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More "Discernment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... kindness from you, and so, from diffidence and restraint of tenderness, her face has set hard into coldness. But that is only a mask. How you treat each other, you women! And you are as wanting in discernment, too, as you are in kindness and sympathy. She has had to put on that mask of coldness to hide what you make her suffer, and it will take long loving to melt it now, and make her look human again. You misinterpret her silence too. How can you expect her ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... when a manufacturer there, found 90 per cent of pure iron in the refuse of his competitor, it is said. This he bought under long contract and worked over in his own mills. His neighbor's waste became a part of his fortune. And the result of that discernment and thrift is now furnishing an analogue for the conscious utilization of other waste—waste of native capacity of the steel-worker ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... analogous objects under the same form for greater convenience in thinking. Such is, however, not the case with man. If the human mind were to attempt to examine and pass a judgment on all the individual cases before it, the immensity of detail would soon lead it astray and bewilder its discernment: in this strait, man has recourse to an imperfect but necessary expedient, which at once assists and demonstrates his weakness. Having superficially considered a certain number of objects, and remarked their resemblance, he ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... man of keen discernment, quick apprehensions, and ready retort. In social intercourse he had wonderful powers of adapting himself to circumstances, and was alike an acceptable visitor in the families of the wealthy and refined, the humble and the ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... me—supreme drama of the Little Country, I can only say that the gods had selected their agent with a cunning so flawless that suspicion of his portents could not well have been aroused in one lacking discernment like unto the gods' very own. So trivially, so utterly, so pitiably casual, to eyes of the flesh, was this Potts of Little Arcady, from his immortal soul to the least item of his ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... Mr Kavanagh seems to have made is, that he knew nothing of grammar; and had he stopped here, he would have been entitled to no small praise for discernment. But this was but ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... given birth to them. Instead of undertaking particular recommendations on this subject in which I could be guided by no lights derived from official opportunities, I shall again give way to my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public good, for I assure myself that while you carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the benefits of an united and effective government, or which ought to await the future lessons of experience, a reverence for the characteristic rights of ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... cried Belfield, with a laugh, "Miss Beverley does not mean to convey her person to town, and leave her understanding locked up, with other natural curiosities, in the country? Why, therefore, may not the same discernment regulate her adoption of new acquaintance, and choice of new connections, that guided her selection of old ones? Do you suppose that because she is to take leave of you, she is to ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... felt, and the entire dependence upon Him not cultivated. Regeneration, the giving of Divine life, we all acknowledge to be God's act, a miracle of His power. The restoring or reviving of the Divine life, in a soul or a Church, is as much a supernatural work. To have the spiritual discernment that can understand the signs of the heavens, and prognosticate the coming revival, we need to enter deep into God's mind and will as to its conditions, and the preparedness of those who pray for it or are to be used to bring it about. "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray
... just to the latter. Not content with elevating their own idol with paeans and thanksgiving, before the gaze of a bedinned public, they persisted in shouting out their scorn and contempt at the pretensions of their unhappy neighbour. The public, with its usual discernment, gave implicit credence to both fables. Western Australia had met its contumelious detractors with silence; and the false statements were therefore looked upon as admitted and undeniable. But notwithstanding the injurious misrepresentations of enemies, and her own injurious silence, this ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... and stood gazing out over the sunlit garden. In build and appearance, Tuppy somewhat resembles a bulldog, and his aspect now was that of one of these fine animals who has just been refused a slice of cake. It was not difficult for a man of my discernment to read what was in his mind, and it occasioned me no surprise, therefore, when his next words had to do with the subject marked with a cross ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... and not chagrin, The hermit never spoke of what he'd seen; But, from the youth's discernment, strove to hide, Whate'er regarded love, and much beside, The softer sex, with all their magick charms, That fill the feeling bosom with alarms. As years advanced, the boy with care he taught; What suited best his age before him brought; At five he showed him animals and flow'rs, ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... only conform my will to yours. I know but one thing, Lord, that it is good to follow you, and bad to offend you. Apart from that, I know not what is good or bad in anything. I know not which is most profitable to me, health or sickness, wealth or poverty, nor anything else in the world. That discernment is beyond the power of men or angels, and is hidden among the secrets of your Providence, which I adore, but do not seek ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... has not been sought. Cannot you see, Eliza, how he instinctively recedes from it? how he would repel it were he less the gentleman than he is? Child, I shrink from saying these things to you, but it is needful. You have good sense, Eliza, keen discernment, and you might see for yourself that it is not to you Mr. Grame's love is ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... certainly, to his eyes, still beautiful. And the call made on his intelligence had not been made in vain. The merchants of Aux Cayes, who had seen him tried in some "counter-revolution" in 1845, wrote to the consul of his "able and decided measures," "his cool, steady judgment and discernment," with admiration; and of himself, as "a credit and an ornament to H.M. Naval Service." It is plain he must have sunk in all his powers, during the years when he was only a figure, and often a dumb figure, in his wife's drawing-room; but with this new term of service he brightened visibly. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... acquainted with my friend, Good In—er—Mr. Imsen." Pete considered that he was behaving with great discernment and tact. "This is Miss Georgie Howard, the new operator." He twinkled his little eyes at her maliciously. "Say, he ain't got but one chin, and he's only twenty-three years old." He felt that the inference was too plain ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... Havel River, northwest from Berlin a forty or fifty miles. These refused homage, very many of them; said they were "incorporated with Boehmen"; said this and that; much disinclined to homage; and would not do it. Stiff, surly fellows, much deficient in discernment of what is above them and what is not: a thick-skinned set; bodies clad in buff leather; minds also cased in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... me if I say that I think Arnold was right—as he usually was right in a question of taste or critical discernment. For Emerson was essentially a prophet and theosophist, and not a man of letters, or creative artist. He could not have written a song or a story or a play. Arnold complains of his want of concreteness. ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers
... 3rd of August his house is forced open at two o'clock in the morning, and he takes refuge in a steeple; the mob follow him, cut his throat and drag his head along the streets.—Not only do the people execute, but they pardon—and with equal discernment. On the 11th of August, at Versailles, as a parricide is about to be broken on the wheel, the crowd demand his release, fly at the executioner, and set the man free.[1409] Veritably this is sovereign power like that of the oriental sovereign who arbitrarily ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... AITON, author of the Hortus Kewensis, and Botanic Gardener to his Majesty. The great length of time[5], Mr. AITON has been engaged in the cultivation of plants, the immense numbers which have been the constant objects of his care through every period of their growth, joined to his superior discernment, give him a decided superiority in the prima facie knowledge of living plants over most Botanists the present day; his abilities in the other line of his profession, are displayed in the eulogies of all who have seen the ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. V - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... to bear without a groan;—the older he grew, till he reached manhood, the severer the discipline he underwent. The intellectual education was little attended to: for what had sentinels to do with the sciences or the arts? But the youth was taught acuteness, promptness, and discernment—for such are qualities essential to the soldier. He was stimulated to condense his thoughts, and to be ready in reply; to say little, and to the point. An aphorism bounded his philosophy. Such an education produced its results in an athletic frame, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Wonderful discernment of the ethical prophet! We cease to see God omnipresent in all things, and our blindness ends in our destruction. We see the sensual allurement, but not the sensual hurt; we see the mermaid's head, but not the dragon's tail; we think we see our way to cut off that which we would have from ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... consideration of the present and the growing numbers in the front of our deliberation, because, Sir, this consideration will make it evident to a blunter discernment than yours, that no partial, narrow, contracted, pinched, occasional system will be at all suitable to such an object. It will show you that it is not to be considered as one of those minima which are out of the eye and ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... to the type of Gasparo da Salo, particularly in the middle bouts. Lastly, the quality of wood selected for the bellies is in both makers similar. In continuing the path trodden by Gasparo, Guarneri proved himself an artist possessed of no little discernment. His chief desire was evidently to make instruments capable of producing a quality of tone hitherto unknown, and that he succeeded is universally acknowledged. Workmanship, as evidenced by the instruments of his first and last epoch, was with him a purely secondary ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... a genial yet invigorating climate, in a land where breezes from the mountain and the sea were mingled, the versatile Greeks produced by physical training that vigor and grace of body which they so much admired; and they developed the civil polity, the artistic discernment, and the complex social life, which made them the principal source of modern culture. Their moral traits are not so admirable. As a race they were less truthful, and less marked for their courage and loyalty, than some other peoples ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... command. They are to be seen superintending a court of justice, looked up to and trusted by the natives, who have quickly found out that the "boss" is just, firm, and that he will not believe a falsehood. The blacks have their native names for all these officials, most of them showing great discernment, and some of quite an ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... Kilspinnie was a thing I reckoned not of, yet therein you have proved yourself not only a very Joseph, but so ripe in wit beyond your years that your merits deserve more commendation than I can afford to give, for I have not sufficient to bestow on the singular prudence and discernment wherewith you have parried the treacherous thrusts of that Judas Iscariot, Winterton, for so I doubt not is the traitor who waylaid you. He was once in my service and is now in the Queen Regent's. In sending off my men on ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... and asking questions of a Bahman guest that was looking up. That trivial circumstance threw the king into a passion, and he gave orders that the Brahman should be put to death) for jealousy interferes with discernment. Then as that Brahman was being led off to the place of execution in order that he should be put to death, a fish in the market laughed aloud, though it was dead. The king hearing it immediately prohibited for the present the execution of the Brahman, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... to England, I quitted London to visit my sister. Her society was my chief solace and delight; and my spirits always rose at the expectation of seeing her. Her conversation was full of pointed remark and discernment; in her pleasant alcove, redolent with sweetest flowers, adorned by magnificent casts, antique vases, and copies of the finest pictures of Raphael, Correggio, and Claude, painted by herself, I fancied ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... Moses and Elijah talking with Him." How did the disciples know the Lawgiver and the Prophet? We are not told. There may have been given them some supernatural powers of discernment. They may have known by the conversation between Jesus and His celestial visitants, as, in earthly language with heavenly tone, they "spoke of His departure which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem," of which He had told them ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... the moment is over he leaves his prey, more or less cruelly wounded, and gaily seeks new fields for his prowess. This sort of man likes young and inexperienced girls or women whose confiding trust exceeds their power of discernment. ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... that John O'Neill's daughter carried her charms and gifts to London town in the autumn of 1812, when she justified Kemble's discernment by one of the most brilliant series of impersonations, ranging from Juliet to Belvidera, that had been seen up to that time on the English stage. For seven years she shone a very bright star in the firmament of the drama, ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... superhuman virtue? Who gave to him this insight into the fundamental principles of morality? Who, in this respect, made him a greater light and a clearer expounder than the Christian Paley? Who made him, in all spiritual discernment, a wiser man than the gifted John Stuart Mill, who seems to have been a candid searcher after truth? In the wisdom of Socrates you see some higher force than intellectual hardihood or intellectual clearness. How much this pagan did to emancipate ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... voyage of "Brute the Trojan." One may reasonably believe that Jesus healed a case of violent insanity at Gadara, and reasonably disbelieve that the fire of heaven was twice obedient to Elijah's call to consume the military companies sent to arrest him. Cultivated discernment does not now put all Biblical miracles on a common level of credibility, any more than the historical work of Herodotus and that of the late Dr. Gardiner. To defend them all is not to vindicate, but to discredit all alike. The elimination of the indefensible, ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... may be classified with the not least considerable contributions to Italian gnomic poetry in an age when literature easily assumed a didactic tone. The first has for its subject the importance of discernment and discrimination. It is written on the wisdom of what the ancient Greeks called [Greek: Kairos], or the right occasion ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... these fatalities, for they can receive no lighter name, he possessed an imagination of unbounded capacity—was inflamed with those indescribable feelings which constitute, in the opinion of many, the very elements of genius—fearfully quick in the discernment of the darker qualities of character—and surrounded by temptation—his career ceases to surprise. It would have been more wonderful had he proved an amiable and well-conducted man, than the questionable and extraordinary being who ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... words of a critic of discernment, as he passed from drawing to drawing, "Frank Reynolds is right, right—right every time." This is praise to which one ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson
... time, which is in September and October, the Indians examine the trees with keen discernment, and inasmuch as the cones require two years to mature from the first appearance of the little red rosettes of the fertile flowers, the scarcity or abundance of the crop may be predicted more than a year in advance. Squirrels, and worms, and Clarke crows, make haste to begin the harvest. ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... great silence among the Indians when Accomba had finished speaking. An Indian has great discernment, and not only can soon discover where the pathos of a story lies, but he will read as by intuition how much of it is true or false. Moreover, Michel's character was well known among them all, and his eccentricities had often excited their wonder and sometimes their censure. The poor woman's story ...
