"Discerning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Cregeen, so you did. I always thought you were a discerning man, Caesar. What do you say, Grannie? It's Caesar for knowing a deserving lad when ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... charming succession through the first volume. Mr. GEORGE DU MAURIER, the well-known artist in black and white, has generously assisted Mr. GEORGE DU MAURIER, the rising novelist, by profusely illustrating the work. 'Tis a pretty rivalry; hard to say which has the better of it. Wherein a discerning Public, long familiar with DU MAURIER's sketches, will recognise a note of highest praise for ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... Discerning nothing for it at the moment save to bow before this storm, which had arisen so suddenly, and from a quarter the least expected, I hastened to comply. I had not proceeded far with my story, however—which fell short, of course, of explaining ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... last sight of the grand old house. The dog knew her by this time and she did not fear him. She found the housekeeper busy with some sewing and glad to welcome her. Mrs. Jersey was that always. To-day she looked a little closer than usual at her visitor, discerning that Dolly's mind was not just in its wonted poise. And besides, she loved ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... when complete, should show A maid above, a hideous fish below: Should you be favoured with a private view, You'd laugh, my friends, I know, and rightly too. Yet trust me, Pisos, not less strange would look, To a discerning eye, the foolish book Where dream-like forms in sick delirium blend, And nought is of a piece from end to end. "Poets and painters (sure you know the plea) Have always been allowed their fancy free." I own it; 'tis a fair excuse to plead; By turns we claim it, and by ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... that a mind like Mr. Southey's, a mind richly endowed in many respects by nature, and highly cultivated by study, a mind which has exercised considerable influence on the most enlightened generation of the most enlightened people that ever existed, should be utterly destitute of the power of discerning truth from falsehood. Yet such is the fact. Government is to Mr. Southey one of the fine arts. He judges of a theory, of a public measure, of a religion or a political party, of a peace or a war, as men judge of a picture or a statue, by the effect ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... accomplished, artful, fascinating and totally depraved woman, possessing the beauty of an angel, and the heart of a devil—precisely such a one as could not fail to enslave and victimize such a sensual old wretch as Mr. Tickels; how far this design has been successful, the intelligent and discerning reader is left to judge. In the Chevalier Duvall will be recognized one of those splendid villains, whose superb rascality is cloaked beneath the mantle of a fine person, elegant address, and the assumption of every quality likely to interest and please the credulous people whom he honors with ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... you think?" Vera was saying with an arch smile. "You are so discerning, Prince, and understand people's characters so well at a glance. What do you think of Natalie? Could she be constant in her attachments? Could she, like other women" (Vera meant herself), "love a man once for all and remain true ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... boats so as most effectually to intercept them in their way to the shore; the people in the canoe that was paddled perceived us so soon, that by making to the nearest land with their utmost strength, they escaped us; the other sailed on till she was in the midst of us, without discerning what we were; but the moment she discovered us, the people on board struck their sail, and took to their paddles, which they plied so briskly that she out-ran the boat. They were however within hearing, and Tupia called out to them to come along-side, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... It seem'd to fly before him. To speak with Freedom on this Subject, is a Task of more Danger than Honour; for few Minds have real Greatness enough to consider a Detection of their Errors, as a Warning to their Conduct, and an Advantage to their Fame; But no discerning Judgment will consider it as ill Nature, in one Writer, to mark the Faults of another. A general Practice of that Kind wou'd be the highest Service to poetry. No Disease can be cur'd, till its Nature is examin'd; and the first ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... had with the refractory Heathen Things and Ironbeards of a new generation: very curious to see. Scarcely ever did it come to fighting between King and Thing, though often enough near it; but the Thing discerning, as it usually did in time, that the King was stronger in men, seemed to say unanimously to itself, "We have lost, then; baptize us, we must burn our old gods and conform." One new feature we do slightly discern: here and there a touch of theological ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... the whole strength of his lungs, a faint mocking echo returned it from the cavities of the rocks—"Bertalda!" but the sleeper awoke not. He bent over her; but the gloom of the valley and the shades of night prevented his discerning her features. At length, though kept back by some boding fears, he knelt down by her on the earth, and just then a flash of lightning lighted up the valley. He saw a hideous distorted face close to his own, and heard a hollow voice say, "Give me a kiss, thou sweet ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... he had hailed. He had been overseer for Duncan Lisle during seven years, and no one had ever heard him allude to any antecedents. He was a silent, reserved man of fifty years, perhaps, possessed good judgment, discerning sense of right and wrong, was inflexibly just, and invariably faithful ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... Prudence, when 'tis ill apply'd, It makes the Breach more dangerous and wide. For tho' it may at first appear more bright, And something dazling to a weaker light. Yet being view'd with more discerning thought, What seem'd real good, is found to be stark nought. For this base Woman grows from bad to worse, And proves her Husband's Plague, as well as Curse; Consumes his Stock, on some sad Lustful Knave, And makes her Spouse ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... the Sublime, let me see if there is anything in my speculations which promises advantage to men of affairs. In you, dear friend—such is my confidence in your abilities, and such the part which becomes you—I look for a sympathising and discerning[1] critic of the several parts of my treatise. For that was a just remark of his who pronounced that the points in which we resemble the divine nature are ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... their territories, the Iroquois were the natural allies of the English and Dutch on the one hand, and the natural foes of the French on the other. Trade soon became the Alpha and the Omega of all tribal diplomacy, and the Iroquois were discerning enough to realize that their natural role was to serve as middlemen between the western Indians and the English. Their very livelihood, indeed, depended on their success in diverting the flow of the fur trade through the Iroquois territories, for by the middle of the seventeenth century there ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... the Indians in the canoe which was paddled exerted themselves with so much vigour, at the first apprehension of danger, that they escaped to the nearest land. The other canoe sailed on without discerning the English, till she was in the midst of them; but no sooner had she discovered them, than the people on board struck their sail, and plied their paddles so briskly, as to outrun the boat by which they were pursued. Being within ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... it was forced by the Federal troops. The attack was made at early dawn and in the additional obscurity of a Scotch mist; and so complete was the surprise according to B.'s account, that he was only made aware of the close proximity of the enemy by dimly discerning, a few paces distant, a Federal soldier with his musket levelled at him. The soldier fired, and B. fell insensible, shot through one of the lungs. Upon recovering consciousness, he found himself on a litter borne ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... Rennes