat, William Jennings Bryan, ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... several occasions called to investigate the causes of steam boiler explosions, my attention was naturally directed to the condition of the Safety Valve. I found the construction of them in many cases to be defective in principle as well as in mechanical details; resulting chiefly from the employment of a conical form in the valve, which necessitated the use of a guide spindle to enable it to keep in correct relative position ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... returns. If any one will look back upon the commercial history of these last fifty years, he will perceive that the system of credit is always attended with a periodical blow up; in England, perhaps, once in twenty years; in America, once in from seven to ten. This arises from their being no safety valve—no check which can be put to it by mutual consent of all parties. One house extends its credit, and for a time, its profits; another follows the example. The facility of credit induces those who obtain it to embark in other speculations, foreign to their business; for credit ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat) |
