We often hear abstract panegyrics upon the happiness of small states.

The Frankfurt Parliament, like the first Russian Duma, was out of touch with realities; it wasted precious time on the discussion of abstract questions of principle, and failed to meet the practical needs of the moment.

They are not speeches at all, but philosophical lucubrations, discussing in abstract terms the whole subject of the nature of patriotism and of Germany's right to exist as a nation.

These phrases embody, for Germans, who always tend to be abstract in their thinking, not only a practical policy, but a philosophy of human society and government.

The revolution was nothing less than an attempt by a small minority of theorists and moral anarchists to force Western civilisation upon Russia, and not Western civilisation as it actually is but a sort of abstract "Westernism" derived from books.

[person who commits theft] thief &c 792. V. steal, thieve, rob, mug, purloin, pilfer, filch, prig, bag, nim^, crib, cabbage, palm; abstract; appropriate, plagiarize. convey away, carry off, abduct, kidnap, crimp; make off with, walk off with, run off with; run away with; spirit away, seize &c (lay violent hands on)

It is a decided disadvantage, from the purely epic point of view, that those admirable "Intelligences" in Hardy's The Dynasts are so obviously abstract ideas disguised.

Money alone is absolutely good, because it is not only a concrete satisfaction of one need in particular; it is an abstract satisfaction of all.

[Footnote 119: I take this report, or abstract, of Lord Camden's speech from the "Lives of the Chancellors," c. cxlvii.]

[Footnote 178: It is a shrewd observation of Sully, that it is never any abstract desire for theoretical reforms, or even for increased privileges, which excites in lower classes to discontent and outrage, but only impatience under actual suffering.]

[Footnote 231: See Lord Althorp's speech, of parts of which an abstract is given in the text.

The Manual is a kind of abstract of Epictetus's ethical principles, which, with many additional illustrations and with more expansion, are also explained in the Discourses.

Nor are the precepts of Epictetus all abstract principles; he often pauses to give definite rules of conduct and practice.

In abstract questions he did not lack courage of thought, but when faced with the facts of life he was a mixture, or rather a succession, of timidity and stiffness, diffident modesty, and firmness of conviction.

It was an entirely abstract passion for print and paper.

Though it is true that a certain far-off flavour of these legal excitements occasionally enlivened the business to which Henry had been sacrificially indentured, for the most part it was an abstract parasitical thing which had succeeded in persuading other businesses, more directly fed from the human spring, of its obliging usefulness in relieving them of detachable burdens.

Thus a wholly unmodern incident took a whimsical turn out of a horror which, if farcical in the abstract, was no less potent in the concrete.

Since then, indeed, she and Mrs. Spragg had succumbed to the abstract pleasure of buying two or three more, simply because they were too exquisite and Undine looked too lovely in them; but she had grown tired of these alsotired of seeing them hang unworn in her wardrobe, like so many derisive points of interrogation.

He has devoted his life to the pursuit of abstract and general truths, and to those studies "That waft a thought from Indus to the Pole" and has never mixed himself up with personal intrigues or party politics.

Those who on pure cosmopolite principles, or on the ground of abstract humanity affect an extraordinary regard for the Turks and Tartars, have been accused of neglecting their duties to their friends and next-door neighbours.

The author of the Political Justice took abstract reason for the rule of conduct, and abstract good for its end.

The author of the Political Justice took abstract reason for the rule of conduct, and abstract good for its end.

In determining this point, we were not to be influenced by any extrinsic or collateral considerations, by our own predilections, or the expectations of others, by our obligations to them or any services they might be able to render us, by the climate they were born in, by the house they lived in, by rank or religion, or party, or personal ties, but by the abstract merits, the pure and unbiassed justice of the case.

" 2. "RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, that the abstract question of liberty and slavery, is not considered as involved in a suspension of the said article, inasmuch as the number of slaves in the United States would not be augmented by the measure.

This object is to induce his readers to believe, that these abstract and general instructions are all that is needed to effect the termination of slavery.