to pay the Breton tribute to the Franks. Many chariots drawn by horses has he taken with him, but although a considerable time has elapsed there is no indication of his return. The chieftain climbs to an eminence in the hope of discerning his son in the far distance, but no sign of his appearance is to be seen on the long white road or on the ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... be restricting his goodness itself, if it did not prompt him to the best, if he were lacking in good will. Or again it would be restricting his wisdom and his power, if he lacked the knowledge necessary for discerning the best and for finding the means to obtain it, or if he lacked the strength necessary for employing these means. There is, however, ambiguity in the assertion that love of virtue and hatred of vice are infinite ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... then, with brisk dispatch, The half of his new milk, he thrust the curd Into his wicker sieves, but stored the rest In pans and bowls—his customary drink. His labours thus perform'd, he kindled, last, His fuel, and discerning us, enquired, Who are ye, strangers? from what distant shore 290 Roam ye the waters? traffic ye? or bound To no one port, wander, as pirates use, At large the Deep, exposing life themselves, And enemies of all mankind beside? He ceased; we, dash'd with terrour, heard the growl Of his big ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... interior Self is well known to exist on account of its immediate (intuitive) presentation.[43] Nor is it an exceptionless rule that objects can be superimposed only on such other objects as are before us, i.e. in contact with our sense-organs; for non-discerning men superimpose on the ether, which is not the object ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... in his general aims appeared also in his mode of working. Caesar, it was observed, when anything was to be done, selected the man who was best able to do it, not caring particularly who or what he might be in other respects. To this faculty of discerning and choosing fit persons to execute his orders may be ascribed the extraordinary success of his own provincial administration, the enthusiasm which was felt for him in the North of Italy, and the perfect quiet of Gaul after the completion of the conquest. ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... vain to imagine that anything else than ceaseless, patient effort will enable us to use it with perfect skill; indeed, it is only after long study that we become capable of understanding what the perfection of the intellect is, that we become capable of discerning what is excellent, beautiful, and true in ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... expediency that Socrates taught his followers to honour the gods whom the state honoured, and bequeathed a cock to Esculapius with his dying breath. So there is often a portion of willing credulity and enthusiasm in the veneration which the most discerning men pay to their political idols. From the very nature of man it must be so. The faculty by which we inseparably associate ideas which have often been presented to us in conjunction is not under the absolute control of the will. It may be quickened ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "A discerning friend of mine," said Don Quixote, "was of opinion that no one ought to waste labour in glossing verses; and the reason he gave was that the gloss can never come up to the text, and that often or ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... possession of a certain woman will bring interminable happiness, and the loss of her, unspeakable pain; this longing and this pain do not arise from the needs of an ephemeral individual, but are, on the contrary, the sigh of the spirit of the species, discerning irreparable means of either gaining or losing its ends. It is the species alone that has an interminable existence: hence it is capable of endless desire, endless gratification, and endless pain. These, however, are imprisoned in the heart of a mortal; no wonder, therefore, if it ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... eaves, and shut in by a pattern of ironwork. All around the walls stood bookcases, filled with a large collection of books, the greater proportion of them of an age suggestive, to the inexperienced eye, of worthlessness, to the more discerning, of value. An antique desk and a few straight-backed chairs were all the other furnishings of the room, but of these it needed none. Even in its dust-covered condition it was a room ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... get, and draw uses from, if you could. Wait till the Book on the Logos were done;—alas, till your own terrene eyes, blind with conceit and the dust of logic, were purged, subtilized and spiritualized into the sharpness of vision requisite for discerning such an "om-m-mject."—The ingenuous young English head, of those days, stood strangely puzzled by such revelations; uncertain whether it were getting inspired, or getting infatuated into flat imbecility; and strange effulgence, ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... your Lordship's approbation, and that of a discerning Public; or if they tend in the most remote degree to excite more intelligent efforts and more active enterprise on behalf of the unenlightened African, or to augment the Commerce of the United Kingdom with a Country, now in danger of falling into the hands of our Enemies, ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... annihilation hath come. Otherwise why should not the Immutable Lord prevent our mother while uttering the curse? Therefore, let us consult today how we may secure the safety of the snakes. Let us not waste time. All of you are wise and discerning. We will consult together and find out the means of deliverance as (did) the gods of yore to regain lost Agni who had concealed himself within a cave, so that Janamejaya's sacrifice for the destruction of the snakes may ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... share his abundance with the deliverer of his daughter. But Fanshawe's flushed brow and haughty eye, when he perceived the thought that was stirring in Mr. Langton's mind, sufficiently proved to the discerning merchant that money was not, in the present instance, a circulating medium. His penetration, in fact, very soon informed him of the motives by which the young man had been actuated in risking his life for Ellen Langton; but he made no allusion ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... there was still a chance to catch a glimpse of her face, a sign from her hand. Gone! He walked away with his head down. The more blissful the hours just spent, the greater the desolation when they are over. Of such is the nature of love, as he was now discerning. The longing to have her always with him was growing fast. Since her husband knew—why wait? There would be no rest for either of them in an existence of meetings and partings like this, with the menace of that fellow. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... as the practised and discerning reader will clearly understand, this meant only that when walking and wearing out the carpet the Colonel was thinking of Ida. When contemplating the painting that she had given him, he was admiring her work and trying to ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... it is the oldest epic poem in any modern language. At a later day, new cantos were added, which, following the fortunes of the hero, record at length that he was killed by a dragon. A digest and running commentary of the poem may be found in Turner's Anglo-Saxons; and no one can read it without discerning the history shining clearly out of the mists of fable. The primitive manners, modes of life, forms of expression, are all historically delineated. In it the intimate relations between the king and his people are portrayed. The Saxon ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... and kind, nearsighted eyes. She liked him particularly because he looked so unministerial in his soft shirt and blue overalls. She liked Mrs. Judson, with her sweet, tired face looking out from a cavernous sun-bonnet. Mrs. Clyde's discerning eye read in the patient worn face a history of privation and self-denial; and surmised that the enthusiasm of the missionary was paid for most dearly ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... always drinks in a withdrawing room, that it may not be discovered, for that would be too apparent, nor has he any other shift to evade the