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Benevolent   Listen
adjective
Benevolent  adj.  Having a disposition to do good; possessing or manifesting love to mankind, and a desire to promote their prosperity and happiness; disposed to give to good objects; kind; charitable.
Synonyms: Benevolent, Beneficent. Etymologically considered, benevolent implies wishing well to others, and beneficent, doing well. But by degrees the word benevolent has been widened to include not only feelings, but actions; thus, we speak of benevolent operations, benevolent labors for the public good, benevolent societies. In like manner, beneficent is now often applied to feelings; thus, we speak of the beneficent intentions of a donor. This extension of the terms enables us to mark nicer shades of meaning. Thus, the phrase "benevolent labors" turns attention to the source of these labors, viz., benevolent feeling; while beneficent would simply mark them as productive of good. So, "beneficent intentions" point to the feelings of the donor as bent upon some specific good act; while "benevolent intentions" would only denote a general wish and design to do good.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Benevolent" Quotes from Famous Books



... almost peculiar to himself, he so managed as to retain the affection, in some instances, the devotion, of his deluded victims. In every other respect he was kind and charitable. No man would go farther to alleviate the sufferings of another. No man was more benevolent. No man would make greater sacrifices to promote the interest or the happiness of a friend. How strange, how inconsistent, how conflicting are these allusions! They ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... of them could know you as I know you? Then for the rest, I am not afraid of 'toads' now, not being a child any longer. I am not inclined to mind, if you do not mind, what may be said about us by the benevolent world, nor will other reasons of a graver kind affect me otherwise than by the necessary pain. Therefore the whole rests with you—unless illness should intervene—and you will be kind and good (will you not?) and not think hard thoughts of me ever again—no. ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... "Such," said he, "is my humble fare; partake it with a contented heart, and it shall be more grateful to thy taste, than the high flavoured viands of a monarch." In the mean time, Madoc, pleased with the benevolent pursuit, gathered some bits of dry wood, and setting them on fire, besought the swain to refresh himself from the weariness of his travel, and the inclemency of the storm. But the heart of Edwin was too full to partake of the provisions that his ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... their names in a book at the lodge, and then, turning to the benevolent director, paid him some well deserved compliments, for which ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... convert them into friends? The latter was clearly the more expedient and desirable in itself, unless it were accompanied by some imminent danger. He called upon the house to turn the materials of discord into strength, and to imitate the skilful and benevolent physician, who from deadly herbs extracted healing balms, and made that the means of health which others, less able, or less good, used ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... New York, to become a regular contributor to the Tribune; and for that purpose to take up her abode in his house, first spending some time in the Highlands of the Hudson. At New York, she took an active interest, after Mrs Fry's manner, in the various benevolent institutions, and especially the prisons on Blackwell's Island. For more than a year she wrote regularly for the Tribune, 'always freshly, vigorously, but not always clearly.' The notice attracted by her articles insured fresh hosts of acquaintances, and she became a distinguished ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various

... mild, the King's voice benign; he was really very well pleased with himself for his clemency, and very well pleased with the man and woman for affording him an opportunity of justifying his character of benevolent autocrat. He would have said more, but at this moment the door opened and Sir Rufus entered the room, looking as fierce and angry as he dared to look in the presence of his royal master. He knew well enough that Brilliana's interview ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... by this address, and his countenance grew pale. But the next moment, disdaining to be thus controuled by the voice of a slave, his cheeks were suffused with the blushes of indignation: he turned from OMAR, in scorn, anger, and confusion, without reply; and OMAR departed with the calm dignity of a benevolent and superior being, to whom the smiles and frowns of terrestrial tyranny were alike indifferent, and in whom abhorrence of the turpitude of vice was mingled with ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth

... is permanently impressed on the mind. If the money then be improvidently dissipated, he who acts thus ungratefully to his benefactors, and cruelly to himself, reflects on his own folly alone. But when active and benevolent agents, who have raised subscriptions, will entail trouble on themselves, and with a feeling almost paternal, charge themselves with a disinterested solicitude for future generations, without a strong effort of the reasoning power, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... immortal rhyme had little effect, for the benevolent cow had already been milked, and had only half a gill to ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... whole; no exchanges were made but with his or her consent; and whatever we gave in exchange was always given them, which I think plainly shewed them to be the owners of the goods, and the others no more than servants. Though benevolent nature has been very bountiful to these isles, it cannot be said that the inhabitants are wholly exempt from the curse of our forefathers: Part of their bread must be earned by the sweat of their brows. The high state of cultivation their lands are ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... Mr. Zimers, the Surgeon-General, and Governor Wanjon did everything in his power to supply our present wants, or that would contribute to the re-establishment of our health and strength and even to our amusement, and this benevolent example was followed by Mr. Fruy, the Lieutenant-Governor and the other gentlemen of the place. Two months' provision was provided for the ship's company and put on board the Remberg [Rembang], a Dutch East India Company ship, and we embarked on board the same ship ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards

... understand what they are doing. Yet it is certain that trained animals often exhibit pieces of behaviour which are not nearly so clever as they look. The elephant at the Belle Vue Gardens in Manchester used to collect pennies from benevolent visitors. When it got a penny in its trunk it put it in the slot of an automatic machine which delivered up a biscuit. When a visitor gave the elephant a halfpenny it used to throw it back with disgust. At first sight this seemed ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... forgive their sins—and to bury their bodies in sure and certain hope of heaven. From this fatal sleep of ignorance and error, they were aroused by itinerant preachers; many of whom were men of education, of irreproachable morals, and most benevolent habits. They went forth upon their mission at a fearful sacrifice of comfort, property, health, and even of life; calling all to repentance, and to obey the light within—to follow on to perfection in this life—and, at the same time, denouncing ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... Berenger, with a grin that was becoming even more benevolent, "and I need not ask what price you come expecting for that feather. None the less, you are an excellently spoken-of young wizard of noble condition, who have slain no doubt a reasonable number of giants and dragons, and who have certainly turned kings from folly ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell

... good-looking rather plethoric gentleman of about sixty years of age. His hair was snow-white, very plentiful, and somewhat like wool of the finest description. His whiskers were very large and very white, and gave to his face the appearance of a benevolent, sleepy old lion. His dress was always unexceptionable. Although he had lived so many years in Italy it was invariably of a decent clerical hue, but it never was hyperclerical. He was a man not given to much talking, but what little he did say was generally ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... vices common among the French are not merely less foul and disgusting in appearance, but less odious in their own nature, than those of our countrymen. We do not say this in palliation of their conduct. It is rather to be considered as a benevolent provision of nature, that in proportion as vice is more generally diffused, its influence on individual character is less fatal. This remark applies particularly to the case of women. A woman in England, who loses one virtue, knows that she outrages ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... Mr. Sherman, we are happy to be able to state to your Excellency that our minds are led to the conclusion that that gentleman possesses a disposition noble and generous, a mind discriminating, comprehensive, and combining a heart pure, benevolent and humane. Manners dignified, mild, and complaisant, and a firmness not to be shaken and of ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... not unusual in Hindostan; the population of the famished province cried out for rice; the stores of which, diminished by nature, had for months mysteriously disappeared. A provident administration it seems had invested the public revenue in its benevolent purchase; the misery was so excessive that even pestilence was anticipated, when the great forestallers came to the rescue of the people over whose destinies they presided; and at the same ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... in consequence of these benevolent propensities, I have been describing, that Allan oftentimes discovered considerable inclinations in favor of my way of life, which I have before mentioned as being that of a surgeon. He would frequently attend me on my visits to patients; and I began to think that he had serious ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... adoration and subjects of terror, and often both classes are worshipped from opposite motives; the good, that the worshipper may receive benefit; the evil, that he may escape harm. Sometimes good deities are so benevolent that they are neglected, superstitious fear directing all devotion towards the evil spirits to propitiate them and avert the calamities they are ever ready to bring upon the human race; sometimes the malevolent ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.

... and intent of the Scripture,' according to the translation by George Wishart, Knox's earliest master, of the First Helvetic or Swiss Confession, is, 'to declare that God is benevolent and friendly-minded to mankind; and that he hath declared that kindness in and through Jesu Christ, his only Son; the which kindness is received by faith; but this faith is effectuous through charity, and expressed in an innocent life.' And even more strikingly, the very first question ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes

... with his crooked smile playing around the corner of his mouth, "that the ferocity of the Inquisition has been greatly exaggerated. No doubt the benevolent Bodin speaks of driving long needles between the nails and the flesh of the sorcerers' fingers. 'An excellent gehenna,' says he. He eulogizes equally the torture by fire, which he characterizes as 'an exquisite death.' But he wishes only to turn the magicians away from their detestable ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... kill all the pro-slavery people who fell into his hands, and he did a bloody work which under other conditions would have been counted as murder and denounced everywhere. But in the autumn of 1856 wealthy and benevolent men in the North applauded him, gave him money, and held meetings ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd

... for thy great good fortune in finding favour in the sight of one so noble and benevolent as our beloved guest, who is henceforth thy master. Remember, he is not as I am—one who has been what thou art, and so knows the tricks. Serve him freely with thy mind and soul and conscience, not waiting for commands as in the ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall

... feed Clover crops College, agricultural Cropping, table of Cuckoo, note of Diseases of plants Drainage reports Evergreens, to transplant, by Mr. Glendinning Farming in Norfolk, high Farming, Mr. Mechi's, by Mr. Wilkins Farming, rule of thumb, by Mr. Wilkins Fruit trees, to root prune Gardeners' Benevolent Institution, by Mr. Wheeler Gardening, villa and suburban Grapes in pots Guano frauds Highland Patriotic Society Kew, Victoria Regia at Peel, Sir R., death of Pike, voracity of, by Mr. Lovell Plants, diseases of Plants, names of Potato disease Reviews, miscellaneous Rhododendrons, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various

... was at their mercy during this long journey, but they gave me shelter in their villages, and fed me when I was hungry, and helped me on my way when I could make no return. You must not, however, run away with the idea that there is any sweetness in their disposition, any humane or benevolent instincts such as are found among the civilized nations: far from it. I regard them now, and, fortunately for me, I regarded them then, when, as I have said, I was at their mercy, as beasts of prey, plus a cunning or low kind of intelligence vastly greater ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... sufficient authority or personal influence to enable them to struggle against the emigrants, and the protectors of the emigrant faction. In the council chamber their opinions, often well concerted, and always benevolent, were sanctioned and approved. Out of the council, each minister acted according to his own plans; and, unfortunately, those departments which ramify most deeply into the nation and its affairs were confided ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... 19th of August he was called up to receive sentence He stood in the spot hallowed by the footprints of Robert Emmet and John Mitchel; nor was the heart he brought to the same sacrifice less worthy than theirs. Upon his benevolent countenance or stout heart, the appliances of terror around him had no effect. He stood unmoved and unawed, in the glorious consciousness that he had fulfilled his duty to his friend and to ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... of not believin' the Bible, it's only that we ain't fools enough to believe all the ways people twists it to suit theirselves; men as talks that way is always the sort would be in a benevolent asylum only for some woman keepin' 'em from it," said grandma, coming to the rescue. "Cowards always drag in the Bible to back theirselves up far more than proper people does; and there's always one thing as strikes me in the Bible, an' that is w'en God was going to send His son down in ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... encouraged him with loud outcries. Many imitated him, rolling in the dust and shouting for joy, pain and envy. But the joyous minutes were soon over when the boy, bringing his exhibition to an end, looked upon the children with the benevolent smile of a thoroughbred artist and ...
— The Shield • Various

... merchandise shall be spent for the needs of the islands. The amount of money which may be carried back from Mexico is strictly limited to five hundred thousand pesos; and in this amount must be included, to avoid frauds, all amounts of legacies, and gifts for benevolent works, sent to Filipinas. No wrought silver may be carried thither, except under close restrictions. The governor of Filipinas and the viceroy of Nueva Espana shall exchange reports of the business carried on by these ships. A trustworthy person must be appointed ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various

... Miss Wickham in an easy-chair on his right hand, and cast a preliminary benevolent glance ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher

... appeared isolated and capricious, tending to one great end, and accomplishing one specific purpose, we may learn to infer that those which appear to us most extraordinary, are alike subservient to a wise and benevolent dispensation. Poetry, the greatest of all critics has told us, has this advantage over history, that the lessons which it furnishes are not mixed and confined to particular cases, but pure and universal. Studied, however, in this spirit, history, while it improves the reason, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... patient mind. When led forth to suffer, the first voice which we hear from Him is a generous lamentation over the fate of His unfortunate tho guilty country; and to the last moment of His life we behold Him in possession of the same gentle and benevolent spirit. No upbraiding, no complaining expression escaped from His lips during the long and painful approaches of a cruel death. He betrayed no symptom of a weak or a vulgar, of a discomposed or impatient mind. With the utmost attention of filial tenderness ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser

... marshalling—weigh down the scales. He should have done it, if done it was to be, five ... three ... even a couple of years ago. Each day that dawned added to the tangle, made the idea seem more preposterous. Local dignities had been showered on him: he sat on the Committees of the District Hospital and the Benevolent Asylum; was Honorary Medical Officer to this Society and that; a trustee of the church; one of the original founders of the Mechanics' Institute; vice-president of the Botanical Society; and so on, AD INFINITUM. His practice was second to none; his visiting-book rarely shewed a blank ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... see a great gentleman, and to secure some part of his bounty. Had his lordship lifted his eyes to the windows of the shops and houses of the poor as he passed by, he would have seen Virginia Strozzi at her needlework—that poor creature whose virtue his lordship was so benevolent as to protect; for which truly gracious act his same poor Virginia must always be grateful. It would have been a great kindness in his lordship to have allowed one, who ever tried to be faithful and obedient, to kiss his noble ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... assuring him that unless he desisted, and behaved with circumspection, he would inevitably be seized by the Inquisition. But the prospect of Martyrdom augmented his zeal; and the representations of the benevolent Catholic only stimulated his enterprise; so that in the course of a few days, much to his own exceeding great joy, and with many comfortable salutations of the spirit, he was seized by the Inquisition, and lodged in a dungeon, On hearing this, the Abate ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt

... in wine, according to the old adage, what an amiable-natured character Dick's must have been! In proportion as he took in wine he overflowed with kindness. His talk was not witty so much as charming. He never said a word that could anger anybody, and only became the more benevolent the more tipsy he grew. Many of the wags derided the poor fellow in his cups, and chose him as a butt for their satire: but there was a kindness about him, and a sweet playful fancy, that seemed to Esmond far more charming than ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... letter, I laid it down, and made no observation. Talbot, with his usual kind and benevolent countenance, inquired if I had any news? "Yes," I replied, "I have discovered that you are ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... certainly do," returned the other, venturing to steal a timid glance at her interrogator; and, meeting the same benevolent expression of feeling as before, she continued, as her own face lighted into one of its animated and bright smiles of intelligence, "but not at the expense of the rights ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... they only now and then nibbled one, and preferred to give them away to poor children, as they trotted to market each day. Many a time had Miss Hetty felt sorely tempted to treat the boys, but was a little timid, for they were rough fellows, and she regarded them much as a benevolent tabby would a party ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... been a period of sharp religious disputes, and every religious and benevolent institution is keenly criticised; but great good is being done notwithstanding by devoted men and women. The centenary of the Baptist Missionary Society, observed in 1892, recalled to mind the vast work accomplished by missions since that pioneer ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... were you not the only trustworthy person from whom I can learn the necessary particulars of the terrible Rossberg accident. My husband, as perhaps you already know, has invited two gentlemen to dine with us. One is a government officer of high rank, the other a kind and benevolent priest. My husband's intention is to spend a considerable sum of money for distribution among those who were injured in the Rossberg catastrophe, or their destitute relatives. They shall at least not suffer actual want, and although I daresay that money ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... accredited guide to the next, his advice was precisely of a nature to reconcile the Conscience and the Interest; and he was a kind of negotiator in the reciprocal diplomacy of earth and heaven. But our banker was really a charitable man, and a benevolent man, and a sincere believer. How, then, was he a hypocrite? Simply because he professed to be far more charitable, more benevolent, and more pious than he really was. His reputation had now arrived to that degree of immaculate polish that the smallest breath, which would not ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... a manager, he has heard H. speak, but not with any interest. James Whiteley was the theme on which he most liked to dwell. Whiteley was perhaps the greatest oddity on the face of the earth; but of a heart sound, and benevolent beyond the generality of mankind. Violently passionate, and in his passions vulgar, rude, boisterous, and so abhorrent of hypocrisy, that he laboured to make himself appear as bad as possible. He was a native of Ireland; and it has often been said of him that in eccentricity and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... the possible operation of this species of benevolent avarice, the avarice of the father, you let loose another species of avarice,—that of the fortune-hunter, unmitigated, unqualified. To show the motives, who has heard of a man running away with a woman not worth sixpence? Do not call this by the name of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Lord Leitrim was of the old stock, and who would wish to succeed to the inheritance of hatred he left behind him, and Lord Ardilaun, a new landlord, is well spoken of by all his people. Every one with whom I spoke of him, including the parish priest, acknowledged him to be a high-toned, grandly benevolent man, who, if he differed from his tenants, differed as one on a height of grandeur may misjudge ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... during his entire life, and who leaves even all when he goes out for "benevolent purposes," comes far short of the ideal life. It is but a poor excuse of a life. It is not especially commendable in me to give a pair of old, worn-out shoes that I shall never use again to another who is in need of shoes. But it ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine

... Bancroft says: "Endicot, a man of dauntless courage, and that cheerfulness which accompanies courage, benevolent though austere, firm though choleric, of a rugged nature, which the sternest forms of Puritanism had not served to mellow, was selected as a fit instrument for this wilderness work.' (History of the United States, Vol. I., ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... favorable: sometimes on an Atlantic steamer, sometimes on a Nile boat, and not only in my own library at Cornell, but in those of Berlin, Helsingfors, Munich, Florence, and the British Museum. This fact will explain to the benevolent reader not only the citation of different editions of the same authority in different chapters, but some iterations which in the steady quiet of my own library would ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... was one of three countries that emerged from the collapse of Gran Colombia in 1830 (the others being Ecuador and New Granada, which became Colombia). For most of the first half of the 20th century, Venezuela was ruled by generally benevolent military strongmen, who promoted the oil industry and allowed for some social reforms. Democratically elected governments have held sway since 1959. Hugo CHAVEZ, president since 1999, has promoted a controversial policy of "democratic ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... and abstemious maxims, the mere talking about which acquired certain old Greeks the reputation of sages and philosophers; yet were they clearly proved in the present instance to betoken a most abject and brutified nature, totally beneath the human character. But the benevolent fathers, who had undertaken to turn these unhappy savages into dumb beasts by dint of argument, advanced still stronger proofs; for as certain divines of the sixteenth century, and among the rest Lullus, affirm, the Americans go naked, and have no beards! "They have nothing," says Lullus, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... individual exertion. Here a minister's influence may at once reach, not merely to his own congregation, but far beyond. Every month he is brought in contact with some thousands, who may be affected by his faithfulness. And under his influence, many benevolent and pious institutions may rise and shine ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2. No. 6., Nov. 1827 - Or Original Monthly Sermons from Living Ministers • William Patton

