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Voluntary   Listen
noun
Voluntary  n.  (pl. voluntaries)  
1.
One who engages in any affair of his own free will; a volunteer. (R.)
2.
(Mus.) A piece played by a musician, often extemporarily, according to his fancy; specifically, an organ solo played before, during, or after divine service.
3.
(Eccl.) One who advocates voluntaryism.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Voluntary" Quotes from Famous Books



... call themselves the exponents of the collective soul, but they were not victors but vanquished; the collective soul made breaches in their ivory tower, the feeble personalities of these thinkers yielded, and to hide their abdication from themselves, they declared it voluntary. In the effort to convince themselves, philosophers and aesthetics forged theories to prove that the great directing principle was to abandon oneself to the stream of a united life instead of directing it, or more modestly following one's own little path in peace. It ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain

... I must not omit to mention an institution formed in Paris, which does honour to the English character; it is entitled the British Charitable Fund, and was founded in 1822, under the patronage of the British Ambassador, and is entirely supported by voluntary contributions, for the purpose of relieving old and distressed British subjects, or of sending them to their native country; suffice it to say, that there have been within the last ten years 11,500 persons relieved, and 2,571 sent to ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... seemed to me to confer a glory even upon the instruments of human skill, which elevated man to the Unseen and the Divine. When we examine the most minute organisms, we find clear evidence in their voluntary powers of motion that these creatures possess a will, and that such Will must be conveyed by a nervous system of an infinitesimally minute description. When we follow out such a train of thought, and contrast the ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... Will said to himself that no doubt Allchin would only be too glad of a chance of managing the business independently, and that perhaps he hoped for the voluntary retirement of Mr. Jollyman one of these days. Indeed, things were likely to take that course. And Allchin was a good, honest fellow, whom it would be a pleasure to see flourishing.—How much longer would old Strangwyn ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing

... live in their "presbyteres" unless they pay rent. The churches are still open. They can have their services if they like, but those who have no fortune (which is the case with most of them) are entirely dependent upon the voluntary contribution of ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington

... to her zeal. When we know a little of any thing, it is very pleasant to be applied to for instruction by the ignorant, as it enables us to flatter ourselves that we know a great deal. And it is only the more gratifying when our voluntary pupil ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen

... when the child sees some strange and unknown object he is observing start suddenly into motion, he will exclaim: 'It is alive!' By this exclamation, he means to express his conviction that the object is endowed with animal life. Power of voluntary and independent motion and animal organisation are associated together, as inseparable and essentially connected ideas, by even the earliest experience in the economy ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various

... her, and, you are aware, her voluntary promise would seal her lips, even if I had." He smiled contemptuously, as he saw her puzzled look, and continued: "Percy will excuse you for a few moments; come with me. Pauline, entertain this gentleman ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... wild and new Was ever found in any foreign land, If viewed and valued true, Most likens me 'neath Love's transforming hand. Whence the bright day breaks through, Alone and consortless, a bird there flies, Who voluntary dies, To live again regenerate and entire: So ever my desire, Alone, itself repairs, and on the crest Of its own lofty thoughts turns to our sun, There melts and is undone, And sinking to its first state of unrest, So burns and dies, yet ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... by offering inducements to solvent existing institutions to withdraw the circulation issued under State authority, and substitute that provided by the authority of the Union. Thus, through the voluntary action of the existing institutions, aided by wise legislation, the great transition from a currency heterogeneous, unequal, and unsafe, to one uniform, equal, and safe, may be speedily and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... and reduced debt burden, excellent international financial conditions, and expansionary monetary and fiscal policies. Inflation, however, reached double-digit levels in 2006 and the government of President Nestor KIRCHNER responded with "voluntary" price agreements with businesses, as well as export taxes and restraints. Multi-year price freezes on electricity and natural gas rates for residential users stoked consumption and kept private investment away, leading ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... off to the left something which looked like the outline of a boat, sunk to the gunwales, washed over by every wave; and standing in it, up to their waists in water, were four men, one of whom was gesticulating violently, while the others seemed dazed and incapable of voluntary movement. ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... their allegiance to the Norman usurper, and became voluntary outlaws. The habits of these outlaws, or, at least, of their imitators and descendants in the next century, are well described in the romance ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown

... by the trichina spiratis, a parasite introduced into the body by eating imperfectly cooked flesh of infected hogs. The "embryos" pass from the bowel and reach the voluntary muscles, where they finally become "encapsulated larvae,"—muscle trichinae. It is in the migration of these embryos that the group of symptoms ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... spoiled his whole plan, then put the blame on him, and took away the command of an army corps. That same Herhor drew on Mm the displeasure of his holiness because he had taken Sarah to his house, and did not restore him to honor till the humiliated prince had passed a couple of months in a voluntary exile. ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... queen had not copulated until the thirty-sixth. Little weight could be given to the supposition, that the peculiarity could be occasioned by confinement. Queens, in the natural state, leave their hives only once to seek the males. All the rest of their life they remain voluntary prisoners. Thus, it was improbable that captivity could produce the effect I wished to explain. At the same time, as it was essential to neglect nothing in a subject so new, I wished to ascertain whether it was owing to the length of confinement, ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber

... knowing what it might come to, he thought it his wisest course to avoid their envy by a voluntary exile, and to travel from place to place until his nephew came to marriageable years, and, by having a son, had secured the succession. Setting sail, therefore, with this resolution, he first arrived at Crete, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... next day. He did not believe that the bank would really push them to the wall. The next day was spent in seeing what could be done, and by evening it was clear that unless a considerable sum of money was raised a voluntary assignment was the proper course. The end of the long struggle had come. Clemens hesitated less on his own than on his wife's account. He knew that to her the word failure would be associated with disgrace. She had pinched herself with a hundred economies to keep the business afloat, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... soon as he came to town. Though quick to resent, Nelson was easily soothed by attention and pleased by compliment, even when it rose to flattery,—which Howe's was not likely to do. A short interview gave the First Lord a clearer idea than he before had of the extent, value, and wholly voluntary character of the services rendered by the young captain in the West Indies; and he indicated the completeness of his satisfaction by offering to present him to the King, which was accordingly done at the next levee. George III. received him graciously; and the resentment of Nelson, whose loyalty ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... never forget this child's face. The Sabbath after Christmas we had a voluntary Sunday school on our hands. A score of odd-looking little boy and girl caterpillars appeared at church, excited, mysteriously curious, like queer young creatures who have experienced a miracle. They entered ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris

... conspirator about you, for a fact. You're going to suggest that we plan some sort of a campaign, by means of which we can pay a flying visit to this old chateau and surprise the famous general, perhaps relieve him of the voluntary charge he's taken on his shoulders by carrying ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach

... Francis. With Cambaceres on his left, and Lebrun in the front of the carriage, the First Consul traversed a part of Paris, taking the Rue de Thionville; and the Quai Voltaire to the Pont Royal. Everywhere he was greeted by acclamations of joy, which at that time were voluntary, and needed not to be commanded by ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... in offering any positive conclusions. The difficulty attending the investigation of this mode of Spiritualistic manifestation is increased by the fact, familiar to physiologists, that sounds of varying intensity may be produced in almost any portion of the human body by voluntary muscular action. To determine the exact location of this muscular activity is at times a ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... in the coffers of a rich man who was not a miser nor a murderer, it stood idle, incapable of resolving itself into a force for good, however charitable the hands which fain would administer it. One would say it was angry at having got into the wrong box and avenged itself by going into voluntary paralysis when possessed by one who was neither ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... for just this one afternoon, fifteen years was as yesterday, and he seemed to realise thoroughly for the first time all that royal hand-clasp had meant, before he went to his voluntary ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... with ideas of unknown evil powers, of demons and spirits, and of being persecuted and possessed by the devil. Simultaneously they complain about all sorts of bodily sensations. In isolated cases one may observe convulsive twitchings of the voluntary and involuntary musculature. Finally severe motor excitements set in. The patient becomes noisy, screams, runs aimlessly about, destroys and ruins everything that comes his way. With this the disease has reached its height. At this stage consciousness ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck

... employ its strength up to a given point only, it would soon find itself swept onward against its will. No enemy would consider itself bound to observe a similar limitation. So far from this being the case each would immediately avail himself of the voluntary moderation of the other to outstrip him at once ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... obliged to share in the daily games, which were compulsory for all; but she never joined in the voluntary ones unless she were specially asked to do so, to make up a side, and then she played with an utter lack of enthusiasm. "Moonie", as the girls called her, was a bookworm pure and simple. She had read almost every volume in the school library; it did not ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... instructors and guides in every species of literature—in philosophy, history, oratory, poetry, architecture, and sculpture? And those too, who have attained superiority over the world, in arms, yield a voluntary subjection to the Greeks in the arts. The cause of their former excellence and their present inferiority, is no doubt to be found in their former freedom and their present slavery, and in the loss of that emulation which ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... on Helen's making the same proposal, she thought it better to give the sisters an opportunity of being alone together, and, as she was more desirous of doing right than of appearing eager to be useful, she said nothing of what she had intended. Elizabeth was much gratified by her sister's voluntary proffer of assistance, for the head and front of Helen's offences on her return from Dykelands, had been, that she had loathed the idea of helping to train the screaming school-girls to sing in church, and had altogether shewn far less ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... expresses an attribute or aspect of the Self, the Eternal; when we violate one of the Commandments, we set ourselves against the law and being of the Eternal, thereby bringing ourselves to inevitable con fusion. So the first steps in spiritual life must be taken by bringing ourselves into voluntary obedience to these spiritual laws and thus making ourselves partakers of the spiritual powers, the being of the Eternal Like the law of gravity, the need of air to breathe, these great laws know no exceptions They are in ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston

... remembrance of all his early love awakened in him a new and youthful ardor, a wave of irresistible tenderness which called up in his mind the radiant face of Annette. He had loved the mother, through a passionate impulse of voluntary servitude; he was beginning to love this little girl like a slave, a trembling old slave on whom fetters are riveted that he never can break. He felt this in the depths of his being, and was terrified. He tried to understand how ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant

... very slowly in children, it generally takes months before the slightest beginning symptoms reach a threatening appearance. The first sign is lameness; among laymen tuberculous inflammation of the hip-joints is known as "voluntary limping." ...
— Prof. Koch's Method to Cure Tuberculosis Popularly Treated • Max Birnbaum

... and social curse to the white race. It must die of its own weakness, South, as it died of its own weakness, North. It is now in the process of dying. The South has freed over three hundred thousand slaves by the voluntary act of the master. If these appeals of the mob leader to the spirit of the mob can be stopped, a solution will ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... up all savoury food, different kinds of self-mortification such as sitting in unnatural and wearying positions, hindering the action of the organs, especially by fasts, which, under certain circumstances may be continued to starvation. Voluntary death by the withdrawal of nourishment is, according to the strict doctrine of the Digambara, necessary for all ascetics, who have reached the highest step of knowledge. The Kevalin, they say, eats no longer. The milder ['S]vetambara do not demand ...
— On the Indian Sect of the Jainas • Johann George Buehler

... for Morgan Bates, he got somewhat even with his malicious persecutors by writing and producing plays; but retaliation is never satisfactory to a man of noble impulses, and Bates would not pursue it long. He preferred to go into voluntary exile at Des Moines, Iowa; and in that glorious Republican harvest-field he accomplished a great and good work, which being done, symmetrized and concinnated, he returned to this Gomorrah of Mugwumpery and identified ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... Chinese scientists. Jeter and Eyer had seen many pictures of them. Jeter wondered whether their adherence to Sitsumi were voluntary or forced. But it was voluntary, of course. The three brains of these brilliant men could easily have outwitted Sitsumi had they been unwilling to associate themselves with him. The ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks

... are in some measure more inexcusable if we violate our duties to a friend, than to a relation; since the former arise from a voluntary choice, the latter from a necessity, to which we could not give ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... unquestionably the forms of the body which painters instinctively recognize as best, and call "beautiful," are so far under the command of the plastic force of voluntary thought, that the original and future authority of such a plastic force over the whole of creation cannot but seem to painters a direct, though not a certain influence; and they would at once give their adherence to the statement made many years since in his opening ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... voluntary reflection and understanding on their part is still greater when it comes to another phase of the question, which is one degree more complicated, but no less vital in its bearing on the affections. You cannot do evil ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)

... were unemployed and eager for work. It would not be long before they would all be required. Someone else would step into her humble post when she was promoted. It was merely a case of patience and pluck; the voluntary hospitals were dependent on voluntary aid. She gave ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... pronouncing the word, and yet no positive order for it could be obtained from him. He merely said that in twenty days the army must be in winter quarters, and he urged the departure of his wounded. On this as on other occasions, he would not consent to the voluntary relinquishment of anything, however trifling: there was a deficiency of horses for his artillery, now too numerous for an army so reduced; but it did not signify, and he flew into a passion at the proposal to leave part of it behind. "No; the enemy ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote

... British and Foreign school, collegiate school, art school, continuation school, convent school, County Council school, government school, grant-in-aid school, high school, higher grade school, military school, missionary school, naval school, naval academy, state-aided school, technical school, voluntary school, school; school of art; kindergarten, nursery, creche, reformatory. pulpit, lectern, soap box desk, reading desk, ambo[obs3], lecture room, theater, auditorium, amphitheater, forum, state, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... of hot summer evenings. On every occasion his nature testified to its lively abhorrence of tone, and once he was violently thrust forth from a church by an excited sexton. Racah had whistled derisively at the feebly executed voluntary of the organist. An old friend of the family declared that the boy should be trained as a music critic—he hated music so intensely. Racah's father would arch his meagre eyebrows and crisply say, "My son shall become a priest." "But even a priest must ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... can show: but further, a rational being who is conscious of causality through reason, that is to say, of a will (distinct from desires), must of necessity make it practically, that is, in idea, the condition of all his voluntary actions. But to explain how pure reason can be of itself practical without the aid of any spring of action that could be derived from any other source, i.e., how the mere principle of the universal validity of all its ...
— Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals • Immanuel Kant

