"Cursory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whole apparatus, means, machinery, and dependences of that system—a revolution begun, carried through, and perfected within the period of my own personal experience—merits a word or two of illustration in the most cursory memoirs that profess any attention at all to the shifting scenery and moving forces of the age, whether manifested in great effects or in little. And these particular effects, though little, when regarded in their separate details, are not little in their final amount. On the contrary, I have ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... and neglect for a measurable time without censure. He can fail to set the house of his mind in order; he can sweep the dust of unfinished investigation into obscure nooks and corners; he can make fair the outside of the cup and the platter for cursory inspection. Herein lies his peculiar temptation. The public is prone to take his scientific spirit for granted, and is a long time in opening its eyes. Meanwhile he lives a life of delightful leisure, teaching as many hours a week as a business man labours in a day. Not one man ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... men have got the cant of the day, a superficial readiness of slight and cursory conversation, a kind of frothy collection of fashionable prattle, which yet carried them through the most select and approved judgment. This airy facility of talk sometimes imposes upon ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... to another of those who lay slain; in turn stooping over each corpse, and scrutinising it—to some giving but a cursory glance, to others more careful examination—then leaving each with an air of disappointment, and a ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... regard to my own opinion of the present school, I can only give it as formed after what was merely a cursory and superficial inspection, as I do not believe that I was in the house above half an hour; but it was and is this,—that the house at Casterton seemed thoroughly healthy and well kept, and is situated ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
|
