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Enlightening   /ɛnlˈaɪtənɪŋ/  /ɛnlˈaɪtnɪŋ/   Listen
Enlightening

adjective
1.
Tending to increase knowledge or dissipate ignorance.  Synonyms: illuminating, informative.  "An illuminating lecture"
2.
Enlightening or uplifting so as to encourage intellectual or moral improvement.  Synonym: edifying.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Enlightening" Quotes from Famous Books



... nothing. He sat rigid, with so grave a look on his face that his extra gravity passed on to me; and in its enlightening perturbation I began to realise more than I had yet done the strangeness of the case in which I was now so deeply concerned. When once this thought had begun there was no end to it. Indeed it grew, and blossomed, and reproduced itself in a thousand ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker

... industrious of herself, fetch day Travelling east, and with her part averse From the Sun's beam meet night, her other part Still luminous by his ray. What if that light, Sent from her through the wide transpicuous air, To the terrestrial Moon be as a star, Enlightening her by day, as she by night This Earth—reciprocal, if land be there, Fields and inhabitants? Her spots thou seest As clouds, and clouds may rain, and rain produce Fruits in her softened soil, for some to eat Allotted there; and other Suns, perhaps, With their attendant Moons, thou wilt descry, ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard

... gloried in terrifying, without enlightening his rivals; he exulted that he was devoting to "the rods of criticism and the laughter of Europe the bibliopoles," or dealers in books, who would not get by heart his "Catechism" of a thousand and one questions and answers: it broke the slumbers of honest De Bure, who had found ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... eyes, not with his. This, alone, will keep him from a multiplicity of errors. Now the same principles, actuated by the same kind of love, should be at the bottom of all social government. I believe that we shall be better able in practice to place wise limits to interference by regulating and enlightening the animus which prompts it, than by laying down rules for its action determined upon abstract considerations. The attempt to fix such rules is not to be despised; but if the persons, or society, about to interfere on any occasion, desired a ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps

... mother; the wife torn from the embrace of her husband; the daughter driven to the market by the scourge of her own father;—he saw the word of God sealed up from those who, of all men, were especially entitled to its enlightening, quickening influence;—nay, he saw men beaten for kneeling before the throne of heavenly mercy;—such things he saw without a word of admonition or reproof! No sympathy with them who suffered wrong—no indignation at them who ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... do thou be silent as to the king's purpose, and this mischief of thy making may be repaired. Thou mayest look as if thou wert bursting with wisdom, if it please thee, but see that thou give no enlightening ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger

... sun, giving light and heat to the earth, is a figure 538:12 of divine Life and Love, enlightening and sustaining the universe. The "tree of life" is significant of eternal reality or being. The "tree of knowl- 538:15 edge" typifies unreality. The testimony of the serpent is significant of the illusion of error, of the false ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... believer fitfully, expresses himself in visible signs, deprives men of self-consciousness, and puts them beside themselves. According to the other, the spirit is a constant possession of the Christian, operates in him by enlightening the conscience and strengthening the character, and his fruits are love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, etc. (Gal. V. 22). Paul above all taught Christians to value these fruits of the spirit higher ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... I had some enlightening experiences relating to the old saying of us men that curiosity—inquisitiveness—is stronger among woman. I noticed, frequently, that when we drove unannounced down the middle aisle of a great plant full of workers and machines, the first people to look up from their work were the ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt

... are possessed with a very great degree of dulness, who living under the means of such enlightening preaching, should not be mightily settled in the right notion and true bounds of ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... meaning with any degree of precision. It is used now in a philosophic and now in a religious sense, and its use in the one connection is justified by its use in another. It has become, in the half century of its existence, as indefinite as "religion," and about as enlightening. On the one side it appears as a counsel of mental integrity with which everyone will agree, and on the other, the religious side, it will vary from a form that is identical, with that much-dreaded "Atheism," to ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen

... the fire of concupiscence, envy, ambition, or the love of creatures. We also hold these lights in our hands to honor Christ, and to acknowledge him as the true light,[5] whom they represent under this character, and who is called by holy Simeon in this mystery, a light for the enlightening of the Gentiles;[6] for he came to dispel our spiritual darkness. The candles likewise express that by faith his light shines in our souls: as also that we are to prepare his way by good works, by which we are to ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... Petitot would see them were he in your place; as Messer Fabri and Messer Baudichon—I warrant it—do see them; as—pardon me—all who rank themselves among the wise and the illuminate, see them. For all such, believe me, these are times of enlightening, when the words which past generations have woven into shackles for men's minds fall from them, and are seen to be but the straw they are; when men move, like children awaking ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... as she was; a pretty, winning, half-educated little girl, to whom the world of art and literature was a sphere apart, its shibboleths mere meaningless babble in her ears, its greatest exponents but so many confusing names, divorced from any enlightening personalities. ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... and harpist, made a tour in the southern provinces, and the two muses, poetry and music, went from town to town, enlivening and enlightening the way. Every heart praised the poet for giving his services to his young and beautiful friend. They applauded also the lovely woman who made her harp-chords vibrate with her minstrel's music. The pair went to Montauban, Albi, Toulouse, and Nimes; they were welcomed ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles

