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Avow   /əvˈaʊ/   Listen
Avow

verb
(past & past part. avowed; pres. part. avowing)
1.
To declare or affirm solemnly and formally as true.  Synonyms: affirm, assert, aver, swan, swear, verify.
2.
Admit openly and bluntly; make no bones about.  Synonym: avouch.



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"Avow" Quotes from Famous Books



... the Helmstadt school of Calixt in Germany, and the Saumur school of Amyrault, Cameron, and Placaeus, in France; and is stated decidedly by a series of writers in the English church. Some of the latter go so far as to avow, ({GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA}) that the value of the religious element in the revelation would not be lessened if errors were admitted in the scientific and miscellaneous matter which accompanies it. This admission increased after the speculations ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... stain, Burst asunder his temple's vein; His horn he soundeth in anguish drear; King Karl and the Franks around him hear. Said Karl, "That horn is long of breath." Said Naimes, "'Tis Roland who travaileth. There is battle yonder by mine avow. He who betrayed him deceives you now. Arm, sire; ring forth your rallying cry, And stand your noble household by; For you hear ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various

... desirous of announcing it in his magazine, and therefore I wish to prepare you for the shock. I can say nothing more than I have already said on the subject of vigilence, if not of secrecy. I never will avow myself, and nothing can hurt and offend me so much as any of my friends doing it for me; this is not faron de parler, but my real and unalterable feeling; I could not bear the fuss ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... how far he guided or followed the sentiments of his soldiery we know not, but the fact is certain, that he and they put themselves in motion forthwith, and joined the march of Buonaparte on the 17th at Auxerre. Ney, in the sequel, did not hesitate to avow that he had chosen the part of Napoleon long ere he pledged his oath to Louis; adding that the greater number of the marshals were, like himself, original members of the Elbese conspiracy. Of the latter of these assertions no other ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... of guests at present—one of them an old statesman with a massive silver head, and eyes that have looked into people's thoughts so long that you have an uncanny feeling that they can see right through your soul and read motives you dare not avow even to yourself. I was terribly in awe of him at first, but when I got acquainted with him I found him charming. He is not above talking delightful nonsense even to a girl. I sat by him at dinner, and he talked to me—not nonsense, either, this time. He told me of his ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... columns was surrounded by black lines; a mark of respect which the paper would pay only to members of the royal family, or to some public man of universal renown. Never before, I believe, did this newspaper avow to the world that its editor had a name; and the editor himself usually affected to conceal his professional character. Former editors, in fact, would flatly deny their connection with the paper, and made a great secret of a fact which was no ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... not knowing what I meant to doe with him. The 4 men I desired of my Brother-in-Law arrived during these transactions, & by this supply finding myself strong enough to resist whatever Mr. Bridgar could doe against me, I wrote unto him & desired to know if hee did avow what his men had don, whom I detain'd Prisoners, who had Broke the 2 Dores & the deck of the shipp to take away the Powder. Hee made me a very dubious answer, complaining against me that I had not ben true unto him, having ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson

... us by their own witness. The light is its own proof. We have the experience of Christ and His law. He has saved our souls, He has changed our lives. We know in whom we have believed, and we are neither irrational nor obstinate when we avow that we will not pretend to suspend these convictions on the issue of any debate. We decline to dig up the piles of the bridge that carries us over the abyss because voices tell us that it is rotten. It is shorter and perfectly reasonable to answer, 'Rotten, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... custom of the Jews is to bury." It certainly is remarkable that the two men who thus met in honoring the body of Jesus had both been his secret disciples, hidden friends, who until now had not had courage to avow their friendship and discipleship. ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... and all I avow myself well content. Goodness, industry, benevolence, and thrift have prevailed in your midst. Therefore, my blessing upon you—and may the new year find all treading the paths of obedience, wisdom, and love. Tomorrow ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... my friend, you will find some irony in my name, after all that I have done, and all that I herein avow. I am named Modeste. Therefore I have not deceived you by signing "O. d'Este M." Neither have I misled you about our fortune; it will amount, I believe, to the sum which rendered you so virtuous. I know that to you money is a consideration of small importance; therefore I speak of it without ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... clinging to its gold ingot. Secondly, when his accounts were settled and another clerk had taken his place at the tall desk at which he had stood so long, he hoped speedily to find something else and to repair the disaster before he was obliged to avow it. ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... of belief have often been taken as an index of vacillation; but a simple and candid study of his writings shows that such changes were merely the normal progress of an intensely earnest and sincere mind, which never hesitated to avow its honest convictions nor to admit its errors. This is the quality which gives Brownson his vitality as a mind and an author; and he will be found to be consistent with ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... there were but two women—his mother and Maria Ward. While his lips were closed on the subject of his love, he did not hesitate to avow his misery. "I too am wretched," he would say with infinite pathos; and after her death, he spoke of Maria Ward as ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... said she was but a servant and an instrument under Divine command. When people would avow that such works as she had carried out had never been done in former times, she would simply say: 'My Saviour has a book in which no one has ever read, however learned ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... learning which had given birth to them; and in no case refutes, but looks with complacence upon nearly every one. The impression of a candid reader of the essay must be, that the writer indorses almost all of Bunsen's opinions without having the courage to avow his assent. Of his hero he says, "Bunsen's enduring glory is neither to have faltered with his conscience, nor shrunk from the difficulties of the problem, but to have brought a vast erudition, in the light of a Christian conscience, ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... confidence, especially in presence. Miss Grandison thus interprets what he said, and strengthens her opinion by some of Dr. Bartlett's late intimations, that he really loves me; but not being at liberty to avow his love, he knew not what to say; and so went as near to a declaration as was possible ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... was Madelene! How could he face her, after all that had happened. He bitterly regretted his weakness in permitting the girl to avow her love for him, in engaging himself ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... a gift was never heard of. Galba, they say, is frugally inclinde: Will he avow so great ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... to him, who, they said, had fallen from these ships which floated in the air. They were kept some days in confinement, and at last having been confronted with their accusers, the latter were obliged, after contesting the matter, and making several depositions, to avow that they knew nothing certain concerning their being carried away, or of their pretended fall from ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... tried to be a good Catholic, if you have complied faithfully with all your religious duties, you will have to avow that it is all owing to the beneficial Catholic influence under which you were placed during the time of your scholarship, and afterwards. If you escaped the general contagion of unbelief and vice, remember that it is owing to a kind of miracle of Divine Protection. But what I have said in ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... justify; a rough-and-tumble finale to his second act—which he could justify; but a set concerto piece in the middle of his third act—which according to his own theories at any rate, he could not justify! He might well avow that when he came to compose Tristan he discovered he had gone far beyond his theories. The justification for the quintet is its beauty and the fact that it finds expression for the feeling of the moment. All the same, I have heard it encored more than once; and an encore ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... grave. Thousands shall deem it an old woman's tale, Such as the nurses frighten babes withal. These in a gulph of anguish and of flame Shall curse their reprobation endlessly. Yet tenfold pangs shall force them to avow, Even on their beds of torment, where they howl, My honor, and the justice of their doom. What then avail their virtuous deeds, their thoughts Of purity, with radiant genius bright, Or lit with human reason's earthly ray? Many are called, but few I will elect. ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... guilty one the necessity of truth and honour, which, although it may not justify me in remitting the penalty, may yet retain him my friendship. A deer has been slain in the woods, and by one of you. Let the guilty boy avow ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... had barred me from the opportunity of controverting the mistake. It was easily accounted for. The writer to whom I allude was himself a person whose scrupulous conscience and strong mistrust of his own judgment, unless supported on every side, induced him to accumulate and to avow as many motives as possible for each single act. He could scarcely understand or believe the existence of a mind which, although powerful and comprehensive in its grasp, should nevertheless deliberately set aside all motives but one, and actually proceed upon that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... Monsieur de Stolberg has not your admirable ease of manner, nor your facility of telling pretty nothings, nor your—in a word, that particular something which makes you the most recherche man of the Faubourg Saint Germain; and even I avow to you that, were I still young, and a coquette, AND THAT I TOOK IT INTO MY HEAD TO HAVE A LOVER, I ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... two pinches of snuff, and I really did not know what to reply to such a Christian speech. On the other hand, I thought in advance how puzzled I should be to reply to M. d'Asterac when he inquired of me after news of the Salamander. What could I say? How was I to avow my reserve and my abstention without betraying my defiance and fear? And after all, without being aware of it, I was curious to try the adventure. I am not credulous. On the contrary I am marvellously inclined to doubt, and by this inclination to brave ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... the advantages of a freer "development." We are perhaps wrong, but we cherish an indistinct suspicion that an indefinite extension of the power of selection would rather tend to the advantage of the sex which more usually chooses. But we have no occasion to avow such opinions now. Milton had no such modern views: he is frankly and honestly anxious for the rights of the man. Of the doctrine that divorce is only permitted for the help of wives, he exclaims, "Palpably ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... me avow, dear cousin, that when first this happy inspiration seized me, I had much ado—you know my promptitude of old—to refrain from seeking you at once and pressing my suit with that ardour which the warmth of my purpose dictated. On second ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... go through the world; I must intoxicate myself by variety and enjoyment; and I have long wished for a broader sphere of observation than my own wild heart. Let us go forth, and I will force the Devil to believe in human virtue. He shall avow to me that man is the eye-apple of Him whom I ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger

... this book, you would find many things therein as strange as any you have heard today. For myself, I have little doubt that old Peter Sanghurst, who has spent years of his life amongst the heathen Moors, and is, as all men avow, steeped to the lips in their strange and unchristian lore, has himself the art of thus gaining the mastery over the minds and wills of others, and that it was no demoniacal possession, but just the wicked will of the old man exercised upon that of ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... Truth, and the Life! ... 'without the Way, there is no going, without the Truth there is no knowing, without the Life there is no living'! Now do I know thee for a saint in Al-Kyris,— for thou dost openly avow thyself a follower of the Divine Faith that fools despise, and selfish souls repudiate, . . ah, I do beseech thee, thou good and holy man, absolve me of my sin of Unbelief! Teach me! ... help me! ... and I will hear thy counsels with the meekness of ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... the stead or place of Abel; not an inch behind him, but even at the place where his blood was spilt. So that he that will revive lost religion, must avow it as God's Abels have done before him: every talker cannot do this. The blood that was shed before his face, must not put check to his godly stomach; yea, he must say to religion, as Ruth said once to her mother, "Where thou diest, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... to suppose that men of intellect adored a monstrous idol called Baphomet, or recognized Mahomet as an inspired prophet. Their symbolism, invented ages before, to conceal what it was dangerous to avow, was of course misunderstood by those who were not adepts, and to their enemies seemed to be pantheistic. The calf of gold, made by Aaron for the Israelites, was but one of the oxen under the laver of bronze, and the Karobim on the Propitiatory, misunderstood. The symbols ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... needs an answer. Great confusion and diversity of opinion prevail as to the real views of the man whose writings have agitated the whole world, scientific and religious. If a man says he is a Darwinian, many understand him to avow himself virtually an atheist; while another understands him as saying that he adopts some harmless form of the doctrine of evolution. This is ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge

... gave no thought to that. Rossi was in prison, therefore beyond suspicion, and she was entirely indifferent to detection. When she had done what she intended to do she would give herself up. She would avow everything, seek no means of justification, and ask for no mercy even in the presence of death. Her only defence would be that the Baron, who was guilty, had to be sent to the supreme tribunal. It would then be for the court to take the responsibility of fixing ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... controlled, but how about fiery Rodney Gray, angry as he undoubtedly was? The latter, quick-tempered and impatient of discipline as he was known to be, when he found himself backed by nearly all the boys in his class and company might avow a determination to take ample vengeance upon his captors; and if he so much as suggested the thing, the students were in the right mood to help ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon

... man any more. He had forsworn it: he would never bet again. But he had just, in the course of the day, taken the odds in one little bet; and he had just happened to win. When his wife charged him with the crime, he was about to avow it. "But no," he thought; "it will be a surprise for her. I will buy her the necklace she scolded me about at Lacy and Gimcrack's; it's just the sum. She has been sulky all day. It's about that she is sulky now. I'll go and have another shy at the sticks." ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... son," returned the captain, pausing in his walk, taking the hand Max held out to him and clasping it affectionately in his. "You had a fine, exciting game this morning out there on the lawn. I was glad to hear my boy avow his attachment to the glorious old flag his father has sailed under for so many years. I trust he will always be ready to do so when such an avowal is called for, ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley

... became dearer to us than our own. He was endowed with such excellent qualities and so many virtues, that we regretted our having abandoned those which the exercise of our profession had made us forget; for in short—to my shame I avow it, sire—we were robbers. He followed us in our expeditions, and distinguished himself on every occasion by deeds of valour and humanity. We lost him in a conflict ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... part to defend transportation abuses and exert their influence against progressive railroad legislation. The vilest means were often resorted to by these sheets to obtain their end. Public men who had the courage to avow their opposition to existing railroad abuses or to favor a more perfect system of State control of railways were misrepresented, ridiculed, traduced and denounced as demagogues and socialists by hypocritical ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... Johnson was pleased to avow that "Mrs. Porter in the vehemence of rage, and Mrs. Clive in the sprightliness of humour, he had never ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... King made a reform, so that it became 'one of the cleanest towns in Europe.' Ib. p 258. Smollett in Humphry Clinker makes Matthew Bramble say (Letter of July 18):—'The inhabitants of Edinburgh are apt to imagine the disgust that we avow is little better ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... of unfriendly intimations, and the sound served to put Nehemiah on his guard anew. He noticed that the glow in Hilary's pipe was still and dull: the smoker did not even draw his breath as he looked and listened. Yerby did not dare avow the true purpose of his presence after his representations to the moonshiners, and yet he could not, he would not in set phrase align himself with the illicit vocation. The boy was too young, too irresponsible, too inimical to his uncle, he reflected in a sudden ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... raised his lance, and passing his antagonist without touching him, wheeled his horse and rode back again to his own end of the lists, offering his antagonist, by a herald, the chance of a second encounter. This De Grantmesnil declined, avow himself vanquished as much by the courtesy as by ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... ungraciously. Most persons in her society, being incapable of appreciating her motives, which were always noble, explained her manner towards her co-celibates as the revenge of a refusal received or expected. When the year 1815 began, Rose had reached that fatal age which she dared not avow. She was forty-two years old. Her desire for marriage then acquired an intensity which bordered on monomania, for she saw plainly that all chance of progeny was about to escape her; and the thing ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac

... clothes, recovered their good humour, and began to rally each other on the trim in which they had been secured. Sophy observed that now Mr. Pickle had an indisputable claim to her cousin's affection; and therefore she ought to lay aside all affected reserve for the future, and frankly avow the sentiments of her heart. Emily retorted the argument, putting her in mind, that by the same claim Mr. Pipes was entitled to the like return from her. Her friend admitted the force of the conclusion, provided ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... against some absolute sovereign, and straight-way enact the pettiest airs of absolutism in their little empire at home. We have no private intimacy with "the autocrat of all the Russias," and may, with all humility, avow that we do not desire to have any; but this we believe, that out of the thousands who call him a tyrant, it would be no difficult matter to pick scores who are as bad, if not worse. Let us remember that it is not a great empire which constitutes a great tyrant. Tyranny ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... Dolores made no answer, she went on again—'Indeed, there is no saying what you have not brought on yourself by your deceit and disobedience. If Flinders is apprehended, you will have to appear against him in court, and publicly avow that you gave away what your father trusted ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... morning, before it was well light, and at a time when brisk youth and slow age were seeking the place of confession, Henry Witherspoon went to the priest, not to acknowledge a sin, but to avow a deep gratitude. The journey was begun early; it was in July. The morning was braced with a cool breeze, the day was cloudless, and night's lingering gleam of silver melted in the gold of morn. Young Witherspoon's impressive nature was up with joy or down with sadness. The prospect of his new ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read

... good-nights were said, and the lights put out, Cary Adams wondered whether he would have the determination to avow his plans. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas

... avow my entire unwillingness to do anything that shall extend the slavery of the African race on this continent, or add other slave-holding States to the Union. When I say that I regard slavery in itself ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... of Deontology. It is not a treatise on Duty, but on Happiness: it tells us what Happiness, or rational well-being, is, and what conduct is conducive to rational well-being. It may be found convenient to follow Aristotle, and avow that the business of Ethics is not Duty, not Obligation, not Law, not Sanction, but Happiness. That fiery little word ought goes unexplained in Ethics, except in an hypothetical sense, that a man ought to do this, and avoid that, if he ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... to the house and shut himself up in his own room. His despair was indeed great; he fancied he had been laughed at by a coquette, while he thought he had been the suitor of an innocent girl. Why did she not tell me the truth yesterday, when I asked her? said he. Why did she not avow her love of young Brignoli? She dared not confide it to me; because she makes a mystery of it to her own mother. Why did she encourage me? Why did she speak of hope? What unworthy plan, what improper calculation influenced her? ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... "instead of the swain asking the hand of the fair one, she selects the young man who is to her fancy, and then her father proposes the match to the sire of the lucky youth" (Schoolcraft, IV., 86). Among the Dariens, says Heriot (325), "it is considered no mark of forwardness" in a woman "openly to avow her inclination," and in Paraguay, too, women were allowed to propose (Moore, 261). Indian girls of the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... known by those who have not made the same attainment." The superficial thinker, carelessly scanning the recorded sayings of Gotama and his expositors in relation to Nirwana, is aware only of a confused mass of metaphysical hieroglyphs and poetical metaphors; but the Buddhist sages avow that whoso, by concentrated study and training of his faculties, pursues the inquiry with adequate perseverance, will at last elicit and behold the real meaning of Nirwana, the achieved insight and revelation forming the widest horizon of rapturous ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... experienced playwrights and accomplished wits of our own days: the porter in Macbeth, the gravediggers in Hamlet, the fool in Lear, even the humours in Love's Labour Lost and The Merchant of Venice have offended. I avow myself an impenitent Shakesperian in this respect also. The constant or almost constant presence of that humour which ranges from the sarcastic quintessence of Iago, and the genial quintessence of Falstaff, through the fantasies of Feste and Edgar, down ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... my lord of Hunsdon drew me up to a quiet gallery that I might hear some music, but he said he durst not avow it, where I might hear the queen play upon the virginals. After I had harkened awhile, I took by the tapestry that hung before the door of the chamber, and seeing her back was toward the door, I ventured within the chamber, and stood a pretty space hearing her play excellently ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... with his motives; at the same time they did not make her like him the less. On the contrary, and Betty felt it was on the contrary, she could not help admiring his bravery, and she was almost ready to worship his strength. Somebody brave enough to avow truth that is unwelcome, and strong enough to do what goes against the grain with himself; such a person is not to be met with every day, and usually excites the profound respect of his fellows, ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... the happy counterbane, Sent down from heaven by some celestial scout, As well its name and nature both avow't." ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... men of Athens, are made in almost every Assembly about the hostilities of Philip, hostilities which ever since the treaty of peace he has been committing as well against you as against the rest of the Greeks; and all, I am sure, are ready to avow, though they forbear to do so, that our counsels and our measures should be directed to his humiliation and chastisement: nevertheless, so low have our affairs been brought by inattention and negligence, I fear it is ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... predisposed to empiricism, which has been the philosophic tradition in this country since Hobbes. We so far agree with Mr. Stephen that we believe Englishmen, in general, to practise a great deal more of empiricism than they avow. But Mill proposed to demonstrate and declare it as a weapon in polemics and an engine of action, and it was here, probably, that the main body of Englishmen deserted him. They were not ready to cut themselves off ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... of separation between their offspring, and the offspring of the unfortunate convict. They would establish distinctions which may serve hereafter to divide the colonists into castes; and although none among them dares publicly avow that future generations should be punished for the crimes of their progenitors, yet such are their private sentiments; and they would have the present race branded with disqualifications, not more for the sake of pampering their own vanity, than with a view to reflect disgrace on the ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... as an answer from him that dares avow it: It is the Work of a Woman, honoured, and esteemed where she lives, for her gracious demeanour, her eminent parts, her pious conversation, her courteous disposition, her exact diligence in her place, and discreet managing of her Family occasions, and more ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... tricks for gain; By fortune thrown amid the actors' train, You keep your native dignity of thought; The plaudits that attend you come unsought, As tributes due unto your natural vein. Your tears have passion in them, and a grace Of genuine freshness, which our hearts avow; Your smiles are winds whose ways we cannot trace, That vanish and return we know not how— And please the better from a pensive face, And thoughtful ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... of the "about to be" in history as in nature became henceforth the essence of my philosophy. My doubts did not arise from one train of reasoning but from ten thousand. Orthodoxy has an answer to everything and will never avow itself worsted. No doubt, it is admitted in criticism itself that a subtle answer may, in certain cases, be a valid one. The real truth does not always look like the truth. One subtle answer may be true, or even at a stretch, two. But for three to be true is more ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... to talk, he could not enjoy nor shine in a conversation when he thought himself unsuitably dressed. Dearly as he loved eating, he "knew not how to eat alone"; pleasure for him must heighten pleasure; and the eye and ear must be flattered like the palate ere he avow himself content. He had no zest in a good dinner when it fell to be eaten "in a bad street and in a periwig-maker's house"; and a collation was spoiled for him by indifferent music. His body was indefatigable, doing him ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... said Mr. Grahame, "that even in these wilds, 'the world's dread laugh' retains its power. Mary, I see, is afraid of being called a female Quixote, and even I find myself disposed to win you to some interest in my object, before I avow it. This I think I can best do by a sketch of the circumstances which led to its adoption. I will give you such a sketch, therefore, if you will promise to acquit me of egotism ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... mark the proper ends of government. It is the business of the politician, who is the philosopher in action, to find out proper means towards those ends, and to employ them with effect. Therefore every honourable connection will avow it is their first purpose to pursue every just method to put the men who hold their opinions into such a condition as may enable them to carry their common plans into execution, with all the power and authority ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... Socialists, propose to themselves a much bolder stroke. Their scheme is the management of the whole productive resources of the country by one central authority, the general Government. And with this view some of them avow as their purpose that the working-classes, or somebody in their behalf, should take possession of all the property of the country, and administer it for the general benefit. The aim of that is to substitute the new rule for the old at a single ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... Despised even there, and something of the doom Of Remus in the trenches. Listen now— Rossi died silent near where Caesar died. HE did not say "My Brutus, is it thou?" But Italy unquestioned testified "I killed him! I am Brutus.—I avow." At which the whole world's laugh of scorn replied "A poor maimed copy of Brutus!" Too much like, Indeed, to be so unlike! too unskilled At Philippi and the honest battle-pike, To be so skilful where a man is killed Near Pompey's statue, ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... more the fig than every fruit * When ripe and hanging from the sheeny bough; Like Devotee who, when the clouds pour rain, * Sheds tears and Allah's power doth avow." ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... copied him to a fault: so great a one, in my opinion, that it throws his "Mistress" infinitely below his "Pindarics" and his later compositions, which are undoubtedly the best of his poems and the most correct. For my own part I must avow it freely to the world that I never attempted anything in satire wherein I have not studied your writings as the most perfect model. I have continually laid them before me; and the greatest commendation which my own partiality can give to my productions is that they are copies, and ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... seem strangely unsuspicious of the real nature of the interest with which you have inspired me; and I owe it to you, as well as to myself, to avow the feelings that prompt me to seek your society so frequently. For some months after I met you, my professional visits afforded me only rare and tantalizing glimpses of you, but from the day of Elsie's death, I have been conscious that my happiness is indissolubly linked with yours,—that ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... the Irish nobility is well known to our readers. The fate of the house of Desmond was, in her mind, sealed from the beginning. It is now an ascertained fact that she drove the great earl into rebellion, who, for a long time, refused openly to avow his approbation of the confederates' schemes, and even seemed at first to cooperate with the queen's forces, in opposition to them. It was only after his cousin Fitzmaurice and his brother John had been ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... Knowledge of which, too late, some men obtain a glimpse, though they dare not avow it. Such men comprehend the necessity of considering substances not merely in their mathematical properties but also in their entirety, in their occult relations and affinities. The greatest man among you ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac

... of Rome, who appear to say what he pretends; and he adduces philosophers who have believed that there are even philosophical truths, the defenders of which cannot reply to objections made against them." "For my part," says Leibnitz, "I avow that I cannot be of the sentiment of those who maintain that a truth can be liable to invincible objections; for what is an objection but an argument of which the conclusion contradicts our thesis? and is not an invincible argument a demonstration?" "It is always necessary to yield ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... the breakfasts; it can't do you any serious or permanent injury so long as you eat something before you go. Oh no, it doesn't matter,—whichever one you choose, you will cheerfully omit the other; for I avow as a Scottish spinster, and the niece of an ex-Moderator, that to a stranger and a foreigner the breakfasts are worse than Arctic explorations. If you do not chance to be ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... let it bee, sayd the heire of Linne; And let it bee, but if I amend: For here I will make mine avow, This reade shall ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols

... Louisa, let me discharge my conscience. Let no accusation of deceit rest with me. I can endure any thing but self-reproach. I avow, therefore, Frank Henley is, in my estimation, the most deserving man I have ever known. A man that I could love infinitely. A man whose virtues I do and must ever love. A man in whose company my heart assures me I could have enjoyed years of ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... he was dwelling in a wholly different world within him, whose wonders no one else knew. I could not tell now these wonders any more than he could have told them then; but it was a world of dreams, of hopes, of purposes, which he would have been more ashamed to avow for himself than I should be to avow for him. It was all vague and vast, and it came out of the books that he read, and that filled his soul with their witchery, and often held him aloof with their charm in the midst of the plays from ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells

... midnight deep when bards avow that tombs Are by their cold inhabitants forsaken, The Roman chief his wasted lamp relumes, And calmly reads by mortal wo unshaken: His iron frame of rest had not partaken, And doubt—dark enemy of slumber—fills ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... his letter (say what he will) was a complete resignation, and that the Duke had a right so to consider it; that in the Duke's conduct there appeared a want of courtesy and an anxiety to get rid of him which it would have been more fair to avow and defend than to deny; that on both sides there was a mixture of obstinacy and angry feeling, and a disposition to treat the question rather as a personal matter than one in which the public interests were deeply concerned. But the charge ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... to avow myself?" she asked. "May Heaven absolve me if I err herein! No, give me leisure to reflect: this were too sudden. These passion-hurried vows were too much like those vapors, that, igniting, rush like to unorbed stars across the night, then, vanished, leave ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege

... Scriptural truth of some of the tenets there dissented from; it becomes a question of interest among us as Lutherans, which representation is correct. For the points disputed are those, on the ground of which the constitutions of the General Synod and of her Seminary avow only a qualified assent to the Augsburg Confession. In hope of contributing to the prevalence of truth, and the interests of that kingdom of God which is based on it, the writer has carefully re-examined the original documents, and herewith submits the results to the friends ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker

... dealings with their own subjects or with other people, no other civilized nation stands condemned before the world with a series of crimes so peculiarly national. It becomes a painful duty of the Negro to reproduce a record which shows that a large portion of the American people avow anarchy, condone murder and defy the contempt of civilization. These pages are written in no spirit of vindictiveness, for all who give the subject consideration must concede that far too serious is the condition of that civilized government in which the spirit of unrestrained outlawry ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett

... object, for I shall myself presently have occasion to use very similar language, although attaching to it a widely different meaning from that with which it is used by Professor Huxley. But the latter goes on to avow his belief that the human body, like every other living body, is a machine, all the operations of which will sooner or later be explained on physical principles, insomuch that we shall eventually arrive ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... out because he was drawn out, by the force of an attraction which he would scarcely avow even to himself,—a mysterious and horrible attraction which, if he had been a logical human being like the rest of us, ought to have ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... with, chime in with, strike in with, close in with; echo, enter into one's views, agree in opinion; vote, give one's voice for; recognize; subscribe to, conform to, defer to; say yes to, say ditto, amen to, say aye to. acknowledge, own, admit, allow, avow, confess; concede &c. (yield) 762; come round to; abide by; permit &c. 760. arrive at an understanding, come to an understanding, come to terms, come to an agreement. confirm, affirm; ratify, appprove, indorse, countersign; corroborate ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... more prosaic standpoint than the grateful enthusiasm his generous sympathy had at first awakened in her mind. "I have heard that it is a Frenchman's faculty to consider himself irresistible, and to avow his adoration for a new divinity every week. And I was so foolish as to fancy there was a depth of feeling in his tone and manner! I am sure he is all that is good and generous; but the falling in love is no doubt ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... As time went on, he allowed himself to be more and more replaced by his assistant, Mr. Uttley, one of the most remarkable characters I ever met with. In those days, in a northern provincial town, it required immense courage to avow religious heterodoxy of any advanced kind, yet Mr. Uttley said with the utmost simplicity that he was an atheist, and the religious world called him "Uttley the Atheist," a title which he accepted as naturally as if ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... hated your lessons so, Kenneth," said Marian. "I thought Patty was the only one of my friends who was willing to avow that she was like that 'Poor little Paul, who didn't like ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells

... him, yet plays to me with his best graces, as to an old patron of the show. Perhaps, if I am not careful, something may befall me like what befell George IV. about the battle of Waterloo, and I may come to fancy the "Vicomte" one of the first, and Heaven knows the best, of my own works. At least, I avow myself a partisan; and when I compare the popularity of the "Vicomte" with that of "Monte Cristo," or its own elder brother, the "Trois Mousquetaires," I confess I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... class, of much less use than these, but of much greater name. Men of the first rank in learning, and to whom the whole tribe of scholars bow with reverence. A man must be as indifferent as I am to common censure or approbation, to avow a thorough contempt for the whole business of these learned lives; for all the researches into antiquity, for all the systems of chronology and history, that we owe to the immense labors of a Scaliger, a ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... is it that you take me for a duchess? I come from the ouvriers, me, the working peoples. I avow it. Never can I do my shops in a hat. ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... gratified by your moderation because (though I am ashamed to avow it) I have heard you was too impetuous. Pardon my mistake; and suffer me to entreat you to encourage a steady pursuit of republican measures in that way which will convince the bystanders that the actors are uniformly and irresistibly urged to pursue them by cool conviction, resulting ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... that, within Memory, this heretofore sober Nation has been debauch'd from Principles of Vertue and Religion, to such an excess of Vice and Prophaneness, that it has been Fashionable to have no shame of the grossest Immoralities; and Men have thought even to recommend themseves by avow'd Impiety. A Change which could not be consider'd without extream regret by all who either were in earnest Christians, or who truly lov'd the Prosperity of their Country: And as upon this occasion there was reason to be sensible that nothing operates so powerfully as ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham

... subject of pockets—we acknowledge it—we avow it. From our youth upwards, and we are venerable now, we have made them the object of untiring research, analysis, and speculation; and if our exertions have occasionally involved us in contingent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various

... subjects which deeply interested her, Madeleine passed for a clever, intriguing woman who had her own objects to gain. True it is, beyond peradventure, that all residents of Washington may be assumed to be in office or candidates for office; unless they avow their object, they are guilty of an attempt—and a stupid one—to deceive; yet there is a small class of apparent exceptions destined at last to fall within the rule. Mrs. Lee was properly assumed to be a candidate for ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... bargain with my children: I expect obedience. Nor as a father am I obliged to give my reasons. But since you are leaving us, and I would not dismiss you harshly, let me say that I have studied this man for whom you avow a fondness; and apart from his calling—which I detest—I find him vain, foppish, insincere. He has levitas with levitas: I believe his heart to be as shallow as his head. I know him to be no fit mate for one of my daughters; least ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... other man I should answer that question only by a look; but to you, and because you are indeed almost the father of Monsieur de Camps, I reply by asking what you would think of a woman if to such a question she answered you? To avow our love for him we love, when he loves us—ah! that may be; but even when we are certain of being loved forever, believe me, monsieur, it is an effort for us, and a reward to him. To say ...
— Madame Firmiani • Honore de Balzac