discerning eye ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... shipping. She sat motionless a long time, the whole droop of her figure, the poise of her tender curved chin, wistful and unhappy, although she said no word. For myself, I did not accost her. I, too, looked up and down the great river, not knowing at what moment some discerning eye might spy us out, and I longed for nothing so much as that night ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... undertake the task of ordering his thought would need to possess, in addition to the highest musical and dramatic qualifications a metaphysical habit of mind such as is rare at the present day, and a sympathetic capacity for discerning the grains of golden truth amidst the dross. He must construct anew. Wagner's theoretical edifice will not stand as it is; it is too loosely jointed; but the materials are valuable. That there will ever be a real science of aesthetics ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... discerning mind, she idled about the Platz till after nine, for it had been told to her that the great sleep rather late in the morning. What should she say to her serene highness? What kind of a curtsy should she ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... twofold knowledge may be had about matters of belief. One is the knowledge of what one ought to believe by discerning things to be believed from things not to be believed: in this way knowledge is a gift and is common to all holy persons. The other is a knowledge about matters of belief, whereby one knows not only what one ought to believe, but also how to make the faith known, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... of Servetus might call up unpleasant recollections, but that of another medical practitioner may be safely mentioned. "It was not till the middle of the last century that the question as to the authorship of the Pentateuch was handled with anything like a discerning criticism. The first attempt was made by a layman, whose studies we might have supposed would scarcely have led him to such an investigation." This layman was "Astruc, doctor and professor of medicine in the Royal College at Paris, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... fallen into the possession of a fine property on the attainment of his manhood; he had been endowed with more than average gifts of intellect; never-failing health had been given to him, and a vision fairly clear in discerning good from evil; and now to what a pass had he brought himself! And that man Fothergill had put all this before him in so terribly clear a light! Now that the day for his final demolishment had arrived, the necessity that he should be demolished—finished ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... common sense, and acute discrimination. Our author is a poet, but no mysticism or sentimentalism disfigures his pages; he is a clear, keen observer and analyzer of human nature, lashing its vices, discerning its foibles, and reading its subterfuges and petty vanities. He says: 'The only apologies which he offers for appearing as a censor and a teacher, are his love of men, his honest wish to do them good, and his sad consciousness ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... third edition of Charlotte's Life has at length ventured out. Our curate tells me he is assured it is quite inferior to the former ones. So you see Mrs. Gaskell displayed worldly wisdom in going out of her way to furnish gossip for the discerning public. Did I mention to you that Mrs. Gibson knows two or three young ladies in Hull who finished their education at Mme. Heger's pension? Mrs. G. said they read Villette with keen interest—of course they would. ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... continued subjects of interest in the manufacture or the agriculture which you helped to improve; or in the problems of commerce which bore on your business. But your architectural designing leads you into no pleasant journeys,—into no seeing of lovely things,—no discerning of just laws,—no warmths of compassion, no humilities of veneration, no progressive state of sight or soul. Our conclusion is—must be—that you will not amuse, nor inform, nor help anybody; you will not amuse, nor better, nor inform yourselves; you will sink into a state ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... a man's general good conduct has had great weight to invalidate or weaken charges highly criminal; but unfortunately, yours can receive no aid from such circumstances. Dissimulation and cunning have for a time deceived the most discerning, but the snares you have laid for others will most probably accomplish ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... the faculty of speaking it, it would be the opinion of many that the ideas of other men's minds were properly perceived by the ear, or had at least a necessary and inseparable tie with the sounds that were affixed to them. All which seems to arise from want of a due application of our discerning faculty, thereby to discriminate between the ideas that are in our understandings, and consider them apart from each other; which would preserve us from confounding those that are different, and make us see what ideas do, ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley
... realize more, and some less, or even not at all, the fact of the divine spark in their composition. Ḳurratu'l 'Ayn certainly did realize her divinity. On one occasion she even reproved one of her companions for not at once discerning that she was the Ḳibla towards which he ought to pray. This is no poetical conceit; it is meant as seriously as the phrase, 'the Gate,' is meant when applied to Mirza 'Ali Muḥammad. We may compare it with another honorific title ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... passed through the gate unheralded by a single trumpet note; a purely military act with a minimum of military display told the people that the old order had changed, yielding place to new. The native mind, keen, discerning, receptive, understood the meaning and depth of this simplicity, and from the moment of high noon on December 11, 1917, when General Allenby went into the Mount Zion quarter of the Holy City, the British name rested on a foundation as certain and sure ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... almost as rare. He United lively manners with indefatigable diligence, and the volatile curiosity of a man about town with the drudging patience of a chronicler. With a very good opinion of himself, he was quick in discerning, and frank in applauding the excellencies of others. His contemporaries, indeed, not without some colour of reason, occasionally complained of him as vain, troublesome, and giddy; but his vanity was inoffensive—his curiosity was commonly directed towards laudable objects—when he ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... life had been spent far from that civilization in which he had grown to manhood, in unconventional, occasionally sordid surroundings, he had lost none of an innate gentleness with women, that delicate attention to the little, thoughtful, chivalrous things which, to discerning women, are the chief charm in a man. And withal he was a droll rascal, a rollicking, careless fellow who quickly discovered that, next to telling her that he loved her and would continue to love her forever and ever, it ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... harm, they, wickedly shaving off all those bright and weighty tresses of his law, and just prerogatives, which were his ornament and strength, deliver him over to indirect and violent counsels, which, as those Philistines, put out the fair and far-sighted eyes of his natural discerning, and make him grind in the prison-house of their sinister ends and practices upon him: till he, knowing this prelatical rasor to have bereft him of his wonted might, nourish again his puissant hair, the golden beams of law and right; and they, sternly shook, thunder ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... had been bad enough, but worse was to follow. This discerning scamp had torn aside her veils of maiden reserve and exposed the secret fancy of her heart, unknown before even to herself. She had confessed love for this big-hearted sheriff and frontiersman. Here she ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... our lives, everything is acted upon and reacts: all life is of a piece, and nothing comes out of the mind in exactly the same condition as it entered. Things become transformed and assimilated in the process of mental digestion. Consequently