... ready, and ingenious, but dealt in platitudes unworthy of his reputation. Lord Brougham was bitter against his former friends, allowing his personal spleen to interfere with his patriotism and the public welfare. He did not succeed either in embarrassing the ministry or enlightening the lords. The debates in the commons were regarded with more interest by the country than those in the lords. Mr. Disraeli's sarcasm that the house of lords had become "the high court of registry," had truth in it. The address gave rise to much ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... given the world classical volumes on European flora only, but showing a vast array of facts which the theory of adaptation to insects alone correlates and explains. That the results of illumining researches should be so slow in enlightening the popular mind can be due only to the technical, scientific language used in setting them forth, language as foreign to the average reader as Chinese, and not to be deciphered by the average student either, without the help of a glossary. These ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... reputation, giving his adherence to the vainest of vain lies; and however zealous he might be in destroying this elaborate structure which he had helped to build, however successful the disagreeable task of enlightening his sister and the maligned man's most interested friends might prove, the reproach upon his own ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... natures is impossible, Shakespeare possessed beyond any other man recorded in literature or history. It is a moral as well as mental trait, and belongs to the highest class of virtues. It is a virtue which, if generally exercised, would remove mutual hostility by enlightening mutual ignorance. And in Shakespeare we have, for once, a man great enough to be modest and charitable; who has the giant's power, but, instead of using it like a giant, trampling on weaker creatures, prefers to feel them in his arms rather than feel them under his feet; and whose toleration ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... and cautiously guarded grants of specific powers, would have been useless, if not delusive. It would be impossible in that view to escape from the conclusion that these were inserted only to mislead for the present, and, instead of enlightening and defining the pathway of the future, to involve its action in the mazes of doubtful construction. Such a conclusion the character of the men who framed that sacred instrument will never permit us to form. Indeed, to suppose it susceptible of any other construction would ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson

... at once, and with Mr. Kemble tried to soothe the strong emotions of the parents, while at the same time enlightening them as to their ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... was seated in royal pomp Opposite that mildly-radiant beauty; And Rudabeh could not rest from looking towards him, And gazing upon him with all her eyes; On that arm, and shoulder, and that splendid figure, On the brightness of that soul-enlightening countenance; So that the more and more she looked The more and more was ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... said it was charming and just the right thing for her, how delightful that would be! On the other hand, she might make one of those terrible enlightening little remarks that smashed up all illusions and practically spoilt the fun. How right she had been about Bobby! "Not worth worrying about." How right about many other people! Then Felicity now settled nothing (with regard to ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson

... I cannot raise my eyes—they cannot bear The beams of his, which, like the sun's, I feel Are on me, though I see them not enlightening The heaven of his young face; nor dare I scan The brightness of his form, which symmetry And youth and beauty in enriching vie. He kneels to me! Now grows my breathing thick, As though I did await a seraph's voice, Too ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles

... century the wars ceased, and the impetuous energy of the rejuvenated Orient was diverted into quieter channels. The Bagdad Khalifate arose, the peaceful era of the growth of industry, the sciences, and the arts was inaugurated. Endowed with quick discernment for every enlightening movement, the Jews yielded to the vivifying ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow

... form. After this he thanks him for the confirmation of amity; and then, with some heat and no less truth, calls his attention to the uncertainty of the prophecy concerning his rule over the world, enlightening him by the way as to some matters of our holy faith. In conclusion, with reference to the acknowledgment of subjection which he had supposed us to make, the letter states that our trust was wholly in God and in our obedience to Him, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair

... done every thing in our power to spread republican notions hereabouts," said Jean Debry, at the conclusion of his lengthy remarks. "We have sent agents to all of these small German states for the purpose of enlightening the people about their dignity, their rights, and the disgrace of submitting to miserable princes, instead of being free and great under the wholesome ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... always driven back, whatever may be pretended to the contrary, to the realities of which history alone possesses the secret. The idea of wealth cannot absorb everything when there is question of judging and enlightening men. To do this, it is necessary to know the various phases of social housekeeping, what nations have thought of economic interests which have never ceased to interest them greatly, what they have attempted and ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... one on the painter Watteau, another on the philosophy of Spinoza, a third on the Pagan elements of the early Renaissance, and the last, and in some respects the most suggestive, on the source of that Aufklarung, that enlightening which dawned on Germany in the last century, and to which our own culture owes so great a debt. Dialogue, certainly, that wonderful literary form which, from Plato to Lucian, and from Lucian to Giordano Bruno, and ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde

... least instructed, is nevertheless conducive to progress, because the appeals constantly made to the less instructed classes, the exercise given to their mental powers, and the exertions which the more instructed are obliged to make for enlightening their judgment and ridding them of errors and prejudices, are powerful stimulants to their advance in intelligence. That this most desirable effect really attends the admission of the less educated classes to some, and even to a large share of power, I admit, and ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... unconscious of the presence of the white figure that stood at the head of the stairs holding up a lamp, like liberty enlightening the world, and as a tremulous voice called him to the judgment bar, the door closed behind him on the paradise of a fool, and he sneaked up the steps, muttering to himself, "What shadows we are—(hic)—what ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... to us a sufficient reason for exemption from the law: and yet he involves us, with such dispositions, in the contradictions of commerce and property, in which, by the necessity of the theory, charity and justice are bound to perish! Instead of enlightening our reason concerning the bearing of principles which impose themselves upon it with all the power of necessity, but whose consequences, adopted by egoism, are fatal to human fraternity, he places this abused reason at the service of our passion; by seduction of the mind, ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... from the Aristotelian effort to find amidst individual facts the law, and had more and more passed into an empiric and mostly uncritical observation of the external and surprising in nature, natural science when coming forward as a mystical philosophy of nature, instead of enlightening and stimulating, could only still more stupefy and paralyze; and in presence of such a method it was better to rest satisfied with the platitude which Cicero delivers as Socratic wisdom, that the investigation of nature either seeks after things which nobody can know, or after ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... and peace, charity and justice, all are represented as feminine, and lately, as a proof of his devotion, he has erected at the entrance to the harbor of our greatest metropolis a statue of liberty and this too is represented as a woman.... And so we hail the men, liberty enlightening a world where woman and man shall alike ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... not only of his talents and sagacity, but also of his morals." The italics are mine. It seems difficult for the outsider to-day quite to sign to this point of view, when one remembers Louis Napoleon's deception and his broken honour and cruelty. There is a very enlightening and suggestive passage in one of Robert Louis Stevenson's books, "To travel happily is better than to arrive." In Kossuth's case the reverse was true. He travelled towards his goal unhappily, but he "arrived," and that was a reward which is not given to every patriot who gives ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... determinism follows as surely from the attributes of foreknowledge assumed by the theologian, as from the universality of natural causation assumed by the man of science. The angels in 'Paradise Lost' would have found the task of enlightening Adam upon the mysteries of "Fate, Foreknowledge, and Free-will," not a whit more difficult, if their pupil had been educated in a "Real-schule" and trained in every laboratory of a modern university. In respect of the great problems of Philosophy, ...
— The Reception of the 'Origin of Species' • Thomas Henry Huxley

... university, with four hundred students—and, better still, its good efforts are not confined to enlightening the one sex. There are sixteen public schools, with buildings which cost $500,000; there are six thousand pupils and one hundred and twenty-eight teachers. There are also seventy churches existing, and a lot more projected. The banks aggregate a capital of $3,000,000, and the wholesale jobbing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the man for whom Pierre hunted? What was McGurk? Not even the description of Wilbur had proved very enlightening. Her thought of him was vague, nebulous, and taking many forms. Sometimes he was tall and dark and stern. Again he was short and heavy and somewhat deformed of body. But always he was everywhere in ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... the thought, which he did not express to Florrie, that his fancied limitations, which prevented him from being on the bridge, also prevented him from enlightening the morbid Billings as to the real source of the "terrible punch" he had received; for, while he could justify his silence to Florrie, he could only, with regard to Billings, feel a masculine dread of ridicule ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... he took his pencil and pointed out an imperceptible black point in the scallops of an oval blotch, adding: "There it is." She bent over the map; the maze of coloured lines hurt her eyes without enlightening her; and when Bourais asked her what puzzled her, she requested him to show her the house Victor lived in. Bourais threw up his hands, sneezed, and then laughed uproariously; such ignorance delighted his soul; but Felicite failed to understand ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert

... reason, without inquiring into what had been the former state of things, or what will be the future. But man does not continue in that state of ignorance or insensibility to truth; and there are few of those who have the opportunity of enlightening their minds with intellectual knowledge, that do not wish at some time or another to be informed of what concerns the whole, and to look into the transactions of time past, as well as to form some judgment with regard ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton

... was given in the English language, but it was no more enlightening to Edwin than the afternoon's sermon had been; still, by his expression of reverence and awe the congregation was not aware of this fact. At the close of the service Edwin was surprized to see that the entire congregation arose and remained standing as he ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum

... declared that he would have done so with all his heart, but that this very Easter Sunday there was coming a friend of Master Hansen's from Holland; who was to tell them much of the teaching in Germany, which was so enlightening ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... and never failed to add a new stimulus to the fanaticism of their hearers. On the present occasion[c] the crimes of the archbishop offered a tempting theme to their eloquence; and the next morning the Commons, taking into consideration the last message, intrusted[d] to a committee the task of enlightening the ignorance of the Lords. ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... cooperation of parents; and hence it is important that parents should be led to understand the reasons or arguments for sex-instruction. In other words, they should know the problems that indicate the importance of enlightening the rising generation concerning the great facts ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow

... beneath, The chequered earth seems restless as a flood Brushed by the wind. So sportive is the light Shot through the boughs, it dances as they dance, Shadow and sunshine intermingling quick, And darkening and enlightening, as the leaves Play wanton, ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... whereat the attentive stationmaster is greatly distressed. He advises us to hire a trap and drive to some place with an unpronounceable name, where Mr. Hunter is sure to meet us; visitors often do that, he says. I try to discover why we can't drive all the way, but his answers are not enlightening; "big hill," he replies, and I don't see why the trap can't go up a hill! However, we shall see. He engages a trap for us, anyway; with a scarecrow horse and a friendly looking driver whose hairy legs protrude from wrappings ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... find vision. "Enlightening the eyes." The eyes of the obedient are anointed with the eye-salve of grace, and wondrous panoramas break upon the sight. Visions of grace! Visions of love! Visions ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... discard all irrational and artificial wants and mere useless pursuits. She would willingly direct their attention to the natural history and botany of this new country, in which they will find a never-failing source of amusement and instruction, at once enlightening and elevating the mind, and serving to fill up the void left by the absence of those lighter feminine accomplishments, the practice of which are necessarily superseded by imperative domestic duties. To the person who is capable of looking abroad into the beauties of nature, and adoring the Creator ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... the light; how is it possible that such efforts should be overborne by forces of blind brutality, now that the human race has got so far?—Yes, yes; but this mortal whom I caress as reasonable, as enlightened and enlightening, this author, investigator, lecturer, or studious gentleman, to whose coat-tails I cling, does he always represent justice and peace, sweetness of manners, purity of life—all the things which makes for true civilization? Here ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... so much in request, and worked so hard in the House, he never missed one of her Thursday evenings. Even when there was an important debate on he would tear up Birdcage Walk in a hansom, and spend an hour in the Duchess's amber drawing-rooms, enlightening Lady Mabel as to the latest aspect of the Policy of Conciliation, or standing by the piano while she ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon

... me that I could do something more enlightening than stare at the envelope: I could open it. I did so, breaking a seal with the same monogram I had noticed on the gold fittings in the celebrated bag. Apparently the entwined ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... though the West was gradually declining intellectually on account of the fall of Rome and the barbarian invasions which followed in its train, there were signs of progress in the East which, feeble at first, was destined in the course of several centuries to illumine the whole of Europe with its enlightening rays. ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... that the Catholic Church has accomplished the great work of enlightening society. She has shed the light of Faith over the East and the West, over the North and the South, and with the faith she has established the principles of true science on their natural bases. She has imparted education to the masses, wherever she was left free to adopt her own, and untrammelled ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... the future fate of man differed from the foregoing in the following particulars. First, it limited the redeeming mission of Christ to the enlightening influences of the truths which he proclaimed with Divine authority, the moral power of his perfect example, and the touching motives exhibited in his death. Secondly, it asserted a natural ability in every man to live ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... lay, and then crawl under the truck of 218. They weren't a moment too soon, for the next instant I heard two or three people jump on to the platform, and Albert Cullen's voice drawl, "Aw, by Jove, what's the row?" Camp not enlightening them, Lord Ralles suggested that they get on the car to find out, and the three did so. A moment later the sheriff came to the door and told Camp that I was ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... affected to a large extent the Anglican communion. But the multiplied divisions and multiplying sub-divisions among the conflicting creeds, a wasteful overlapping and disastrous competition in the mission field, the enlightening experience of the great war, have forced an issue ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... and wide intellectual sympathies, or, as he put it to a lawyer who was kindly enlightening him about some matters of scientific notoriety, "I don't live in a cupboard myself." His own terse summing up of the Irish difficulty could hardly be better illustrated than by the current story of the discomfiture of an English Treasury official, who ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... know I was either, till you told me one day. In fact, you're always enlightening me. How wonderful you must be to discover so many things in ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... geography, its inexorable climates with their flora and fauna, make a play-ground for the human will which should be well surveyed by any statesman who wishes to judge and act, not fantastically, but with reference to the real situation. Geography is a most enlightening science. In describing the habitat of man it largely explains his history. Animal battles give the right and only key to human conflicts, for the superadded rational element in man is not partisan, but on the contrary ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... HIM, the Para-Brahm, the All, The Uncreated;; not Asat, not Sat, Not Form, nor the Unformed; yet both, and more;— Whose hands are everywhere, and everywhere Planted His feet, and everywhere His eyes Beholding, and His ears in every place Hearing, and all His faces everywhere Enlightening and encompassing His worlds. Glorified in the senses He hath given, Yet beyond sense He is; sustaining all, Yet dwells He unattached: of forms and modes Master, yet neither form nor mode hath He; He is within all beings—and without— Motionless, ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold

... in good spirits, she awakened Bobby to a new interest in life. The philosophy with which she regarded tumultuous events, the easy cynicism with which she dismissed a discussion which bordered upon the serious, seemed to deprive him of any means of enlightening himself as to her ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson

... such as he must look at away up in the heavens. Such a man, one would say, would never look at the moon, because she never turns her other side to us. The light which comes from ideas which have their orbit as distant from the earth, and which is no less cheering and enlightening to the benighted traveller than that of the moon and stars, is naturally reproached or nicknamed as moonshine by such. They are moonshine, are they? Well, then, do your night-travelling when there is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... explained in the first of them what I understand by the word, giving it a much wider scope than was intended by those who originally used it to denote only that revival of classical antiquity in the fifteenth century which was but one of many results of a general excitement and enlightening of the human mind, of which the great aim and achievements of what, as Christian art, is often falsely opposed to the Renaissance, were another result. This outbreak of the human spirit may be traced far into the middle age itself, ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater

... at this time that Our Lord sent him a vision to strengthen and console him. He beheld one night, as he was holding his vigils, the glorious Queen of the angels, who appeared to him holding in her arms her Blessed Son, enlightening him with the splendor of glory and charming him by her ...
— The Autobiography of St. Ignatius • Saint Ignatius Loyola

... I'd do that. There must be something in Blair's past that can be unearthed and may prove enlightening. I could do it in a week, and it might be ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells

... sagacity which never touched a question without enlightening it thoroughly. Aramis smiled, as he had long known that in diplomacy D'Artagnan acknowledged no superior. Colbert, who, like all proud men, dwelt upon his fantasy with a certainty of success, resumed the subject, "Who told you, M. d'Artagnan, ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... of Rizzi is an enlightening one for the student of social conditions in New York, for Rizzi was no Orsini, not even a Guy Fawks, nor yet was he an outlaw in his own name. He was simply a picciott' (pronounced "pish-ot") who did what ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... influences. Providence which directs the advancement of mankind, moves in such mysterious ways that none can sense its design or reason out its import. Frequently the forces of evil are turned to account in defeating their own objects. Great tragedies, cruel wars, cataclysms of woe, have acted as enlightening and refining agents. Out of the famines of the past came experiences which inculcated the ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... smooggling?" Old Joe shut his mouth sternly; for he hated and scorned the coast-guards, whose wages were shamefully above his own, and who had the impudence to order him for signals; while, on the other hand, he found free trade a policy liberal, enlightening, and inspiriting. ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... be more enlightening to German opinion than the official communication. But while the German was frankly puzzled by the American contention—holding that there was an intimate connection between England's "illegal blockade ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... for the people of Israel, holy and no longer polluted by the presence of heathen invaders. Peace and prosperity shall then be the lot of Jehovah's people. Above all he will pour out his purifying, enlightening spirit upon all classes, so that young and old, slave and free, shall be inspired by the consciousness of his message and ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent

... confess, in reading Shakespeare in my closet, struck by some passage, I have laid down the volume, and said: 'This Shakespeare is a queer man.' At times seeming irresponsible, he does not always seem reliable. There appears to be a certain—what shall I call it?—hidden sun, say, about him, at once enlightening and mystifying. Now, I should be afraid to say what I have sometimes thought that hidden ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... eyebrows slightly when he saw it; and he did not hand it on until he had made himself master of its contents, though that did not prove to be very enlightening or interesting. The note, in fact, merely expressed gratification at the news that Dunn had secured steady work, a somewhat weak hope that he would keep it, and a still fainter hope that now perhaps he would be able to return the ten shillings borrowed, ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon

... direction. In the second place, we can gather from our literary sources a catalogue of toward fifty of his works, a larger list than can be made out for any other sculptor. Moreover, of several pieces we get really enlightening descriptions, and there are in addition one or two valuable general comments on his style. Finally two of his statues that are mentioned in literature can be identified with sufficient certainty in copies. The basis of judgment is ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... Bettina had been taken to France and placed at school there. The resulting experience was an enlightening one, far more illuminating to the quick-witted American child than it would have been to an English, French, or German one, who would not have had so much to learn, and probably would not have been ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... go and write an answer to this illustrious friend. Meanwhile, Prince, learn not to give way so readily to what causes you alarm. I have calmed your emotion by enlightening you, and the whole affair has passed off quietly; but, to tell you the truth, a time may come when I ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere

... knowing that the Lord appears as a sun in the spiritual world, and that His Divine thus proceeds, it can in no way be known what is meant by "proceeding," whether it means simply communicating those things which are the Father's and the Son's, or simply enlightening and teaching. But inasmuch as it has been known that God is one, and that He is omnipresent, it is not in accord with enlightened reason to recognize the proceeding Divine as a Divine per se, and to call it God, and ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg

... faith, without asking, simply at the bidding of His own irrepressible pity. But the rule in regard to His miracles is that faith was the condition that drew out the miraculous energy. The connection between our faith and our experience of His supernatural, sustaining, cleansing, gladdening, enlightening power is closer than that. For without our trust in Him, He can do no mighty works upon us, and there must be confidence, on our part, before there is in our experience the reception into our lives of His highest ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... recognised the description and hurried off to meet the Master, to whom he reported it verbatim. Confucius was hugely delighted. "A stray dog!" said he; "fine! fine!" Unluckily, no contemporary photographs of Yao and Yu and the others have come down; so the description is not as enlightening now as it may ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... Ikkie has also been enlightening me on other baby-customs of her ancestors, explaining that it was once the habit for a mother to name her baby for the first thing seen after its birth. That, I told Dinky-Dunk, was probably why there were so many "Running Rabbits," ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... way to the door, and Roddy, frowning gravely, sank back into his chair, the long silence was broken by a babble of whispered questions and rapid answers. Even to those who understood no English the pantomime had been sufficiently enlightening. Unobtrusively the secret agents of Alvarez rose from the tables and stole into the night. A half-hour later it was known in Caracas that the son of Mr. Forrester had publicly insulted the representative of his father, the arch-enemy ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis

... find, even in this age, arise amidst the clouds of deception and the smoke of the furnace. Delusion and error vanish and pass away, and truths seized upon by a few superior men become permanent, and the property of an enlightening world. Amongst the personages who belong to this early period, there are two whom I must request you to notice—one an Englishman, who pointed out the paths to the discovery of scientific truths, ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy

... was another uneasy pause. Hozier felt that the question was addressed to him, but he was tongue-tied, almost shame-faced. Coke, however, did not shirk the task of enlightening her. ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... eternity. Every minute that passed, leaving Lucilla still undisturbed in her delusion, was a minute that pricked me in the conscience. The longer we left her in ignorance, the more painful to all of us the hard duty of enlightening her would become. I began to get restless. Lucilla, on her side, began to complain of fatigue. After the agitation that she had gone through, the inevitable reaction had come. I recommended her to go to her room and rest. ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... newspaper, she gazed for a moment at the package, trying to guess what it could be. It was square, flat, about a foot and a half one way by a foot the other. What was Gerald Fane sending her like that without any enlightening missive? A note might be inside. She cut the string, took off the newspaper, to find a second wrapper of clean white drawing-paper. After touching and pinching, she guessed the object to be a picture-frame and picture. Filled with curiosity, she pulled off the last wrapping, and ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... prone from her pedestal in his imagination? Could he, then, in love for the woman herself, condescend as marquis to marry one who might not have married him as any something else he could honestly have been under the all-enlightening sun? Ah, but again, was that fair to her yet? Might she not see in the marquis the truth and worth which the blinding falsehoods of society prevented her from seeing in the groom? Might not a lady—he tried to think of a lady in the abstract—might ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... point.' The snake replied, 'Prosperity intoxicates even the wise and valiant men. Those who live in luxury, (soon) lose their reason. So, I too, O Yudhishthira, overpowered by the infatuation of prosperity, have fallen from my high state and having recovered my self-consciousness, am enlightening thee thus! O victorious king, thou hast done me a good turn. By conversing with thy pious self, my painful curse has been expiated. In days of yore, while I used to sojourn in heaven in a celestial chariot, revelling ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... women consisted in singing, weaving and weeping. I am sure that the English women, whose sympathy for Serbia in these tragic days will remain memorable for ever,—I am sure that after this war they will come to Serbia and help their poor sisters over there, teaching them and enlightening them. Yet I am again afraid to dwell longer upon the topic of the enlightenment of the Serbian mothers at the very moment when those mothers with their sons and daughters, trodden down by the Prussian boot, look towards Heaven and silently confess their sins, preparing ...
— Serbia in Light and Darkness - With Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, (1916) • Nikolaj Velimirovic

... the other, soothingly. "You ask me to relieve you of the embarrassment of this matter. I quite agree with Mrs. Abbott that there is too much ignorance about these things, but she must recognise, I am sure, that this is not the proper moment for enlightening Mrs. ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... reader suppose that they are? The first is Brutus, of all the people in the world. He sacrificed his son for the salvation of Rome, because his passion for his country was stronger than his passion as a father; and this passion for his country, "enlightening him as to the public interest," made him see what a service his rigorous example would be to the state. The other instances of the chapter point the same moral, that true virtue consists in suppressing inducements to gratify domestic or friendly feeling, when that ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... few of the things which are said about them that Ministers ought to know—if they don't know them already. And if they do, and basely pretend not to, we feel that we have done a truly patriotic service in rendering it impossible for them to avoid enlightening the public. It is always well to know the worst, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various