— Owindia • Charlotte Selina Bompas
... the first attack of the "jerks" among strangers is recorded. They hastily summoned old Jake Platt's son, just fresh from medical college, who, helpless with this suffering bit of femininity, supplied in attention and practical nursing what he lacked in medical discernment and skill, to the end that one engagement was broken and another formed in a fortnight. Old Jake had some money; the young doctor was starting in well, and needed a wife; she was still jealous, and young Dr. Platt got ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... merit depended so entirely upon his action, that he was more deficient in every other quality than his namesake. But M. Piso derived all his talents from his erudition; for he was much better versed in the Grecian literature than any of his predecessors. He had, however, a natural keenness of discernment, which he greatly improved by art, and exerted with great address and dexterity, though in very indifferent language: but he was frequently warm and choleric, sometimes cold and insipid, and now and then ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... all this; Lettice resented it. She loved her husband dearly, and was proud of him, for she had discernment enough to see how superior he was in every way to her cousins, the young Holsters, who borrowed his horses, drank his wines, and yet had caught their father's habit of sneering at his profession. Lettice ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... intolerably was this discernment of the way in which—at least since their honeymoon—he must have been criticising and judging her—judging her by comparison with another woman. She seemed to see at a glance, the whole process of his mind, and her ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... philosopher; you have no vanity, although you have a great deal of self-love. But your self-love does not blind you; it rather makes you exaggerate your faults than conceal them. You never extol yourself except when you are forced to do so by comparing yourself with other men. You possess discernment, very delicate tact, very correct taste; your ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... that we will not fail to seize our opportunities by setting up obstacles whereby we may become persona non grata through lack of discernment. ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... Gilhaize," said he, "no farther instructions; for, unless I am mistaken in my man, you lack no better guide than your own discernment. So God be with you, and ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... nearly all true Boers, mostly of the backwoods type, extremely conservative, and inclined to be rather condescending in their attitude towards the clean-shaven town-dwellers. The almost universal respect inspired by a beard or a paunch is a poor tribute to human discernment. ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... on Treasury Bench, listened to this conversation with lowering brow. HER MAJESTY had but lately testified afresh to her wisdom and discernment by calling him to her councils; and yet there were men so lost to all sense of decency as to wrangle over the wages of a rat-catcher at Buckingham Palace or the turncock at Kensington. PLUNKET a little too mild with these gentry. Only let the Minister of Agriculture ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various
... heart. "Was Clancy right after all?" she began to ask herself in a sort of dread and presentiment of trouble. Instinctively, and almost involuntarily, she grew slightly reserved and distant in manner, ceasing to meet his gaze in her former frank, affectionate way. With quick discernment he appreciated the change, and thought, "She is not ready yet, and, indeed, may never be ready." His manner, too, began to change, as a cloud gradually loses something of its warmth of color. Mara was grateful, and in her thoughts paid homage to ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... reply, Mother Bunch, who had more discernment, exclaimed: "Goodness, Agricola—how pale you are! Whatever ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... pray look after the interests of my inner man," said the Baron, placing his hands to his heart. "I shall ever bear in mind the polite attention with which you have treated me, though it will take some time to forget the want of discernment your townsmen have exhibited in mistaking me for that abominable cat-man. What could have induced him ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... geographical knowledge than any other man of his time. They saw a person of middle age, plainly and rather carelessly dressed, whose deep-furrowed and well-tanned face indicated a man of quick and keen discernment, strong impulses, inflexible resolution, and habitual self-command. They heard a speaker whose command of his mother tongue was imperfect, and who apologized for his broken, hesitating speech by saying that he had not spoken the English language for nearly sixteen years. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... our older poets, not because they are good, but because they are old. The origin and development of Roman poetry made it certain that perfection must come late. He assumes that Augustus champions the moderns, and compliments him on the discernment which preferred a Virgil and a Varius (and so, by implication, a Horace) to the Plautuses and Terences ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... Vicky. I must say that she has a quick discernment of character, and I have never seen her take any predilection for a person which was not motive by personal amiability, goodness, or distinction of some kind or other. You need be under no apprehension ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... further," said Longstreet. "Our young friend here is obviously a lad of intelligence and discernment and what he saw in Washington shows that the North is resolved to crush us. The battle that we are going to fight will not be the last battle ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... viii. 4.) Many expositors, of secular notions and affinities, imagine that some one of the Roman emperors is to be understood as represented by him who rides on the white horse,—Vespasian, Titus, or Trajan. To name such figments is enough to confute them in the mind of such as have spiritual discernment. "White" is not the divinely chosen symbol of bloody warriors or persecutors. It is most frequently the emblem of purity, legal or moral. (Matt. xvii. 2; Rev. iii. 4, 5.) "White horse" may represent the ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... so magnificent, that Rome, enthralled, applauded. Beyond, on the Rhine, a city which is today Cologne, rose in honor of her sovereignty. To her wishes the senate was subservient, to her indiscretions blind. Claud, who meanwhile had been wholly sightless, suddenly showed signs of discernment. A woman, charged with illicit commerce, was brought to his tribunal. He condemned her, of course. "In my case," he explained, "matrimony has not been successful, but the fate that destined me to marry impure women destined me also to punish them." It was then that Agrippina ordered of Locusta ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... consideration, that a man's confidence is not the product of outward circumstances, but of his own fixed resolves. 'I will put my trust in Thee.' Nature says, 'Be afraid!' and the recoil from that natural fear, which comes from a discernment of threatening evil, is only possible by a strong effort of the will. Foolish confidence opposes to natural fear a groundless resolve not to be afraid, as if heedlessness were security, or facts could be altered by resolving not to think about them. True ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... rebellious. "And there's another: 'Beggars mustn't be choosers.' Yes, I know. Only, semi-annually I certainly do experience a burning wish that my dear rich relations were persons with a trifle keener sense of discernment as to which of their old clothes would be most appreciated by their poor cousins. They must now and then, Father Davy, wear something sensible. They must have morning clothes and street clothes—adorable ones. Why do they send only the worldly clothes to the manse? ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... Washington joyfully accepted. Braddock had heard something of the Virginia colonel even before leaving England; and was not so much honoring this colonial officer, as immeasurably strengthening his own good right arm—if he had only had the discernment to know it. As results showed, Braddock did not need his heavy cannon nearly so much as he needed an ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... friends and relations, forbye the minister, we had my father's cousin, Mr Alexander Clues, that was then deacon convener, and a man of great potency in his way, and possessed of an influence in the town-council of which he was well worthy, being a person of good discernment, and well versed in matters appertaining to the guildry. Mr Clues, as we were mellowing over the toddy bowl, said, that by and by the council would be looking to me to fill up the first gap that might happen therein; and Dr Swapkirk, ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... but she gathered this: that somehow Christ had opened the way for all believers into the very spiritual presence of God, into a holy place not made with hands (and the more real because it was not, being God-made and eternal), and that there worshipers stood before eyes of perfect discernment, unclothed by outward semblance, and offered "spiritual sacrifices" unto Him. It was a beautiful picture, but awful. Winifred shuddered as she thought of the august Presence that inhabited the Holiest of All that the minister spoke of, and wondered if she would dare approach it. To stand in ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... help out with." Here we see another variation of the story. The amount of it is, that, while the mate thought assistance needed, and went to get it, Burroughs concluded to do the work himself. If the Prisoner had been allowed Counsel; or any discernment been left in the Judges, the whole of this evidence would have been thrown out of account, as without foundation and frivolous in its character; yet Increase Mather, who was present, was entirely carried away with it, and declared that, upon it alone, if on the Bench or in the ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... That He was sinless and full of love made it all the worse to bear. Not the physical pain, but the consciousness that He was encompassed by such an atmosphere of evil, was the sharpest pang. We should think with reverent sympathy of His perfect discernment of the sinful malignant hearts from which the sufferings came, of His pained and rejected love thrown back on itself, of His clear sight of what their heartless infliction of tortures would end in for the inflicters, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... "No person of common discernment who has read Dr. Buchanan's writings or conversed with him in relation to the topics which they treat, can have failed to recognize in him one of the very foremost thinkers of the day. He is certainly one of the most charming and instructive men to ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... people," he says, "but do it with discernment. First, look at a man, see what good you can get out of him, and see what he is good for. If you think he is a strong man, capable of work, help him. But if you think him weak and little suited for work, abandon him ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... it is understood that we push Coralie, eh? Put a few lines about her new engagement in your papers, and say something about her talent. Credit the management of the Gymnase with tack and discernment; will it ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... most colossal scales, even surpassing in extent the far famed Waterloo House, but in none is the public more honourably served, or treated with a greater degree of courtesy and attention, than at the Grand Colbert; the taste and discernment with which their stock is selected, does the highest credit to the proprietors, and their premises being arranged and decorated so as to resemble a Moresque temple, as the purchasers behold spread around them in gay profusion all the rich and glowing tints ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... faculties are undoubtedly far below those of the dog, and possibly of other animals; and in matters beyond its daily experience it evinces no special discernment." ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... both a trickster and a humorist and sets the will of the species beyond the discernment of the individual. The picador has to blindfold his horse in order to get him into the bull-ring, and likewise Dan Cupid exploits the myopic to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... opinions of Sieur Hedelin, as set forth in the ninth paragraph of the chapter of "Injuriae per applicationem, per constructionem, et per se," in his "Duelli Lex scripta, et non; aliterque." The nicety of your discernment in all the matters here treated, will be sufficient, I am assured, to convince you that the mere circumstance of me referring you to this admirable passage, ought to satisfy your request, as a ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... that there was no necessity, his requirements being always reasonable and only such as she was fully capable of meeting. She had a good mind, quick discernment and retentive memory, and she was quite resolved to be industrious and to keep her promise to her father to be a good girl in every way. Also her ambition was aroused to attempt to ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... revealed to the individual by direct inspection (intueor), and that we must be content with such evidence and must not seek for proof. It may be maintained that our moral judgments—or some of them—are the result of "an immediate discernment of the natures of things by the understanding." and appeal may be made to the analogy furnished by mathematical truths. [Footnote: This appeal has been made by famous intuitionists from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth— Cudworth, ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... is that they do not take time to polish the jewels which the composers have selected with such keen aesthetic discernment. They think it enough if they merely succeed in playing the note. How horrible! A machine can play the notes, but there is only one machine with a soul and that is the artist. To think that an artist should play only the notes and forget the glories ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... not wish to absorb India herself, but she was committed to the policy of "Asia for the Asiatics," and it did not take much discernment to see that some day ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... personal and collective interests, and poisoned the springs of human kindness in many hearts. It was not alone hurtful to the slave: it transformed and blackened character everywhere, and fascinated those who were anxious for riches beyond the power of moral discernment. Here, however, as in New Jersey, the Negro found the Quaker his practical friend; and his upper and better life received the pruning advice, refining and elevating influence, of a godly people. But intelligence in the slave was an occasion of offending, and prepared him to realize his deplorable ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... this useless prating!" he said imperatively yet good-naturedly—"In everything ye showed your dullard ignorance and lack of discernment. For, concerning the matter of attire, are not the fashions of Al-Kyris copied more or less badly in every quarter of the habitable globe?—even as our language and literature form the chief study and delight of all scholars ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... deceitfulness, to all who hear him, Is, with the sight of all the good, that is, Blest there. The limbs, whence it was driven, lie Down in Cieldauro, and from martyrdom And exile came it here. Lo! further on, Where flames the arduous Spirit of Isidore, Of Bede, and Richard, more than man, erewhile, In deep discernment. Lastly this, from whom Thy look on me reverteth, was the beam Of one, whose spirit, on high musings bent, Rebuk'd the ling'ring tardiness of death. It is the eternal light of Sigebert, Who 'scap'd not envy, when of truth he argued, Reading in the straw-litter'd ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... was Smellie's footstep and the sound of his voice which caused her eyes to sparkle, her cheek to flush, and her bosom to heave tumultuously. So, in extreme disgust at the lady's deplorable lack of taste and discernment, I was fain to abandon my efforts to fascinate her, attaching myself to her father instead and accompanying him, gun in hand, on his frequent rambles through the forest in ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... rises at four o'clock in the morning, a Napoleon who dictates half the night in his bath, and who works eighteen hours a day, would scarcely suffice for its needs. Such a regime cannot operate without constant strain, without indefatigable energy, without infallible discernment, without military rigidity, without superior genius; on these conditions alone can one convert twenty-five millions of men into automatons and substitute his own will, lucid throughout, coherent throughout and everywhere ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... truth. "He was a man," says Felt, "of deep discernment, whom neither wealth nor honor could allure from duty. He poised with an equal balance the authority of the King, and the liberty of the people. Sincere in Religion and pure in his life, he overcame and ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... passion, and sometimes of caprice, to which she was subject; and if he failed of persuading her in the first movement, his perseverance, and remonstrances, and arguments were sure at last to recommend themselves to her sound discernment. The more credit he gained with his mistress, the more was he exposed to the envy of her other counsellors; and as he had been supposed to adopt the interests of the house of Suffolk, whose claim seemed to carry ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... continued Ernest, "very soon begins to assert her rights; the bud gradually twists itself round and ascends, whilst the root obeys a similar impulse and descends—is not this a proof of discernment?" ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... their painful ecstasies. Surely their object is not the earning of bread or the acquiring of posts of honour? No, certainly not. But ye take as much pains as the famishing and breadless; and, with that eagerness and lack of discernment which characterises the starving, ye even snatch the dishes from the sideboard of science. If, however, as scientific men, ye proceed with science as the labourers with the tasks which the exigencies of life impose upon them, what will ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the door behind her, and strolled back towards the fireplace. "A woman of great discernment is your aunt, Joan." He turned towards her, and suddenly stood very still. "What is it, my dear? . . . Have ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... division had ever come between them; or two such natures—I ought rather to express it, two such shades of the same nature—might have been harder to reconcile than the two extremest opposites in creation. The idea did not originate in my own discernment, I am bound to confess, but in a speech of ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... old felt that they lacked but one element; if they could obtain that one, they believed they could transmute the baser metals into pure gold. It is so in character. There are individuals with rare mental gifts, and delicate spiritual discernment who fail utterly in life because they lack the one element,—self- reliance. This would unite all their energies, and focus them into ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... ensuing Love his pleasures and becoming enamoured; the which,—albeit, were it known, I acknowledge it would not be seemly, yet,—being and abiding hidden, I hold[124] well nigh nothing unseemly; more by token that Love hath been insomuch gracious to me that not only hath he not bereft me of due discernment in the choice of a lover, but hath lent me great plenty thereof[125] to that end, showing me yourself worthy to be loved of a lady such as I,—you whom, if my fancy beguile me not, I hold the goodliest, the ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the disciples were already gathered around and attached to Him, and attentive to what was going on around them. Hence it is added: 'And His disciples believed in Him,'" not because they then believed in Him for the first time, but because then "they believed with greater discernment and perfection." Or they are called "disciples" because "they were to be disciples later on," as Augustine observes (De Consensu ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... the doctor with a delighted chuckle. "The old boy is a man of some discernment I can see. But the kid and you saved ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... curiously to the side to meet his stare, and more than one remark was dropped anent the old Siwash with so strange a look upon his face. No end of men remembered afterward that they had been struck by his extraordinary figure, and forever afterward prided themselves upon their swift discernment of the unusual. ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... the prices of railway and industrial shares have been forced enormously above the standard of actual values, and innumerable persons have parted with good money in exchange for mere phantoms of imaginary values. At such times the short sales of discernment, directing the X rays of clear-sighted criticism into the swollen and opaque mass of financial carrion that is exposed for sale in the market, are of the utmost benefit to the public. The bear is then a benefactor to the community, and ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... women like that," said a countryman with a grin, as he pointed to a photograph of one of Tintoret's most beautiful groups, "smoking cigarettes." And the mass of people in most northern countries have still passed little beyond this stage of discernment; in ability to distinguish between the beautiful and the obscene they are still on the level of the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... for which we beg the reader's pardon; but we could not let the occasion pass without rendering this honest tribute to the public spirited farmer, who had the discernment to perceive its merits, and the liberality to aid its introduction, of one of the most valuable improvements of ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... commanded the regiment "de Noailles." While he was there the Duke of Gloucester, brother of George III, king of England, came to that city and was present at a dinner given in his honor at the house of the governor of the garrison, the Count de Broglie. This count was a person of great sympathy and discernment. He had been observing the tall, red-haired boy of quiet, assured manner and few words, who represented so distinguished a family and gave so great promise for a future career. Eighteen years before ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... creditable to the young Princess' discernment to say she was blind to his feeling; yet she was careful to conceal the discovery from him, and still more careful not to encourage his hope. She placed the favor shown him to the account of gratitude; at the same time ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... Newton, childlike sage! Sagacious reader of the works of God, And in His Word sagacious. Such too thine, Milton, whose genius had angelic wings, And fed on manna. And such thine, in whom Our British Themis gloried with just cause, Immortal Hale! for deep discernment praised, And sound integrity not more, than famed For sanctity ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... Press: He has analyzed with ability and finish.... This is a story to be admired for its discernment and ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... of Dr. Johnson—"Though a stern true-born Englishman, and fully prejudiced against all other nations, he had discernment enough to see, and candour enough to censure, the cold reserve too common among Englishmen towards strangers. 'Sir,' said he, (Johnson) 'two men of any other nation who are shown into a room together, at a house where they are both visitors, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... adultery, afforded infinite gradations of guilt and innocence, of excuse and aggravation, which in these proceedings appear to have been confounded by the angry or corrupt passions of the judges. They easily discovered that the degree of their industry and discernment was estimated by the imperial court according to the number of executions that were furnished from their respective tribunals. It was not without extreme reluctance that they pronounced a sentence of acquittal; but they eagerly admitted ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... Fellow, who chose in this Manner to pin himself upon another, is a very odd Species of impertinent Humour.—This Piece, as it stands, irresistibly forces your Mirth, and shakes you with Laughter; But to a Person of Discernment, it is chiefly at Horace's Expence; Who in receiving and enduring such insolent Treatment, appears in a Light too low and ridiculous, though he has thought fit himself to exhibit the Scene again for the ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... long, from the consciousness of a misapplied agitation; sane as well as excitable, he judged severely his moments of aberration into futile eagerness, and felt discredited with himself. All the more his mind was strained toward the discernment of that friend to come, with whom he would have a calm ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... history was so particularly magnanimous? Well, never mind! And now,' he continued, with melancholy triumph, uncovering a third rather large mass of clay, 'you shall behold something which will show you the humility and discernment of your friend. You will realise that he, like a true artist again, feels the need and the ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... orator, such an occurrence was rare, and a triumph was gained over him only by the greatest exertions of the greatest orators. His labored speeches, as will be testified to by all who have perused them, are rich in profound thought, a clear discernment and comprehension of events, causes, and results, and occasionally in passages of stately and brilliant eloquence. Graceful rhetoric and shrewd logic appear to be ever at his command, as he has occasion, in the course of argument, to resort to one or the other, to illustrate or ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... natural that Helen, with the intuitive discernment of a pure and upright mind, and the penetration of a quick-witted woman, should be the first to detect the falsehood and cowardice of the boaster Parolles, who imposes ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... settled before Mr Deans Arrival in France. Mr Lee acted as the political Minister. He pressd on Mr Beaumarchais "the maintaining the War in America as the great Object." And indeed it was so. Mr Lee and every Man of Discernment knew, that it was the Policy of France to consider it in this View. On this Consideration he succeeded, and yet, says Mr Beaumarchais, "the Gratitude of Congress is due to the indefatigable Pains Mr Dean has taken thro' the whole of the Commercial ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... and intelligence with which he had devoted himself to the consideration of every branch of naval science, to communicate his opinions thereupon. The first result of this invitation was a letter showing remarkable discernment of evils then existing, and curiously anticipating some later efforts to ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... regard to the study of physiognomy in general, it is further to be observed that intellectual capacity is much easier of discernment than moral character. The former naturally takes a much more outward direction, and expresses itself not only in the face and the play of feature, but also in the gait, down even to the very slightest movement. One could perhaps discriminate ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer
... think knowledge and discernment my idol,' said Elizabeth; 'but we have wandered far away from my white convolvulus, and I have not done with it yet. When autumn came, and the leaves turned bright yellow, it was a ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... something too flippant about the Frate, Francesco," said Pietro Cennini, the scholarly. "We are all indebted to him in these weeks for preaching peace and quietness, and the laying aside of party quarrels. They are men of small discernment who would be glad to see the people slipping the Frate's leash just now. And if the Most Christian King is obstinate about the treaty to-day, and will not sign what is fair and honourable to Florence, Fra Girolamo is the man we must trust in ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... pilgrimage from Destruction to the Celestial City; and to understand its hidden meaning, requires the close and mature application of the renewed mind. There are, alas! comparatively few that are blessed with spiritual discernment; and even of these, there are but few inclined to mental investigation and research. These are reasons why it has not been so popular a book as the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' To aid those whose time for reading is ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... was greatly enlivened by the accession of a new member. His conversation abounded with novelty. His gaiety was almost boisterous, but was capable of yielding to a grave deportment when the occasion required it. His discernment was acute, but he was prone to view every object merely as supplying materials for mirth. His conceptions were ardent but ludicrous, and his memory, aided, as he honestly acknowledged, by his invention, was ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... survive, notwithstanding his personal reformation. So the suffering could not be penalty; but it could be chastisement. There might be "the fierceness of great wrath," as we read there was; but there was love behind. The people might not have the spiritual discernment to see their suffering in that light; but we have a clearer revelation than they had; so we read that "whom ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... some kind should begin from the cradle. Whoever has watched with any discernment the wide-eyed gaze of the infant at surrounding objects, knows very well that education does begin thus early, whether we intend it or not; and that these fingerings and suckings of everything it can lay hold of, these open-mouthed listenings to every sound, are first ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... twin souls. She has thanked me again. She has scolded the parrot. She has smiled upon me as she retires to her room. It is enough. Nothing is said, but I am a man of sensibility and discernment, and I understand that she will not be offended if I seek to renew our friendship on a ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... and complex tendencies and aptitudes of Dr. Dewey in stimulating suggestions, which were refreshing as spring breezes. His mind gave hospitable welcome to each new fact disclosed by science, to all generous hopes for human refinement and ennobling ideals, while his discernment was keen to detect false sentiment or flashy sophisms. Again, some startling event would bring conventional customs and maxims to the judgment-bar of pure Christian ethics, when his moral indignation blazed forth with impartial equity against all degrading ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... where he first fixed himself, so that he, by barking, denoted the presence of the birds without giving them alarm. Although, in this first instance, the action is purely rational, and is indeed good evidence of singular discernment and contriving skill, it seems likely that by careful breeding it may be brought into the realm of pure instinct or ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... great respect. Indeed, his modesty led him to prefer everybody's good poetry to his own. He felt himself inferior not only to Burns, but also to Wordsworth and Campbell and Coleridge and Byron,—as in many respects he undoubtedly was; but it requires in an author discernment and humility of a rare kind, to make him ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... most exacting of all the Arts, the cultivation of which presents the greatest difficulties, for a consummate interpretation of a musical work so as to permit an appreciation of its real value, a clear view of its physiognomy, or discernment of its real meaning and true character, is only achieved in relatively few cases. Of creative artists, the composer is almost the only one who is dependent upon a multitude of intermediate agents between the public and himself; ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... royalty demands thirty qualifications, the priesthood twenty-four, while the Torah is acquired by forty-eight. And these are they: By audible study; by distinct pronunciation; by understanding and discernment of the heart; by awe, reverence, meekness, cheerfulness; by ministering to the sages; by attaching oneself to colleagues; by discussion with disciples; by sedateness; by knowledge of the Scripture and of the Mishnah; by moderation in business, in intercourse with the world, in pleasure, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... And the various parties, pointing out reciprocally to each other, the contradictions, improbabilities, and forgeries, accused one another of having established their belief on popular rumors, vague traditions, and absurd fables, invented without discernment, and admitted without examination by unknown, partial, or ignorant writers, ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... Astute Filipinos, of quicker discernment than their fellows, did not fail to perceive the material advantages to be reaped from a religious system, quite apart from the religion itself, in the power of union and its pecuniary potentiality. As a result thereof there ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... down the walk towards them, they endeavored to adjust their looks, and to meet her with the wonted smile. But in vain. The tumult in their bosoms was still too visible in their looks to escape her discernment. She eagerly asked the cause. Their changing countenances served but to increase her fears and the vehemence of her curiosity. The bishop's letter was put into her hands. Its effects on the good old lady were truly distressing. ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... distinguish the danger and the courage to meet it. Milner's worn face and prematurely grizzled hair told of the crushing weight which had rested upon him during three eventful years. A gentle scholar, he might have seemed more fitted for a life of academic calm than for the stormy part which the discernment of Mr. Chamberlain had assigned to him. The fine flower of an English university, low-voiced and urbane, it was difficult to imagine what impression he would produce upon those rugged types of which South Africa is so peculiarly prolific. ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and nicety of discernment were not allotted in a less proportion to Dryden than to Pope. The rectitude of Dryden's mind was sufficiently shown by the dismission of his poetical prejudices, and the rejection of unnatural thoughts and rugged numbers. But Dryden never desired to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... neighbor at table was the great poet. In a flutter of interest they listened for the wisdom which would drop from the distinguished man's mouth and heard the hearty words, "What fine potatoes these are!" This particular point requires nice discernment on the part of host and hostess; they should know when they may safely impress one guest with the cleverness of the other, and when it would be disastrous to do so. Suppose the consequence is that each ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... and prematurely grizzled hair told of the crushing weight which had rested upon him during three eventful years. A gentle scholar, he might have seemed more fitted for a life of academic calm than for the stormy part which the discernment of Mr. Chamberlain had assigned to him. The fine flower of an English university, low-voiced and urbane, it was difficult to imagine what impression he would produce upon those rugged types of which South Africa ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... point.' Few ever passed him in the street without asking who he was; for not only did his primitive dress, his broad-brimmed hat, and his antique shoe buckles attract attention, but the beauty and benevolence of his face was sure to fix the eye of ordinary discernment. He was a living temperance lecture, and those who desire to preserve good looks could not ask a more infallible receipt, than that sweet temper and out-flowing benevolence which made his countenance please every eye. Gay and cheerful as a ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... there is a flatness of tone in his accent—a lack of what the musicians call expression, which gives a local and provincial effect to his conversation, however, in other respects, learned and intelligent. It is so with his manners; he conducts himself with equal ease, self-possession, and discernment, but the flavour of the ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... discernment to read the truth of this assertion in Maude's crimson cheeks, but Mrs. Kelsey had, and very sarcastically she said: "Miss Remington, I think, might be better employed than in trying ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... them. Instead of undertaking particular recommendations on this subject in which I could be guided by no lights derived from official opportunities, I shall again give way to my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public good, for I assure myself that while you carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the benefits of an united and effective government, or which ought to await the future lessons of experience, a reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen, and a regard ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... much concerned therewith." Shocked at so rude an admonition, Henry III. answered, "It is God who made me king; and as I bear the title of Most Christian King, I have ever been very zealous for the preservation of the Catholic religion. . . . It appertains to me alone to decide, according to my discernment, what may contribute to the public weal, to make laws for to procure it, to interpret those laws, to change them, and to abolish them, just as I find it expedient. I have done so hitherto, and I shall still do ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to admit Foreign Words as Foreign Trades, tho' our Tongue may be enrich'd by the one, as much as our Traffick by the other. [Sidenote: Page 28.] He would have it corrected, enlarg'd and ascertain'd and who must do it? He tells you with great Modesty and Discernment in the 27th Page, The Choice of Hands should be left to him, and he would then assign it over to the Women, because they are softer mouth'd, and are more for Liquids than the Men, as he try'd himself in a very notable Experiment. ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon
... intellectual and moral interests of man rise, in estimation, above the merely sensual, a truer estimate is formed of woman's duties, and of the measure of intellect requisite for the proper discharge of them. Let any man, of sense and discernment, become the member of a large household, in which, a well-educated and pious woman is endeavoring systematically to discharge her multiform duties; let him fully comprehend all her cares, difficulties, and perplexities; and it is probable he would ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... Repetto came in alone. Her husband was at Mr. Keytel's; but she said she was not going to forsake old friends. She generally talks very amusingly. This time she informed us "Mr. Keytel was a cunning rat," which she intended as a compliment to his discernment. She loves to talk about her children, and told an amusing story of one of her little boys. On going to the pig-sty she found a dead little pig. She felt sure that the children had had something to do with it. So, marshalling them ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... Jesus' only plan for the Wilderness battle was to stand, having done all to stand, to resist every effort to move Him a hair's breadth from His position. That battle brought Him great suffering; it took, and it tested, all His strength of discernment, and decision, of determined set persistence, and of dependent, deep-breathed praying. And through these the gracious power of the Spirit worked, and so the victory, ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... past year 1848. For ourselves, we have no more faith in Mr. Fleming, the obsolete author, who has so suddenly revived in the public esteem, than we have in many other interpreters of prophecy. Their shallow and bigoted views of past history are enough to damp our faith in their discernment of the future. It does seem that people ought to understand what has been, before they predict what will be. History is "the track of God's footsteps through time;" it is in His dealings with our forefathers that we ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... reasonably believe that Jesus healed a case of violent insanity at Gadara, and reasonably disbelieve that the fire of heaven was twice obedient to Elijah's call to consume the military companies sent to arrest him. Cultivated discernment does not now put all Biblical miracles on a common level of credibility, any more than the historical work of Herodotus and that of the late Dr. Gardiner. To defend them all is not to vindicate, but ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... occupation kept him away from home much of the time during my boyhood, and as a consequence I grew up under the sole guidance and training of my mother, whose excellent common sense and clear discernment in every way fitted her for such maternal duties. When old enough I was sent to the village school, which was taught by an old-time Irish "master"—one of those itinerant dominies of the early frontier—who, holding ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... knew that Margaret was exposed to as much observation and inquiry as a country village affords, respecting her disappointed attachment—that the Greys were very angry, and praised Margaret to every person they met—that Mr Walcot eulogised Mrs Rowland's discernment to all Mrs Rowland's party—that Mrs Howell and Miss Miskin lifted up their eyes in thankfulness at Mr Enderby's escape from such a connection—that Mr Hope was reported to be rather flat in spirits—and that Margaret was certainly looking thin: she ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... value of highly-wrought discipline which he encountered everywhere among Catholics, though not enough to blind him to the essential liberty of the Church, was enough to delay him in his progress to her. There can be little doubt that multitudes of men and women of less discernment and feebler will than his, have been and still are kept entirely out of the ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... their arts; and this with sufficient skill to deceive children or simple people. Suppose now that somebody came to us and told us, how he had met a man who knew all that everybody knows, and better than anybody:—should we not infer him to be a simpleton who, having no discernment of truth and falsehood, had met with a wizard or enchanter, whom he fancied to be all-wise? And when we hear persons saying that Homer and the tragedians know all the arts and all the virtues, must we not infer that they are under a similar delusion? they do not see ...