the discerning teacher knows that he is working in terms of life through the agency of the music. He is helping to modify, form, or transform the mind of the pupil through his memories, he is moulding his character: and his character weighs in the eternal scales. The teaching thus stands on a base ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... produced too many eminent men for that talent to be called in question; they seem to have decided talents and dispositions for financial operations. A Genevois has the aptitude of great application united to a very discerning, natural genius, and he generally succeeds in everything he undertakes. Literature is much cultivated here, and the females, who are in general handsome and graceful, excel not only in the various feminine accomplishments, ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... might be as evidence of my profound knowledge of the French language, I could not long keep up the conversation in that manner. Our turn for dancing had not yet arrived, and silence again ensued between us. I kept looking anxiously at her in the hope both of discerning what impression I had produced and of her coming to ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... workshops of Louis Bleriot, Robert Esnault-Pelterie, and others, which was destined to give rise to long and bitter controversies on the relative advantages of the two types, into which it is not proposed to enter here; though the rumblings of the conflict are still to be heard by discerning ears. Bleriot's early monoplanes had certain new features, such as the location of the pilot, and in some cases the engine, below the wing; but in general his monoplanes, particularly the famous No. XI on which the first Channel crossing was made on July 25th, 1909, ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... reverend persons in whom she most confided, seconded by the arguments of Ferdinand, that she consented to solicit from the pope a bull for the introduction of the Holy Office into Castile. Sixtus the Fourth, who at that time filled the pontifical chair, easily discerning the sources of wealth and influence, which this measure opened to the court of Rome, readily complied with the petition of the sovereigns, and expedited a bull bearing date November 1st, 1478, authorizing ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... becoming capable of much wider application than any which once they admitted. Instances in this kind are fewer than in that which we have just been considering. The main stream and course of human thoughts and human discourse tends the other way, to discerning, distinguishing, dividing; and then to the permanent fixing of the distinctions gained, by the aid of designations which shall keep apart for ever in word that which has been once severed and sundered in thought. Nor is it hard to perceive why this process should ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... beautifully mounted the skull of that horse-stealing ignobility, Bear Creel. Stanton, who recently suffered the punishment due his many crimes at the hands of our local vigilance committee, a tribunal which under the discerning leadership of President Enright, never fails in the administration of justice. Doctor Peets will be glad to exhibit this memento mori to all who care to call. Doctor Peets, who is eminent as a phrenologist, avers that said ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... nature he is in this half-hatched civilization of ours, which merely distracts our energies by multiplying our needs and leaves us no better off than we were before we discovered them! He seems to have a natural aptitude for discerning, or even inventing, your wants and supplies them before you yourself are aware of them. While in his hands nothing petty invades you. Great-mindedness becomes possible. "Magnanimus AEneas" must have had ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... of these memoirs afford us the harshest and most repulsive views of Napoleon's character that we have yet seen. His affectionate consort was undoubtedly discerning, and used her keenness of perception with proper diligence to discover all her husband's faults. We have never shared in the excessive and extraordinary admiration with which the character of this man-hater and ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... more discerning. He had come across an iridescent glass jar, and was edging around for an opportunity to ask Kling the price without letting Felix overhear him—it being an occasion, he knew, in which Mr. O'Day would feel offended if business were ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... robbers. You were just as tranquil and secure in this lonely dwelling, as if you were in the midst of a crowd. Hence a vague project occurred to me, to put this courage to the test. A woman capable of recollection in danger, of warding off groundless panics, of discerning the true mode of proceeding, and profiting by her best resources, is a prodigy. I was desirous of ascertaining whether you were such ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... understand why she told him this. Had he been a flirt, convinced of his own irresistibility, he would perhaps have found in her words a very transparent encouragement; but he was far from discerning any such meaning in Edith's words. The respect in which he had held this beautiful young wife, since the first moment of their acquaintance, sufficiently protected her from any such dishonourable suspicions. That she had bidden him there at a time when she must know that their ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... in the morning the dew falls, and not in the night, nor in the heat of the day. So it is not in the night of defection, nor in the heat of the day of persecution, when the Lord's people are multiplied, but it is in the morning of the day. Beloved, I wish you may be a discerning people, to know the Lord's seasons. Sall we be as those, of whom our Saviour complains, who can discern the face of the sky, but cannot discern the day of the Lord's merciful and gracious visitation towards them? Men ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... viewpoint Mrs. Gomme and Mr. Newell have brought to bear on games a wealth of knowledge of old customs and beliefs, discerning thereby a significance that might otherwise pass unnoticed and unappreciated. Thus we have the recognition of old well-worship rites in the little singing game "Draw a Bucket of Water"; of ancient house ritual in some of the dramatic games; in others the propitiation of deities that ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... god shield us from a plague of fools! What means this throaty clamor? Ye praise what ye do not understand, like all the rest of the discerning public! Many is the time, as the weariness of my spirit witnesseth, that I have heard Sah-luma rehearse,—but never in all my experience of his prolix multiloquence, hath he given utterance to such a senseless jingle-jangle ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Jansoulet made upon him the impression of a man on foot laden with gold passing through some evil-haunted wood, in the dark and unarmed. And he reflected that it would be well for the protege to watch, without seeming to do so, over the protector, to become the discerning Telemachus of the blind Mentor, to point out to him the quagmires, to defend him against the highwaymen, to aid him, in a word, in his combats amid all that swarm of nocturnal ambuscades which he felt were prowling ferociously around the ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... properly, which entails rescanning as though one were working with a single column, entering the ASCII, and decolumnating for better searching. With proportionally spaced text, OCR can have difficulty discerning what is a space and what are merely spaces between letters, as opposed to spaces between words, and therefore will merge text or break up words where ...
— LOC WORKSHOP ON ELECTRONIC TEXTS • James Daly
... and four Pence. The most precious of his Moveables was his Library, which was afterwards Sold to Ptolomy Philadelphus, and which he had Enrich'd with four Hundred Volumes, of his own making. In those of his Writings which now remain, and are happily a considerable Number, we find a very discerning Spirit, a solid Judgment, a wonderful Method, prodigious Knowledge, and an Eloquence both strong and sweet. He himself found out more, than the most Knowing now, learn with a great deal of Labour and Pains, and as for those things which depended on the Vivacity ...
