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Literary notes about Contribute (AI summary)

In literature, "contribute" is employed to express the idea of giving or adding something—whether it be a tangible resource, an opinion, or an element that enhances beauty or meaning—to a larger whole. Authors use the term to indicate shared responsibility or the act of supplementing existing conditions, as when individuals offer portions of straw or funds to support a community venture ([1], [2]). At the same time, it is often used in more abstract or symbolic contexts, such as when contributing to happiness, intellectual improvement, or even the arts and beauty ([3], [4]). In historical and political narratives, the word underscores collective participation and the interdependence of actions that shape common outcomes ([5], [6]). Overall, its diverse usage across genres highlights its flexibility in capturing both practical contributions and efforts toward higher, sometimes moral, ends ([7], [8]).
  1. Every inhabitant, or at least every householder, had to contribute his share of straw to the pile.
    — from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer
  2. We require them to contribute their share in the way of taxes for the support of government, but allow them no voice in its direction.
    — from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I
  3. I should be too happy, could I ever have it in my power to contribute in the least to it.
    — from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson
  4. It opens before us the possibility of making every act of our lives contribute to the glory of God.
    — from The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer
  5. 1 Paralipomenon Chapter 29 David by word and example encourageth the princes to contribute liberally to the building of the temple.
    — from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete
  6. All the villages did not contribute their share, but the majority did, though some of them brought only a few baskets.
    — from Argonauts of the Western Pacific by Bronislaw Malinowski
  7. Yet I’ll contribute to raise rods on the Himmalehs and Andes, that all the world may be secured; but out on privileges!
    — from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville
  8. But it should contribute through the type of intellectual and emotional disposition which it forms to the improvement of those conditions.
    — from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey

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