velleity
Example Sentences
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This theory and the subtleties derived from it, far from characterizing art, represent its contrary: the impotent velleity for art, which cannot slay abstractions and come in contact with life.
From Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic by Benedetto Croce
A velleity we might say is the will directed to an end which is either relatively or absolutely impossible; will is that which becomes effective.
From The Reform of Education by Giovanni Gentile
Will is devoid of intellect, as intellect is deprived of velleity.
From The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur by Emile Joseph Dillon
I would, if I could: liberet si liceret; and in the case of a velleity, we do not will, properly speaking, to will, but to be able.
From Theodicy Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil by E.M. Huggard
Skill, endurance, and perseverance may almost be called muscular virtues; and fatigue, velleity, caprice, ennui, restlessness, lack of control and poise, muscular faults.
From Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene by G. Stanley Hall
Educators who opposed the velleities of the President's report were slow to speak up; they were afraid they might be misunderstood.
From Time Magazine Archive
This is so true that one may safely affirm that if Russian patriotism has been sustained by our velleities of action, Russian destructiveness has been encouraged by our velleities of desertion.
From The Inside Story of the Peace Conference by Emile Joseph Dillon
She is not a bookmaker of the worst kind; she evidently had wits and literary velleities; and she does illustrate the blind nisus of the time as already indicated.
From A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 From the Beginning to 1800 by George Saintsbury
It started up in corrupt or sordid hearts, and swept all their blind velleities into its purifying flame of passion— "Love is incompatible With falsehood,—purifies, assimilates All other passions to itself."
From Robert Browning by C. H. (Charles Harold) Herford
But in this particular, it was impossible for her to go beyond velleities.
From The Bastonnais Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 by John Lespérance
