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Discourage   Listen
verb
Discourage  v. t.  (past & past part. discouraged; pres. part. discouraging)  
1.
To extinguish the courage of; to dishearten; to depress the spirits of; to deprive of confidence; to deject; the opposite of encourage; as, he was discouraged in his undertaking; he need not be discouraged from a like attempt. "Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged."
2.
To dishearten one with respect to; to discountenance; to seek to check by disfavoring; to deter one from; as, they discouraged his efforts.
Synonyms: To dishearten; dispirit; depress; deject; dissuade; disfavor.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Discourage" Quotes from Famous Books



... answer to such an inquiry as this will suit "smart, capable and trustworthy" boys, one of whom "is fond of politics," and whose father is disposed rather to favor than to discourage their misguided ambition. We venture to hope, however, that their father has lived long enough to become convinced that nothing pays so well on a farm as common sense and hard work, and that the rule holds equally in force in other fields of industry. Our friend seems to have forgotten ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various

... with confidence the concurrence of the House of Representatives in the regret produced by the insurrection. Every effort ought to be used to discountenance what has contributed to foment it, and thus discourage a repetition of like attempts; for notwithstanding the consolations which may be drawn from the issue of this event, it is far better that the artful approaches to such a situation of things should be checked ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson

... "That does not discourage me," I said. "I'll just go on loving you and waiting for a favorable answer. You are still unjust to me. You don't know me well enough. Anyhow, I can't give you up. I won't give you up. ("That's it," I thought. "I am speaking ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... English Act passed expressly for the purpose of binding them, but to reenact it with alterations. The alterations were indeed small; but the alteration even of a letter was tantamount to a declaration of independence. Several addresses were voted without a division. The King was entreated to discourage all encroachments of subordinate powers on the supreme authority of the English legislature, to bring to justice the pamphleteer who had dared to question that authority, to enforce the Acts which had been passed for the protection ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... filberts and no guarantee that blight will not eventually attack our plants. We therefore will have to be more or less on the alert, will have to watch our filbert plants as we do our pear or quince orchards or other fruit trees more or less inclined to blight. By no means let blight discourage the planting of filbert or hazel nuts, as I am fully convinced should it eventually appear it will not kill our plants. In fact it will not harm them as much as it will our pear trees, our quinces or other varieties of fruit inclined ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various

... perhaps better, however, that, before undertaking his task, Uncle Si should require some hint or intimation of what would be expected of him. I am the last man in the world to discourage what is ordinarily regarded and accepted as reasonable ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field

... am glad the discussion has proceeded as it has since it has given me time to reconnoitre. I hardly know what to say on this subject that Professor Smith has brought up. I guess he knows what he is talking about so far as his experiments have taught him. The department does not like to discourage a good thing nor to encourage a thing that is too risky. There is one thing quite sure and that is that so long as nut trees are selling for from one dollar to two dollars apiece, very few people are going to buy them and plant many of them on these hillsides and experiment with them. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Meeting - Evansville, Indiana, August 20 and 21, 1914 • Various

... Bremer expatiated on the brilliant hopes for the future of all Italy which Piedmont's advance on the path of freedom had awakened, he did not discourage them, but, with the prudence of the politician, refrained from anything more ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... sports, and costly fraternity life is much more manifest in the Eastern than in the Western colleges. The students are prone to follow the standards of home expenses, and fall in with the spirit of the wealthy social class, and indulge in elaborate living. Parents should discourage any display of wealth or extravagance in college if they wish their sons not to spend their time attending clubs, theaters, and questionable places of amusement, but to devote their attention ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker

... Pension Bungay. He had come to Lucerne with the fixed purpose of definitely proposing marriage to Eve. He was far too worldly-wise to fail to perceive that, so far at least, Mrs. Sylvester had certainly taken no trouble to discourage his pretensions. His attentions, he argued, had been by no means obscure; his studio had been singularly honoured by the presence of Miss Sylvester and her mother, for the purposes of the portrait; he had even been ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... with it, unbridled by the check-rein of its apologists. Under the best behavior of slaveholders, the institution could not rise above the point of bare toleration. There is so much inherent in the system that will not bear analysis, so much of collateral mischief, so much tending to overturn and discourage the principles of justice that ought to be interwoven into the relationships of society, that it is impossible for the ingenuous mind to advocate slavery per se. It is not, however, to the bare dominion itself, that the objection is exclusively raised ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... Medicis, or that he feared to compromise himself still further with the Court, he merely answered with some impatience, "I am about to retire to Metz: I will not listen to any propositions from the Queen until I am in my own government;" a reply which did not, however, tend to discourage the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... deeply concerned about her soul. Her father and mother, however, were worldly people. They thought lightly of her serious wishes; they did not sympathize with her state of mind. They made up their minds that she should not become a Christian, and tried every way they could to discourage her notions about religion. At last they thought they would get up a large party—thus with gayety and pleasure win her back to the world. So they made every preparation for a gay time; they even sent to neighboring ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody

... one of my bank clerks if you can't do better. Send some molasses, too, in kegs, not barrels—barrels take too long to handle. Send eggs, butter, rice, macaroni, onions, turnips, cheese, and above all, some really good coffee. The calcined peas we've been using for coffee would discourage even Captain Hallam if ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston

... walked briskly back to the Castle, more firmly convinced than ever that every possible step must be taken to prevent any diminution of the income of a woman of such excellent taste in food and wine. It would be little short of a crime to discourage the exercise of her fine natural gift for stimulating the genius of a ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson

... over—Fanny's enthusiasm was a little noisy and crude, and consisted mainly in emphatic repetitions of "Just FANCY! we're going to Rome, my dear!—Rome!"—they gave their attention to their fellow-travellers. Helen was anxious to secure a compartment to themselves, and, in order to discourage intruders, got out and planted herself firmly on the step. Miss Winchelsea peeped out over her shoulder, and made sly little remarks about the accumulating people on the platform, at which ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... feet; the weight of the heavy metal prevented her standing erect; the damp ground was her only couch, and the only rest for her tortured limbs. Sad, and full of anguish, was the solitude that now awaited this angel of virtue; but nothing could discourage, nothing could ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... more decided in applying to Christ, and assiduous in the means of grace, Satan, if permitted, will be more vehement in his endeavours to discourage them, that, if possible, he may induce them to desist, and so come short of the prize-(Scott). A whole Heaven and eternal life is wrapped up in this little word-"Strive to enter in"; this calls for the mind and heart. Many professors make their striving to stand rather in an outcry of words, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... hours of the same day. If the opponents of all reform were to get a knowledge of the clauses in the Bill least favorable to their own ideas as to their interests, and were to make a commotion among the owners of the soil, the immediate effect might be to discourage the King altogether, to fill his mind with a strong desire for escape from the uncongenial part of a reformer and an overmastering anxiety to get rid of his reforming Ministry. If, on the other hand, the Peterloo men, the Chartists generally, and the populations of the northern towns ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... that he staggered not at the promise. God wants us to walk so steadily that there will not even be a quiver in the line of His regiments as they face the foe. It is the little stumblings of life that most discourage and hinder us, and most of these stumblings are over trifles. Satan would much rather knock us down with a feather than with an Armstrong gun. It is much more to his honor and keen delight to defeat a child of God by some flimsy trifle ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson

... summer fogs and rains have washed the hillsides clean; they are leached out and they present a lifeless, forbidding front to travelers. In many places the granite fragments which still encumber them lie piled one above another in such titanic chaos as to discourage man's puny efforts to climb over them. Nevertheless, men have done so, and by the thousands, by the tens of thousands. On this particular morning an unending procession of human beings was straining ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... Chase's course during the summer had made things worse. He had played the time-server. No one was more severe upon Lincoln in July; in August, he hesitated, would not quite commit himself to the conspiracy but would not discourage it; almost gave it his blessing; in September, but not until it was quite plain that the conspiracy was failing, he came out for Lincoln. However, his friends in the Senate overcame their embarrassment—how else could it be with Senators?—and ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... We have to discourage the cheap tricks of controversy, the retort, the search for inconsistency. We have to realize that these things are as foolish and ill-bred and anti-social as shouting in conversation or making puns; and we have to work out habits of thought purged from the sin of assurance. ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... out on the open sea, and every one kept a sharp lookout for any trace of Ross' boat. In his heart no one of them really expected to see it again, but they all kept up an appearance of confidence, the Rally Hall boys doing so in order not to discourage ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... of a fire unless you have a good axe and know how to chop. For the first thing that you need is a solid backlog, the thicker the better, to hold the heat and reflect it into the tent. This log must not be too dry, or it will burn out quickly. Neither must it be too damp, else it will smoulder and discourage the fire. The best wood for it is the body of a yellow birch, and, next to that, a green balsam. It should be five or six feet long, and at least two and a half feet in diameter. If you cannot find a tree thick enough, ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke

... large gift of faith and of hope. The smallness of the Christian Church in the midst of a dense mass of heathenism; the apparent inadequacy of earthly means to convert that great people to Christ; the slowness of progress and the fewness of results—all these tend to depress and discourage the worker. And he needs to offer for himself, as for his people, the prayer which Elisha offered in behalf of the young man,—"O Lord, I pray thee open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw and behold ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... which Zola has based his works were, as they are not, acknowledged truths, what a lack of pity to represent life in such a way to the people, who must live just the same! Does he do it in order to ruin, to disgust, to poison every action, to paralyze every energy, to discourage all thinking? In the presence of that, we are even sorry that he has a talent. It would have been better for him, for France, that he had not had it. And one wonders that he is not frightened, that when a fear seizes even those who did not lead ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,

... farms, corn fields, and prairies, bisected and crisscrossed by railroads, highways, canals, and rivers, protected by the brown hills near by and watched over by the mountains in the distance, supply composition for pictures that in detail and variety must discourage all competition. ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles

... every least sign of improvement. Discourage all doubts and encourage all hopes, and you will make what would be a really hopeless case, if the patient were left to despair, one that can be comparatively easily cured. "A word ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... them. John Marsh and Galway and their friends had seceded, and, under the presidency of a professor of the National University, John MacNeill, had formed a new body, called the Irish Volunteers. The politicians, failing to understand the temper of their time, worked to discourage the growth of the Volunteer Movement, and the result of their efforts was that the more enthusiastic and courageous of the National Volunteers seceded to the ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... claim him all its own. The loneliness, indeed, of his position in society at this period, left destitute, as he was, of all those sanctions and sympathies, by which youth at its first start is usually surrounded, was, of itself, enough to discourage him from embarking in a pursuit, where it is chiefly on such extrinsic advantages that any chance of success must depend. So far from taking an active part in the proceedings of his noble brethren, he appears to have regarded even the ceremony of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... I thank you for your remembrance of me, little as I deserve it, or have sought to deserve it; and yet you are so kind that you allow nothing, not even my unpardonable neglect, to discourage you, always remaining the same true, good, and faithful friend. That I can ever forget you or yours, once so dear and precious to me, do not for a moment believe. There are times when I find myself longing to see you ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace

... word,' said Howard. 'And I can't quite understand what makes you seek to discourage him and pack him off ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... the country, at the house of her grandfather, the Reverend Doctor Honeywood,—you remember Miss Letitia Forrester, whom I have mentioned repeatedly? On coming to town, he found his country-acquaintance in a social position which seemed to discourage his continued intimacy. He had discovered, however; that he was a not unwelcome visitor, and had kept up friendly relations with her. But there was no truth in the current reports,—none ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... danger venturd thus far to you That you might know by me our plot's discoverd. But let not that discourage you: though Van Dort And Bredero, with others, have assented To force this Towne, stand you still on your Guard, And on my reputation rest assured With violence they never dare attempt you; For that would give the world to understand Th'united ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... been slow in clearly making this distinction between "Honesty is the best policy" as a motive or a Te Deum, that I have come upon so many religious men and women in the last two or three years, who, in the finest spirit, have seemed to me to be doing all that they could to discourage everybody especially to discourage me, ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... wish to dwell on these scenes, or to discourage emigration. I fully believe that by thoroughly cleansing the ship, and by serving out good provisions, disease might then have been arrested. The object is to prevent the occurrence of such disorders for the ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... will be carried out independently of existing charities, and indeed not under the guise of a charity at all. The bread of poverty is bitter enough, but that of pauperism is bitterer still, and General Booth, it would seem, intends to foster rather than discourage such spirit of independence as he may find among the lost souls for whom he works. But it seems to us that where such a scheme as his chiefly gains its power, is in its total dissociation from church or sect. However good the work which is done by the ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker

... But thou shalt gain nothing by this; for I swear to thee, by Allah the Most High, that an thou return to the like of this talk, I will blot out the trace of thee from the face of earth!' And deal thou roughly with him in words, so shalt thou discourage him in this attempt and arouse him from his heedlessness." "And will these words cause him to abstain from his offending?" asked the Princess; and the old woman answered, "How should he not abstain? ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... most important of all, it is the duty of peace societies to cherish and exalt the idea of law as the only true controller of international relations, and discourage and denounce their submission to sentiment. The history of civilization is the history of the growth amongst human beings of the habit of submitting their dealings with each other to the direction of rules of universal application, and their withdrawal of ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... was his wife to blame for all that was exceptional in the surgeon's manner? Was she aware of his devotion? Did she encourage this silent and stealthy worship? She did not, at any rate, discourage it, since she ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... with their improved methods could compete successfully against their less favored northern neighbors. The danger of southern luxuries had been foreseen and an attempt had been made to provide against it. As far back as the year 1744, in order to discourage such things, at a meeting of the chiefs of the Isle of Skye, Sir Alexander MacDonald of MacDonald, Norman MacLeod of MacLeod, John MacKinnon of MacKinnon, and Malcolm MacLeod of Raasay, held in Portree, it was agreed to discontinue and ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... friends of truth will inform the Committee of any reports they may hear, tending to defame the Committee, and by that means to discourage further donations for the benevolent purpose of relieving the sufferers above-mentioned, it will be acknowledged as ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams

... colonists, though not without omens of ill, will not discourage the political philosopher. The various races are not sufficiently distinct to prevent an easy amalgamation. Nationality, whether of Germans, Irish, Scotch, or English, insensibly loses its political character. Hostile traditions cannot be naturalised in a new land: all ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... indifferent about what becomes of our religious establishment when the present race of priests is extinguished; which, in the course of nature, must happen in less than thirty years. Our military system and our military education discourage all young men from entering into orders; while, at the same time, the army is both more honourable and more profitable than the Church. Already we want curates, though several have been imported from Germany and Spain, and, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... campaign, though the difficulties and hardships to be encountered had led several experienced officers of the army, and some frontiersmen like Mr. James Bridger, the famous scout and, guide of earlier days, to discourage the project. Bridger even went so far as to come out from St. Louis to dissuade me, but I reasoned that as the soldier was much better fed and clothed than the Indian, I had one great advantage, and that, in short, a successful campaign could be made if the operations of the ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan

... line, amid shouts and cries of the most vigorous description. It makes no difference which side wins the day, as victory to either party is supposed by the superstitious natives to bring the wished-for rain. Continued drought does not discourage them from repeating the ceremony time after time; and when the rain comes at last they firmly believe it is in answer to ...
— Harper's Young People, September 28, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... for now it will be a help, and I'll make it right or perish in the attempt. Now, do you understand why I protested against your depressing eloquence on the subject? When I HAD to go on any way, for dear life, I thought it a kind of pity and not much good to discourage me. Now all's changed. God only knows how much courage and suffering is buried in that MS. The second part was written in a circle of hell unknown to Dante - that of the penniless and dying author. For dying I was, although now saved. Another week, the doctor said, and I should have ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to the same cause, since the use of the sinews of animals for stringed instruments would also prevent the educated classes from learning to play them. Thus no stringed instruments are permitted to be used in temples, but only the gong, cymbal, horn and conch-shell. And this rule would greatly discourage the cultivation of music, which art, like all the others, has usually served in its early period as an appanage to religious services. It has been held that instruments were originally employed at temples ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... kiss was pressed upon her lips and a warm cheek was laid against her own, as Lucy said, "Of course, I'll forgive you, though I do not quite understand why you should wish to discourage me or tease me either, when I liked you so much from the first moment I heard your voice and saw you in the choir. You don't dislike me, ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... who must always depend upon their daily work for their daily bread. The senior boys are in despair, for they find that they have learnt hardly anything to fit them for the only employments open to them, and this tends to discourage the younger ones. The Roorkee Civil Engineering School seems to have been eminently successful, and a fine field is open to all who are taught in it. We shall no doubt have a similar field open in Oude when Government ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... dealers with Havanna cigars at Havanna prices, but as the Customs pass very few of the genuine cigars, it is a mystery where they all come from. Yet they say smuggling is a thing of the past! Or do the gentle tradesmen, to discourage smuggling, manufacture their own Havannas? Good tobacco, shag and bird's-eye, may be had at eighteen pence ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... creature in the world, was so completely deceived, that I fancied he never had a thought of Amelia, and that he never would think of her; and I own this roused both my pride and my prudence for my daughter; and I certainly thought it my duty, as her mother, to do every thing in my power to discourage in her young and innocent heart a hopeless passion. It was but within these few hours that I have been undeceived by you as to his sentiments. That, of course, made an immediate change, as you have seen, in my ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... other. The rulers of the succeeding centuries did not profit, however, by this example, and the roads of the empire again fell into decay. Moreover, the public safety was greatly impaired by robbers and feudal knights, whose depredations were so heavy a tax upon commerce as to greatly discourage it. Trade under these circumstances would have been entirely destroyed, had it not been for the merchants' unions which were formed by the larger cities for the protection of their interests. These organizations maintained the most important thoroughfares, ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... moment, be understood as wishing to discourage investigation, or to intimate that perfection has been so nearly attained that no more important discoveries remain to be made. On the contrary, I should be glad to learn that many who have the time ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... Nelson, who never hid his light under a bushel, shared at least in popular acclaim. It was not indeed a sweeping victory, and there is little doubt that had the British admiral so chosen, he might have done much more. But enough had been accomplished to discourage Spanish naval activities in the French cause for a long time to come. They were hopelessly outclassed; but in their favor it should be borne in mind that their ships were miserably manned, the crews consisting of ignorant peasants of whom it is reported that they said prayers before ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... honestly," said Maltravers, smiling. "If you look at the books on my table, you will see that they are the great masterpieces of ancient and modern lore—these are studies that discourage tyros—" ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... great masses, seldom fail to give an impulse to other pleasures more secret and probably more vicious. Injudicious charities, or an extravagant and too indulgent poor law administration, inevitably discourage industry and thrift, and usually increase the poverty they were intended to cure. The parent who shrinks from inflicting any suffering on his child, or withholding from him any pleasure that he desires, is not laying the foundation of a happy life, and the ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... other denominations; to serve in solving the problems of the Lutheran Church in European countries where the war has upset political, social, and religious conditions; to adjust matters on the Home Mission field, in order to restrict and stop destructive competitive church-work; to discourage, ignore, and abandon public polemics among Lutherans; to prepare a statement defining the essentials of a catholic spirit as viewed by the Lutheran Church. With the exception of the Synodical Conference (always wary of entangling ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente

... when I asked the husband to luncheon with me. I sent Vohrenlorf away; we sat down together, Struboff swelling with pride, seeing himself telling the story in the wings, meditating the appearance and multiplication of paragraphs. I said not a word to discourage the visions; we talked of how Coralie should make fame and he money; he grew enthusiastic, guttural, and severe on the Steinberg. I ordered more Steinberg, and fished for more enthusiasm. I put my purse at his disposal; he dipped his fingers deep, with an anxious furtive eagerness. ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... they brought in the second and examined; if the evidence was found to agree, the evidence stood. The remaining pairs of witnesses were then superficially examined, not because there was necessity for their evidence, but not to discourage them, that they might ...
— Hebrew Literature

