"Philosophize" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Caesar's palace. Afterward she will be removed quietly to thy house, and that will be the end. Bronzebeard is a cowardly cur. He knows that his power is unlimited, and still he tries to give specious appearances to every act. Hast thou recovered to the degree of being able to philosophize a little? More than once have I thought, Why does crime, even when as powerful as Caesar, and assured of being beyond punishment, strive always for the appearances of truth, justice, and virtue? Why does it take the trouble? I consider that to murder a brother, a mother, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... is there to philosophize here in a matter with which we see that philosophy is but little concerned? How often have not only our generals but whole armies, rushed on certain death! But if it had been a thing to be feared, L. Brutus would never have fallen in fight, to prevent the return of that tyrant whom he had expelled; ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... that, like Jack Sheppard, it degrades the taste and blunts the feelings—in a word, it vulgarizes, and is as improper reading for the young, so far as effect is concerned, as the most immoral production extant. Vulgarity is the open doorway to vice, and, philosophize as we may, sketches of thieves and vagabonds, gamins, prostitutes and liars are vulgar and unfit reading for youthful minds, if not ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... question is, Whether at table it is allowable to philosophize? For I remember at a supper at Athens this doubt was started, whether at a merry meeting it was fit to use philosophical discourse, and how far it might be used? And Aristo presently cried out: What then, for heaven's sake, are there any that banish philosophy from company ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... that is, to regard no member of the empirical world as unconditioned. In this mode of viewing them, both principles, in their purely heuristic and regulative character, and as concerning merely the formal interest of reason, are quite consistent with each other. The one says: "You must philosophize upon nature," as if there existed a necessary primal basis of all existing things, solely for the purpose of introducing systematic unity into your knowledge, by pursuing an idea of this character—a foundation ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... himself meanwhile. His kind always does. He had, for a few moments, tried to listen to the arguments of Captain Koenig and Lieutenant Bleibtreu, while they were seated on the sofa; but, pshaw! how absurd to philosophize about these things, he thought. Far better to take life as it comes. And so he had joined the party at the gaming-table, where one of the winners was just then standing treat for a battery of Veuve ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... the Theban priesthood was too strong. Akhunaten shook the dust of the capital off his feet and retired to the isolated city of Akhet-aten, "the Glory of the Disk," at the modern Tell el-Amarna, where he could philosophize in peace, while his kingdom was left to take care of itself. He and his wife Nefret-iti, who seems to have been a faithful sharer of his views, reigned over a select court of Aten-worship-ping nobles, priests, and artists. The artists had under Akhunaten an unrivalled opportunity for ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... trip the peaceful intercourse between husband and wife was interrupted. Godwin might philosophize to his heart's content about the advantages of separation, but Mary could not be so sure of them. Absence in Imlay's case had not in the end brought about very good results; and as the days went by, Godwin's letters, at least so it seemed to her, ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... To Autumn Keats attains to the serenity he has been seeking. In this unparalleled description of a richly beautiful autumn day he conveys to us all the peace and comfort which his spirit receives. He does not philosophize upon the spectacle or draw a moral from it, but he shows us how in nature beauty is ever present. To the momentary regret for spring he replies with praise of the present hour, concluding with an exquisite description ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... later stage we may perhaps in a degree analyze the change of view; we may partly understand how through the struggle with evil man is strengthened and ennobled; how in such strife courage and sympathy and tenderness are engendered. But long before we can thus philosophize, and to a degree which our philosophy can hardly explain, we are affected by this beauty and elevation imparted to the spectacle of human life by ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... her head, and a tall peaked forehead with light hair combed down smooth on both sides with scalops made in it by hand. She is good natered to a fault, you know you can kill yourself on milk porridge, and though folks don't philosophize on it you can be ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... in seclusion, doing his best to philosophize. Already, during the latter period of his residence in the Netherlands, he had lived in a comparative and forced solitude. His house had been avoided by those power-worshippers whose faces are rarely turned to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... that beauty was enough for me—gave me a place in the world with which I was satisfied, and made life understandable to me. At that time this belief—my natural and normal state—was clouded over; between me and the goddess of my idolatry had fallen a veil; I wasted my brain tissue in trying to philosophize—cracked my head, and almost my reason over the endless, unanswerable question, Cui bono? that question which may so easily become the destruction of the fool who once allows himself to be drawn into dallying ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... front of his door for three consecutive mornings, although the circumstance might be satisfactorily explained,—shall I go further and say, because the circumstance might be satisfactorily explained,—he would vaguely wish it hadn't happened. Philosophize as we may, the simple fact of two remote lines crossing each other always seems to us of tremendous significance, and quite overshadows the more important truth that the real parallels of life's journey are the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... exultation rent the air, the tom-toms sounded, the people clapped their hands with delight as the evidence of their murderous work burst on their view; whilst the English spectators of this sad scene withdrew, bearing deep compassion in their hearts, to philosophize as best they might on a custom so fraught with horror, so incompatible with reason, and so revolting to human sympathy. The pile continued to burn for three hours; but from its form it is supposed that almost immediate suffocation ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... country so much inclined to speculate, to philosophize, and to reason on everything, it is not surprising that a fundamental law, as vaguely expressed as the charter, should leave ample room for discussion. We find that our own long experience in these written instruments does not protect us from violent differences of opinion, ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the life he had led in the tropics was not for him. On the whole, he thought he had made good. One did one's best at the work one found, but intrigue was not his proper job. For all that, he did not mean to philosophize and had something to ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... the state. The whole of my being was energized. The national fever had thoroughly pervaded my blood—the national fever to