... and a congregation of a dozen humble folk. But this the Empress would not allow. The reason she gave was her desire that my conversion should be proclaimed throughout the city, that other Pagans, of whom there were thousands, might follow my example. Yet I think she had another which she did not avow. It was that I might be made known in public as a man of importance whom it ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard

... consider that swearing, agreeably to its nature, or natural aptitude and tendency, is represented in Holy Scripture as a special part of religious worship, or devotion towards God; in the due performance whereof we do avow Him for the true God and Governor of the world; we piously do acknowledge His principal attributes and special prerogatives; His omnipresence and omniscience, extending itself to our most inward ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... was Tasso ashamed of those casual imitations of other poets which are so often branded as plagiarisms, that, in his Commentary on his Rime, he takes pains to point out and avow whatever coincidences of this kind ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... calmly, and rousing herself to the necessary effort, "I am deeply and sincerely grateful for the interest you express —for the affection you avow. But you deceive yourself. I have pondered well over the alternative I have taken. I do not regret nor repent—much less would I retract it. The earth that you speak of, full of affections and of bliss to others, has ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... his discretion. It behooved him to be discreet at this juncture; he must not injure Aurora Googe's cause, which he deemed as righteous a one as ever the sun shone upon, by any injudicious word that might avow ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... stay against his will. It was a painful situation to be placed in; but he now regretted it the less, inasmuch as it afforded him an opportunity of acknowledging before their mutual friends that he loved Mr. Wardle's daughter deeply and sincerely, that he was proud to avow that the feeling was mutual, and that if thousands of miles were placed between them, or oceans rolled their waters, he could never for an instant forget those happy days when ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz

... man of that age, and havinge a greate office in the courte, made the courte itselfe better esteemed and more reverenced in the country; and as he had a greate number of frends of the best men, so no man had ever wickednesse to avow himselfe to be his enimy. He was a man very well bredd, and of excellent partes, and a gracefull speaker upon any subjecte, havinge a good proportion of learninge, and a ready witt to apply it, and inlarge upon ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... none knew her determination therein better than yourself. For at your going hence, she did peremptorily charge you not to accept any such title and office; and therefore her straight commandment now is that you shall not accept the same, for she will never assent thereto, nor avow ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... through the crowd, and approaching the prince.) Here, in these hallowed aisles; here, in the face of Heaven, and of man, by all your hopes of future preservation, avow your treason, and your sovereign's wrongs, detested, treacherous, murderous villain!—(prince much agitated.) See, guilt is on him! Now, ye who had no faith (to the monks) and ye who trample upon sacred rights (to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various

... Palais-Royal, from where they are dispatched in correspondence and in newspapers to the provinces.[1425]—Thus we see the second means of compulsion; each deputy is answerable for his vote, at Paris, with his own life, and, in the province, with those of his family. Members of the former Third-Estate avow that they abandon the idea of two Chambers, because "they are not disposed to get their wives' and children's throats cut." On the 30th of August, Saint-Hurugue, the most noisy of the Palais-Royal barkers, marches off to Versailles, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... replied Kennedy, "and I presume the author to be a Socinian, who, if consistent at all with his opinions, will sooner or later reject the Bible entirely, and avow himself to be what he really is already, namely, a Deist. Where did your lordship find ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... relieved. With such sanction, and with ardour before you like mine, I see that you could do no other than consent, and there is not a shadow of censure in my mind; but if, without compromising your sense of obedience, you could openly avow our engagement to Mr. Mansell, I own that I should feel that we were not drawn into a compromise of sincerity. What this costs me I will not say; it will be bare existence ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... not at heart—in this splendid country of ours—engaged in a mad struggle and race for wealth. We are engaged rather in the greatest effort ever made in the world for the upbuilding of a higher civilization. To avow that this civilization must rest upon a physical and material basis,—that is to say, upon a high development of our productive capacity and upon a constant improvement in our processes of distribution and ...
— The business career in its public relations • Albert Shaw

... resolutely proceeding on our determination to avow our obligations to the authorities we have consulted, we frankly say, that to the note-book of Mr. Snodgrass are we indebted for the particulars recorded in this and the succeeding chapter—particulars which, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... that this preliminary essay is merely to justify the rather appetizing title of my book I shall be at no pains to quarrel. If privately I think it does more, publicly I shall not avow it. Historically and critically, I admit, the thing is as slight as a sketch contained in five-and-thirty pages must be, and certainly it adds nothing to what I have said, in the essays to which it stands preface, on aesthetic theory. The function it ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell



Words linked to "Avow" :   tell, acknowledge, assure, attest, disavow, avouch, admit, protest, take, claim, declare, hold



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