— The Republic • Plato
... unwilling to seek protection in flight, lest the throne should be declared vacant, and he should thus lose his crown. He was ever hoping that affairs would soon take such a turn that harmony would be restored to his distracted kingdom. Maria Antoinette, however, who had a much more clear discernment of the true state of affairs, soon felt convinced that reconciliation, unless effected by the arm of power, was hopeless, and she exerted all her influence to rouse the king to vigorous measures for escape. While firmly resolved never to abandon her husband ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... difficulty with students is that they do not take time to polish the jewels which the composers have selected with such keen aesthetic discernment. They think it enough if they merely succeed in playing the note. How horrible! A machine can play the notes, but there is only one machine with a soul and that is the artist. To think that an artist should play only the notes and forget the glories of ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... struggle. Seeing the old lady coming down the walk towards them, they endeavored to adjust their looks, and to meet her with the wonted smile. But in vain. The tumult in their bosoms was still too visible in their looks to escape her discernment. She eagerly asked the cause. Their changing countenances served but to increase her fears and the vehemence of her curiosity. The bishop's letter was put into her hands. Its effects on the good ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... be married within two years, and to a neighboring minister; but now it was twenty-six months since, and the only single minister around lately got married to Miss Longface, a very ignorant and unamiable person. But there was no taste, or judgment, or discernment nowadays in men, as this fact clearly proved. "Thunderation on them!" said ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... so, Mr Merry? You are a young gentleman of discernment in most matters, and I hope are so in this respect," he answered. "However, when you see the Baroness, I think that you will confess that a man must be worth something to be worthy ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... of great talents, though deaf and dumb, who had been to a Deaf and Dumb Institution to be taught, with a view to become the master of a similar Institution in Russia, was asked the difference between intelligence and discernment? He said "Intelligence is a faculty, by which we distinguish good and evil, what is useful and what hurtful. I think discernment is the faculty of distinguishing the greater and less degrees of good ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... chance, it will be equally fatal to its comfort and prosperity. It is the part of a prudent manager to see all that is doing, and to foresee and direct all that should be done. The weakest capacity can perceive what is wrong after it has occurred; but discernment and discretion are necessary to anticipate and prevent confusion and disorder, by a well-regulated system of prompt and vigorous management. If time be wisely economised, and the useful affairs transacted before amusements ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... them from attack by shutting them from sight, and in a few brief and direct statements cuts into the substance and heart of the subjects. This felicity comes partly from his being a man gifted with spiritual discernment as well as spiritual feeling, and partly from the instinct of his nature to look at doctrines in their connection with life. He excels equally in interpreting the truth which may be hidden in a dogma, and in overturning dogmas in which no truth is to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... the feeling on certain days that you are not at your best. Somehow or other, your wits seem befogged. You hesitate to undertake important interviews. Your interest lags. And though crises arise in your business, you feel weighted down and unable to meet them with that shrewd discernment and decisiveness of action of ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton
... sacrifices to the good qualities of the man she loves. To an ordinary man, a weakness is a weakness, he blushes at it; to a man of intelligence, it is a tribute paid to his merits, it is even a proof of our discernment; he eulogizes our good taste and takes the credit of it. It is thus by turning it to the profit of the vanity which he rescues from virtue, that this enchanter hides from our eyes the grades ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... acknowledge it would not be seemly, yet,—being and abiding hidden, I hold[124] well nigh nothing unseemly; more by token that Love hath been insomuch gracious to me that not only hath he not bereft me of due discernment in the choice of a lover, but hath lent me great plenty thereof[125] to that end, showing me yourself worthy to be loved of a lady such as I,—you whom, if my fancy beguile me not, I hold the goodliest, the most agreeable, the sprightliest and the most accomplished ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... all these advantages of the body in the most eminent degree; but their compositions supposed, and indispensably implied an infinite number of combinations which belong intirely to the mind, or intellectual faculties; as for example, especially an attentive and judicious discernment of the most interesting truths of human nature. How extensive a study this exacts, it is more easy to ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... those which were nearest to his own taste—his favorite commonplaces. Thus, as luck would have it, I passed in his estimation for a man who had a quick and natural relish of the real and less obvious beauties in a work. "This indeed," exclaimed he, "is what you may call having discernment and feeling in perfection! Well, well, my friend! it can ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... is in Chancery, of course. It would be an insult to the discernment of any man with half an eye to tell him so. Whether "Tom" is the popular representative of the original plaintiff or defendant in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, or whether Tom lived here when the suit had laid the street waste, all ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... magnify the first Napoleon in the popular imagination was the exile who launched his prose invective Napoleon le Petit. A year later appeared Les Chatiments, in which satire, with some loss of critical discernment, is infused with a passionate lyrical quality, unsurpassed in literature, and is touched at times with epic grandeur. The Empire, if it severed Hugo from the soil of France, restored him to himself with all his superb power and all his violences and ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... transcript was then handed to Sir Anthony, and five guineas (his fee) along with it, which was regularly charged to him by the clerk. Sir Anthony then went over the deeds with his accustomed accuracy and discernment, and never after that was possessed of ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... life all the friends he ever had, and he made the wrath of his enemies to praise him. This was not by cunning or intrigue in the low acceptation of the term, but by far-seeing reason and discernment. He always told only enough of his plans and purposes to induce the belief that he had communicated all; yet he reserved ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... countryman with a grin, as he pointed to a photograph of one of Tintoret's most beautiful groups, "smoking cigarettes." And the mass of people in most northern countries have still passed little beyond this stage of discernment; in ability to distinguish between the beautiful and the obscene they are still on the level of the plough-boy and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... things; then while we were reverencing him as a god he might have produced a magnificent effect by expounding to us that he was no wiser than a tadpole. For if truth is only sensation, and one man's discernment is as good as another's, and every man is his own judge, and everything that he judges is right and true, then {90} what need of Protagoras to be our instructor at a high figure; and why should we be less knowing than he is, or have to go to him, if every ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... gallant husband and a gentleman! And so, forsooth, you would desert your wife because she has forgotten the memory of her dead boy—whom she never truly loved—and because she thirsts after pleasure and excitement! What wondrous discernment! What a wise judge of human nature!" Her ironical laugh was now ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... ready to admit that, even now. But you are altogether mistaken in thinking I can help you. Indeed I scarcely see how I can help myself. It is a very poor proof of your keen discernment to associate me ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... nodded sagely in swift discernment of this evident truth, for Artemise was now tired of the subject and of Pauline's endless farewells and preferred to ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... The summit of Ron's ambition. It's the magazine of all others which he likes and admires, and the editor is known to be a man of great power and discernment. It is said that if he has the will, he can do more than any man in London to help on young writers. It is useless sending manuscripts, for he refuses to consider unsolicited poetical contributions. He shuts himself ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... began. It was easy for a young woman of Dorothy's discernment to see that here was no case for a long-distance flirtation, if she had wanted one. From the moment when she had flung her left hand into Waldron's right, and that other moment when she had told him with absolute ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... prayed for discerning love; "that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment" (R.V.). The two words "knowledge" and "discernment" are particularly noteworthy. One expresses the principle, the other the application. Again we observe this word "knowledge" as a characteristic expression of the Apostle in these prison-epistles. ...