— The Preface to Aristotle's Art of Poetry • Andre Dacier
... and triumph. And moreover, for the most part, this arrogance of speech and gaiety of countenance gives them the better of it in the opinion of the audience, which is commonly weak and incapable of well judging and discerning the real advantage. Obstinacy of opinion and heat in argument are the surest proofs of folly; is there anything so assured, resolute, disdainful, contemplative, serious ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... a character so actual as Mr. Belloc's is inevitably attracted by such an opportunity. The discerning reader will find the crown and best achievement of all his varied work in the seven volumes of essays which he ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... evidently expecting to see Vendale take up his hat and retire. Discerning his opportunity at last, Vendale determined to do nothing of the kind. He met Obenreizer dexterously, ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... her. Her spirit of candour—which was less a habit than an elemental essence—chafed against the barrier between her and those she loved. For she now found herself constrained to avoid the too discerning eyes of Paul and Mrs Conolly, and, above all, of Theo himself. Men and women whose spirit hibernates more or less permanently in its temple of flesh have small knowledge of the joy of such wordless intercourse; such flashes of direct speech between ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... hundred ways of apprehending the character of a man, but none perhaps is more reliable than the appearance of his dwelling, and no discerning person that stepped into Captain Tardivet's parlour could long remain in doubt of its ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... utterance of feeling. But if we may be excused the antithesis, we should say that eloquence is heard, poetry is overheard. Eloquence supposes an audience; the peculiarity of poetry appears to us to lie in the poet's utter unconsciousness of a listener." Poetry, according to this discerning criticism, is an inspired soliloquy; the thoughts rise unforced and unchecked, taking musical form in obedience only to the law of their being, giving pleasure to an audience only as the mountain spring may chance to assuage the thirst ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... machinations were discovered and communicated to the court of London by the earl of Stair, who then resided as English ambassador at Paris. He was a nobleman of unquestioned honour and integrity, generous, humane, discerning, and resolute. He had signalized himself by his valour, intrepidity, and other military talents, during the war in the Netherlands; and he now acted in another sphere with uncommon vigour, vigilance, and address. He detected the chevalier's scheme ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... upright, and generous deportment. Whatever may be said of English mobs and English demagogues, I have never met with a people more open to reason, more considerate in their tempers, more tractable by argument in the roughest times, than the English. They are remarkably quick at discerning and appreciating whatever is manly and honourable. They are, by nature and habit, methodical and orderly; and they feel the value of all that is regular and respectable. They may occasionally be deceived by sophistry, and excited into turbulence by public distresses and the misrepresentations ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... to tune such song 'Mid the nought discerning throng Who are clamouring now 'gainst thee Long and loud, and strengthless we, Mighty chieftain, thou away, To withstand the gathering fray Flocking fowl with carping cry Seem they, lurking from thine eye, Till the royal eagle's poise ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... dede, in vs, though it be a very Accident: yet such an Accident it is, that before all Creatures it had perfect beyng, in the Creator, Sempiternally. Number Numbryng therfore, is the discretion discerning, and distincting of thinges. But in God the Creator, This discretion, in the beginnyng, produced orderly and distinctly all thinges. For his Numbryng, then, was his Creatyng of all thinges. And his Continuall Numbryng, ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
... those pitiable sentimentalists who imagine that every petticoat, or at any rate every well-cut skirt, conceals a probable ideal. Some women of his acquaintance had defined, not to say denounced, him as a consummate and dangerous flirt, but these were not the most discerning of their sex. Durant described himself more correctly as a sympathetic, though dispassionate, observer of womankind. In other words, he was not a vulgar flirt; he flirted ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... church in the 16th century, were certainly against private judgment: their authority for the interpretation of Scripture was undoubtedly the supreme government of the church, i.e. not the bishops, but the King and parliament. But then this had respect not to the power of discerning truth, but to the right of publishing it, which is an wholly different question. That an individual was not bound in foro conscientiae to admit the truth of any interpretation of Scripture which did not approve itself to his own mind, was no less the judgment of the Church of England ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... powers of invention could not do. And lastly, he must believe that these same illiterate men, who were capable of so much, were also capable of projecting a system of doctrine singularly remote from all ordinary and previous speculation; of discerning the necessity of taking under their special patronage those passive virtues which man least loved, and found it must difficult to cultivate; and of exhibiting, in their preference of the spiritual to the ceremonial, and their treatment of many of the ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... son, Xerxes, Saying that when black night shall fall in gloom, The Hellenes would no longer stay, but leap Each on the benches of his bark, and save Hither and thither by stolen flight their lives. He, when he heard thereof, discerning not The Hellene's craft, no, nor the spite of heaven, To all his captains gives this edict forth: When as the sun doth cease to light the world, And darkness holds the precincts of the sky, They should dispose the fleet in three close ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... harvesting of their crops, the pupils should undertake some work in seed selection. This work not only results in the improvement of the plants grown from year to year, but also helps to train the pupils in painstaking observation and the discerning of minute points of excellence. The ambition to produce, by careful selection and thorough cultivation, a grain or flower better than has been, is aroused, and, as the pupil's interest increases, his love for the art increases and his ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... to judge of providences aright, has a great ability in him "to comprehend with other saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height;" but he that has no skill as to discerning them, is but a child in his judgment in those high and mysterious things. And hence it is that some shall suck honey out of that at which others tremble, for fear it should poison them. I have often been made to ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... uncanny faculty of discerning latent talent in the line of his profession. You may not know one dance step from another, yet his discerning eye will detect a possibility for you in some branch of the dancing art that results will later prove as correct as they are ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... nourishment, and is disposed to defend its possessions. It is a social insect, lives in colonies, chastises trespassers, fights its enemies, and defends its home. It manifests a degree of intelligence, but its sagacity is instinctive. Reason, though not so acute as instinct, becomes, by education, discerning and keenly penetrative, and reveals the very secrets of profound thought. We recall the aptness of Prof. Agassiz's remark: "There is even a certain antagonism between instinct and intelligence, so ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... or other, always gave us our meals before the rest of the family were served; and the doctor, who was very discerning in such matters, declared that we fared much better than they. Certain it was that, had Ereemear's guests travelled with purses, portmanteau, and letters of introduction to the queen, they could not ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... had worn out so many pair of wings in the pursuit. Before I left Kingston school I was well acquainted with Pope's Homer and the Arabian Nights Entertainments, two books which will always please by the moving picture of human manners and specious miracles: nor was I then capable of discerning that Pope's translation is a portrait