... mischiefs of a Syrian campaign. At length the emperor hoisted sail at Brundusium, with a fleet and army of forty thousand men: but he kept the sea no more than three days; and his hasty retreat, which was ascribed by his friends to a grievous indisposition, was accused by his enemies as a voluntary and obstinate disobedience. For suspending his vow was Frederic excommunicated by Gregory the Ninth; for presuming, the next year, to accomplish his vow, he was again excommunicated by the same pope. [89] While he served under the banner of the cross, a crusade was ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... were:—freedom of election to all offices and to the juntas; exemption from all forced military service except for the defence of the country and under their own officers; and payment beforehand exacted for all service beyond their own frontiers (this did not of course exclude voluntary service of individuals in the Spanish or French armies). Then there was free trade with foreign nations, and especially between the Basques of both nations. The customs' frontier of Spain really began on the Ebro. Then no decree or sentence of the royal authorities could have ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... rude, and needs polishing. But it is not, like the marble, the wax, or the vessel, a passive recipient of external influences. It is itself a living power. It is acted upon only by stirring up its own activities. The operative upon mind, unlike the operative upon matter, must have the active, voluntary co-operation of that upon which he works. The teacher is doing his work, only so far as he gets work from the scholar. The very essence and root of the work are in the scholar, not in the teacher. No one, in fact, in an important sense, is taught at all, ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart

... one. The difficulty—the insuperable moral difficulty is this—that I should expose myself to the plausible imputation of having worked upon you, unduly, for this end; and more, that I could not hold myself quite free from blame. It is your voluntary goodness, Maud. But you are young, inexperienced; and it is, I hold it, my duty to stand between you and any dealing with your property at so unripe an age. Some people may call this Quixotic. In my mind it is an imperious ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... it, however, is a different thing. It is based, primarily, on freedom. It is a natural and voluntary grouping of energies to secure results ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... the excited group as various members of the crew sought to take exception to their captain's voluntary omission of his own name. But the young lieutenant held up ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll

... asked how many shares offered to voluntary subscribers on the ten-dollar instalment plan had been taken, and Garnet replied, "All. Those, together with the shares assigned me in exchange for the mortgages I hold on Widewood and propose to surrender, the forty for which Mr. Leggett pays five hundred ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... mis-shapen, and so ill-lighted; but have, on the contrary, received very definite orders for the feeding and clothing of such sad humanity, we may surely ask you, not unreasonably, to humiliate yourselves in the most complete way—not with a voluntary, but a sternly involuntary humility—not with a show of wisdom in will-worship, but with practical wisdom, in all honor, to the satisfying of the flesh; and to associate yourselves in monasteries and ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin

... efficacy to flight; following which prescription a multitude of men and women, negligent of all but themselves, deserted their city, their houses, their estate, their kinsfolk, their goods, and went into voluntary exile, or migrated to the country parts, as if God in visiting men with this pestilence in requital of their iniquities would not pursue them with His wrath, wherever they might be, but intended the destruction of such alone as remained ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... line, and then, remembering Mr. Dimmidge's voluntary explanation of HIS "Personal," waited with some confidence for a like frankness from Mrs. Dimmidge. But he ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... is not more liable to contagion than is that faculty of the mind which is called imagination. That many of the accused believed in their crime, we have sufficient evidence in their own voluntary confessions, as well as in the traditions handed down to us on this subject. Both knavery and delusion were at work, as the following incidents will abundantly manifest. They have been selected from a wide range of materials on ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... to the virtuous spectator this indecorum, most calamitous woes are first depicted as the consequence of illicit love. The deserted husband and the guilty wife are both presented to the audience as voluntary exiles from society: the one through poignant sense of sorrow for the connubial happiness he has lost—the other, from deep contrition for the guilt she ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue

... that the owner of a restored work may choose to make with the Copyright Office is an application for registration of a copyright claim. Copyright registration is voluntary; the URAA directs the Office to have procedures for such registration, but it does not require owners of the restored works to register. Although the owner of a work not considered a Berne work as defined in 17 U.S.C. 101 must obtain or seek registration for a work before he or she can ...
— Supplementary Copyright Statutes • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.

... emphasis of singularity, energetic speakers and writers sometimes use 'I' as representative of mankind at large. Thus: 'The current impressions received through the senses are not voluntary in origin. What I see in walking is seen because I have an organ of vision.' The question of general moral obligation is forcibly stated by Paley in the individual form, 'Why am I obliged to keep my word?' It is sometimes well ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... everything. I can't describe it exactly, but I can feel the difference. I don't believe there is very much of what we know at home as 'spiritual life.' There are some fine fellows here and some high ambitions, but the chapel service is all voluntary, and only a handful of fellows ever go unless some big gun comes to give a chapel talk, and then the president allows only fifteen minutes ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon

... this unparalleled transaction. The author, I believe, will not claim any part of the glory of it: he will leave it whole and entire to the authors of the measure. The money was the voluntary, free gift of the Company; the rescinding bill was the act of legislature, to which they and we owe submission: the author has nothing to do with the one or with the other. However, he cannot avoid rubbing himself ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... voluntary concessions to his people; and they sent him to the scaffold. Charles the Tenth violated the fundamental laws of the state, established a despotism, and butchered his subjects for not submitting quietly to that despotism. He failed in his wicked attempt. He was at the mercy of those whom ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the book of the laws, written by Gouron in the 'gourou moukhtis' character, is placed. This temple is called Hermendel, or the Dwelling of God. Some 600 priests are attached to its service, and comfortable dwellings are provided for them out of the voluntary contributions of the devotees who visit the temple. Although the priests are regarded with infinite respect, they are not absolutely free from vice. When they have money, they spend it as freely as they have gained it. The number of pretty women who daily repair ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... of the one react upon the mind of the other, as if the beatings of one heart could transmit themselves to another heart. There is a certain psychical tie between the two; and at the time when one especially concentrates his voluntary force upon the other, it is not unusual for the latter to feel the reaction, and be plunged into a revery even more intense. The transmission of thought—or, to speak more exactly, suggestion,—is, under these conditions, a matter for observation, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various

... Hamilton's financial system, then thoroughly understood and appreciated, came unprecedented good times. To all appearances, therefore, Jay's re-election in 1798 seemed assured by an increased majority, and the announcement that Chancellor Livingston was a voluntary rival proved something of a political shock.[81] For many years the relations between Jay and Livingston were intimate. They had been partners in the law, associates in the Council of Revision, colleagues ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... masterpiece. The fact that in spite of the dearth of prominent men in his party, of men who had in them the stuff of a leader, that party had not turned to Gore in its need, aroused no surprise, no misgiving, in either his mind or that of his wife. It was simply in their eyes another step in that path of voluntary renunciation which he was treading ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... the vanities of a devout and fashionable congregation, making especial terms—by virtue of its exalted station—with Providence. These were the people whom he regarded all his priestly life with whimsical dismay. "Their voluntary social arrangements," he wrote in "Spiritual Conferences," "are the tyranny of circumstance, claiming our tenderest pity, and to be managed like the work of a Xavier, or a Vincent of Paul, which hardly left the saints time to pray. Their sheer worldliness is ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... elsewhere, 170 Till him she wed, to whom she most inclines. Him prudent, then, answer'd Telemachus. Antinoues! it is not possible That I should thrust her forth against her will, Who both produced and reared me. Be he dead, Or still alive, my Sire is far remote, And should I, voluntary, hence dismiss My mother to Icarius, I must much Refund, which hardship were and loss to me. So doing, I should also wrath incur 180 From my offended Sire, and from the Gods Still more; for she, departing, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... rock behind, while she looks down into some gulf, perhaps, beneath, and will let herself fall. Oh, you should see her with a magnifying-glass! You want to think of calm, satisfying death, a mere exhalation, a voluntary slipping into another element? There it is for you. They are all gods and goddesses. They are all here but one; I've lost one, the knot of all, the love of the thing. Well! wasn't it queer for a Catholic girl to have at prayer? Don't you wonder where she got it? Ah! but don't you wonder ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... the cartoon "Inside the Savoy" typifies in its presentment of careless enjoyment. But that attitude was soon dispelled, and it is significant of the spirit of the nation that only when nine-tenths of the necessary army had been raised by voluntary—indeed, this is a certainty, for not until long after the cartoon was published did any conscripts appear in the streets. Though, in the proportion of soldiers to civilians, the cartoon may exaggerate, in its presentment of the spirit of the nation, and of the determination of the nation ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... gleam that shot into the visitor's eye as Virginia emerged from the cabin, but by no word or voluntary outward sign did the man indicate that he had even noticed her. Shortly afterward he left, promising to return with provisions the following day. But it was to be months ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... bustle, confusion, and inextricable entanglement of speech and action as you would grow giddy in contemplating. We perform A Roland for an Oliver, A good Night's Rest, and Deaf as a Post. This kind of voluntary hard labor used to be my great delight. The furor has come strong upon me again, and I begin to be once more of opinion that nature intended me for the lessee of a national theatre, and that pen, ink, and paper ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... Edessa pursued with reproaches, with threats, with wounds, their trembling generals; they overturned the statues of the emperor, cast stones against the miraculous image of Christ, and either rejected the yoke of all civil and military laws, or instituted a dangerous model of voluntary subordination. The monarch, always distant and often deceived, was incapable of yielding or persisting, according to the exigence of the moment. But the fear of a general revolt induced him too readily to accept ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... considered most fundamental by the experienced man of science; for the success of any physical investigation depends on the judicious selection of what is to be observed as of primary importance, combined with a voluntary abstraction of the mind from those features which, however attractive they appear, we are not yet sufficiently advanced in science to ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell

... comes when you want to alight. That holds as true to-day with the most perfect airplanes, as in boyhood days when one jumped from the barn in perfect confidence that the family umbrella would serve as a parachute. To alight with an airplane the pilot—supposing his descent to be voluntary and not compelled by accident or otherwise—surveys the country about him for a level field, big and clear enough for the machine to run off its momentum in a run of perhaps two hundred yards on its wheels. Then he gets up a good rate of speed, points ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... at all. They are content to make their contacts with things by a vague, unregulated power, ever apt to play truant, ever apt to fail them. Unless they be spurred to it by that passion for ultimate things which expresses itself in religion, philosophy, or art, they seldom learn the secret of a voluntary concentration of the mind. ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill

... said of hypnotism in Foster's Encyclopedic Medical Dictionary. The dictionary states the derivation of the word from the Greek word meaning sleep, and gives as synonym "Braidism". This definition follows: "An abnormal state into which some persons may be thrown, either by a voluntary act of their own, such as gazing continuously with fixed attention on some bright object held close to the eyes, or by the exercise of another person's will; characterized by suspension of the will and consequent obedience to the promptings of suggestions from without. ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus

... It is on the cottage plan. There are to be sixteen cottages, each to contain about six patients. Several of the buildings are already completed and in use. The hospital is partly self-supporting, partly dependent upon voluntary aid, and in all the places of resort one sees the little alms-box with its eloquent appeal, "For I was sick, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... contemplated by the benevolent promoters of the prison system of this country, which everywhere has societies of voluntary philanthropists who watch over and study to improve it. One is ashamed, after this, to avow a doubt of its success in practice, since it almost amounts to an admission that man is indeed the brute our European legislators appear to ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... her, and this union of work put them at their ease. It made the occupation of each day seem perfectly natural to them both, and without a word of love ever having been spoken, without their hands having once met by a voluntary touch, the bond between them grew stronger each hour, and they were henceforth eternally united one to the other. It was sufficient for them ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... rested for at least a passing moment at the old gateway. Queen Anne passed here to return thanks at St. Paul's for the victory of Blenheim. Here Marlborough's coach ominously broke down in 1714, when he returned in triumph from his voluntary exile. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... dared rise against the white men. But in 1675 trouble began again. The settlers were steadily crowding the Indians off their lands. No lands were taken without payment, yet the sales were far from being voluntary. A new generation of Indians, too, had grown up, and, heedless of the lesson taught their fathers, the Narragansetts, Nipmucks, and Wampanoags, led by King Philip and Canonchet, rose upon the English. A dreadful ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... who have been permitted a glimpse of these pages feel that we really owe the authors another debt beyond the love for the people to which they have testified by the more substantial offering of long and voluntary ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... loved refused to give their lives to save their son, summoned death to accept her as a willing victim; and deeming it a privilege, went down triumphantly into the grave. Sustained, exalted by this most powerful passion that can animate and possess a human soul, the prisoner stands a pure, voluntary, self-devoted victim; defying the terrors of the law, consenting to condemnation—surrendering to an ignominious death, in order to save the life ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... have done all this myself, without the voluntary help of any human being. I have used men as the mechanic uses tools, making them do his work, or as the potter uses clay, molding it ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... the moment the Pope ascends the throne, he becomes absolute. Authority and honors proceed from him as from their legitimate source. Money bears his image and superscription. Monuments are inscribed with his name. Laws and decrees are promulgated as voluntary emanations of his sovereign will. As head of the Church, all spiritual interests are under his protection. As chief of the State, all temporal interests are subject to his control. He reigns, not merely like other sovereigns, by the "grace of God," but by a peculiar ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... toward a religious life. In spite of themselves, many young men are even forced into the priesthood, not only by strong family influence, but through having been educated so as to be absolutely unfitted for any other walk of life. With us the priesthood is a matter of deliberate and perfectly voluntary choice, and he who wears it as a cloak is ten thousand times the hypocrite ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... you well. And where our pleasure was of late signified unto you for the Lady Elizabeth to have licence to write unto us, we have now received her letters, containing only certain arguments devised for her declaration in such matters as she hath been charged withal by the voluntary confessions of divers others. In which arguments she would seem to persuade us, that the testimony of those who have opened matters against her, either were not such as they be, or being such should have no credit. But as we were most sorry at the beginning, ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... step was the voluntary disbanding of the old Club for the purpose of placing the new rules before a meeting of the whole school. This was not an easy thing to accomplish, for the old members knew, most of them, that their qualifications were the reverse ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... with a khaki uniform, and finally plunged into the deeps of the Army by the gibe of a stauncher anti-militarist during a heated argument that, 'if he believed now in fighting, why didn't he go'n fight himself?' But even after his enlistment he remained true to his beliefs in voluntary service, and the account of his conversion to the principles of Conscription—no half-and-half measures of 'military training' or rifle clubs or hybrid arrangements of that sort, but out-and-out Conscription—may ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable

... been little need of this voluntary surrender of his employments; for, after undergoing an examination, in writing from the Pope's Nuncio, and after several letters had passed between Lord Middleton and himself, the altercation was peremptorily ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... her. "No, one can't choose. And how can anyone give you happiness who hasn't got it himself?" He took her hands, feeling how large, muscular and voluntary they were, even as they melted in ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... do not reply to you, Dear Sir, as soon as you might expect, it is because I hold myself in reserve, until I have a movement to write, and not from any want of regard to you. Relative to the distinct, voluntary acts of resignation, renouncement, it would be difficult, in my present state, to make such acts, because such acts would seem to imply something of self-appropriation still remaining; whereas, I have given to my Sovereign, all that I am; and as far as I know, I have nothing more ...
— Letters of Madam Guyon • P. L. Upham

... with by the voluntary band of observers to secure the data needed in their work are romantic in the extreme. An average winter trip requires from a day and a half to two days and a half from Reno. From the base of the mountain the ascent must be made on snow-shoes. When work ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... denial of truth. Therefore it is that they will see the canker of doubt slowly eating into faith beneath the outward uniformity of a political Church, rather than risk a change, which, as they are taught to believe, would bring faith to a sudden end. But the success of the voluntary system here is overthrowing this assumption. Shall I believe that Christianity deprived of State support must fall, when I see it without State support not only standing, but advancing with the settler into the remotest West? Will the laity of Europe long remain under their illusion ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... rising spread over Russia, there was a moment of hesitation. Those who had been for some years habitually extolling liberty and self-government as the normal conditions of progress, who had been sympathising warmly with every Liberal movement, whether at home or abroad, and who had put forward a voluntary federation of independent Communes as the ideal State organism, could not well frown on the political aspirations of the Polish patriots. The Liberal sentiment of that time was so extremely philosophical and cosmopolitan that it hardly distinguished between Poles and Russians, and liberty was ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... the great majority of the divines of the Established Church might well envy. Few indeed of the parochial clergy were so abundantly supplied with comforts as the favourite orator of a great assembly of nonconformists in the City. The voluntary contributions of his wealthy hearers, Aldermen and Deputies, West India merchants and Turkey merchants, Wardens of the Company of Fishmongers and Wardens of the Company of Goldsmiths, enabled him to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Moreover, Manning by purely voluntary renunciation, exercised none of the supervision over Britz which his higher rank authorized. So that Britz having been given command of the Whitmore case, was at liberty to proceed with the investigation along ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin

... very rare, but not (it is said) altogether unique, conjunction of the somniative faculty (by which the products of the understanding, that is to say, words, conceptions and the like, are rendered instantaneously into forms of sense) with the voluntary and other powers ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... while the two commanders, embracing each other in the presence of their united armies, pledged themselves to a mutual oblivion of all past grievances; thus affording to the nation the best possible earnest of future successes, in the voluntary extinction of a feud, which had desolated it for so ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... governments have been organized. Guthrie is said to have now a population of almost 8,000. Eleven schools and nine churches have been established, and three daily and five weekly newspapers are published in this city, whose charter and ordinances have only the sanction of the voluntary acquiescence of the people from day ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... her, came with better grace from those who had the power to enforce them; and, with a brutal scoff, the Croatian bade her merit their indulgence by frank discoveries and voluntary confessions. He insisted on knowing the nature of the connection which the imperial colonel of horse, Maximilian, had maintained with the students of Klosterheim; and upon other discoveries, with respect to most of which Paulina was too imperfectly informed ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... upon a state of society which admitted such personal freedom and a voluntary hermitage. There was something mediaeval in the behavior of poor Joanna Todd under a disappointment of the heart. The two women had drawn closer together, and were talking on, quite unconscious of ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett

... by all classes toward the illustrious representative of the Bourbons, was touching in the extreme. On his route from Heartwell, and through Stanmore, troops of yeomanry turned out to give him an honorable escort; and what could be more honorable than the voluntary attendance of the farmers who represented the very bone and sinew of the country? The large portly figure of the KING perfectly disabused JOHN BULL of the long-cherished idea that Frenchmen lived entirely upon frogs. Even that particular ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... down at the bottom, clutching tight to the roots, their heads not a foot apart, their eyes wide open, each glaring fixedly at the other. They were suffering frightful torment, writhing and twisting in the pangs of voluntary suffocation; for neither would let go and acknowledge himself beaten. I tried to break Paul's hold on the root, but he resisted me fiercely. Then I lost my breath and came to the surface, badly scared. I quickly explained the situation, and half a dozen of us went ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... of the rapid inhalation was due to mere diversion of the will, and this was the only way nature could so violently exert herself—that of controlling the involuntary action of the lungs to her uses by the safety valve, or the voluntary movement. ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... making. Every treaty or promise made by a state, Treitschke holds, is to be understood as limited by the proviso rebus sic stantibus. 'A state cannot bind its will for the future over against other states.' International treaties are no absolute limitation, but a voluntary self-limitation of the state, and only for such time as the state may find to be convenient. The state has no judge set over it, and any 'legal' obligation it may incur is in the last resort subject to its own decision—in other words, to its own repudiation.[180] That the end justifies the ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History