— The Prayers of St. Paul • W. H. Griffith Thomas
... superstition and the endless multitude of nothings which arrogant creed-makers have impiously superadded to pure christianity removed from the church than I do; but wisdom must direct in this great and necessary work. It was those who had more zeal than discernment who asked if they should pluck up the tares from among the wheat? They were told that they would pluck up the wheat with the tares.—Let us be careful, my brother, and in our zeal to cleanse, take care and ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... did actually exist, it would be right that a combination should be formed to wipe him out of creation. He should be put down,—as you would put down a tiger or a rattlesnake, if found at liberty somewhere in the Midland Counties. A more hateful character, to all who possess a grain of moral discernment, could not even be imagined. And it need not be shown that the conception of such a character is worthy only of a baby. However many years the man who deliberately and admiringly delineates such a person may ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... approach to the truth would be to describe it as a light of purity which, notwithstanding the popular idea to the contrary, is quite as often to be found upon the faces of men as upon those of women. Any person of discernment looking on Colonel Quaritch must have felt that he was in the presence of a good man—not a prig or a milksop, but a man who had attained by virtue of thought and struggle that had left their marks upon him, a man whom it would not be ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... must be founded on knowledge, and between the hard, dry teaching of the Board School or the Examination Room on the one hand, and the aetherial atmosphere of Desultory Reading and the purest literary discernment on the other, there lies an intermediate region, a 'penumbral zone,' which differs from the first in that it is entered voluntarily, and from the second in that it is attainable by all who care to enter it. The way through this region, though ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... liberty. The time may come sooner than they are aware of it, when the being of the British nation, I mean the being of its importance, however strange it may now appear to some, will depend on her union with America. It requires but a small portion of the gift of discernment for any one to foresee, that providence will erect a mighty empire in America; and our posterity will have it recorded in history, that their fathers migrated from an ISLAND in a distant part of the world, the inhabitants of which had long been ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... hand, grovels in the dust and never rises to higher thoughts or nobler aims. Men could, if they would, distinguish the worthy from the unworthy, just as with a healthy palate they can tell good food from bad. But men's moral discernment has been blunted by a life of sensuality and sin, just as the physical palate loses its power of tasting when ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... contradictory paths, a man must make his choice; in so doing, he has to exercise his judgment, and that is one great step to mental independence. He begins to doubt all, where all differ, and but one can be in the right. He is driven to trust to his own discernment, and his natural feelings; and here he is most likely to be safe. The author, too, finding that what is condemned at one tribunal, is applauded at another, though perplexed for a time, gives way at length to the spontaneous ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... before it is too far advanced to be thrown into a new method, I may be advertised of its defects or superfluities. Such informations I may justly hope, from the emulation with which those, who desire the praise of elegance or discernment, must contend in the promotion of a design that you, my Lord, have not thought unworthy to share your attention with treaties ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... his tact, and was therefore very careful to use the most idiomatic English in his conversation. But at this sudden discovery—for he had not imagined that the acquaintance had gone beyond his own discernment—he felt the English language quite inadequate to the occasion, and muttered something under his breath that sounded remarkably like "Tison d'enfer!" as he turned on his heel ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... to New York. We really troubled the post office very little, having after a while nothing to expect from it, and that was the only place where you could hope to get a clue.' Neither would Esther mention Mr. Dallas. With a woman's curious fine discernment, she had seen that all was not right in that quarter; indeed, had ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... creed, man must answer to God for his moral life because he has free will. He cannot excuse his evil deed on the ground of necessity. Even in the face of planetary influence and of temptation from within, by his evil inclinations, and from without by solicitation of other agents man has still such discernment between good and evil and such power to make choice freely, that moral judgment with him is free. "Who hath been tried thereby and made perfect," says Holy Writ, "he shall have glory everlasting. He that could have transgressed, and hath not transgressed and ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... a well-trained horse when touched by the whip, be ye active and lively, and by faith, by virtue, by energy, by meditation, by discernment of the law you will overcome this great pain (of reproof), perfect in knowledge and in ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... was to announce one's own possession of a fine classical taste, and there can be no greater stimulus to critical enthusiasm. One might have guessed that he would be a favourite with all who set up for a discernment superior to that of the vulgar; though the causes which must obstruct a wide recognition of his merits are sufficiently obvious. It may be interesting to consider the cause of his ill-success with some fulness; and it is a comfort to the critic to reflect that in such ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... true, and very well said, with respect to the fact, but with respect to the cause there is one of the greatest errors into which a number of men of discernment and ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... made on his intelligence had not been made in vain. The merchants of Aux Cayes, who had seen him tried in some "counter-revolution" in 1845, wrote to the consul of his "able and decided measures," "his cool, steady judgment and discernment," with admiration; and of himself, as "a credit and an ornament to H.M. Naval Service." It is plain he must have sunk in all his powers, during the years when he was only a figure, and often a dumb figure, in his wife's drawing-room; but with this ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... regard it as obtained from fortune, which may at any moment turn against us. Why do we separate this which naturally is connected? That is not a benefit, to which the best part of a benefit, that it be bestowed with judgment, is wanting: a really great sum of money, if it be given neither with discernment nor with good will, is no more a benefit than if it remained hoarded. There are, however, many things which we ought not to reject, yet for which we ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... month or two ago that Lady Fitzgerald was not the lawful wife of her husband; and had come to this conclusion on, as he still thought, sufficient evidence. But now he was proved to have been wrong; his character for shrewdness and discernment would be damaged, and his great ally and chum Mr. Die, the Chancery barrister, would be down on him with unmitigated sarcasm. A man who has been right so frequently as Mr. Prendergast, does not like to find that he is ever in the wrong. And ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... case was, of course, the person who had shown discernment enough to address me as 'Mister Freydon.' And, deprecate as I might, the thing had given me a thrill of deep and real satisfaction. Merely recalling the sound of it added to the exaltation of my mood, and to my obsession by the wonder, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... and discernment my idol,' said Elizabeth; 'but we have wandered far away from my white convolvulus, and I have not done with it yet. When autumn came, and the leaves turned bright yellow, it ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which had been nursed and ripened by this preponderance of social habits. Hence it happened that the drama obtained at one and the same time a greater interest for the French, and also (by means of this culture given to conversational forms) most unhappily for his lordship's critical discernment of flavours, as well as his Greek literature, happens to be a respectable Joe Miller from the era of Hierocles, and through him probably it came down from Pythagoras. Yet still Voltaire was very far indeed from being a 'scribbler.' He had the graceful levity ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... manner in which the said gentleman may arrive in security, without molestation, at Fyzabad; but at the same time let the plan be so managed that it may not come to the knowledge of any zemindars: in this case you are men of discernment. However, he is to come to Fyzabad: extend your ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and excluding the small fry of petty capitalists); and effectually imposed on them as a man with a vast knowledge of public business, in the confidence of great men at home, considerable influence with the English press, etc. And no discredit to their discernment; for Jack, when he pleased, had a way with him that was almost irresistible. In this manner he contrived to associate himself and his earnings with men really of large capital and long practical experience in the best ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... impudence of address was construed into honourable bluntness becoming his supposed military profession; his hectoring passed for courage, and his sauciness for wit. Lest, however, any one should think this a violation of probability, we must add, in fairness to the two ladies, that their discernment was greatly blinded, and their favour propitiated, by the opportune arrival of Captain Craigengelt in the moment when they were longing for a third hand to make a party at tredrille, in which, as in all games, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... officers for staff duties; and of course the difficulty now to obtain efficient officers for a staff, if not insurmountable, is appalling, and is only to be mastered by a great deal of good will, by insight and by discernment. ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... the discernment and nobleness of Washington. Appreciating at a glance the perplexed position of Mr. Adams, and wisely discriminating between the bringing forward of his son for the first time into public service, and the continuing him where he had already been placed by others, and shown ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... tears to joy. They do not teach how that passage is to be effected; and in so far they are imperfect, and need to be supplemented by the New Testament teaching of forgiveness through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. But in their clear discernment that sorrow is not meant to be a permanent characteristic of religion, and that gladness is a more acceptable offering than tears, they teach a valuable lesson, needed always by men who fancy that they must atone ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... all, 'till, bursting into birth, Its wide explosion shakes th' astonish'd earth. His was the prompt invention, fruitful still In means subservient to the varying will: The flexible expertness, smooth and mean, That glides thro' obstacles, and wins unseen: The quick discernment, that with eagle eyes Sees distant storms in ether darkly rise, And active vigour, that arrests their course, Or to a different aim diverts their force. He, in a happier land, by freedom bless'd, Had hallow'd virtue dawn'd upon his breast, Had done ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... feigning, for his natural temper was careless and easy; the boisterous airs he assumed when he became the husband of Katharine being but in sport, or, more properly speaking, affected by his excellent discernment, as the only means to overcome, in her own way, the passionate ways of ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... must necessarily be concerned with reasoning or understanding - I mean, method is not identical with reasoning in the search for causes, still less is it the comprehension of the causes of things: it is the discernment of a true idea, by distinguishing it from other perceptions, and by investigating its nature, in order that we may so train our mind that it may, by a given standard, comprehend whatsoever is intelligible, by laying down certain rules as aids, and by avoiding useless ...
— On the Improvement of the Understanding • Baruch Spinoza [Benedict de Spinoza]
... parties, pointing out reciprocally to each other, the contradictions, improbabilities, and forgeries, accused one another of having established their belief on popular rumors, vague traditions, and absurd fables, invented without discernment, and admitted without examination by unknown, partial, or ignorant writers, at ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... morning, a Napoleon who dictates half the night in his bath, and who works eighteen hours a day, would scarcely suffice for its needs. Such a regime cannot operate without constant strain, without indefatigable energy, without infallible discernment, without military rigidity, without superior genius; on these conditions alone can one convert twenty-five millions of men into automatons and substitute his own will, lucid throughout, coherent throughout and everywhere present, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... fortitude is lacking thereto . . . and fortitude is very weak if it be not supported by counsel . . . Knowledge is nought if it hath not the use of piety . . . and piety is very useless if it lack the discernment of knowledge . . . and assuredly, unless it has these virtues with it, fear itself rises up to the doing of no good action": from which it seems that it is possible to have one gift without another. Therefore the gifts of the Holy Ghost ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... be the most exacting of all the Arts, the cultivation of which presents the greatest difficulties, for a consummate interpretation of a musical work so as to permit an appreciation of its real value, a clear view of its physiognomy, or discernment of its real meaning and true character, is only achieved in relatively few cases. Of creative artists, the composer is almost the only one who is dependent upon a multitude of intermediate agents between the public and himself; intermediate agents, either intelligent or stupid, ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... being also a woman of great discernment, and having known Horace Dinsmore nearly all his life, had conceived a very correct idea of the trials and difficulties of Elsie's situation, and without alluding to them at all, gave her some most excellent advice, which the ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... I receive your packet of poems, and Shee's letter. I perceive that he is impressed by your attentions and your ability. It will always afford me one of my best pleasures to forward your views; I claim no merit from this, but my discernment in discovering your talents, which, under the genius of Prudence (the best of all Genii for human affairs), must inevitably reach the goal. The literary productions of I.D['Israeli] and others may not augment the profits ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... in the turbid though fascinating current of London society. But the admirable training in strict moral principles with which she had been privileged furnished weapons of defence against the more specious temptations which presented themselves; whilst her quick discernment easily penetrated the thin shell of external polish covering worthlessness of character. It was also fortunate for her that at the outset of her London experience she became acquainted with such a sterling man as ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... has come into its own at last. I confess to having a strong belief in the critical discernment of the public. I do not think good work is often overlooked. Literature, like water, finds its true level. Opinion is slow to form, but it sets true at last. I am sure that if the critics were to unite to praise a bad book or to damn a good one they could (and continually do) have a five-year ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sphere of knowledge, yet were willing to learn; relieved from the fear of criticism, he expanded, he glowed, he dogmatized. With Mrs. Lessingham he could not be entirely at his ease; her eye was occasionally disturbing to a pretender who did not lack discernment. But in walking about the museum with Mr. Bradshaw, he was the most brilliant of ciceroni. Jacob was not wholly credulous, for he had spoken of the young man with Mrs. Lessingham, but he found such companionship entertaining enough from time to time, and Clifford's ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... cries Booth, "you shall have it your way; I must confess I never yet found any reason to blame your discernment; and perhaps I have been in the wrong to give myself so much uneasiness ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... blindly. Another cardinal quality of such a culture, therefore, must be precision—the close, clean working of the faculties. A memory trained to clear recollection, what a saving of reiterated labor and of annoying helplessness. A discrimination sharpened to the nicest discernment of things that differ, though always a shining mark for the arrow of the satirist, will outlive all shots with his gray-goose shaft; for it shines with the gleam of tempered steel. An exactness of knowledge that defines all its landmarks, how is it master of ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... is your misfortune, Mr. Lovelace, as well as mine, at present. Every woman of discernment, I say as I say, [I had a mind to mortify a pride, that I am sure deserves to be mortified;] that your politeness is not regular, nor constant. It is not habit. It is too much seen by fits and starts, and sallies, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... of restlessness did little Mistress Lucy Woodley go to bed in Rose's room that night. She was quite comforted on Edmund's account, for she had discernment enough to see that her mother and sister did not believe Diggory's dreadful narration; and she had been so unsettled and excited by Mr. Sylvester Enderby's notice, and by the way in which she had allowed her high spirits to get the better of her discretion, as well as by the ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... me, studied the diphrelatic art. Excuse, reader, a word too elegant to be pedantic. As a pupil, though I paid extra fees, it is to be lamented that I did not stand high in his esteem. It showed his dogged honesty (though, observe, not his discernment) that he could not see my merits. Let us excuse his absurdity in this particular by remembering his want of an eye. Doubtless that made him blind to my merits. In the art of conversation, however, he admitted that I had the whip-hand of him. On the present occasion great joy ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... unvarying patience and politeness, it was Smellie's footstep and the sound of his voice which caused her eyes to sparkle, her cheek to flush, and her bosom to heave tumultuously. So, in extreme disgust at the lady's deplorable lack of taste and discernment, I was fain to abandon my efforts to fascinate her, attaching myself to her father instead and accompanying him, gun in hand, on his frequent rambles through the forest in search ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... experience that would enable them to comprehend the sacred mutual duty of souls that once had spoken. Woman was no longer the captive of the seraglio, nor the chronicler of small beer. Intellectual training conferred rights of choice superior to conventional ties; and, as to the infallible discernment of that fifteen year old judgment, had not she the sole premises to go upon, she who alone had been admitted to the innermost ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... main object in writing now is to tell you how pleased His Majesty is with the working of the German Hero Fund. He is enthusiastic about it and spoke in most complimentary terms of your discernment, as well as your generosity in founding it. He did not believe it would fill so important a place as it is doing. He told me of several cases that are really touching, and which would otherwise have been wholly unprovided for. One was that of a young man who saved a boy from drowning and ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... fiddling); und Abends wird gegessen (and in the evening there is eating); und Andere werden gelastert (and others are abused) (392. V. 114). This side of the linguistic inventiveness of childhood, with its double-entendre, its puns, its folk-etymologies, its keen discernment of hidden resemblances and analogies, deserves more study than it ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... instances within the range of memory or legend, and this achievement was pronounced the greatest. They were proud of him, and of the exploit, and of themselves that they had him. Morey, who had taken him because he could find no other, blazed up into a man of fine discernment; and Jo nearly killed him with approving slaps on his feeble back. Indeed, his apologies for what he had said were ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... king was much astonished, and praised highly the discernment of the man who was fastidious about the fair sex, and immediately had given to the third Brahman, who was fastidious about beds, in accordance with his taste, a bed composed of seven mattresses placed upon a bedstead. White smooth sheets and coverlets were laid upon the bed, and the fastidious ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... instalment, if not, in the second, he told a delightful story of a Berkshire labourer looking over a sty at a good litter of Berkshire grunters and remarking, "What I do say is this. We wants fewer of they black parsons and more of they black pigs." Be that as it may, no person of discernment ever wanted fewer Beechings, or fewer pages from ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... "I have up till now regarded you as little more than a boy, in spite of your pluck in going up as a native soldier to Chitral. Now I shall hold you in much higher respect, and shall regard you as a young man with an exceptionally sharp eye, and exceptionally keen discernment." ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... waited for this chance to come he watched her, noting her every movement, her troubled smile, her air of being apart and above her surroundings. He noticed, too, the set face of the young man at her side and, with the discernment of one whose own interest is captive, saw the half-concealed longing in his eyes. He felt a quick antipathy to this young man. His assured position at the girl's side accentuated how far he himself was removed from ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... Hilairie, Hermione. Well, these Christian names, for reasons which I do not understand, are essential to the madwoman. She cannot do without them. To find women bearing one of these Christian names and for this purpose only she summons up all her remaining powers of reason, discernment, reflection and intelligence. She hunts about. She asks questions. She lies in wait. She reads newspapers which she hardly understands, but in which certain details, certain capital letters catch her eye. And consequently I did not doubt for a second that this name of Herminie, ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... is, the part of Mrs. X. would befit a "star," but an actress of genius and discernment might prefer the dumb part of Miss Y. One thing is certain: that the latter character has few equals in its demand on the performer's tact and skill and imagination. This wordless opponent of Mrs. ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... From his first entrance into public duty till his last hour, when he swallowed poison to avoid being delivered up to the Romans, he never ceased to combat their ambition with all the powers of his gigantic intellect. If history had preserved no other proof of his profound political discernment, it would be sufficiently established by the memorable words he addressed to the senate of Carthage on the probable fate of Rome:—"Nulla magna civitas diu quiescere potest. Si fores hostem non habet, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... secret charge on Juan, to display At once her royal splendour, and reward His services. He kiss'd hands the next day, Received instructions how to play his card, Was laden with all kinds of gifts and honours, Which show'd what great discernment ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... cannot be as invulnerable as walls of adamant. It is nothing that nobody has suspected they were forged;—nothing that the editors and commentators, who, for the most part possessed of remarkable perspicacity and discernment, have applied their minds to minute revision and close examination of these books, have, after such diligent attention never considered them to be spurious, but belonging to the domain of true history;—nothing that they ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... there is another consideration still more cogent. I can assure you that the spirit of the people cries out for this declaration; the military, in particular, men and officers, are outrageous on the subject; and a man of your excellent discernment need not be told how dangerous it would be, in our present circumstances, to dally with the spirit, or disappoint the expectations, of the bulk of the people. May not despair, anarchy, and final submission be the bitter fruits? I am firmly persuaded that they will; and, in ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... days after the 20th of June, extolled the red cap in which the head of Louis XVI. had been muffled. "That crown is as good as any other. Marcus Aurelius would not have despised it."[2208]—Such is the discernment and practical judgment of the leaders; from these one can form an opinion of the flock. It consists of novices arriving from the provinces and bringing with them the principles and prejudices of the newspaper. So remote from the center, having no knowledge of general affairs or of their unity, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... items were not edited nor garbled but appeared exactly as I had written them, boxed and doubleleaded on page one. Though the matter was really trivial and in confessing it I don't mind admitting all of us are subject to petty vanities I was gratified to notice too that Le ffacase had the discernment to realize how much the public appreciated my handling the news about the grass, for he advertised my ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... writer of society-novels, which, without being of the highest order, are faithful in their portraitures. Among those which have been very popular are: Barchester Towers, Framley Parsonage, Doctor Thorne, and Orley Farm, He travelled in the United States, and has published a work of discernment entitled North America. His brother Thomas is best known by his History of Florence to the ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... with a humble air, as different from that which she wore in the harem of the Duke of Buckingham, as that of a Magdalene from a Judith. Yet this was the least show of her talent of versatility, for so well did she play the part of the dumb girl, that Buckingham, sharp as his discernment was, remained undecided whether the creature which stood before him could possibly be the same with her, who had, in a different dress, made such an impression on his imagination, or indeed was the imperfect creature she now represented. She had at once all that ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... mother's wrappers very beautiful, but now look at this! Cynthia's face, too, in the dim, rosy light, looked very fair to the child, who had no discernment for those ravages of time of which adults either acquit themselves or by which they measure their own. She did not see the faded color of the woman's face at all; she did not see the spreading marks around mouth and eyes, or the faint ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... had chosen a soft, creamy stuff which he informed Mattie must be trimmed with no end of lace. Phillis had received and executed the order with such skill and discernment that a most ravishing costume had been produced. But Grace, who had her own ideas on the subject of those "Challoner girls," had received the gift somewhat coldly, and had even seemed displeased when her father pinched her ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... was talking—prosing on and on about things Norman either already knew or did not wish to know—he was thinking of her. "If she happens to meet a man with enough discernment to fall in love with her," he said to himself, "he certainly will never weary. What a pity that such a girl shouldn't have had a chance, should be wasted on some unappreciative chucklehead of her class! ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... and she said she was willing to take her oath on it at any time when required, and was certain, if the wretch Ridsley saw him, that he would make oath to the same purport, for that his walk was so peculiar no one of common discernment could ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... superior to another, but of two minds naturally equal, he can, at his sovereign pleasure, make one grow and expand more rapidly than another. As he can give symmetry and strength to your limbs, and clothe your features with beauty and grace, so he can make you quick of apprehension, clear of discernment, ready and tenacious to remember, delicate in your appreciation of what is beautiful. While, therefore, you are diligent in your studies, remember that the reward of your labor, after all, is the gift of God. You will neglect one essential means of intellectual ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... Sent Leger, my dear niece is a woman of great discretion and discernment. And, moreover, I am thinking she has in her some of the gift of Second Sight that has been a heritage of our blood. And I am one with my niece—in everything!" The whole thing was quite regal in manner; it seemed to take me back to the days of ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... a certain capacity for rejoicing in the beauties of nature; it was overlaid with huge conceit in his own taste and discernment and a love of forcing his observations on other people, but the flaws in his character Zilda was not in a position to see. The good in him awakened in her a higher virtue than she would otherwise have known; she was unconscious ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... carried on the battle against deism and infidelity. Hume, after furnishing the arsenal of scepticism with a new array of deadlier engines and more abundant ammunition, had betaken himself placidly to the composition of history. What is remarkable in Burke's first performance is his discernment of the important fact, that behind the intellectual disturbances in the sphere of philosophy, and the noisier agitations in the sphere of theology, there silently stalked a force that might shake the whole fabric of civil society itself. In France, ...
