"Discernment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... discernment, that I should think she could not be easily deceived. If my kinswoman knows your views, I should say that you have reason to be encouraged by her manner. There is nothing like coquetry about her; I am convinced she thinks ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... 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
... 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
... 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
... 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 to ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... 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 |