endowed with every merit, excepting that of likeness to the original. The verses of Pope accustomed my ear to the sound of poetic harmony: in the death of Hector, and the shipwreck of ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... and furthermore invoked the curses of heaven and earth upon whoever should have the audacity to translate it into Italian. Yet his shade ought to be appeased with the monumental edition of 1737, and, as regards his infallibility, one must not forget that among his contemporaries the more discerning had already censured his philopatria, his immoderate love of Calabria. And that is the right way to judge of men who were not so much ignorant as unduly zealous for the fair name of their natal land. To sneer at them is to misjudge their period. It was the very ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... out by the royal African company in 1726, assures us, "that the discerning natives account it their greatest unhappiness, that they were ever visited by the Europeans. They say that we Christians introduced the traffic of slaves; and that before our coming they lived in peace. But, say they, it is observable, wherever Christianity comes, there come swords ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... by my accomplices, I found myself, as it were, a shred of flotsam adrift in the darkling streets. Several people thought I was the Marble Arch, and left me on the left. Others, more discerning, conjured me to pull in to the kerb. Removing from my north instep the hoof which, upon examination, I found to be attached to a large mammal, I started to wade south-west and by south, hoping against hope and steering by the Milky Way. Happily I had my ration-card, ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... hearing, which is next in importance to sight has as its qualities hate, love, mercy and cruelty. It takes some fine insight, he says, to see the connection of these qualities with the sense of hearing, but the intelligent and discerning reader will find this hint sufficient. I hope he will not blame me, Gabirol continues, if I do not bring together all the reasons and the scriptural passages to prove this, for human flesh is weak, especially in my case on account of my vexatious experiences ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... an extraordinary observer might have seen that the chin was very pointed and pronounced; that the big eyes were full of spirit and vivacity; that the mouth was sweet-lipped and expressive; that the forehead was broad and full; in short, our discerning extraordinary observer might have concluded that no commonplace soul inhabited the body of this stray woman-child of whom shy Matthew Cuthbert ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... reduced to the exact length of two cells fulfilled my expectation in the great majority of cases: the lower cell was occupied by a female and the upper by a male. There were a few exceptions. More discerning than I in her estimate of what was strictly necessary, better-versed in the economy of space, the Osmia had found a way of lodging two females where I had only seen room for one female and ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... as mine must not be cheapened: 'tis not every man that might presume to love me. How many ladies have you seen whose beauty is comparable to mine? I should adorn Paradise itself." Whereto she added so much more in praise of her beauty that the friar could scarce hear her with patience. Howbeit, discerning at a glance that she was none too well furnished with sense, he deemed the soil meet for his plough, and fell forthwith inordinately in love with her, though he deferred his blandishments to a more convenient ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... condition, as it has in all the Northern States, old or new—Wisconsin furnishing the last example.[12] It may, therefore, be reasonably concluded that the "war-cry" was employed by the artful to inflame the minds of the less informed and less discerning; that it was adopted in utter disregard of the means by which negro emancipation might have been peaceably accomplished in the Territories, and with the sole object of obtaining sectional control and personal promotion by means ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... up, and discerning his sweet-flavoured brother, nodded and grinned in the dim light in a way that made him seem to David like a triumphant demon. If he had been of an impetuous disposition, he would have snatched the pitchfork from the ground and impaled this fraternal demon. But David was by no means impetuous; ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... upon the manifold forms of worship of the various nations, and discerning that through them all the soul of man was feeling after one and the same Divine Being, ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... language here, such as speaking of purity of character as "white garments." The honest, earnest, unprejudiced seeker after truth quickly recognizes these, and learns to become skilled in discerning what is meant. We come to see that Israel means Israel, not the Church. Jerusalem means that city in Judea, ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... I leave a discerning public to judge of my feelings, when, under these untoward circumstances, at about half-past ten o'clock Master B.'s bell began to ring in a most infuriated manner, and Turk howled until the house resounded with ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... melancholy evening for coming abroad. A blusterous wind had risen during the day, and still continued to increase. Yet he stood watchful in the darkness, and was ultimately rewarded by discerning a shady muffled shape that embodied itself from the field, accompanied by the scratching of silk over stubble. There was no longer any disguise as to the nature of their meeting. It was a lover's assignation, pure and simple; and ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... as far from seeing any relation of cause and effect between the coaches, palaces, and bowls of punch, and the "knot of deputy sheriffs," as a Fenian is from discerning any connection between the Irish rackrenting of the last century, and the Irish beggary of this. Like conditions produce like characters. How interesting to discover in this republican, this native Virginian of English stock, a perfect and splendid ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... rare old philosopher—a sort of four-footed Diogenes. He was discerning in his friendships, somewhat aggressive and splenetic to his equals; intolerant of cats, whom he hunted like vermin, and rather disdainfully condescending to the small dogs of Milnthorpe. Jumbles always accompanied Uncle Geoffrey in his rounds. He used to take ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the Schools, gone current in the world has ever been able to assist them towards." But it was not merely by variety of intellectual culture that Lady Ranelagh was distinguished. One cannot read her letters without discerning in them a deep foundation of piety in the best sense, real wisdom, a serious determination with herself to make her own life as actively useful as possible, and a disposition always to relate herself to what was sterling around her. "Though some particular ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... excited, however, no small surprise, that the general, while he thus professed to espouse the defence of the parliament, cashiered all the officers introduced by the parliament into his army, and restored all those who had been expelled. The more discerning began to suspect his real intentions;[2] but Hazlerig and ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... naivete: 'Whatever was written, either in rhetoric or logic, geometry, music, and arithmetic, by myself without much difficulty or any instruction, I understood, Thou knowest, O Lord my God; because both quickness and understanding and acuteness in discerning is Thy gift.' Or, again, speaking of the youthful excellences ('excellently hadst Thou made him') of that son who was the son of his beloved mistress: 'I had no part in that ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... were to lose my head for not trying. In the first place," glancing from the trim, smooth, tailor-made black gown of his guest to the home-cut skirt and shirt-waist of his aunt, just entering, and dimly discerning the difference, "I never thought of it before, but I cannot even conceive how you get into and out of the things. I suppose you do, for I see you women in different ones at times, but my thought would be that they must grow upon you"—he was looking at Joyce—"as the calyx around a blossom. It ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... are "nombreux des Anglais a St. Servan, des jeunes gens vivant dans les pensions brittaniques—des familles venant l'ete faire en Bretagne une cure d'economies pour l'hiver." Continuing, this discerning author says: "Bathers, bicyclists, golfists, promenaders, and excursionists