... bolstering here, in order to strengthen this interest, [and] repressing elsewhere [there], in order to equalize wealth, we shall do an [a] immense deal of mischief, and without bringing about a more agreeable condition of things than now [we] shall simply discourage enterprise, repress industry, and check material growth in all directions." Read without the eighteen words in italics and ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... old man continued, presently, and in all he said there was a tone of affectionate banter that quite won Henry's heart, "that you're still as set on literature as ever. Well, well, far be it from me to discourage you; but, my dear boy, you'll find out that we can't live on dreams." (Henry thought, but didn't dare to say, that it was dreams alone that made it possible to live at all.) "I suppose you think I'm a dried-up old fellow enough. Well, well, I've had my dreams too. Yes, I've ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... The Lord Mayor appealed once more to the London companies, and plans were made for inviting the other towns of England to contribute. In November the Company published A True Declaration of the Estate of the Colonie in Virginia for the purpose of refuting "scandalous reports" tending to discourage subscriptions. Richard Rich presented, probably at the suggestion of the adventurers, his Newes from Virginia, the Lost Flocke Triumphant, a poem celebrating the shipwreck of the Sea Adventure and the providential survival of its ...
— The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624 • Wesley Frank Craven

... still more confidently than before, rubbing his fat hands reflectively. "It's a capital opening. Erasmus Walker'll be in for it, of course; and Erasmus Walker'll get it. But don't you tell your fellow that. It'll only discourage him. You just send him down to Yorkshire to reconnoiter the ground; and if he's good for anything, when he's seen the spot he'll make a plan of his own, a great deal better than Walker's. Not that that'll matter, don't you know, as far ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen

... interest of posterity, and agitation has resulted in certain experiments in legislation. It is not proposed that any should be required to marry, but it is thought possible to encourage the well qualified and to discourage and restrain the incapable. Some of these proposals, such as the offering of a premium by the State for healthy children, or endowing mothers as public functionaries, are not widely approved, but Great Britain in a National ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... were to assemble in the beginning of the fishing season. They likewise took notice of the heavy duty on salt, used in curing the fish for sale, and the beef for provisions to the mariners; a circumstance of itself sufficient to discourage adventurers from embarking in a commerce which, at best, yields but very slender profits to the trade in particular, how important soever it might prove to the community in general. These objections were answered by the duke of Argyle and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... her head, completing the unfinished sentence. "No, I haven't made it, that is, not yet. But I'm not discouraged. I don't mean to give up. Things look pretty dark just now, but I'm not going to let that discourage me—No, indeed! I'm going to be brave and courageous, and never say ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann

... said Madeline, "and so I suppose it's my duty to take this bet just to discourage you from betting any more. Being engaged makes a girl responsible for a young ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy

... say what may be the event of a new thing; but if we are to take measures from past wisdom, which exempted prolific families from public duties, we should not lay impositions upon those who find it hard enough to maintain themselves. If this tax be such a weight upon the poor as to discourage marriage and hinder propagation, which seems the truth, no doubt it ought to be abolished; and at a convenient time we ought to change it for some other duty, if there were only this single reason, that it is ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty

... making and preserving the wine, the many perils to which the crop is exposed at every moment of its growth and ripening, and the three years of waiting before the vines begin to bear, all conspire to discourage and defeat the ordinary cultivator. The "rot" is a very severe trial to human patience. The vines look thrifty, the grapes are large and abundant, and all goes well, until the time when the grapes, being fully grown, are about to change color. Then a sudden blight occurs, and two thirds of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... to climb, or a short trip of only a day or two, I would not discourage you from going in this way; but for any extended tour it is too severe a strain upon the physical powers of one not accustomed to ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould

... one time, but Martha's condition as an invalid led her to discourage his attentions, though she was ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger

... flame which their teachings had already lit; the journals which are almost undisguisedly in favor of a dishonorable peace, and of a return of the Southern States with slavery untouched, skilfully incited, while seeming to discourage, the now rum-maddened and blood-drunken fiends; the idle, the vicious, the curious joined the throng, and the motives of the mob became as varied and diverse as its elements. Some hoped to stop ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... great. They may lack in some other particular, have many weaknesses, or eccentricities, but the quality of persistence is never absent in a successful man. No matter what opposition he meets or what discouragements overtake him, he is always persistent. Drudgery cannot disgust him, obstacles cannot discourage him, labor cannot weary him. He will persist, no matter what comes or what goes; it is a part of his nature. He could almost as ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... given; Article 8 - allows for jurisdiction over observers and scientists by their own states; Article 9 - frequent consultative meetings take place among member nations; Article 10 - treaty states will discourage activities by any country in Antarctica that are contrary to the treaty; Article 11 - disputes to be settled peacefully by the parties concerned or, ultimately, by the ICJ; Articles 12, 13, 14 - deal with upholding, interpreting, and amending the treaty among involved nations. Other agreements - ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... surface and in its entrails, in the depths of the sea and expanse of the sky. Reject it, and what can we set up against it, what can we put in its place? There is but the grand confession of scientific ignorance, aware of its knowing nothing—but this is habitually sluggish, and calculated to discourage the curiosity more needful to man than wisdom—or the hypothesis of the fixity of the species and of divine creation, which is. less demonstrable than the other, banishes for all time the living elements of the ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck

... called, is separated by a clear enough line. Two such examples in real life as Rousseau and Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, one such demonstration of the same moral in fiction as Werther, were enough to discourage the man of feeling. Therefore, when he still exists, he takes to motley, the only wear for the human race in troublesome circumstances which beset it with unpleasant recurrence. When you cannot exactly believe anything in religion, in politics, in literature, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... strangled in the act of deglutition. Benson bungled like a shoemaker who has lost his end.... Wadsworth hid his grief under the rim of a round hat. Boudinot's wrinkles rose in ridges and the angles of his mouth were depressed and assumed a curve resembling a horse's shoe." The defeat did not discourage Hamilton. He had successfully handled a more difficult situation in getting New York to ratify the Constitution, and, resorting now to the same means he had then employed, he used pressure of interest to move those who could not be stirred by reason. The intense concern felt by members ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... matter; and he gave his evidence duly, though, as I should fancy, with no real ill-will to Laud. [Footnote: See particulars in Prynne's Canterburie's Doome (1646), pp.539-542. Laud, in this part of his defence, names both Durie and Hartlib. He says he did not discourage Durie, but rather encouraged him, as he could prove by letters of Durie's which he had; to which the prosecution replied that the contrary was notorious, and that Durie had "oft complained to his friends" of Land's coldness.]—Now that Episcopacy was done with, and it was to a ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... enlightened politicians may think the happiness of nations more important than their wealth. In this point of view, they would consider all the members of society, who are productive of happiness, as neither useless nor despicable; and, on the contrary, they would contemn and discourage those who merely accumulate money, without enjoying or dispensing happiness. But some centuries must probably elapse before such a philosophic race of politicians can arise. In the mean time, let us go ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... said the boy, the only person who did not attempt to discourage Janice in her thought of starting at once for the Border. "Hi tunket! wouldn't it be dandy to go down there among those greasers and bring Uncle Brocky home? I'd go with you, ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long

... comprehension were the watchwords of Erasmus. "Reduce the dogmas necessary to be believed," he said, "to the smallest possible number; you can do it without danger to the realities of Christianity. On other points, either discourage inquiry, or leave every one to believe what he pleases- then we shall have no more quarrels, and religion will again take hold of life." The subject was not a new one to Froude. He had lectured on Erasmus and Luther at ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... friends, for a friend of Van Lennop's importance might be useful. She felt that there would be some way of turning his friendship to account. The fact that they were still only acquaintances did not discourage her, nor the fact that he seemed entirely satisfied with the companionship of the ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... things in business, politics, art, the professions, believe in the honesty of their purpose and their ability to do well what they have started out to do. Assume that they will succeed until they prove that they cannot. Do not discourage them. Do not sneer at them. That will only weaken yourself. Believe in other young men, and you will soon ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... aged statesman having eaten a raw tomato and drunk a glass of milk (a habit of his early farming days, long before politics, when, pioneer of wheat-growing, he demonstrated the possibility of raising crops on ground looking barren enough to discourage a magician), smoothed his white beard, and struck lightly Renouard's knee with ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... towards the hole. He didn't have the faintest idea what would come next, but a definite possibility was that he would see the janandra's dark form flowing up over the rim of the hole. Letting it run into the cutter beam might be the best way to discourage it from ...
— The Winds of Time • James H. Schmitz

... country where there are no travellers from curiosity, and where the servants of the Company, having appearances to maintain, cannot by their presence as idle spectators give a sanction to proceedings which it is their duty to discourage, although their influence is not sufficient to ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... going or returning, from some of these places, the interval of near forty degrees on each side of the line, in a sea exposed to violent heat, and subject to tedious calms, would be sufficient to discourage even the ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip

... cannot read him too often or too carefully; as far as I know he is the only living poet who always strengthens and purifies; the others sometimes darken, and nearly always depress and discourage, the imagination they ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... malicious persons, who wil neither be actors in any good action themselues, nor so much as afoord a good word to the setting forward thereof: and that worse is, they will take vpon them to make molehilles seeme mountaines, and flies elephants, to the end they may discourage others, that be very well or indifferently affected to the matter, being like vnto Esops dogge, which neither would eate Hay himselfe, nor suffer the poore hungry asse to ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt

... death, from the calamities that followed. But, as after the decease of Hortensius, we seem to have been left, my Brutus, as the sole guardians of an orphan Eloquence, let us cherish her, within our own walls at least, with a generous fidelity: let us discourage the addresses of her worthless, and impertinent suitors; let us preserve her pure and unblemished in all her virgin charms, and secure her, to the utmost of our ability, from the lawless violence of every armed ruffian. I must own, however, though I am heartily grieved that I entered ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... people may come into it and sit down, but it will not be familiar ground to strangers. They will find themselves in a cheerful room with soothing walls and comfortable chairs. There will be books and magazines. It will not be a library, for quantities of bookcases discourage the frivolous. It will have no gilt chairs, because big men always want to sit in them. It will have no lace curtains, because I hate them. The piano will be there and most of our wedding-presents,—all which lend themselves to the decoration of a room which ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... Deborah and Abigail are very apt to discourage a woman's soul. She says within herself: "It is impossible that I ever can achieve any such grandeur of character, and I don't mean to try;" as though a child should refuse to play the eight notes because he cannot execute a "William Tell." This Hannah ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... Wife, children, home, relatives, reputation, honor, and the hope and prospect of heaven itself, all flee before this fell destroyer. The sufferings and agonies untold of one human soul securely bound by the chains forged by rum are enough to make angels weep and devils laugh. I have no desire to discourage those who have this habit fastened on them. I would not say to them: You can not break away from it. I would do all in my power to aid and strengthen every such person in any attempt he might make to be free. There is escape, but courage is required to make it, and greater courage ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson

... "best" above referred to does not necessarily mean the most masterly. The best of a simple kind is not calculated to discourage anyone—rather, it looks as if it must be easy to do that; and in trying to do it you learn how much goes to the doing it. Good design need not be of any great importance or pretensions. It may be quite simple, ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day

... anything for indigestion?" said Miss S'mantha, charging her sickly voice with a firmness calculated to discourage any undue familiarity. ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... Buckhurst Falconer is just the kind of person with whom many women would fall in love. By suffering this to be thought the taste of our sex, ladies encourage libertinism in general, more than they can possibly discourage it by the loudest display of indignation against particular instances.—If, like your sister Caroline, young ladies would show that they really do not prefer such men, it would do essential service. And observe, my dear Rosamond, this can be done by every young ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... players, painters, and actresses. She maintains that when a man of sense comes to marry, he wants a companion rather than a creature who can only dress and dance and play upon an instrument. Yet she does not discourage ornamental talent; she admits it is a good thing, but not the best thing that a woman has. She would not cut up time into an endless multiplicity of employments, She urges mothers to impress on their daughters' minds a discriminating estimate of personal beauty, so that ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord

... did not recognise Mr. Gideon when I met him, not in the least on personal grounds, but because I definitely wished to discourage his intimacy with my family. But we had ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay

... were utterly unknown and must be searched out with much caution and length of time, hindered me from prosecuting any further at present my intended search. What I have been able to do in this matter for the public service will, I hope, be candidly received; and no difficulties shall discourage me from endeavouring to promote the same end whenever I have an opportunity put into ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier

... is another class of words which appear to limit these wide invitations and this gracious love. Again and again Jesus seems to discourage discipleship. When men would come, he bids them consider and count the cost before they decide. One passage tells of three aspirants for discipleship, for all of whom he seems to have made it ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... the character of a hermitess with a bull-dog. She therefore went straight to the great city, took a house, and surrounded herself with attendants. In the choice of these she was particularly careful to select those only whose personal appearance was such as to discourage any approach to familiarity or endearment. Never before or since was youthful beauty surrounded by such moustached duennas, squinting chambermaids, hunchbacked pages, and stumpy maids-of-all-work. This was a real sorrow to her, for she loved beauty; it was a still sadder trial ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... rendered the remonstrance of the French council against his design of no effect; indeed the opposition of the council itself was faint; the idea of having a king under vassalage to their crown might have dazzled the more superficial courtiers; whilst those, who thought more deeply, were unwilling to discourage an enterprise, which they believed would probably end in the ruin of the undertaker. The emperor was in his minority, as well as the king of France; but by what arts the duke prevailed upon the imperial ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... couple to a dozen inferior apathetic husbands and wives. If it could be proved that illicit unions produce three children each and marriages only one and a half, he would be bound to encourage illicit unions and discourage and even penalize marriage. The common notion that the existing forms of marriage are not political contrivances, but sacred ethical obligations to which everything, even the very existence of the human race, must be sacrificed if necessary (and this is what the vulgar morality we mostly profess ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw

... former reigns. These he frequently ordered to be scourged or beaten with sticks in the Forum, and then, after he had obliged them to pass through the amphitheatre as a public spectacle, commanded them to be sold for slaves, or else banished them to some rocky islands. And to discourage such practices for the future, amongst other things, he prohibited actions to be successively brought under different laws for the same cause, or the state of affairs of deceased persons to be inquired into after ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... forty-three years had been employed by my predecessor to take care of his poultry. At the time I came to make her acquaintance she was a bedridden toothless crone, with chin and nose all but meeting. She did not discourage in her neighbours the idea that she knew more than people ought to know, and had more power than others had. Many years before I knew her it happened one spring that the ducks, which were a part of her charge, failed ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... board well-appointed "Infidel" steamers, and the poor content themselves with "Faithful" Sambks. Indeed, it would seem that all the present measures, quarantines of sixty days (!) and detention at wretched Tor, comfortless enough to make the healthiest lose health, are intended to discourage and deter "palmers" from proceeding by land. If this course be continued, a very few years will see the venerable institution represented by only the Mahmal and its guard. The late Sa'id Pasha of Egypt once consigned the memorial litter per steam-frigate to Jeddah: the innovation saved Ghafr ("blackmail") ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... feeling that this Warcolier who in public affected strictly severe principles was privately undermining him and that he yielded to favors in order to win support. It was enough for the minister to discourage coarse, greedy ambitions, provided that the Under Secretary of State encouraged unsavory, eager hopes by shrewd smiles and silence that assented to all that was desired. This little underhand work going on in his office was unknown to Vaudrey; he did not know that out of every ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... died. This bereavement seemed to unnerve and discourage her, and though there was one mouth less to feed, her strength failed her, and she was unequal to the task. Care and sorrow did their work upon her, and though people said she died of consumption, Heaven knew she died of a broken heart ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic

... grandson when they were children, Mrs. Cameron mentally declared that, now they were grown up, such a thing as intimacy between them was absolutely out of the question. Miss Herbert, she well knew, would be horrified at the thought, and she set herself sternly to discourage ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... the jam crew succeeded in keeping the "wings" clear. In the centre of the stream, however, a small jam formed, like a pier. Along the banks logs grounded, and were rolled over by their own momentum into places so shallow as to discourage any hope of refloating them unless by main strength. As the sluicing of the nine or ten million feet that constituted this particular drive went forward, the ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... soldier. He knew how to take defeat and to bide his time; he knew how to behave in the hour of victory and in the moment of rout. The miscarriage of a detail here and there in this vast, comprehensive plan of action did not in the least sense discourage him. It was no light blow to his calculations, of course, when the designs of an organisation separate and distinct from his own failed in their purpose. It was part of his plan to hold the misguided Reds responsible for the lamentable death of ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... and the Police teams were fleet of foot. Time was when evil-doers had undertaken to escape up-river, or to lose themselves in the hills to the northward, but this was a desperate adventure at best and had issued in such uniform disaster as to discourage its practice. The Police had won the reputation of never leaving a trail, and, in consequence, none but madmen longer risked anything except a dash for American soil, and even then only with a substantial margin of time in ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... did the padre ponder these words and pray over them; and gradually the Holy Spirit enlightened his mind, and he saw how hateful that system was which could forbid or discourage the reading of the blessed word of God. He soon resolved to forsake the priesthood. But when he had done so, he knew not what to turn his hand to. He had no one like-minded to consult with, and he felt that it was wrong to eat the bread of idleness. Being thus uncertain what ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... foolish!" cried the excited, desperate Maggie. "You might tell me so—and discourage me—and I simply must go ahead! I feel rather like—like a juggler who's trying for the first time to keep a lot of new things going in the air all at once. But I think there's a chance that I may succeed! I'll tell you just one thing. It all has to do with Larry. I think ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... extracted from his false philosophy bold and original views, he held, in the projects and preliminary deliberations of the conspiring opposition, a tolerably important place; but he was little suited for action, and ready to discourage it, although always prepared for personal engagement. A chimerical but not hopeful fanaticism is not a very ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... about children,—or anybody else. Keep a sharp eye on her, Miss White. And be careful, please, about vanity. I thought I saw her looking in the mirror in the hall this morning. Please discourage any signs of vanity." ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... mangrove thickets full of moccasins and water-turkeys, heronry more horrible still, out of which the heat from a vertical sun distilled the last atom of nauseating effluvia—all these choice spots we visited under the guidance of the wretched Mink. I seemed to be missing nothing that might discourage or disgust me. ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... whipping-post was a turn of the argument which Bradlaugh effectively used. And so stingingly true was his statement that violence and mob-rule in England were the monopoly of organized religion, that the better element began to discourage the hot-headed communicants instead of urging them on. So, by Eighteen Hundred Seventy-six, Bradlaugh lectured throughout the United Kingdom to large audiences of highly cultured people, who came and gladly paid admission to hear him speak. Newspapers that had tried either to smother him ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... said Cicely, shaking her mop of wild hair decisively—"My dear Maryllia, the colder you are to 'ce cher Roxmouth' the more the world will talk! They will say you are merely acting a part. "No woman in her senses, they will swear, would discourage the attentions ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... less a sister than a second mother, and gave her freely of her abundant maternal reservoir. That "little sister" had at times sulked under this proud determination to assist in the bringing-up of the last of the Ballinger-Groomes, did not discourage her. She might be soft in her affections but she never swerved from her duty as she saw it. Alexina was a darling wayward child, who only needed a firm hand to guide her along that proud secluded old avenue ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... who had forgotten the Benedictine injunction to discourage newcomers that seek to enter a community, "I wrote to my guardian a few days ago that my impression of Malford Abbey was rather that it was ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... contact with anthers and stigma where they enter a flower near its base, most buckwheat plants whose blossoms secrete sweets protect themselves from theft by coating the upper stems with glandular hairs that effectually discourage the pilferers. Shortly after fertilization, the little rounded, flat-sided fruit begins to form inside the persistent pink calyx. At any time the spike-like racemes contain more bright pink buds and shining seeds than flowers. Familiarity alone breeds contempt ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... see you again pretty soon. Don't let this discourage you. They'll come around all right after a ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... no water. Yet, scientists concede that living organisms might develop in chemical environments which are strange to us. Venus, however, has two handicaps. Her mass and gravity are nearly as large as the Earth (Mars is smaller) and her cloudy atmosphere would discourage astronomy, hence ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe



Words linked to "Discourage" :   counsel, put off, dispirit, reject, restrain, admonish, encourage, throw cold water on, deject, pour cold water on, discouragement, rede, demoralise, depress, advise, disapprove, dismay, cast down, monish, intimidate, get down, demoralize, warn, deter



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