Vis Quotes

The hypothesis of molecular vortices is defined to be that which assumes - that each atom of matter consists of a nucleus or central point enveloped by an elastic atmosphere, which is retained in its position by attractive forces, and that the elasticity due to heat arises from the centrifugal force of those atmospheres revolving or oscillating about their nuclei or central points. According to this hypothesis, quantity of heat is the vis viva of the molecular revolutions or oscillations. (William John Macquorn Rankine)
The writer cannot abandon himself simply to inspiration, and feign innocence vis a vis language, because language is never innocent.
Juan Goytisolo
Force overcome by force. (Vi Victa Vis)
Cicero
Where there are large powers with little ambition (which will happen sometimes, though seldom) nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes; for she has given the machinery without the vis motrix.
Henry Taylor
He took their facts for granted. He knew no more than a firefly about rays - or about race or sex - or ennui - or a bar of music - or a pang of love - or a grain of musk - or of phosphorus - or conscience - or duty - or the force of Euclidian geometry - or non-Euclidian - or heat - or light - or osmosis - or electrolysis - or the magnet - or ether - or vis inertiae - or gravitation - or cohesion - or elasticity - or surface tension - or capillary attraction - or Brownian motion - or of some scores, or thousands, or millions of chemical attractions, repulsions or indifferences which were busy within and without him; or, in brief, of Force itself, which, he was credibly informed, bore some dozen definitions in the textbooks, mostly contradictory, and all, as he was assured, beyond his intelligence.
Henry Adams
Many facts have lately transpired which tend to overthrow the hypothesis that heat is itself a body, and to prove that it consists in a motion of the ultimate particles of bodies. If this be so, the general principles of mechanics may be applied to heat; this motion may be converted into work, the loss of vis viva in each particular case being proportional to the quantity of work produced. These circumstances, of which Carnot was also well aware, and the importance of which he expressly admitted, pressingly demand a comparison between heat and work, to be undertaken with reference to the divergent assumption that the production of work is not only due to an alteration in the distribution of heat, but to an actual consumption thereof; and inversely, that by the expenditure of work, heat may be produced.
Rudolf Clausius
Vis a vis the Golan Heights, the present government of Israel, under my leadership, is the first government that is ready to speak about a withdrawal.
Yitzhak Rabin
As to ''Don Juan,'' confess that it is the sublime of that there sort of writing it may be bawdy, but is it not good English It may be profligate, but is it not life, is it not the thing Could any man have written it who has not lived in the world and tooled in a post-chaise in a hackney coach in a Gondola against a wall in a court carriage in a vis a vis on a table and under it.
Lord Byron
Industry is the vis motrix of husbandry, and therefore an ancient English writer observes, "that a single uncultivated acre is a real physical evil in any state."
Walter Harte