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Quicken   Listen
verb
Quicken  v. i.  
1.
To come to life; to become alive; to become vivified or enlivened; hence, to exhibit signs of life; to move, as the fetus in the womb. "The heart is the first part that quickens, and the last that dies." "And keener lightnings quicken in her eye." "When the pale and bloodless east began To quicken to the sun."
2.
To move with rapidity or activity; to become accelerated; as, his pulse quickened.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Quicken" Quotes from Famous Books



... cigarette, and then offered Rowdy his tobacco-sack, and asked questions about the Cypress Hills country. How was this girl?—and was that one married yet?—and did the other still grieve for him? As a matter of fact, he had yet to see the girl who could quicken his pulse a single beat, and for that reason it sometimes pleased him to affect susceptibility beyond that ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower

... which has then just ended, the first names will be Wordsworth and Byron.' Thus wrote Matthew Arnold in 1881, and now that the century's last autumn is passing away, a new edition of Byron's works appears in the fullness of time to quicken our memories and rekindle our curiosity, by placing before us a complete record of the life, letters, and poetry of one whom Macaulay declared in 1830 to be the most celebrated Englishman of the nineteenth century, and who seventy years later ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... then their owners, not all unhandsome or undesirable; while showier girls looked in vain for partners or companions. The little triumph, the consciousness of being admired and sought after, would quicken Lynette's pulses, and heighten the radiance of her eyes, and lend animation to her girlish chatter and gaiety to her laughter—at first. Then some over-bold advance, some hot look or whispered word, would bring quick recollection leaping ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... resembles a camel, but not nearly so large. They have long necks, and I have seen one of them between five and six feet high. Their wool or soft hair is very fine. They smell very rank, and move with a very slow majestic pace, which hardly any violence can make them quicken; yet they are of great service at the mines in Peru, where they are employed in carrying the ore and other things. Their flesh is very coarse, as we experienced, having salted some of them for ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... of a story,—a story to rival those which had excited us to this task. One which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror—one to make the reader dread to look around, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart. If I did not accomplish these things, my ghost story would be unworthy of its name. I thought and pondered—vainly. I felt that blank incapability of invention which is the greatest misery of authorship, when dull Nothing replies to our anxious invocations. Have ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... paternal hand had borne evil fruit in Andrea's spirit—the seed of sophistry. Sophistry, said this imprudent teacher, is at the bottom of all human pleasure or pain. Therefore, quicken and multiply your sophisms and you quicken and multiply your own pleasure or your own pain. It is possible that the whole science of life consists in obscuring the truth. The word is a very profound matter in which inexhaustible treasure ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... that the effect of subsequent Penance is to quicken even dead works, those, namely, that were not done in charity. For it seems more difficult to bring to life that which has been deadened, since this is never done naturally, than to quicken that which never had life, since certain living things are engendered naturally from things without ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... Constitution, and they owe no responsibility to any human power but their constituents. By holding the representative responsible only to the people, and exempting him from all other influences, we elevate the character of the constituent and quicken his sense of responsibility to his country. It is under these circumstances only that the elector can feel that in the choice of the lawmaker he is himself truly a component part of the sovereign power ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson

... home, the very tranquillity of the scene irritated him subtly—the slow strength of the evening tide, the few ships idle at their moorings, the familiar hush of the town resting after its day's business. He tapped his foot on the cobbles as though this fretful action could quicken Uncle Nicky Vro, who came rowing across deliberately as ever, working his boat down the farther shore and then allowing the tide to slant ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... have been before the moon came over the snowy mountains, or it may not have been till the worn-out stars in vain repelled the daybreak. All I know is that I ever strove to keep more near to him through the night, to cherish his failing warmth, and quicken the slow, laborious, harassed breath. From time to time he tried to pray to God for me and for himself; but every time his mind began to wander and to slip away, as if through want of practice. For the chills of many wretched years had deadened and benumbed ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... in the Affinity of Letters, as in Anagram, Acrostick; or of Syllables, as in Doggerel Rhimes, Ecchos; or of Words, as in Punns, Quibbles; or of a whole Sentence or Poem, to Wings, and Altars. The final Cause, probably, of annexing Pleasure to this Operation of the Mind, was to quicken and encourage us in our Searches after Truth, since the distinguishing one thing from another, and the right discerning betwixt our Ideas, depends wholly upon our comparing them together, and observing the Congruity ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... confusion, when he saw upwards of a hundred of the Bornou troops speared by the Felatahs, and was following the steps of one of the Mandara officers, when the cries behind, of the Felatah horse pursuing, made both quicken their pace. His wounded horse at this juncture stumbled and fell. Almost before he was on his legs the Felatahs were upon him. He had, however, kept hold of the bridle, and, seizing a pistol from the holster, presented ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... hand be upon the man of thy right hand, Upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself. So shall we not go back from thee: Quicken thou us, and we will ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz

... on the launch in their chairs, she let him hold her hand, but she did not talk much at first; only now he understood her silences, and did not worry over them—so great a teacher is love to quicken the perception of man. ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... are practical. Without them there would be none of our modern machines. No locomotives could speed across the continents; no derricks could lift great weights; no automobiles or bicycles would quicken our travel; our very bodies would be completely paralyzed. Yet the law back of all these things is ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... other accompaniments its tones would be lost on the stage. The melting harmonica is not calculated to regulate the march of an army, and kindle its military enthusiasm. For this we must have piercing instruments, but above all a strongly-marked rhythm, to quicken the pulsation and give a more rapid movement to the animal spirits. The grand requisite in a drama is to make this rhythm perceptible in the onward progress of the action. When this has once been effected, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... Janetta Colwyn would be to any man! Her bright intelligence, her gift of song, her piquante, transitory beauty, her honesty and faithfulness, made up an individuality of distinct attractiveness. And yet he was not very much attracted. He admired her, he respected her; but his pulses did not quicken at the thought of her as they quickened when he thought of Margaret. Why should they indeed? She was a country surgeon's daughter, of no particular family; she had very undesirable connections, and she was very poor—there was nothing in Janetta's outer circumstances to make her ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... elements at your service, fire, as well as water; certain things called matches to be tied to your finger-ends, which are as sovereign as nutmegs to quicken your short memories. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... fortress during the greatest heat; but I looked forward to the night, which I preferred passing in a house and a comfortable bed, rather than under an open verandah; and, seating myself in my waggon, desired the driver to quicken the pace of his weary oxen ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... hang out their signals—clear skin, slim figure, light step, white teeth, thick hair, bright eyes. She was approaching her blossoming time, the end of her wintry childhood, the beginning of a promising spring. It was natural and right that her pulses should quicken and her spirits rise when a young man met her with a friendly glance. Her whole being was suffused with the glory of love, and her mind held the vision; but it was of an abstract kind as yet, not inspired ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... rather satisfied that he had some visible object with which he could make the experiment he projected, viz., to ascertain the nature, whether mortal or otherwise, of the being before him. With this purpose in view, he walked very quickly after him, and as the other did not seem to quicken his pace into a corresponding speed, he took it for granted that he would soon overtake him. In this, however, he was, much to his astonishment, mistaken. His own walk was quick and rapid, whilst that of this incomprehensible figure was slow and solemn, and ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... among the more affluent: because the narrow circumstances of the former (which probably became a spur to his own improvement) will, it is likely, at first setting out in the world, make him be glad to embrace such an offer in a family which has interest enough to prefer him, and will quicken his diligence to make him deserve preferment; and if such an one wanted any of that requisite politeness, which some would naturally expect from scholars of better fortune, might not that be supplied to the youth by the conversation of parents, relations, and visitors, in conjunction with ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... entrance. But, with the minister's appearance in the chamber, the agony of the deluded sufferer seemed to quicken, as if the sight of him who was the herald of mercy only added fresh fuel to his torments. Marian was fain to depart; her ears almost stunned with the cries and howlings of the demoniac. She withdrew in great agitation, her knees almost sinking under their burden. Hardly conscious ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... this were changed into stones, together with everything they had with them. This steadiness no one had had yet, but whosoever had it could easily mount the rock, and having once done so would be able to quicken all the others who have been turned to stone there. For the top of the rock was flat, and there was a trap-door on it, wherein the bird was sitting. Underneath the trap-door was water, the nature of which was that it would turn all the stones back to life again. The ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... States of New England. It was the intention that Carleton should winter in Albany, Howe in New York, and Clinton at Rhode Island, that, with re-enforcements in the spring, they might be ready to attack New England on all sides. I hope every possible method will be used to quicken the new levies, and that the fortifications in the harbor of Boston will be in complete readiness. Much will depend upon our diligence ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams

... al-Wujud, dost deem me fancy-free, * When pine and longing slay and quicken me? I have known love and yearning from the years * Since mother-milk I drank, nor e'er was free. Long struggled I with Love, till learnt his might; * Ask thou of him, he'll tell with willing gree. Love-sick and pining drank I passion-cup, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... was nevertheless much that seemed to us extremely pretty and picturesque about the game, we set to work—and here a certain Mr M. with his brother, Captain M., hot from the Great War in South Africa, came in most helpfully—to quicken it. Manifestly the guns had to be reduced to manageable terms. We cut down the number of shots per move to four, and we required that four men should be within six inches of a gun for it to be in action at all. Without four men ...
— Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells

... century ended, the Samoan, Hawaiian, and Venezuelan episodes had done much to quicken a national consciousness in the people of the United States and at the same time to break down their sense of isolation from the rest of the world. Commerce and trade were also important factors in overcoming this traditional isolation. Not only was American trade ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... as to the sympathetic connexion between friends at a distance, we need not wonder that above everything else war, with its stern yet stirring appeal to some of the deepest and tenderest of human emotions, should quicken in the anxious relations left behind a desire to turn the sympathetic bond to the utmost account for the benefit of the dear ones who may at any moment be fighting and dying far away. Hence, to secure an end ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... the sounds of instruments, says the lively Vigneul de Marville, contribute to the health of the body and the mind; they quicken the circulation of the blood, they dissipate vapours, and open the vessels, so that the action of perspiration is freer. He tells a story of a person of distinction, who assured him, that once being suddenly seized by violent illness, instead of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... Inglis followed him. Harry and Philip rose from their seats, but Mr Inglis motioned Mrs Inglis and them to keep their places, and closed the window as he went out. Sam led the way down the garden towards the fields, and said something to his master which made him quicken his steps until they reached the great walnut-tree, where, beneath one of the largest boughs, lay the body of a man, with his head turned in a very unnatural position, and one of his arms bent ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn

... Swinburne cannot be blamed for the fact. I was kept waiting on the doorstep, after ringing the bell, for an unusually long time, and during the interval of waiting a tradesman's boy arrived, basket on arm. He was more impatient than I was, and rang the bell violently to quicken the movements of those within, evidently careless as to whether he might be disturbing a poet's daydream. A terrible old woman, with landlady written large all over her face and person, opened the door, and, without paying the slightest ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... at the window in expectation of his coming. As soon as he reached the iron gate in front of the house she ran to open the door for him. He did not quicken his step, even stopped to close the gate with deliberate care, but if his face could ever be said to light up, it did so as he bent to the girl's kiss. She took his hat from him, and went to see that his dinner was ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... frost was in the air to quicken circulation and hunger. Under a smiling sun an October breeze frolicked through leaves with tints of fire and gold, humming, while it swiftly skimmed over their beauties, as if it was reading a wind's ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook

... hence{4} thy silence be, As 'tis too just a cause, Let this thought quicken thee: Minds that are great and free Should not on fortune pause; 'Tis crown enough to virtue{5} still, her ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... problem of indirect influence is full of mystery, but, as the hour of our departure comes near, the possible consequences to other minds of the example and teaching of our lives may quicken our perceptions, and we may see and deeply regret our actions when not directed by the highest authority, the will of God.—We are, dear Sir, yours very truly (for ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... scarcely possible for the enemy to resist this triple assault. But unfortunately misunderstandings had arisen between the commander of the fleet, William von Blois von Treslong, and the admiralty of Zealand, which caused the equipment of the fleet to be most unaccountably delayed. In order to quicken their movements Teligny at last resolved to go himself to Middleburg, were the states of Zealand were assembled; but as the enemy were in possession of all the roads the attempt cost him his freedom and the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... years of freedom have been the surface view of life, and an ever present dependence upon politics and by-gone friends. The present shock from eliminating certain manhood rights in the Southland necessarily creates a sensation, but is also sure to quicken for us ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... of his subordinates seemed indeed a spiritless creature. Meanwhile Lincoln, apparently devoid of sensibility, was seeking during the anxious months of 1862, in one case, merely how to keep his petulant Secretary in harness; in the other, how to quicken his ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... Catskills, and we had a little circus with him; we wanted to wake him up, and make him show a little excitement, if possible. Without violence or injury to him, we succeeded to the extent of making his eyes fairly stand out from his head, but quicken his motion he ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs

... once found, suggests the remedy. In everything, habit benumbs the imagination; new objects alone quicken it again. Every-day objects keep active not the imagination, but the memory; whence the saying "Ab assuetis non fit passio."[22] For only the imagination can set on fire our passions. If, therefore, you wish ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... see as well as any one the unusually, the unique loveliness of Lady Caroline. How warm, though, things like admiration and appreciation made one feel, how capable of really deserving them, how different, how glowing. They seemed to quicken unsuspected faculties into life. She was sure she had been a thoroughly amusing woman between lunch and tea, and a pretty one too. She was quite certain she had been pretty; she saw it in Mr. Briggs's eyes as clearly as in a looking-glass. For a brief space, she thought, she had been ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

... the beating of the storm Peals on the startled ear the fire alarm! Yon gloomy heaven's aflame with sudden light, And heart-beats quicken with a strange affright; From tranquil slumbers springs, at duty's call, The ready friend no danger can appal; Fierce for the conflict, sturdy, true, and brave, He hurries forth ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... [Music Alb. Wake! our mirth begins to die; Quicken it with tunes and wine. Raise your notes; you're out; fie, fie! This drowsiness is an ill sign. We banish him the quire of gods, That droops agen: Then all are men, For here's ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... Church of England was then doing did not seem to them to deserve the name of a Church. It was simply a branch of the Civil Service of the State. But Wesley and his brother, and Whitefield and the rest, fully believed at first that they could do something to quicken the Church into a real, a beneficent, and a religions activity. Most of them had for a long time a positive horror of open-air preaching and of the co-operation of lay preachers. Most of them for a long time clung to all the traditional forms and even formulas amid which they ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... way, inconclusively, for a week or two. We bid down; the lawyers stuck to it. Sir Charles grew half sick of the whole silly business. For my own part, I felt sure if the high well-born Count didn't quicken his pace, my respected relative would shortly have had enough of the Tyrol altogether, and be proof against the most lovely of crag-crowning castles. But the Count didn't see it. He came to call on us at our hotel—a rare honour for a stranger with these haughty and exclusive Tyrolese ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... visions gone, Those day-dreams of the mind, by fate there flung, And the fair hopes to which the soul once clung, And battled on; Have ye outlived them? All that must have sprung, And quicken'd into life, ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... smallest wage or none, what they could hardly, in its absence, be induced to do for the highest. This instinct, no doubt, is more controlled than formerly, and is not so often roused; but it is still there. It is ready to quicken at the mere sound of military music; and the sight of regiments marching stirs the most apathetic crowd. High-spirited boys will, for the mere pleasure of fighting, run the risk of having their noses broken, while they will ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock

... servant had waited without to deliver the note to Emily, Mrs. St. John had observed him: her alarm and surprise only served to quicken her presence of mind. She intercepted Emily's answer under pretence of giving it herself to Falkland's servant. She read it, and her resolution was formed. After carefully resealing and delivering it to the servant, she went at once to Mr. Mandeville, and revealed Lady Emily's ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... on a cold night serves the double duty of stimulating the gastric juices to quicken action by its warmth and furnishing protein to the body to repair its waste. Pound to a paste a cupful of nuts from which the skin has been removed, add it to a pint of milk and scald; melt a tablespoon of butter and mix it with a like quantity of flour and add slowly to the milk ...
— The Suffrage Cook Book • L. O. Kleber

... make candles appear picturesque. Even from the second and third floors hung portraits of fiddles, and flutes, boots, shoes, caps, bonnets, and bears' grease, and on one board a sad likeness of a rat in a trap made us quicken our ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.

... environment to encourage entrepreneurs and protect ownership rights, and enact a comprehensive tax overhaul. Reforms in the more politically sensitive areas of structural reform and land privatization are still lagging. Outside institutions - particularly the IMF - have encouraged Ukraine to quicken the pace and scope of reforms and have threatened to withdraw financial support. GDP in 2000 showed strong export-based growth of 6% - the first growth since independence - and industrial production grew 12.9%. As the capacity for further export-based ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... there nothing that can be done to quicken that inner action, the slowness of which has paved the way for all this mischief? This might be done in two ways. After the affected parts, say the face, have been secured in this pack of flour, it will be easy to place a hot blanket, ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... all the more notable for their bitter tone of hate, "he was the most popular man, and the most able to do hurt, that have lived at any time." He had shown he knew how to wait, and when waiting was over he showed he knew how to act. On the eve of the Long Parliament he rode through England to quicken the electors to a sense of the crisis which had come at last; and on the assembling of the Commons he took his place, not merely as member for Tavistock, but as their acknowledged head. Few of the ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... repressive,—'conciliating,' it was her pleasure to call them. Her recent commands with respect to turbulent Venice were the subject of criticism among the circle outside the Piazza Gaffe. An enforced inactivity of the military legs will quicken the military wits, it would appear, for some of the younger officers spoke hotly as to their notion of the method of ruling Venezia. One had bidden his Herr General to 'look here,' while he stretched forth his hand and declared that Italians were like women, and wanted—yes, wanted—(their ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... that odd questioning look. Maggie thought she perceived something else there too. She gathered her forces quietly in silence an instant or two, feeling her heart quicken like the pulse of a moving engine. Then ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... too sincerely. He looked for the watch, but could not see him. Then he drew himself carefully up, and on his hands and knees passed to the starboard side and moved aft. Doing so he saw the watch start up from the capstan where he had been resting, and walk towards him. He did not quicken his pace. He trusted to his ruse— he would impersonate Iberville, possessed as he was of the hat and cloak. He moved to the bulwarks and leaned against them, looking into the water. The sentry was deceived; he knew ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the kinks out of my legs, and to quicken, if possible, my circulation a little, which since the passage over the Channel had felt as if it was thick and green, I walked rapidly to the top of the Knockmeledown Mountains, getting a good view ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... tied securely. When towed ashore, one rope was fastened round his horns, and another to his fore-foot, each held by a negro, while a third took a strong gripe of his tail. In this manner, they led and drove him along, the fellow behind occasionally biting the beast's tail, to quicken his motions; until at length the poor creature was made fast to an anchor on the beach, there to ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... of relief as they cleared the crowd and could quicken their pace. But they were scarcely out of the range of the arc light when a dark group ran hurriedly down from the mesa back of the town. It was old Suma-theek with four of his Indians. They held, tightly bound with belts and bandanas, ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... 4 Our quicken'd souls awake, and rise From the long sleep of death; On heavenly things we fix our eyes, And ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts

... horrified nurse, and the eyes still rioting after the curved lips were closed. And yet it was not her beauty. A hundred rosy-marbled nymphs could have paraded the beach in a thousand silvery dawns and, once out of sight, his heart never quicken whatever it was—the innocence, the breathing innocence of her, it may have been that. And yet there was something more. There must have been. He gave it up, but he knew that if he had been born a girl he, too, would want to paddle in the ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly

... Office solicit your Due, And would not have Matters neglected; You must quicken the Clerk with the Perquisite too, To do what his ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay

... of Newfoundland. These men are paid a bounty by Government, and, in return, are subjected to a naval discipline, and, upon an emergency, are liable at a moment's notice to enter into the naval service. To quicken mercantile enterprise, by which alone mariners can be called into existence, enormous subsidies have been paid to the great lines of steamers to Brazil and the East. And the yearning for colonies, which in our day has led to almost simultaneous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... None, none are true! Even I am false who fear to speak my fears And ease his own when I should quicken them! ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan

... illustrious personages of the decline of her salon. We smile at its follies and affectations; but, while it harmed literature by magnifying things that were petty, it did something to refine manners, to quicken ideas, to encourage clearness and grace of expression, and to make the pursuit of letters an avenue to social distinction. Through the Hotel de Rambouillet, and the salons which both in Paris and the provinces imitated its modes, and pushed them to extravagance, the influence of women ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... dust, and eating the dust in which I crawl. I try to lift up my eyes to the heavens, to the true, the beautiful, the good, the eternal nobleness which was before all time, and shall be still when time has past away. But to lift up myself is what I cannot do. Who will help me? Who will quicken me? as our old English tongue has it. Who will give me life? The true, pure, lofty human life which I did not inherit from the primaeval ape, which the ape-nature in me is for ever trying to stifle, and make me that which I know too well I could so easily become—a cunninger and more dainty-featured ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley

... can this stranger mean to you, Blown to your country by unbridled chance? That he should drink the morn's first cup of dew Fresh from the spring, and quicken that grave glance Wherein as rising tides on hazy shores Rise the new flames and colours ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer

... we looked for the wolves. We half wished they might appear, that the horses might quicken their paces. Not a sign of life was anywhere to be seen, except one flock of snow-birds on the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... similar story of some man contemporary with Herod the Great. And we must all remember that case in Shakspeare, where the first king of the red rose, Henry IV., had long fancied his destiny to be that he should meet his death in Jerusalem; which naturally did not quicken his zeal for becoming a crusader. "All time enough," doubtless he used to say; "no hurry at all, gentlemen!" But at length, finding himself pronounced by the doctor ripe for dying, it became a question ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... insensible to the cheer that somebody was brewing for himself in that wild place. She felt him quicken under her, and put up his head eagerly, and go forward as if he was nearing home. She wondered how far the smell of coffee would carry, and subsequent experience was ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... cries out so often, "Lead me in thy righteousness." "Deliver me in thy righteousness." "Judge me according to thy righteousness." "Quicken me in thy righteousness." "O Lord (says he), give ear to my supplications: in thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness." "And enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord: for in thy sight shall ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan

... by falling from a hen, Nor man's a Christian till he's born again; The egg's at first contained in the shell, Men afore grace in sin and darkness dwell; The egg, when laid, by warmth is made a chicken, And Christ by grace the dead in sin doth quicken; The egg when first a chick the shell's its prison, So flesh to soul who yet ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude

... cold: he had to fetch Captain Scottie's pea-jacket to wear at the wheel. On the long spilling crests, that crumbled and spread running layers of froth in their hurry shoreward, the Pomerania rode home. She knew her landfall and seemed to quicken. Steadily swinging on the jade-green surges, she buried her nose almost to the hawse-pipes, then lifted until her streaming forefoot gleamed out of a frilled ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... plans, ability to surround with advantage those whom we love. So, at first, while yet the memories of Washington were much with her, the appeal of the millions was strong. The gallant nature of the contest and the great stake braced her; she felt the blood quicken in her pulse. ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... rhythm Was the throb of thy desire, And thy lyric moods shall quicken 35 Souls of ...
— Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics • Bliss Carman

... moment Lou and Oscar came up the hill from the orchard. They did not quicken their pace when they saw Carl; indeed, they did not openly look in his direction. They advanced distrustfully, and as if they wished the distance ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather

... factories it is usual to "quicken" the objects to be silvered before placing them in the electrolysis vats, because the deposit is said to adhere better in consequence of this treatment. I have never found it any improvement for laboratory purposes, but it is easy ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... cynicism of the usual utterances of the Turkish party and one's perception of the direful ills which Russian conquest was so liberally scattering abroad. The brutality of the Turkish tone, as I sometimes caught an echo of it in the talk of chance interlocutors, was not such as to quicken that race-feeling to which I just now alluded. English society is a tremendously comfortable affair, and the crudity of the sarcasm that I frequently heard levelled by its fortunate members at the victims of the fashionable Turk was such as to produce a good ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... beseeching attitude, the serpent bracelet glittering fiercely in the sun. Her voice changed, became softer. "Yet they are my people!" she continued, "and the last of our race. Ennoble them, great Gods! quicken their hearts and spare them!" Looking outward with the rapt look of a prophetess in whom, though torn with tempests of fanaticism and of passion, human and superhuman, no thought was mean, no sentiment ignoble, she poured out this her prayer; not for mercy!—her Gods knew ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous

... enveloped him when first he opened eyes to wonder. Then gradually as he stared, piecing together unassorted memories and striving to quicken drowsy wits, he became aware of a glimmer that waxed and waned, a bar of pale bluish light striking across the gloom above his couch; and by dint of puzzling divined that this had access by a port. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... only in jest, and that the things were worth a Sheik's ransom. Stay! You must not give him too much, or he will know it is not you—viper! Run quick, and breath a word about me, if you dare; one whisper only, and my Spahis shall cut your throat from ear to ear. Off! Or you shall have a bullet to quicken your steps; misers dance well when pistols play ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... I have taken a stand against this matter-of-fact conception of education throughout this chapter. I may now return to the charge by adding that the banality of our college students' thinking stares us in the face; if we wish to quicken it, to refine it, we should have them study other media of expression qua expression besides their own (that is what Europe did in the Renaissance, and the example of the Renaissance is still pertinent); that if Mr. Flexner's reasoning were valid the French might without detriment ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... the dog lay there wide awake and made no sign of displeasure, Torarin turned off at the first road that led westward to the sea. He flicked the horse with the slack of the reins and made it quicken its pace. ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof

... short, sharp report was heard, and a little dust whiffed up on the road beside them. Pah! pah! another puff of dust, and splinters flew from a tree just beyond them. Aquila twitched his ears and stretched his long neck, and they felt the stride quicken under them. The road rushed by; they ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards

... slumber, Let no weed nor worm molest me, Let not Kahgahgee, the raven, Come to haunt me and molest me, Only come yourself to watch me, Till I wake, and start, and quicken, Till I leap ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow

... himself fell in Norman's way in the street, and was shrinking aside, when a word, of not unfriendly greeting, caused him to quicken his steps, and say, hesitatingly, "I say, how ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... letters of this description are important affairs that may all be transacted through the medium of correspondence, but it is to be hoped that a matter so closely personal will quicken the imagination and inspire the pen ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... soi-disant Waife and his grandchild settles the matter—wholly unlike those I seek; so that there is every reason to suppose they must still be in England, and it is your business to find them. Continue your search—quicken your wits—let me be better pleased with your success when I call again this day week—and meanwhile four pounds, if you please—as much more as ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Into the sword's stiff blade are fused and forged. Euphrates here, here Germany new strife Is stirring; neighbouring cities are in arms, The laws that bound them snapped; and godless war Rages through all the universe; as when The four-horse chariots from the barriers poured Still quicken o'er the course, and, idly now Grasping the reins, the driver by his team Is onward borne, nor heeds ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... good things, attractive things, in life, meant for one and not for another—not meant perhaps for me; as there are pretty clothes which are not suitable for every one. I find a certain immobility of disposition in me, to quicken or interfere with which is like physical pain. He, so brilliant, petulant, mobile! I am better far beside Jean-Baptiste—in contact with his quiet, even labour, and manner of being. At first he did the work to which he had set himself, sullenly; but the mechanical labour of it ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater

... consider silence appropriate. She never inquired what effect this silence had on public opinion in regard to her, nor countenanced the idea that public opinion bore any relation whatever to her private affairs and domestic conduct. Such independence and such reticence naturally quicken the interest and curiosity of survivors; and they also stimulate those who knew her as she was to explain her characteristics to as many as wish to understand them, after disputing about them for the lifetime of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... two children a quarrelling over their playthings. Suppose you was to go and get yourself dressed, Rose- Anna—And you too, Robert. Why, the traps will be at the door afore you're ready if you don't quicken yourselves up a bit. Kitty, you go and help ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin

... Morales repaired earlier than usual to the little temple, there to read the service for the dead appointed for the day, and thence proceeded to his nephew's grave. An unusual object, which had fallen on, or was kneeling beside the grave, caught his eye, and impelled him to quicken his pace. His heart throbbed as he recognized the garb of a novice, and to such a degree as almost to deprive him of all power, as in the white, chiselled features, resting on the cold, damp sod, he recognized his niece, and believed, for the first agonizing moment, ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... quicken his horse's pace, he hastened forward to examine his game. He was still so excited that he was almost upon the outstretched carcass before he noticed the odd scar on its side. He bent down and saw that the mark was a cattle ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... be considered if such a mass might not become nodal to the satellite's orbit, so that this passed through or above this point at various inclinations with its primary direction. If acting to bring down the orbit then this will quicken the speed and cause the satellite further on its path to attain a somewhat higher elevation above the surface. The lines most conspicuous in the telescope are, in short, those which have been favoured by a combination of circumstances ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... folk long dead, and our hearts would sicken — We would grieve for them with a bitter pain, If the past could live and the dead could quicken, We then might turn to that life again. But on lonely nights we would hear them calling, We should hear their steps on the pathways falling, We should loathe the life with a hate appalling In our lonely rides by ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... doing—if doing costs—playing at everything but play. We are earnest enough about that. God open our eyes and convict us of our insincerity! burn out the superficial in us, make us intensely in earnest! And may God quicken our sympathy, and touch our heart, and nerve our arm for what will prove a desperate fight against "leagued fiends" in bad men's shapes, who do the devil's work to-day, branding on little innocent souls the very brand ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... to me, it came from my own head and heart," said Gellert, pleasantly. "But no, that is a very presumptuous thought; it did not come from myself, but from the great spirit, who occasionally sends a ray of his Godlike genius to quicken the hearts ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... respectfully extending a silver card tray. From the man, Jimmie Dale's eyes fixed on a white envelope on the tray. One glance was enough—it was HERS, that letter. The Tocsin again! His brain seemed suddenly to be afire, and he could feel his pulse quicken, the blood begin to pound in fierce throbs at his heart. Life and death lay in that white, innocent-looking, unaddressed envelope, danger, peril—it was always life and death, for those were the stakes for which ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... contest, is without a counterpart in history. And yet more, from the invention and achievements of our iron-clads dates a new era in naval warfare, while in the value and variety of our ordnance we have taken the lead of all civilized nations. Can you find in all this nothing to quicken the pulse of your patriotism? Is here no ground for encouragement, no incitement ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... not allowed to turn their heads as the runner passes them. The one who runs around with the handkerchief will resort to various devices for misleading the others as to where he drops it. For instance, he may sometimes quicken his pace suddenly after dropping the handkerchief, or at other times maintain a steady pace ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft

... is simplicity; as well as to be ignorant of the right thereof, is want of conscience. Secrecy in suits, is a great mean of obtaining; for voicing them to be in forwardness, may discourage some kind of suitors, but doth quicken and awake others. But timing of the suit is the principal. Timing, I say, not only in respect of the person that should grant it, but in respect of those, which are like to cross it. Let a man, in the choice of his mean, rather choose ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... numbered in England, by John Leech's showing, so many other members still than Lords Brougham, Palmerston and John Russell. The war of Secession, soon arriving, was to cause the field to bristle with features and the sense of the State, in our generation, infinitely to quicken; but that alarm came upon the country like a thief at night, and we might all have been living in a land in which there seemed at least nothing save a comparatively small amount of quite private property to steal. Even private property in other than the most modest amounts scarce figured for ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... persons in such a situation are tempted to do their own piece of work, and no more;—to rest satisfied with manufacturing the pin's head which happens to have fallen to their share. Does a London life tend to quicken the moral pulse and expand the heart? The forms of society are thrown into too large a scale, and its pace is too rapid, to afford an opportunity for the sort of intercourse by which alone a real acquaintance with, understanding of, and affection for, each other can be obtained. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various



Words linked to "Quicken" :   revive, speed, decelerate, excite, accelerate, animate, energise, quickening, repair, quickener, invigorate, vivify, reanimate, renovate, arouse, stir, revivify, perk up, resuscitate, move, brisk, come to, brisk up



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