abound." Better then let them hold forth here to their hearts' content; there is little that the lover of churches will gain from what remains to-day of the town's former Cathedral ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... man will then be the task of a healthy person who has made himself acquainted with the laws of evolution in art and in society, and is able to test the excellence of work in any stage from immaturity to decadence by discerning what there is of truth, sincerity, and natural ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... witholds her smiles and hides her happy face is a desert path in the rose-fields of this life. Only he who welcomes the laughing goddess to his heart and holds her dear hands close with an abiding faith, receives that holy happiness discerning souls call ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... moral certitude that she was the direct descendant of a plebeian stock. Not but that she had counterfeited patrician attributes according to her own interpretation of them as earnestly as she knew how; but such, empty pretensions as these are too transparent to the all-discerning eye of true gentility. They can not easily assume that which they have no right to claim. A haughty, overbearing demeanor, or a powerful drawl, is no guarantee of good breeding, and these were poor Miss Nibbs' only titles to it. I will admit that, in my fretted mood, I saw ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... however, one can seldom attain to of one's own accord, almost everybody requires those great leaders and tutors and must place himself in their hands. There is, however, no such thing as a classical education that could grow without this inferred love of form. Here, where the power of discerning form and barbarity gradually awakens, there appear the pinions which bear one to the only real home of culture—ancient Greece. If with the solitary help of those pinions we sought to reach those far-distant and diamond-studded walls encircling the stronghold ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... friend, a steady enemy; and died a bankrupt, an outcast, and a proverb. The Duke was unequal to that masculine satire, which depends for edge and vigour upon the conception and expression of the author.[6] But he appears to have possessed considerable powers of discerning what was ludicrous, and enough of subordinate humour to achieve an imitation of colloquial peculiarities, or a parody upon remarkable passages of poetry,—talents differing as widely from real wit as mimicry does from true ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... merit title was conferr'd, And all adored th' Athenian bird." "Brother, you reason well," replies The solemn mate, with half-shut eyes: "Right: Athens was the seat of learning, And truly wisdom is discerning. Besides, on Pallas' helm we sit, The type and ornament of wit: But now, alas! we're quite neglected, And a pert Sparrow's more respected." A Sparrow, who was lodged beside, O'erhears them ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... of the village, by the streams of fire that flew from their rapidly striking hoofs on the gravelly and frozen ground. All, indeed, seemed to be in silent commotion through the town. Bart's object in coming for his gun, at such an hour of the night, was now sufficiently explained; for the quick and discerning mind of Miss Haviland at once told her that the country was indeed rising in arms to avenge the atrocities just committed by the party among whom were all her relatives and friends; and she shuddered at the thought of tomorrow, feeling, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... with admiration that the discerning Hellenic intellect looked upon the French Nation, which is the leader in every progress. French letters, French art, and French industry have found in Greece sincere admirers and enthusiastic heralds. The French heroism, the devotion that every Frenchman ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... shall point out the perpetrator from amidst the vast multitude attracted by the splendor of the feat? Did he fall by the hands of robbers, or did some private enemy slay him? The all-discerning sun alone can tell, for no other eye beheld it. Yet not improbably the murderer even now walks in the midst of the throng, and enjoys the fruits of his crime, while vengeance seeks for him in vain. ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... and there was something strange in hearing the familiar voice and dimly discerning in the reflected moonlight, which shone in at a window further along the passage, the ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... clear field for his operations. He felt a contempt for most of his victims, who were slow-witted Swedes, grasping neither the purport nor the magnitude of his operation, and as to those litigants who were discerning enough to see its enormity, he trusted to his ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... in the newspaper, which, irrelevant as it would seem, had caught the keenly discerning eye of Henry Blaine, grew in length and importance from day to day until it reached a position on the first page, and then spread in huge headlines over the entire sheet. Instead of relating merely the incidents of a labor strike in a manufacturing city—and that city ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... a schoolboy as a discerning master delights in—keen about everything, bright, docile, popular, excellent at games. He was in the sixth, moreover, as soon as his age allowed: that is to say, as soon as he was sixteen; and his pride in everything connected ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Stodgy devils! Sooner or later, the fool-killer gets them all. Please do not judge me to-day, Miss Parker. Perhaps, after a while, I may be more discerning. By Jupiter, those very becoming riding-togs will create no end of comment among ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... either on rhetoric, or logic, geometry, music, and arithmetic, by myself without much difficulty or any instructor, I understood, Thou knowest, O Lord my God; because both quickness of understanding, and acuteness in discerning, is Thy gift: yet did I not thence sacrifice to Thee. So then it served not to my use, but rather to my perdition, since I went about to get so good a portion of my substance into my own keeping; and I kept not my strength ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... however, can take the place of a discerning teacher. A knowledge of the philosophy of education in expression avails little without the ability to create the genial atmosphere conducive to the development of the student. The teacher is the gardener, his service—his full service—is to surround the young plant with favorable conditions ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... eyes around the illimitable field of ocean, in hope of discerning some indication of that power whose ships I had been told traversed every sea; but nothing like a vessel was in sight—the mighty waters stretched out like an endless desert on every side. There was no sign ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... discerning there would be no objection made on the part of his temporary master, Mr. Cruickshanks assured him that Cairnvreckan, a village which they were about to enter, was happy in an excellent blacksmith; 'but as he was a professor, he would drive a nail for no man on the Sabbath, or kirk-fast, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... are not difficult to find; for the Remarks is both intrinsically and historically an important piece of criticism. It is still worth reading for more than one passage of discerning analysis and apt comment on scene, speech, or character, and for certain not unfruitful excursions into the field of general aesthetics; while historically it is a sort of landmark in Shakespearian literature. Standing chronologically ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... congenial intellect;—faithful and loving to her and she to him, amid all the crimes of their following years;—pious with exceeding devotion and orthodoxy, and yet with a piety utterly divorced from, unconscious of, the commonest morality;—discerning and using the greatest men, Belisarius and Narses for example, and throwing them away again, surely not in weak caprice, whenever they served him too well;—conquering Persians, Vandals, Goths; all but re-conquering, in fact, ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... a man who, by isolating himself from life, has lost the feeling of reality, and all capacity of discerning the true from the false. He suffers terribly from the feeling that something unknown is happening around him. This man, who would be ready to sacrifice everything, even his life, in order to know truth, guesses the ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... Father Sends radiantly down All-marvellous responses, His ministers to crown; The incense-cloud returning As golden blessing-showers, We in each drop discerning Some feeble prayer of ours, Transmuted into wealth unpriced, By Him who giveth thus The glory all to Jesus Christ, The gladness ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray
... knowledge of the Holy Scriptures; and if he spoke with the tongues of angels, cast out devils, performed all sorts of miracles, even that of raising one from the dead who had been four days in the tomb; if he had the gift of prophecy, and that of discerning the affections of the heart; if he preached to the infidels with such success as to convert them all, and if he should edify the world by his sanctity, all that would not be to him the subject of ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... merely unearths truth: truth has always existed: he lifts it out of the mass, and holding it up where others can see it, the discerning cry, "Yes, yes—we recognize it!" The musician takes the sound he needs from the winds blowing through the forest branches, constructs a harp strung with Apollo's golden hair, and behold, we have a symphony! ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... says (Etym. x) "is so named from sapor (savor), because just as the taste is quick to distinguish between savors of meats, so is a wise man in discerning things and causes." Wherefore it is manifest that folly is opposed to wisdom as its contrary, while fatuity is opposed to it as a pure negation: since the fatuous man lacks the sense of judgment, while the fool has the sense, though dulled, whereas the wise man has the sense acute ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the Moor, though he was black, and devoted her heart and fortunes to his valiant parts and qualities; so was her heart subdued to an implicit devotion to the man she had selected for a husband, that his very colour, which to all but this discerning lady would have proved an insurmountable objection, was by her esteemed above all the white skins and clear complexions of the young Venetian nobility, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... understand such things. But, if you really understand them, I would say to you: "Give me L20,000 and I will save the situation entirely." That would be doing something worthy of your great powers; that would give you a reputation for penetration in discerning the real state of affairs; because by so doing you would safeguard the welfare of more than a thousand people, and ensure a prosperous future for ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... chiselled that it looked more like masonry than sculpture. The eyes of all were attracted by the first, and turned away in contempt from the second. That, therefore, was adopted, and the other rejected, almost with resentment, as though an insult had been offered to a discerning public. The favored statue was accordingly borne in triumph to the place for which it was designed, in the presence of applauding thousands, but as it receded from their upturned eyes, all, all at once agaze upon it, the thunders of applause unaccountably died ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... inquiry. Far from it. Far from deciding on a sudden or partial view, I would patiently go round and round the subject, and survey it minutely in every possible aspect. Sir, if I were capable of engaging you to an equal attention, I would state, that, as far as I am capable of discerning, there are but three ways of proceeding relative to this stubborn spirit which prevails in your colonies and disturbs your government. These are,—to change that spirit, as inconvenient, by removing the causes,—to prosecute it, as criminal,—or to comply with it, as necessary. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... a credulous fancy. His audience listened with willing ears to the tales of the traveller; and in an age of wonders, when the mysteries of the East and the West were hourly coming to light, they might be excused for not discerning the true line between romance and reality. *11 [Footnote 10: Condamine, who, in 1743, went down the Amazon, has often occasion to notice the perils and perplexities in which he was involved in the navigation of this river, too difficult, as he says, to be undertaken without the guidance of ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... apparently racing, shrank together like elastic, and broke ranks again to swerve over the stretching waste. From this visioned pantomime presently came a sound, a tiny shot. The figures were too far for discerning which fired it. It evidently did no harm, and was repeated at once. A babel of diminutive explosions followed, while the horsemen galloped on in unexpected circles. Soon, for no visible reason, the dots ran together, ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... we returned to court. I made my speech for the defence, following Woollet's advice as nearly as practicable, and really blazed away. I think the jury believed there was a good deal in what I said, for they seemed a very discerning body and a good deal inclined to logic, especially as there was a ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... considerable. Thus, on the same day, the Athenians were victorious on both elements—an unprecedented glory, which led the rhetorical Plutarch to declare—that Plataea and Salamis were outshone. Posterity, more discerning, estimates glory not by the greatness of the victory alone, but the justice of the cause. And even a skirmish won by men struggling for liberty on their own shores is more honoured than the proudest battle in which the conquerors are actuated by the desire of ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and prairies, had put their stamp upon him, had whispered their secrets to him, and civilization could not phase him. That was the way he struck the boys, who from being scouts had learned to be observant and discerning. ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... attend for the ripe and indubious instinct? Am I forbidden to wait for the clear and lawful perception? Is it the calling of man to surrender his knowledge and insight, For the mere venture of what may, perhaps, be the virtuous action? Must we, walking o'er earth, discerning a little, and hoping Some plain visible task shall yet for our hands be assigned us,— Must we abandon the future for fear of omitting the present, Quit our own fireside hopes at the alien call of a neighbor, To the mere possible shadow ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... Phronesis]. This word frequently means in Plato and Platonic writers, the habit of discerning what is good in all moral actions, and frequently signifies intelligence, or intellectual Perception. The following admirable explanation of this word is given by Jamblichus Prudence having a precedaneous subsistence, receives its generation from a pure and perfect ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... are truly spoken "in the Life," then when such words cease the uninterrupted silence and worship continue, for silence and words have been of one texture, one piece. Second and third speakers only continue the enhancement of the moving Presence, until a climax is reached, and the discerning head of the meeting knows when ...
— An Interpretation of Friends Worship • N. Jean Toomer
... sufferings, her Superior wrote to me that "I was in the right, and that she had now come out of that state of dejection, in greater purity than ever." The Lord gave to me alone at that time to know her state. This was the commencement of the gift of discerning spirits, which ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... last Saturday, and week before. It's a fine morning, and I do wish you'd come. I've a headache, and I want to ride it off, if I can." Billy took off his cap, and brushed away his hair, with a little weary gesture which went to Theodora's heart. She was not discerning enough to discover that Billy's headache had developed under the inspiration of the moment, so sure was he that this was the most certain method of bringing his friend to do ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... little calmer, Mrs. Nairn came in; and Mrs. Nairn was a discerning lady. It was not difficult to lead Evelyn on to speak of her visitors, for the girl's pride was broken and she felt in urgent need of sympathy; but when she had described the interview she felt impelled to avoid any ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... other men is discerning; he who knows himself is intelligent. He who overcomes others is strong; he who overcomes himself is mighty. He who is satisfied with his lot is rich; he who goes on acting with energy has ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze
... a nun, the picture she made with the young mountaineer's head upon her lap would have startled the world. None of those discerning critics who stalk the galleries on varnishing day could have passed a canvas such as this without bending their rusty knees at least one creak in humble reverence. For God had carefully blessed her with a Madonna-like loveliness, a ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris |
