It may be garnished as fancy dictates, with strips of bright apple jelly, slices of citron, &c. Time.

The plain dictates of the best philosophy are, that nothing is more simple, regular, and uniform than the ordinary course of nature; and that this course can neither be suspended nor altered, but by its author, nor can by him be permitted to be interrupted by any inferior being, unless for the most important reasons.

That is an elementary dictate of prudence.

Native paints are then smeared over it as caprice dictates.

But no nation, however desirous of peace, can hope to escape occasional collisions with other powers, and the soundest dictates of policy require that we should place ourselves in a condition to assert our rights if a resort to force should ever become necessary.

But, sir, however this mission may terminate, a steady perseverance in a system of national defense commensurate with our resources and the situation of our country is an obvious dictate of duty.

At the close of the war the first of the arbitrary dictates of fashion went out.

With regard to simple propositions, where the terms are understood, and the whole subject is comprehended at once, there is such an uniformity of sentiment among all human beings, that, for many ages, a very numerous set of notions were supposed to be innate, or necessarily co-existent with the faculty of reason: it being imagined, that universal agreement could proceed only from the invariable dictates of the universal parent.

"Anywhere your little heart dictates," interrupted Max Tack ardently.

When Boccaccio wrote, the eclogue had not yet degenerated into the literary convention it became in the following century; and, though he was no doubt tempted to the use of the form by Vergilian tradition and the example of Petrarch, he must also have followed therein a natural inclination and no mere dictate of fashion.

Blake's use of language was not guided by the ordinarily accepted rules of writing; he allowed himself to be trammelled neither by prosody nor by grammar; he wrote, with an extraordinary audacity, according to the mysterious dictates of his own strange and intimate conception of the beautiful and the just.

Yet neither did the will servilely attend upon the understanding, but as a favorite does upon his prince, where the service is privilege and preferment; or as Solomon's servants waited upon him: it admired its wisdom, and heard its prudent dictates and counselsboth the direction and the reward of its obedience.

In short, by following the pure Dictates of Reason, he at length departed so much from the rest of his Countrymen, and indeed from his whole Species, that his Friends would have clapped him into Bedlam, and have begged his Estate; but the Judge being informed that he did no Harm, contented himself with issuing out a Commission of Lunacy against him, and putting his Estate into the Hands of proper Guardians.

Upon these, and many like reflections, I afterwards made it a certain rule with me, that whenever I found those secret hints or pressings of mind, to doing or not doing any thing that presented, or going this way or that way, I never failed to obey the secret dictate; though I knew no other reason for it than that such a pressure, or such a hint, hung upon my mind.

It is indeed perfectly consistent with the precepts of Christianity, but it is also in accordance with the selfish dictates of worldly policy.

In many instances I have been ready to suppose that some evil genius presided over my actions, which has directed them contrary to the sober dictates of my own judgment.

"And yet, while we await that blessed day, when embodied justice shall sit in judgment between peoples as between individuals, from time to time conditions more repellant than war may confront a nation, and to remove such conditions as the solemn dictates of reason and religion impose was as righteous and obligatory.

She loved John as her own son, but no one ever dreamed of disputing the tyrannical dictates of the master of Hollywood, however unjust they might be.

We are continually informed that Utility is an uncertain standard, which every different person interprets differently, and that there is no safety but in the immutable, ineffaceable, and unmistakeable dictates of Justice, which carry their evidence in themselves, and are independent of the fluctuations of opinion.

Glaucus obeyed no more vicious dictates when he wandered into the dissipations of his time that the exhilarating voices of youth and health.

These terms a victorious enemy dictates.

As the dying tyrant tossed restlessly upon his bed, it was plain that the delirious ravings which he began soon to utter were excited by the same sentiments of insatiable ambition and ferocious hate whose calmer dictates he had obeyed when well.

There was anarchy in ita hatred of authority, an impatience with custom, above all a scorn for the commonplace dictates of ordinary morality.

Approach, ye minstrels, try the soothing strain, [bb]Diffuse the tuneful lenitives of pain: No sounds, alas! would touch th' impervious ear, Though dancing mountains witness'd Orpheus near; Nor lute nor lyre his feeble pow'rs attend, Nor sweeter musick of a virtuous friend; But everlasting dictates crowd his tongue, Perversely grave, or positively wrong.

10 If in his country's cause he rise, Debating senates to advise, Unbribed, unawed, he dares impart The honest dictates of his heart.