And Sauron lied to the King, declaring that everlasting life would be his who possessed the Undying Lands, and that the Ban was imposed only to prevent the Kings of Men from surpassing the Valar.
J. R. R. Tolkien
The Return of the King
Months or years might pass between landings on Terminus; their ships were often nothing more than patchquilts of home-made repairs and improvisations; their honesty was none of the highest; their daring… Through it all they forged an empire more enduring than the pseudo-religious despotism of the Four Kingdoms… Tales without end are told of these massive, lonely figures who bore half-seriously, half-mockingly a motto adopted from one of Salvor Hardin’s epigrams, “Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right!” It is difficult now to tell which tales are real and which apocryphal.
Asimov, Isaac
Foundation 1 - Foundation
We could not wear mourning that any could have noticed, it would not have been allowed; so we had to be content with some poor small rag of black tied upon our garments where it made no show; but in our hearts we wore mourning, big and noble and occupying all the room, for our hearts were ours; they could not get at them to prevent that.
Mark Twain
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
I wish you very happy and very rich, and by refusing your hand, do all in my power to prevent your being otherwise.
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice
“His honor—” “—did not prevent him from fathering a bastard.
George R. R. Martin
A Game Of Thrones
“We belong to different camps, but that does not prevent my esteeming her as she deserves.
Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace
and St. Louis to “stop the spread of panic” and “prevent looting.” Ray Flowers himself felt fine.
King, Stephen
The Stand
I doubt you must have been a solitary prisoner to understand these perplexed distinctions.” His collected and calm manner could not prevent her blood from running cold, as he thus tried to anatomise his old condition.
Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities
If there’s another way to prevent the jihad .
Herbert, Frank
Dune
MUNGO’S HEALER 1722–1741HEADMISTRESS OF HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY, 1741–1768Dilys was eyeing the Weasley party as though counting them; when Harry caught her eye she gave a tiny wink, walked sideways out of her portrait, and vanished.Meanwhile, at the front of the queue, a young wizard was performing an odd on-the-spot jig and trying, in between yelps of pain, to explain his predicament to the witch behind the desk.“It’s these — ouch — shoes my brother gave me — ow — they’re eating my — OUCH — feet — look at them, there must be some kind of — AARGH — jinx on them and I can’t — AAAAARGH — get them off —”He hopped from one foot to the other as though dancing on hot coals.“The shoes don’t prevent you reading, do they?” said the blonde witch irritably, pointing at a large sign to the left of her desk.
J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
It was the only warship in sight, but far away to the right over the smooth surface of the sea—for that day there was a dead calm—lay a serpent of black smoke to mark the next ironclads of the Channel Fleet, which hovered in an extended line, steam up and ready for action, across the Thames estuary during the course of the Martian conquest, vigilant and yet powerless to prevent it.
H. G. Wells
The War of the Worlds
Her mother was present, and in a few seconds I made up my mind that she was trying all she knew to mislead her mother and prevent her from being anxious.
Bram Stoker
Dracula
And having committed this prime error, he was obliged to follow it up, so much so that, to put an end to the ambition of Alexander, and to prevent his becoming the master of Tuscany, he was himself forced to come into Italy.
Niccolò Machiavelli
The Prince
In five minutes he was, of course, a mass of fertilizer from head to feet; they gave him a sponge to tie over his mouth, so that he could breathe, but the sponge did not prevent his lips and eyelids from caking up with it and his ears from filling solid.
Upton Sinclair
The Jungle
For this ’tis needful to prevent her art, And fire with love the proud Phoenician’s heart: A love so violent, so strong, so sure, As neither age can change, nor art can cure.
Virgil
The Aeneid
In the new generation, which has inherited as it were different standards and valuations in its blood, everything is disquiet, derangement, doubt, and tentativeness; the best powers operate restrictively, the very virtues prevent each other growing and becoming strong, equilibrium, ballast, and perpendicular stability are lacking in body and soul.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Beyond Good and Evil
There was nothing to prevent him walking up to Hojo's and calling a cab ... except maybe for the thought of how the driver might look at him.
Stephen King
Insomnia
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
Herman Melville
Moby Dick
There was much wine, an ignored tension, and a feeling of things coming that you could not prevent happening.
Ernest Hemingway
The Sun Also Rises
That it does not prevent our dying is evident, because we all die; and if their accounts of longevity be true, men die faster since the crucifixion than before: and with respect to the second explanation, (including with it the natural death of Jesus Christ as a substitute for the eternal death or damnation of all mankind,) it is impertinently representing the Creator as coming off, or revoking the sentence, by a pun or a quibble upon the word “death.” That manufacturer of, quibbles, St. Paul, if he wrote the books that bear his name, has helped this quibble on by making another quibble upon the word “Adam.” He makes there to be two Adams; the one who sins in fact, and suffers by proxy; the other who sins by proxy, and suffers in fact.