... or aliment; and the streets heard no more of his songs. He grew lank and thin, and stuttered and limped more painfully than before, and was in the last stage of privation and distress; when the benevolent proprietor of Nigg, who resided half the year in a town-house in Cromarty, took pity upon him, and introduced him to his kitchen. And in a few days Jock was singing and limping errands with as much energy as ever. But the time at length came when his new benefactor had ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... towards the large avenue where splendor, prestige and power are seen. See modern fashion so careless of the rights of others—these poor little people. Yes, I will describe some of these figures, to teach, if so we may, a bit of entertaining, benevolent sense. ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara

... of the Bosphorus to gain an anchorage; or would slowly float down that stream into the open sea, on its way to healthier and happier Europe. The starving dogs at nightfall would howl dismally, bewailing the loss of the benevolent hands from which they usually received their food; the gulls and cormorants floated languidly over our dwelling, overpowered by the heat; and the dead silence, which in the afternoon and evenings prevailed, made a most melancholy and affecting ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... afterwards at Tortoni's. The whole affair was carried out in grand style. The novelist had on his war-paint, and was accompanied by a lady, young, pretty, whose name is not revealed to us. Werdet's vis-a-vis was Madame Louise Lemercier, a benevolent blue-stocking of that day, who was a Providence to needy men of letters. When dinner was over, Balzac's elegant equipage, with its mighty coachman and its diminutive groom, yclept Millet-seed, who unfortunately died soon after in the hospital, conveyed ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... the State more indebted than to Mr. GAYLORD. For myself, I can declare in all sincerity that there is no man whose writings caused within me a greater desire to be honored with a personal acquaintance. The character of WILLIS GAYLORD was in all respects what might be expected from his writings; benevolent, enlightened, elevated; yet plain, practical, unassuming. Every day of his useful life was marked, not merely by the exercise of his versatile talents on the multifarious subjects embraced by agriculture and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... Persuaded that religion was the greatest good which it was possible for man to enjoy, all her anxiety was concentrated in extending that benefit to the greatest number of human beings. It was this which induced her to show herself benevolent and compassionate toward the Moors of Granada after the conquest of that city; it was this, also, which induced her to lavish her gifts upon, and afterwards to take under her protection, such of those Moors ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... association of ideas. The territory of linguistic study is immense, and it has much to supply which might be useful to the neighbours who border on that territory. But they have not regarded her even with that interest which is called benevolent because it is not actively maleficent. As Horne Tooke remarked a century ago, Locke had found a whole philosophy in language. What have the philosophers done for language since? The disciples of Kant and of Wilhelm von Humboldt supplied her plentifully with the sour grapes of metaphysics; otherwise ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... case, which had happened, where all three outsides, the trinity of Pariahs, made a vain attempt to sit down at the same breakfast table or dinner table with the consecrated four? I myself witnessed such an attempt; and on that occasion a benevolent old gentleman endeavored to soothe his three holy associates, by suggesting that, if the outsides were indicted for this criminal attempt at the next assizes, the court would regard it as a case of lunacy (or delirium tremens) rather than of treason. ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... carrying clubs at a shilling a round, but rather occupies, or ought to occupy, the position of competent adviser or interested spectator. The caddie ought to be as anxious for the success of his side as if he were one of the players, and should watch each move in the game with benevolent if critical interest, being always ready with the appropriate club, and, if need be, with ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon

... his own language he was answerable to God for it. But hitherto with his own nature he had made no compromise. He had sacrificed heart, senses, and intellect to the tyranny of his conscience; he had ceased to dread their insane revolt against that benevolent despotism. And now the question that tormented him was whether all the time he had not been temporising with his own inexorable humanity, whether his relations with Audrey Craven did not involve a perpetual intrigue between the earthly and the heavenly. For there was a strange discrepancy between ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... that they should not fight, and I think I have kept my word. Your cousin, Miss Coventry, is a noble fellow," said the old man, his benevolent features kindling into admiration; "but I had more difficulty with him than his antagonist. He would not be satisfied till Captain Lovell had assured him, on his honour, that you had yourself declined his advances in a manner which admitted of no misconstruction; and that then, and not till then, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... wish that Jack Penny would not smile, for the effect upon his smooth boyish countenance was to make him look idiotic. When the doctor smiled there was a grave kindly benevolent look in his fine heavily-bearded massive face. When Jimmy smiled it was in a wholesale fashion, which gave you an opportunity of counting his teeth from the incisors right back to those known as ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn

... bestow upon the tillers of the soil. This had often been neglected by the less powerful and less prudent kings of Egypt, in whose reigns the husbandman believed that Heaven in its displeasure withheld part of the wished-for overflow; but Petronius employed the leisure of his soldiers on this wise and benevolent work. In order better to understand the rise of the Nile, to fix the amount of the land-tax, and more fairly to regulate the overflow through the canals, the Nilometer on the Island of Elephantine was at ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... but what have they done? nothing but divided the brain into sections, classed the organs, and discovered where they reside; but what good result has been gained from that? the murderer by nature remained a murderer—the benevolent man, a benevolent man—he could not alter his organisation. I have found out how ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... witness called is Mrs. Rosebrook. This good and benevolent lady is more resolute and determined. The gentlemen of the bar find her quite clever enough for them. Approaching the stand with a firm step, she takes her place as if determined upon rescuing the children. Her answers come rather faster than is compatible with ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... yet playful; his imagination exhaustless, without extravagance; and his faith firm, without superstition. I do not know, in the annals of art, such another example of happy, practical, unerring, and benevolent power. ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin

... was no sound but the soughing of the roadside trees in the evening wind. I endeavored to reassure him, with such success that in a few moments the old weak smile appeared on his benevolent face. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... dishonestly acquired gain, it is the prudent use, and not the manner of the acquisition which we are to take as our examples. Initial unfaithfulness in acquisition is not condoned or covered over by any pious and benevolent use hereafter. Mediaeval barons left money for masses. Plenty of Protestants do exactly the same thing. Brewers will build cathedrals, and found picture galleries, and men that have made their money foully will fancy that they atone for that by leaving it for some charitable ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... their hearts, and, liars toward God, they returned to their original heresy." The emperor of Germany, Henry IV, it seems, even authorized those who had been forced into baptism to return to Judaism, and the baptized Jews hastened to throw off the hateful mask. This benevolent measure irritated the Christian clergy, and the Pope ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber

... of evil spirits, I considered there was a middle race, [Greek: daimonia], neither in heaven, nor in hell; partially fallen, capricious, wayward; noble or crafty, benevolent or malicious, as the case might be. These beings gave a sort of inspiration or intelligence to races, nations, and classes of men. Hence the action of bodies politic and associations, which is often so different from that of the individuals who compose them. Hence the character and the instinct ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... said the young man, seating himself without being asked, and gazing at John in a benevolent kind of way, 'you really show some temper over this little affair of yours. Now, here is the ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... whom I have mentioned, and a young associate and fellow student of his, employed themselves regularly twice a day in drawing this venerable cripple in a commodious garden-chair round the airy hill of Eartham. To Cowper and to me it was a very pleasing spectacle to see the benevolent vivacity of blooming youth thus continually labouring for the ease, health, and amusement of ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... wish that something could somehow be done to restrain the Benevolent. We are so fond, as a nation, of patronizing that if we have nothing immediately at hand to patronize, we must needs go out into the highways and hedges and bring in anything we can find, any old thing, so long as we ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... science was considered to have no place in, and in fact to be an enemy of, "liberal education." In 1880, at Birmingham, Huxley attacked this view in a speech delivered at the opening of the Mason College. Sir Josiah Mason, the benevolent founder of that great institution, had made it one of the conditions of the foundation that the College should make no provision for "mere literary instruction and education." This gave Huxley a text for raising the whole question of the relation of science to culture. He declared that ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell

... sisters, all endowed with fairy gifts, and all so alike in mind and person that they wished their houses and garments to be equally alike. Their occupation consisted in helping those in misfortune, and they were as gentle and benevolent as Lagree ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang

... which ought to be a fortune to its owner and has been in years gone by. Now, however, cotton and corn have ceased to be kings, oftentimes they are more like beggars. Thus it came to pass that this noble plantation became the property of a benevolent lady in Brooklyn, N. Y., who made it a splendid gift to the Association, with sufficient money to build the fine brick building which stands in the center of this great farm, the beginning of the "Joseph K. Brick Normal, ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 4, April 1896 • Various

... of this wildest and strangest of all visionary occurrences is to be found in a series of processes at law, each part recorded and certified under oath; but so it is. The village maid was placed at the bar, before a number of acute legists, ecclesiastics, and statesmen, to submit her to a not-too-benevolent cross-examination. Several of these men were still alive at the time of the Rehabilitation and gave their recollections of this examination, though its formal records have not been preserved. A Dominican monk, Aymer, one of ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... "By the clemency and benevolent interference of two mistresses known to the writer, two servants have become happy wives, who, had they been in some situations, would have ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... purple and a hoary apple-tree blossomed white and pink like a blushing child, away over the green fields to a farmhouse upon a hill, where russet and yellow stacks proved the farmer's command of ready money, or caution in selling. From just such another farmhouse as that on which our bright benevolent woman—even in the dumps—was gazing wistfully, issued Caroline Inchbald, a beauty, and a generous, virtuous woman under great temptations, a friend and rival on equal terms ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... delicate. You will find there landladies devoured with jealousy, astute housekeepers, delightful boys, wise peasants, touchy shopkeepers, all the cosas de Espana—and, in addition, the pale girl Rosario. I recommend that pathetic and silent victim of fate to your benevolent compassion. You will find in his pages the humours of starving workers of the soil, the vision among the mountains of an exulting mad spirit in a mighty body, and many other visions worthy of attention. And they are exact visions, for this idealist is no visionary. He is in sympathy ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... night. The next morning a deputation headed by the director of the penitentiary, flanked by a committee of benevolent ladies, called upon us to beg me to sing for the penitents at the penitentiary the next day, it being Sunday. They all said, in chorus, that it would be a great and ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... Colonel John Russell, at one time president of the Bank of General Interest in Salem, and a kindly, benevolent "gentleman of the old school," will read with interest his advertisement of "A New Dispensary," from the "Salem Gazette," March ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 1: Curiosities of the Old Lottery • Henry M. Brooks

... truth. The one was Synesius of course;—that most incoherent and most benevolent of busybodies chose to betray me behind my back:-but I will not trouble you with that part of my story. The real wonder is that the other episcopal match-maker was Augustine of ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... and to overawe the turbulent Drevliens, she traversed their whole country, with her son, accompanied by a very imposing retinue of her best warriors. Having thus brought them to subjection, she instituted over them a just and benevolent system of government, that they might have no occasion again to rise in revolt. They soon became so warmly attached to her that they ever were foremost in ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... Quebec to prepare to leave for Boston. The author's name is nowhere to be found in the book, and several pages at the beginning have been cut out, evidently by the original owner. The journal was found among the papers of the late J. Gradden, a benevolent merchant of Quebec who rendered considerable aid to the American prisoners of war confined there on prison ships. The journal was no doubt presented to Mr. Gradden by its author as a return for kindnesses. Mr. Gradden's son, the late Chas. Gradden of Kilmarnock, ...
— Journal of an American Prisoner at Fort Malden and Quebec in the War of 1812 • James Reynolds

... destroy or subjugate humanity. A part of that concept was in Coburn's mind now. Dillon marched on ahead, in every way convincingly human. But he wasn't. And to Coburn, his presence as a non-human invader of Earth made the border-crossing by the Bulgarians seem almost benevolent. ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... employers, was zealous in doing things for them. He really knew nothing of the working class, and it had never occurred to him that they might do anything for themselves. New Lanark under Owen was, to use the phrase which Mr. Ghent has adopted from Fourier, "a benevolent feudalism." Owen complains pathetically, "Yet the work people were systematically opposed to every change which I proposed, and did whatever they could ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo

... appeal is made for any benevolent object the squire says, "Go to my house and ask my wife to give you something." She, in turn, points the applicant to the field or the orchard, and says, "Go down there and ask my husband to give you something." So one puts it on the ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... What are many of God's dispensations?—a baffling enigma—all strangeness—all mystery to the eye of sense. Useless lives prolonged, useful ones taken! The honoured minister of God struck down, the unfaithful watchman spared! The philanthropic and benevolent have an arrest put on their manifold deeds of kindness and generosity; the grasping, the avaricious, the mean-souled—those who neither fear God nor do good to man, are suffered to live on from day to day! What is it but the picture here presented eighteen ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff

... suffering before they can free themselves from the fatal influence of that hideous blasphemy, and realize that the world is governed not according to the caprice of some demon who gloats over human anguish, but according to a benevolent and wonderfully patient law of evolution. Many members of the class we are considering do not really attain an intelligent appreciation of this fact at all, but drift through their astral interlude in the same aimless manner in which they have spent the physical portion of their ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater

... ideal hermitess," said Virginia. "You've exactly the right features for that profession; austere, yet benevolent. But ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson

... Arthur, with some murmured apology left the room, for he felt that human sympathy, however precious at other times, seemed but to madden him now, and he longed to be alone—"Do you know," she repeated, as the young girl's eyes, swollen with weeping, were upraised to her benevolent countenance, "that I was standing at the window right opposite, when you drove up to the door, and as your brother quickly alighted from the carriage, and tenderly assisted you out, my heart beat quick; the blood forsook my cheeks, and my whole frame was convulsed with emotion, for so ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert

... condition of the people and liberally supply their needs, thus starting them in life again. Polo ascribes all these virtues to the Khan himself. Doubtless he possessed them in greater or less degree, but father and son were one in all these benevolent enterprises."—H. C.] ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... killed in Spain, so that he seemed to have an hereditary claim to attack that country. He, therefore, appeared irresistible, obtaining many great victories, yet subduing more by his generosity, mildness, and benevolent disposition, than by the force ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... gained the pure and fond affections of his Kathleen: when beauty, and youth, and innocence encircled her with their light and their grace, as she spoke or moved; he saw her a happy wife and mother in her own home, kind and benevolent to all who required her good word or her good office, and remembered the sweetness of her light-hearted song; but now she was homeless. He remembered, too, how she used to plead with himself for the afflicted. It was but a moment; yet when their ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... misery, from charity to charity; then, by the time he had lifted all the rags which cover public pauperism, like a bandage under which an inflamed wound lies festering, at the end of a year he had become the Providence incarnate of that quarter of the town. He was a member of the Benevolent Committee and of the Charity Organization. Wherever any gratuitous services were needed he was ready, and did everything without fuss, like the man with the short cloak, who spends his life in carrying soup round the markets ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac

... Jonas sat by the window, beating one hand incessantly upon the sill, and staring at the air. His sister, also, had come; she was frightened, however, and had betaken herself to the bedroom, to sob. But in walked this little plump, soft-footed woman, with her banded hair, her benevolent spectacles, ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... wonderful escapes, the defences of houses, and the escapes of pirates and smugglers from under the very guns of His Majesty's frigates, are as welcome as, and are much more credible than, the lovely daughters of benevolent Spanish governors. Of them there is no want, and for their sake the Pirate can be read; but it is not what Marryat might have made it if he had written it in the spirit in which he was to ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... young lady it is impossible to say: "I have ridden for a little more than a year; the horses with which I am acquainted are benevolent creatures from a riding school near Central Park; they go around the reservoir twice, and return automatically, and they sigh deeply when one mounts and again when ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... intuition, which are as contrary as her tastes in tobacco and tea; but beyond the obvious lurks a mysterious animal power which repels and attracts. Were not her expressions rather melancholy than sensuous, rather benevolent than cruel, one might take her as a model for Queen Berenice or the estimable lady monarchs who yielded themselves adorably to a gentleman's kisses in the evening and saw to it that his head was nicely chopped off in the morning. I can quite ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... happening; something the stars gave no hint of. We're being driven by circumstances utterly beyond our control from the side of the lawless to the side of the lawful and benevolent. In spite of ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... be possible for everyone is to arrive at a sort of harmony of life, to have definite things that they want to do.... The people whom it is hard to fit into any scheme of benevolent creation are the vague, insignificant, drifting people, whose only rooted tendency is to do whatever is suggested ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz

... its extent, besides the loss of property to an enormous amount. And shall these fearful warnings also be without avail? Shall we still close our eyes on conviction, until further catastrophes wring from us those reluctant efforts, which ought to spring spontaneously from a benevolent people? With the most ample means for the rescue of thousands of human beings from a watery grave, shall we still leave them to their fate? Shall we hear unmoved of this widely-spread destruction, and not each contribute ...
— An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1825) • William Hillary

... arriving at Riversford went to tea with the brewer's wife, Mrs. Mordaunt Appleby, at Appleby Hall, and was quite fatherly and benevolent to her son, a lumpy child of ten, the future heir to all the malt, hops, barrels, vats, and poisonous chemicals comprising the ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... in Vancouver watched the increase of friendliness between the girl and Vane. Mrs. Nairn and her husband did so with benevolent interest, and it was by Mrs. Nairn's adroit management, which even Evelyn did not often suspect, that they were thrown more and more into each other's company. Jessy Horsfield, however, looked on with bitterness. She was a strong-willed young woman who hitherto had generally contrived ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss

... making them, though," said Mrs. Ives, peaking with a benevolent smile, and for the first time in ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... immortality. From Mrs. Wimbush to the last "representative" who called to ascertain his twelve favourite dishes, it was the same ingenuous assumption that he would rejoice in the repercussion. There were moments when I fancied I might have had more patience with them if they hadn't been so fatally benevolent. I hated at all events Mr. Rumble's picture, and had my bottled resentment ready when, later on, I found my distracted friend had been stuffed by Mrs. Wimbush into the mouth of another cannon. A young ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James

... took an active interest were used as a part of the boss' tools, be he a benevolent one ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House



Words linked to "Benevolent" :   openhearted, sympathetic, good-hearted, generous, charitable, kind, freehearted, large-hearted, philanthropic



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