— Burke • John Morley
... though incapable of executing, or even of appreciating, anything of true sublimity, had nevertheless discernment enough to prevent his being by any means satisfied with his work; and many were the patient erasures and corrections which the limbs and features of saint and devil underwent, yet all without producing in their new arrangement anything ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... from Mr. Gray, of Hong-Kong, speaking of a young man who had gone out from our church as his assistant in the work there. Said he to me: "He is one of the most valuable helpers I could have. He not only stands fast by his work, but he also seems to have spiritual discernment to meet the peculiar difficulties we have to encounter, and there are plenty of them. Here is a man, for instance, who says he would whip his wife to death if he should hear of her accepting Christ. There is another, a mother, who would let her child starve if she thought it ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... she was troubled by a certain sense of probably wholesome confusion. It seemed to her that Sally had the clearer vision. Love had given her discernment as well as charity, and, not expecting perfection, it was the man's strong points she fixed her ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... endowments in themselves, and proposing that they should be taken to pay off the national debt. On the contrary, I urged strenuously the importance of a provision for education, not dependent on the mere demand of the market, that is, on the knowledge and discernment of average parents, but calculated to establish and keep up a higher standard of instruction than is likely to be spontaneously demanded by the buyers of the article. All these opinions have been confirmed and strengthened by the whole ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... truth, that the body of the people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity; but it is equally unquestionable, that they do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest errors by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise. That branch of administration ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... we learn, that she will rather drop the workers eggs by chance than deposit them in an unsuitable place; and that she will not lay the eggs of males. I cannot yield to the pleasure of allowing this queen discernment or foresight, for I observe a kind of inconsistency in her conduct. If she refused to lay the eggs of workers in large cells, because nature has instructed her that their size is neither proportioned ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... banter Virginia was given the English viewpoint as to Western manners and conditions. She perceived that the Enderbys, notwithstanding their heavy-set prejudices, were persons of discernment and right feeling. It certainly was impertinent of the neighbors to ride through the grounds as if they were public, and Mrs. Enderby was justified in ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... qualities, they have lived in a society which had a high tone, they have been accustomed to see just acts done, to hear gentle words spoken, and the justness and the gentleness have passed into their hearts, and slowly moulded their habits and made their moral discernment clear; they remember commands and prohibitions which it is a pleasure to obey for the sake of those who gave them; often they think of those who may be dead and say, "How would this action appear to him? Would he approve ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... countenance into ingenuous exultation, Dennis followed the foreman into the warehouse, and the latter at once began his instructions as to the system of marking, and Dennis mastered its simple mysteries with a quickness that was not only flattering to the discernment of his instructor but an indorsement of Celtic adjustability ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... first, the last, the only intimation I had ever heard from Grace, of her being conscious of any defect in Rupert's character. Would to God she had seen this important deficiency earlier! though this is wishing a child to possess the discernment and intelligence of a woman. The hand was still on my cheek, and I would not have had it removed at that bitter moment to have been well ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... And the same discernment was shown when he was purchasing old furniture, brass, and so-called Sheffield plate to increase Otto's stock. If the articles offered could still boast of either handle, leg, or back of their original state and the price was fair, they were almost always bought, but the line was ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... beast, it was maintained that there were human beings without language. Now all we want to know are facts, let the conclusions be whatever they may. It is by no means easy to decide whether savage tribes have a religion or not; at all events it requires the same discernment, and the same honesty of purpose as to find out whether men of the highest intellect among us have a religion or not. Icall the Introduction to Spencer's "First Principles" deeply religious, but I can well understand that a missionary, reporting on a tribe of Spencerian ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... Indeed it is, with some, nay, with many, and the strength of England is in them, and the hope; but we have to turn their courage from the toil of war to the toil of mercy; and their intellect from dispute of words to discernment of things; and their knighthood from the errantry of adventure to the state and fidelity of a kingly power. And then, indeed, shall abide, for them and for us, an incorruptible felicity, and an infallible religion; shall abide for us Faith, no more ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... I beg leave, in lieu of offering any sentiments of my own, to refer you to the opinions of Sieur Hedelin, as set forth in the ninth paragraph of the chapter of "Injuriae per applicationem, per constructionem, et per se," in his "Duelli Lex scripta, et non; aliterque." The nicety of your discernment in all the matters here treated, will be sufficient, I am assured, to convince you that the mere circumstance of me referring you to this admirable passage, ought to satisfy your request, as a man of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... practicable, and the provisional appropriation of $2,000,000 to be applied and accounted for by the President of the United States, intended as part of the price, was considered as conveying the sanction of Congress to the acquisition proposed. The enlightened Government of France saw with just discernment the importance to both nations of such liberal arrangements as might best and permanently promote the peace, friendship, and interests of both, and the property and sovereignty of all Louisiana which had been restored to them have on certain conditions been transferred ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... expect from the entreaties of his mother,—strove to forget the person of Lady Mary, and think only of her mind.—Her Ladyship, a little chagrin'd Sir James's proposals were not seconded by Mr. Powis, pretended immediate business into Oxfordshire.—The Baronet wants not discernment: he saw through her motive; and taking his opportunity, insinuated the violence of his son's passion, and likewise the great timidity it occasion'd—he even prevail'd on Lady Powis to propose returning with her ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... Siddington, and Priest Careless, of Cirencester, in particular, urged the Bishop to deal sharply with him. The former accused him of dealing in the Black Art, and filled the Bishop's ear with certain marvellous stories of his preternatural sagacity and discernment in discovering cattle which were lost. The Bishop took occasion to inquire into these stories; and was told by Roberts that, except in a single instance, the discoveries were the result of his acquaintance with the habits of animals and his knowledge of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... of an experienced man; and in many ways true, for one of the most singular gifts, or, if abused, most singular weaknesses, of the human mind is its power of persuading itself to see whatever it chooses;—a great gift, if directed to the discernment of the things needful and pertinent to its own work and being; a great weakness, if directed to the discovery of things profitless or discouraging. In all things throughout the world, the men who ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... king gave judgment with admirable prudence and sagacity that surprised all the council. He next turned out several governors convicted of mal-administration, and put others in their place, with wonderful and just discernment. He at length left the council, accompanied by the late king his father, and went to see his mother, Queen Gulnare. The queen no sooner saw him coming with his crown upon his head, than she ran to him, and embraced him with tenderness, wishing him a long ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... would not be so difficult in practice, and those who have become so distinguished in it would not have acquired their renown, had it been a thing of invariable rules. To be really a great general, a man must have great tact and discernment in order to adopt the best plan in each case as it presents itself; he must have a ready coup d'oeil, so as to do the right thing at the right time and place; for what is excellent one day may be very injurious the next. The plans of a great captain seem like ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... very civil and attentive to the English, and of making himself very active in supplying their wants of live stock. He has formed a favourable opinion of them, from the fine things they bring him, but his discernment goes beyond these; for the circumstance of slave vessels having being captured and taken out of the river, by the boats of the English ships of war on the station, has impressed him with admiration of their boldness and courage, and given him a very exalted opinion of their power. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... wrong. But if Friendship is to rob me of my eyes, if it is to darken the day, I will have none of it. It should be expansive and inconceivably liberalizing in its effects. True Friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance. A want of discernment cannot be an ingredient in it. If I can see my Friend's virtues more distinctly than another's, his faults too are made more conspicuous by contrast. We have not so good a right to hate any as our Friend. Faults are not the less faults because they are ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... Apologies Christianity and Civilisation Christianity and Ethics The Success of Christianity The Prophecies The Universality of Religious Belief Is Christianity the Only Hope? Spiritual Discernment Some Other ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... to make the request. Nay, pardon me, comte, but I am rarely deceived, young as I am; for while with some persons I place my friendship at the disposal of my understanding, with others I call my distrust to my aid, by which my discernment is increased. I repeat, that you do not prefer your request as ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... here that souls which are yet in themselves, whatever degree of light and ardor they have attained, are unqualified for it. They often think they have this discernment, when it is nothing else but sympathy or antipathy of nature. Our Lord destroyed in me every sort of natural antipathy. The soul must be very pure, and depending on God alone, that all these things may be experienced in Him. In proportion ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... Milly, laughing outright; "it is not a cottage at all; it's a cow! Oh! Mr Barret, that is a very poor compliment to my work and to your own powers of discernment." ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... quickly at her sister. Across all her imaginative adornment of those whom she loved, there darted now and then a keen discernment, which was not without a scorching quality. If Miss Brooke ever attained perfect meekness, it would not be for ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the doom that had overtaken the depravity of a sunken nation; of the triumph of simple manliness, of Godfearing virtue itself, in the victories of the German army. There may have been truth in this; yet it would require a nice moral discernment to appraise the exact degeneracy of the French of 1870 from the French of 1854 who humbled Russia, or from the French of 1859 who triumphed at Solferino; and it would need a very comprehensive acquaintance ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... I thought a very great deal of his poem, and what I thought I said; and he, on the other hand, evidently regarded me as a lad of extraordinary taste and discernment for my years. There was another mechanic in the neighbourhood,—a house-carpenter, who, though not a poet, was deeply read in books of all kinds, from the plays of Farquhar to the sermons of Flavel; and as both his father and grandfather—the latter, by the way, a Porteous-mob man, and the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... of swerving from the imitation of so great an example, were not I to take occasion to shew that I too am not entirely destitute of abilities of this kind; but that by possessing a decent share of critical discernment, and critical jargon, I am capable of becoming a very tolerable commentator. For the proof of which, I shall rather prefer calling the attention of my readers to an object as yet untreated of by any of my immediate predecessors, ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... of religion and philosophy, has in this volume attempted to show what the Indian genius, in its strength and in its weakness, could do in the field of literature pure and simple. The timeliness of the Series as a whole is an eloquent tribute to the discernment of my loved and unforgotten pupil and friend, Henry Clarke Warren. In him were united not only the will and the ability to establish such a publication as this, but also the learning and insight which enabled him ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... that Savage might, by his imprudence, expose himself to the malice of a talebearer; for his patron had many follies, which, as his discernment easily discovered, his imagination might sometimes incite him to mention too ludicrously. A little knowledge of the world is sufficient to discover that such weakness is very common, and that there are few who do not sometimes, in the wantonness ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... nor dislike. The Cortes found that he frequently and boldly transacted business of importance without their interference; intrusted offices of state to men of inferior rank, but whose abilities were the proof of his discernment; took upon himself the office of Justizia, and, in conjunction with Isabella, re-established an institution which had fallen into disuse through the civil wars, but which was admirably suited for the internal security of their ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... tell you so?' exclaimed he; 'did I not say that you were a man of ingenuity? Acknowledge, then, that I am not without penetration; own, that it requires a sharp discernment to discover at once where abilities lie; and that had it not been for me, we should never have discovered this katib, who is to tell us everything, and thus fulfil the instructions of ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... dirt-swallowing pulpit huckster, is a true representative of the influence and ideas of New England? Or that the present Copperhead Democracy of that section is the real exponent of the genuine spirit of the Puritan Democracy? Certainly not. They are shrewd men, of great discernment, and in their way brave and chivalrous, and I verily do not wonder if they would not have these renegade Yankees even as slaves. No! the actual cause of their hatred is the silent, all-pervading influence of the free institutions ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... helped through life by their more active neighbors. If they are scholars, they are collectors of facts, which they pile up in their memories as a miser heaps his gold, for no end but the pleasure of heaping. They make physicians without resource, lawyers without discernment, preachers who dole out divinity in ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... enchantment, returns every night, while darkness interrupts and hinders labour. Now, who is it that contrived such a suspension? Who is it that so well chose the operations that ought to continue; and, with so just discernment, excluded all such as ought to be interrupted? The next day all past fatigue is gone and vanished. The animal works on, as if he had never worked before; and this reviving gives him a vivacity and vigour that invites him to new ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... that into a tolerably straight line again, so that we can work on the affair almost like a new fiddle. Those old blocks, well I should like to retain them if possible, but on looking over them very little discernment is sufficient to conclude that fresh ones will be not only better but necessary. In the first place, they are very small, were roughly cut in the first instance, and since have been meddled with by would-be restorers; good new ones properly fitted will be far better ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... compromised through his inexperience. Moreover, the complaint of the child, often directed against its parents or its legal guardians, involves the examination of a delicate situation, which must be conducted with much discernment. Without comparing the two systems, American and French, which correspond each to the particular genius of the two nations, it will be seen that the American system leaves much more to private initiative, and that it would become ineffectual when the victim of the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
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