Thomas Paine
The Age of Reason
The weight of all that iron made him slow, so Heddle never got up past a canter when the course was run; but that did not prevent him making short work of Ser Clarence Charlton.
George R.R. Martin
The Tales of Dunk & Egg
But, on the contrary, the particulars which are given prove that Fernand Mondego, raised by Ali Pasha to the rank of governor-general, is no other than Count Fernand of Morcerf; then, recollecting the honor you had done me, in admitting me to your friendship, I hastened to you.” Albert, still extended on the chair, covered his face with both hands, as if to prevent the light from reaching him.
Alexandre Dumas
The Count of Monte Cristo
The old gentleman knew that perfectly well, and particularly desired to prevent it; for the mood in which he found his grandson assured him that it would not be wise to leave him to his own devices.
Louisa May Alcott
Little Women
“If I had had the power to prevent my own birth I should certainly never have consented to accept existence under such ridiculous conditions.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Idiot
As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it, (which was to twist it up into a sort of knot, and then keep tight hold of its right ear and left foot, so as to prevent its undoing itself,) she carried it out into the open air.
Lewis Carroll
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
The light became complete, and he acknowledged this to himself: That his place was empty in the galleys; that do what he would, it was still awaiting him; that the theft from little Gervais had led him back to it; that this vacant place would await him, and draw him on until he filled it; that this was inevitable and fatal; and then he said to himself, “that, at this moment, he had a substitute; that it appeared that a certain Champmathieu had that ill luck, and that, as regards himself, being present in the galleys in the person of that Champmathieu, present in society under the name of M. Madeleine, he had nothing more to fear, provided that he did not prevent men from sealing over the head of that Champmathieu this stone of infamy which, like the stone of the sepulchre, falls once, never to rise again.” All this was so strange and so violent, that there suddenly took place in him that indescribable movement, which no man feels more than two or three times in the course of his life, a sort of convulsion of the conscience which stirs up all that there is doubtful in the heart, which is composed of irony, of joy, and of despair, and which may be called an outburst of inward laughter.
Victor Hugo
Les Misérables
They were not only new trousers, but they were the first he had ever had with braid on them, and he had to bite his lip to prevent the tears coming.
J. M. Barrie
Peter and Wendy
They passed forests buried in snowdrifts, big artillery guns (to set off small avalanches and prevent uncontrolled ones, Hazel explained), and lakes so clear, they reflected the mountains like mirrors, so the world looked upside down.
Rick Riordan
The Son of Neptune
Old Johnson, in his Wonder-Working Providence, speaking of the first settlers of this town, with whom he was contemporary, tells us that “they burrow themselves in the earth for their first shelter under some hillside, and, casting the soil aloft upon timber, they make a smoky fire against the earth, at the highest side.” They did not “provide them houses,” says he, “till the earth, by the Lord’s blessing, brought forth bread to feed them,” and the first year’s crop was so light that “they were forced to cut their bread very thin for a long season.” The secretary of the Province of New Netherland, writing in Dutch, in 1650, for the information of those who wished to take up land there, states more particularly that “those in New Netherland, and especially in New England, who have no means to build farmhouses at first according to their wishes, dig a square pit in the ground, cellar fashion, six or seven feet deep, as long and as broad as they think proper, case the earth inside with wood all round the wall, and line the wood with the bark of trees or something else to prevent the caving in of the earth; floor this cellar with plank, and wainscot it overhead for a ceiling, raise a roof of spars clear up, and cover the spars with bark or green sods, so that they can live dry and warm in these houses with their entire families for two, three, and four years, it being understood that partitions are run through those cellars which are adapted to the size of the family.
Henry David Thoreau
Walden
One reads to tickle and amuse one’s mind; one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking.
Aldous Huxley
Crome Yellow
I help myself to material and immaterial, No guard can shut me off, no law prevent me.
Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass
You could justify sending kids into the Hunger Games to prevent the districts from getting out of line," I say.
Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay
But I discovered no trace of him and was beginning to conjecture that some fortunate chance had intervened to prevent the execution of his menaces when suddenly I heard a shrill and dreadful scream.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus
It would jam their mother-tongue neurons and prevent Rife from programming them with new me," Hiro says.
Neal Stephenson
Snow Crash
Prevent.
James Joyce
Ulysses
“If You know this,” said Billy, ‘isn’t there some way you can prevent it?
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse Five
When I am angry I pray God to swing our globe into the fiery sun, and prevent the sorrows of the not-yet-born: but when I am content, I want to lie forever in the shade, till I become a shade myself.” Uneasily they shifted the talk to stud farms, and on the sixth day the poor camel died.
T. E. Lawrence
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
“This is the horror which my father could not face and which he tried to prevent: the infinite division and subdivision of a blind identity.” She lowered her hands and whispered: “You will be conscious?” “In a way … but mute.