... with a chin like a sea-urchin, strums a tune monotonously on an old guitar. Your host arises, offers you a glass of gin and a cigar or cigarette, and asks you to "lincoot dinhi." So, at his invitation, you sit down, and are expected to begin the conversation. Such conversation is enlightening and runs ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert

... amazed at the minuteness of some objects, astonished at the magnitude and magnificence of others, his mind was transported; when he explored the heavens, and saw worlds balancing worlds, and other suns enlightening other systems, his senses were ravished with the wisdom, the power, the goodness of the Almighty Architect. On these subjects he often declaimed, with the learning of an astronomer, the simplicity of an apostle, the eloquence of a prophet. He illustrated the moral and religious improvement of ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... persons through the whole of life, the paramount claims of the general interest, and the comprehensive ideas that demonstrate the mode in which human actions promote or impair it. In other words, he demands a moral and intellectual authority, charged with the duty of guiding men's opinions and enlightening and warning their consciences; a Spiritual Power, whose judgments on all matters of high moment should deserve, and receive, the same universal respect and deference which is paid to the united judgment of astronomers ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill

... because, although it may not be altogether averse to moral legislation, it recognizes that the policeman is a very feeble guide in these matters, and that the fundamental and essential way of bettering the public morality is by enlightening ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... her thesis, The Question as a Measure of Efficiency in Instruction, has made one of the most enlightening studies yet made on the matter of questioning. Her results are quoted by Weigle, in his Talks to Sunday School Teachers, in a passage of interest, not only because of Miss Stevens' findings, but also because of Mr. Weigle's ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion

... chose. Nothing could possibly be more dangerous than to stand between him and the perpetration of any evil he considered politically necessary, except perhaps to hinder him in the pursuit of his gloomy and secret pleasures. Adonis decided at once that he would not be the means of enlightening the King on the present occasion. He most go to some one else. The second person in command of his life, and whom he dreaded most after Philip himself, ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford

... possibly be mature in experience, if the Word of God is not his daily, definite, direct study and meditation. It purifies the perception of the faculties by its cleansing power; it illuminates the moral faculties with its enlightening power; it controls the emotional faculties with its protective power; it energises the volitional faculties with its stimulating power; and thus in the constant, continuous use of the Word of God in personal practice, with ...
— The Prayers of St. Paul • W. H. Griffith Thomas

... controversy in which the latter was engaged! of all which I had hitherto known nothing. How surprised was I to learn that William Dillwyn had, two years before, associated himself with five others for the purpose of enlightening the public ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... hurt done, or mistake made then, can never be undone. Even an unwise expression of too fond and emotional affection may act to cause ruin in the after years. All who have even a slight acquaintance with the enlightening work of Freud, will know the folly of "trying to save the illegitimate mother through the agency of ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... face with her hands. It seemed as if Verisschenzko must know the truth. Had Denzil told him, or was it his wonderful intuition which was enlightening him now, or was it ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn

... Europe. The contrast between the fifteenth century, when the Seventeen Provinces constituted a powerful State under the dukes of Burgundy, and the seventeenth, when the greater part of it was ruined and undefended, at the mercy of foreign invasion, is particularly enlightening. All through the Middle Ages first Flanders, later the Burgundian Netherlands, had exerted their sobering and regulating influence between France, on one side, and England or Germany on the other. The ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts

... that with all this against him he should have been from the first a great moral and literary influence and the delight of the wisest and soundest minds the world has seen. Shakespeare read him, and Jonson; Montaigne, a greater than himself, is in some sort his descendant; Swift, in Coleridge's enlightening phrase, is 'anima Rabelaesii habitans in sicco'; to Sterne and Balzac and Moliere he was a constant inspiration; unto this day his work is studied and his meanings are sought with almost religious devoutness; while his phrases have ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... Truth," [43] says Harris, "having the most intimate connection with the Supreme Intelligence, may be said (as it were) to shine with unchangeable splendor, enlightening throughout the universe every possible subject, by nature susceptible of its benign influence. Passions and other obstacles may prevent indeed its efficacy, as clouds and vapours may obscure the sun; but itself neither admits diminution, nor change, because the darkness ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... this, whether addressed to a believer for the purpose of enlightening, or to an inquirer for the purpose of establishing, his faith in prophecy, this argument appears to me equally perplexing and obscure. It seems, 'prima facie', almost tantamount to a right of inferring the fulfilment of a prophecy in B., which it does not ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... borrowing money there. Just about the same time he was appointed by Congress to negotiate a French loan, the party who had been selected for that purpose previously, Laurens, not yet being ready to leave home. By way of enlightening the Dutch in regard to American affairs, Adams published in the Gazette, of Leyden, a number of papers and extracts, including several which, through a friend, he first had published in a London journal to give ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... friends with. When she fell suddenly ill, and for days lay at the point of death, there was a stealthy general opinion that Ameerah, with her love spells and potions, could have said much which might have been enlightening, if she had chosen. The girl had been in appalling danger. The village doctor, who had been hastily called in, had at one moment declared that life had left her body. It was, in fact, only Ameerah who had insisted that she was not dead. ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... left, the Consul thought for a moment of running after him, and of enlightening him thoroughly about the Haugians and all their hypocrisies—from his point of view. But ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland

... expedient, keeps women's wages low, destroys confidence in female capacity, and has definite bearing not only on the individual woman's earning capacity, but on her character as well. Girls must learn to choose in such a way that their work may be an opening into a life career or may be an enlightening prelude to marriage and the making ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson

... in its legal character, would be universal in its beneficial effects. By enlightening the opinions, by expanding the patriotism, and by assimilating the principles, the sentiments, and the manners of those who might resort to this temple of science, to be redistributed in due time through every part ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... virtuous conversation, loving instruction fit to subdue the hearts of men, aiming to accomplish the conversion of unbelievers; removing all schemes of opposition from whatever source they came by the enlightening power of his doctrine, aiming to save the entire world; thus he desired that the body of people should obtain rest; even as we desire to give peace to our children, so did he long to give rest to the world. He also attended to his religious duties, sacrificing by fire to all the spirits, with clasped ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... because of the inaccessibility of certain parts, owing to the bulk of the musculature of these parts, diagnosis of some hip ailments becomes an intricate problem. Consequently, in some instances, before one may arrive at definite and enlightening conclusions, repeated examinations are necessary as well as a knowledge of reliable history and recorded observations of the subject over a ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix

... frequent excuse which parents give for not enlightening their children on these most important points is that they have never known how to do so. This excuse can no longer ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... not go, and that displeased Goethe. He had good cause to feel astonished that I should display such indifference to the proffered opportunity of enlightening him concerning my works and myself; or else he came nearer to the truth, and imagined that The Ancestress and my predilection for similar effusions, which were repugnant to him, were not entirely quenched within me; or perhaps ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... willing to do that, my lady," answered Donal, "but I must not forget the honour of my God. If you were a heathen woman I might think whether the hour was come for enlightening you further, but to hear one who has had the Bible in her hands from her childhood say such things about the God who made her and sent his Son to save her, without answering a word for him, would ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... saw the angel of the eighteenth chapter, and "the earth was lightened with his glory," it did not symbolize a literal but a moral light,—the light of truth. And as the enlightening of the earth by its promulgation, pre-supposes a previous state of corresponding moral darkness, it must, as in the tenth chapter, symbolize an epoch, prominent in the history of the world, as a time ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss

... the condition of the poor in our large towns had, from the distance of speculation and the press, been of late occupying a good deal of Mr. Raymount's attention, and he believed that he was enlightening the world on those most important perhaps of all the social questions of our day, their wrongs and their rights. He little suspected that his daughter was doing more for the poor, almost without knowing it, than he with all his conscious wisdom. She could not, however, have made ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... we shall get rid of the weight of dead men's thought, which has hitherto pressed so heavily on the living intellect that it has been incompetent to any effectual self-exertion. Well done, my lads! Into the fire with them! Now you are enlightening the world indeed!" ...
— Earth's Holocaust (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Richard Fitz Neal, of the third generation of that great administration family founded by Roger of Salisbury and restored to office by Henry II, the book gives us a view from within of the financial organization of the reign as enlightening as is Glanvill's treatise on the ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... discouragements as the above, I believe much good was done through the efforts of the missionaries. In times of great trouble and excitement I always found the best friends of the whites among the Indians who had felt the enlightening influences of the missionaries, not excepting Simon, who with Paul, John Otherday, and many others, performed heroic services for the whites when friends were most needed; but I have never been able to settle the question in my mind as to whether any of ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... indeed ways of conversion and conviction by enlightening our understandings with a faggot, and by the powerful and irresistible arguments of a dagger. But these are such wicked solecisms in their religion, that they seem to have left them neither natural sense nor natural conscience. Not natural sense, by their absurdity in so unreasonable ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... often has the broached barrel proved not to be for joy and heart effusion, but for duel and head-breakage; and the promised feast become a Feast of the Lapithae! This Jacobins Club, which at first shone resplendent, and was thought to be a new celestial Sun for enlightening the Nations, had, as things all have, to work through its appointed phases: it burned unfortunately more and more lurid, more sulphurous, distracted;—and swam at last, through the astonished Heaven, like a Tartarean Portent, and lurid-burning Prison ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... been their conversation, gossipy, but tremendously enlightening for Fanny. She looked ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... generation they are as if they had never been, and to the question, "Did you ever read Marriage?" it is not uncommon in these times to get such an answer as, "No, never. Who wrote it?" "Miss Ferrier." "I never heard of her or her novels." It is with the view, therefore, of enlightening such benighted ones that I pen ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier



Words linked to "Enlightening" :   unedifying, informative, edifying, unenlightening, illuminating



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