... times, is especially so at the present day. For a multitude of causes unknown to former times are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor. The most effective of these causes are the great national events which are daily taking place, and the encreasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth

... He did not look the least bit malicious but only very much amused. The doctor groaned. Gyuri's great body trembled, his arms shook, but he did not make a single voluntary movement. He saw the revolver in Muller's hand and felt the keen grey eyes resting on him in ...
— The Case of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner

... thoughtless boy comprehend the cruelty of his neglect. In the underground rooms of the City lodging-house, the voluntary prison of the shame-faced, half-owned wife, the overwrought headache, incidental to her former profession, made her its prey; nervous fever came on as the suspense became more trying, and morbid excitement alternated with torpor and depression. ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Yellow-Jacket, even at the war-lodge of Dragging Canoe himself, the voluntary coming of Peter Doane would mean feasting and jubilation and a ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... hearing and answering the questions of the operator, moving each limb, or rising even, as the operator's hand is raised to draw him into obedient following—enters into a new relation with his mesmeriser. He adopts sympathetically every voluntary movement of the other. When the latter rises from his chair, he rises; when he sits down, he sits down; if he bows, he bows; if he make a grimace, he makes the same. Yet his eyes are closed. He certainly does not see. His mind has interpenetrated to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... could not fail to increase the financial stability of the monarchy. In particular the suppression of the monasteries benefited the crown in two ways. The old church had, indeed, frequently rendered the state considerable financial aid, but such voluntary assistance was, from the nature of the case, casual and arbitrary. Now, however, the state derived a fixed and certain revenue from the confiscated lands; and the possession of immense landed property at the same time enabled ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... of manuscript, who now humbly acknowledged that he was far surpassed by Franco Bolognese. "What is mundane glory?" he exclaimed, as he pointed out Provenzano Salvani, with whose fame Tuscany once rang, but who barely escaped Hell by his voluntary humiliation for a friend. "Lift up thy face!" commanded Vergil, as Dante walked with his head bowed, absorbed in the floor-sculptures; and as he looked, the white-robed angel whose face was like "a ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... them, as it were, sword in hand, telling them he can give them no more, when perhaps, and too often it is the case, it is apparent that he is in condition to offer more. Now, let the creditors consent to these proposals, be what it will; and, however voluntary it may be pretended to be, it is evident that a force is the occasion of it, and the creditor complies, and accepts the proposal, upon the supposition that no better conditions can be had. It is the plain language of the thing, for no man ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... other, been incorporated; and even where they have never been incorporated, yet the corporation-spirit, the jealousy of strangers, the aversion to take apprentices, or to communicate the secret of their trade, generally prevail in them, and often teach them, by voluntary associations and agreements, to prevent that free competition which they cannot prohibit by bye-laws. The trades which employ but a small number of hands, run most easily into such combinations. Half-a-dozen wool-combers, perhaps, are necessary to keep a thousand spinners ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... the evils alone which overtook one, it became clear to an individual that he had sinned against the deity. Within this circle of ideas the penitential psalms of Babylonia move. They do not pass wholly outside of the general Semitic view that sin is a 'missing of the mark,'—a failure, whether voluntary or involuntary, to comply with what was demanded by the deity under whose protection one stood. But one became conscious of having 'missed the mark' only when evil in some form—disease, ill luck, deluge, ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... reputed, Cato's daughter. Think you I am no stronger than my sex, Being so father'd and so husbanded? Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose 'em. I have made strong proof of my constancy, Giving myself a voluntary wound Here in the thigh: can I bear that with patience And not my ...
— Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... This voluntary destruction of property can be best observed in the third department, that of Correze.[3277] Not only have the peasants here refused to pay rents from the beginning of the Revolution; not only have they "planted maypoles, supplied with iron ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... was thus driven from his dominions retired with a few faithful followers to the forest of Arden; and here the good duke lived with his loving friends, who had put themselves into a voluntary exile for his sake, while their land and revenues enriched the false usurper; and custom soon made the life of careless ease they led here more sweet to them than the pomp and uneasy splendor of a courtier's life. Here they lived like the old Robin Hood of England, and ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb



Words linked to "Voluntary" :   armed forces, volunteer, man, military volunteer, military machine, war machine, unpaid, postlude, military personnel, willing, voluntary muscle, self-imposed, willful, military, intended, uncoerced, wilful, military man, conscious, freewill, solo



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