Frank Herbert
God Emperor of Dune
Most native hunters singe a tiger’s whiskers to prevent his ghost haunting them.
Rudyard Kipling
The Jungle Book
You have the chance to get all sorts of culture and everything, and I just stay home—” “Well, gosh almighty, there’s nothing to prevent your reading books and going to lectures and all that junk, is there?” “George, I told you, I won’t have you shouting at me like that!
Sinclair Lewis
Babbitt
Where’s Captain Paton hiding, sir, can you tell me that?” “I doubt if it would be wise at the present juncture,” said Poirot primly, and I bit my lips to prevent a smile.
Agatha Christie
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
I do spy a kind of hope, Which craves as desperate an execution As that is desperate which we would prevent.
William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet
But the variability, which we almost universally meet with in our domestic productions is not directly produced, as Hooker and Asa Gray have well remarked, by man; he can neither originate varieties nor prevent their occurrence; he can only preserve and accumulate such as do occur.
Charles Darwin
The Origin of Species
When a bear comes to the range they promptly leave it, emigrating in a body, usually in the night time, the keepers being powerless to prevent; they thus show more sense than sheep, that simply scatter in the rocks and brush and await their fate.
John Muir
My First Summer in the Sierra
The first sank beneath the waves, and there was nothing I could do to prevent it.
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Will then this which has happened prevent thee from being just, magnanimous, temperate, prudent, secure against inconsiderate opinions and falsehood; will it prevent thee from having modesty, freedom, and everything else, by the presence of which man’s nature obtains all that is its own?
Marcus Aurelius
Meditations
The brave prevent misfortune; then be brave, And bury future danger in his grave.
Homer
The Odyssey
The Clanker Lords had devised a stratagem to prevent that; they chained their troops together in groups of ten, wrist to wrist and ankle to ankle.
Martin, George, R. R.
A Dance With Dragons
Lord Galloway, you are certainly the best person to tell the ladies what has happened, and prevent a panic.
G. K. Chesterton
The Innocence of Father Brown
Thus, as a precaution, what is to prevent you from saying morning and evening a ‘Hail Mary, full of grace,’ and ‘Our Father which art in heaven’?
Gustave Flaubert
Madame Bovary
Let no man seek Henceforth to be foretold what shall befall Him or his children; evil he may be sure, Which neither his foreknowing can prevent, And he the future evil shall no less In apprehension than in substance feel Grievous to bear.
John Milton
Paradise Lost
“I am laughing,” said he, “to think of the great head the pagan must have had who owned this helmet, for it looks exactly like a regular barber’s basin.” “Dost thou know what I suspect, Sancho?” said Don Quixote; “that this wonderful piece of this enchanted helmet must by some strange accident have come into the hands of someone who was unable to recognise or realise its value, and who, not knowing what he did, and seeing it to be of the purest gold, must have melted down one half for the sake of what it might be worth, and of the other made this which is like a barber’s basin as thou sayest; but be it as it may, to me who recognise it, its transformation makes no difference, for I will set it to rights at the first village where there is a blacksmith, and in such style that that helmet the god of smithies forged for the god of battles shall not surpass it or even come up to it; and in the meantime I will wear it as well as I can, for something is better than nothing;219 all the more as it will be quite enough to protect me from any chance blow of a stone.” “That is,” said Sancho, “if it is not shot with a sling as they were in the battle of the two armies, when they signed the cross on your worship’s grinders and smashed the flask with that blessed draught that made me vomit my bowels up.” “It does not grieve me much to have lost it,” said Don Quixote, “for thou knowest, Sancho, that I have the receipt in my memory.” “So have I,” answered Sancho, “but if ever I make it, or try it again as long as I live, may this be my last hour; moreover, I have no intention of putting myself in the way of wanting it, for I mean, with all my five senses, to keep myself from being wounded or from wounding anyone: as to being blanketed again I say nothing, for it is hard to prevent mishaps of that sort, and if they come there is nothing for it but to squeeze our shoulders together, hold our breath, shut our eyes, and let ourselves go where luck and the blanket may send us.” “Thou art a bad Christian, Sancho,” said Don Quixote on hearing this, “for once an injury has been done thee thou never forgettest it: but know that it is the part of noble and generous hearts not to attach importance to trifles.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Don Quixote
‘War is hell,’ he declared frequently, drunk or sober, and he really meant it, although that did not prevent him from making a good living out of it or from taking his son-in-law into the business with him, even though the two bickered constantly.
Heller, Joseph
Catch-22
As the young fellow realized the certainty of her fate, and his own powerlessness to prevent it, he wished that he, too, was lying with the old farmer in his last silent resting-place.
Arthur Conan Doyle
A Study in Scarlet
But poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children.
Adam Smith
The Wealth of Nations