Literary notes about possess (AI summary)
The term "possess" in literature is remarkably versatile, functioning both in its literal sense of owning property or tangible items and in a figurative way to illustrate power, emotion, or internal states. It appears in contexts where characters claim economic or legal rights, as when wealth or land is acquired [1][2][3], while in other texts it illuminates subtler dynamics of control or empowerment, as one character wields influence or calls attention to an inner resource [4][5][6]. At times, authors evoke intense psychological or emotional conditions with the word, describing moments when passions or states of mind seem to overwhelm the self [7][8]. Philosophical and reflective works also deploy "possess" to explore abstract qualities or inherent capacities within the human spirit, bridging the tangible and the intangible in a portrayal of human identity and agency [9][10][11][12].
- When he died he left his heir 2,000,000 pounds, which was a most unusual fortune for a king to possess in those days.
— from What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain - For you shall pass over the Jordan, to possess the land, which the Lord your God will give you, that you may have it and possess it.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - In Tennessee, he must possess some property.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville - “You appear to possess the privilege of a casting vote,” returned Heyward; “we are three, while you have consulted no one but yourself.”
— from The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757 by James Fenimore Cooper - Not only did he possess all these volumes, but, unlike many collectors, he is said to have read them all, and even to have annotated them.
— from The Moors in Spain by Stanley Lane-Poole - So much as we ourselves consider and comprehend of truth and reason, so much we possess of real and true knowledge.
— from An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 by John Locke - Her hair stood up; convulsive rage possess’d Her trembling limbs, and heav’d her lab’ring breast.
— from The Aeneid by Virgil - He let the vision possess him as they climbed the hill to the house.
— from Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton - We find that we possess nothing permanent that can correspond and be submitted to the conception of a substance as intuition, except matter.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant - Induction, syllogism, analogy, do not really generate belief in God, though they may serve to justify to reason a faith that we already possess.
— from Kant's Critique of Judgement by Immanuel Kant - the more [Pg 662] frequently one will be reminded of it, the more avenues of approach to it one will possess.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James - I don't possess half the warmth of nature you believe me to have.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