win. Prosperity—writ large—demanded it, and Theodore Watling personified, incarnated the cause. I had neither the time nor the desire to philosophize on this national fever, which animated all my associates: animated, I might say, the nation, which was beginning to get into a fever about games. If I remember rightly, it was about this time that golf was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... birds, cranes for example, fly and fly, and whatever thoughts, high or low, enter their heads, they will still fly and not know why or where. They fly and will continue to fly, whatever philosophers come to life among them; they may philosophize as much as they like, ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... of one college, and those on the other correspondingly—until he reached a desirable location. Then we established ourselves according to his directions and waited. It was rather a long wait—nearly two hours—during which I had ample leisure to philosophize to the top of my bent. We had to console us Sam's assurance that it was necessary to take time by the forelock to this radical extent in order to secure satisfactory places. For the next two hours a steady stream of people poured along the two sides of the field until ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... Yorick's extraction, who, by what I can remember of him, and by all the accounts I could ever get of him, seemed not to have had one single drop of Danish blood in his whole crasis; in nine hundred years, it might possibly have all run out:—I will not philosophize one moment with you about it; for happen how it would, the fact was this:—That instead of that cold phlegm and exact regularity of sense and humours, you would have looked for, in one so extracted;—he ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... the censors, it is not possible for the people, if they can but draw the balls, though they understand nothing at all of the ballot, to be out. To philosophize further upon this art, though there be nothing more rational, were not worth the while, because in writing it will be perplexed, and the first practice of it gives the demonstration; whence it came to pass that the orator, after some needless pains in the explanation of the two foregoing ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... cold stopping curd And harden'd moldy cheese, when they have rid Due circuits through the heart, at last shall speed Of life and sense, look thorough our thin eyes And view the close wherein the cow did feed Whence they were milk'd: grosse pie crust will grow wise, And pickled cucumbers sans doubt philosophize!" ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... of a servant who abideth not in the house for ever. He was now six and twenty years of age, and had never dreamed of marriage, or even been troubled with a thought of its unattainable remoteness. He did not philosophize much upon life or his position in it, taking everything with a cold, hopeless kind of acceptance, and laying no claim to courage, devotion, or even bare suffering. He had a certain dull prejudice in favour of honesty, ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... secure bail was unsuccessful, and while awaiting trial upon several charges he had plenty of time to philosophize. Thanks to the work of Bob Cranston, Chief of the Special Service Department of the Canadian Lake Shores Railway, Nickleby's past record stood revealed and there was talk ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... not philosophize upon what she was so glad to see; she hailed every sign of outside interest as a symptom of returning health, and gave him a thousand occasions. Yesterday there were baskets to braid, and to-day he must initiate her in the complications of a dozen difficult ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... painting and sculpture. And in after ages, when the oblique-eyed, swarthy American of that time, pausing before some commemorative bronze or historical picture of our epoch, contemplates this stupendous spectacle of human endurance, I hope he will be able to philosophize more satisfactorily than we can now, concerning the mystery of our strength as a nation and our weakness ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... and blush to see unbecoming groups of women pass along the mart, tearing their hair, cutting their arms and cheeks, and all this under the eyes of the Greeks. For what will they not say? What will they not utter concerning us? Are these the men who philosophize about a resurrection? How poorly their actions agree with their opinions! In words they philosophize about a resurrection, but they act just like those who do not acknowledge a resurrection. If they fully believed in a resurrection they would ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... at this period above all that he felt so "lonely, abandoned, struggling against misfortune; and before one can philosophize one has to ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... in the face of his female audience, and a certain surprise in that of his male, he rose and stood on the hearth, with one hand in his waistcoat, as was his wont when about to philosophize in more detail than ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... shone on her, and be dark when I was dark. No man ought to want such a thing. Yet she made life a delight to me; only she wanted that development which a better training, or even a harder training, might have given her; that subserving of the emotions to the"—he waved his hand—"I can't philosophize about her. We loved one another with our might, and she's ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... prayers, and talk cheerfully to him when he was languid and fretful, and the small duties of life were too heavy for his feeble energies. Dot always took a large portion of my time; his movements were slow and full of tiny perversities; he liked to stand and philosophize in an infantile way when I wanted to be downstairs helping Deborah. Dot's fidgets, as I called them, were ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... in this truth that I find the real secret, the deepest meaning, of the everlasting dissatisfaction of man that is always ready to be stirred. We moralize, we philosophize about the discontent of man. We give little reasons for it; but the real reason of it all is this, that which everything lying behind it really signifies: that man is greater than his circumstances, and that God is always calling to him to come up to the fulness ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... straight for Blackie's smoke-filled sanctum. When my tale was ended he let me cry all over his desk, with my head buried in a heap of galley-proofs and my tears watering his paste-pot. He sat calmly by, smoking. Finally he began gently to philosophize. "Now girl, he's prob'ly better off there than he ever was at home with his mother soused all the time. Maybe he give that warty matron friend of yours all kinds of ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... jeopardize legalize liberalize localize magnetize memorialize mesmerize metamorphize methodize minimize modernize monopolize moralize nationalize naturalize neutralize organize ostracize paralyze particularize pasteurize patronize philosophize plagiarize pulverize realize recognize reorganize revolutionize satirize scandalize scrutinize signalize solemnize soliloquize specialize spiritualize standardize stigmatize subsidize summarize syllogize symbolize sympathize tantalize temporize tranquilize tyrannize universalize utilize ...
— Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton
... resolved into one more general and universal: And how far these researches may possibly be carried, it will be difficult for us, before, or even after, a careful trial, exactly to determine. This is certain, that attempts of this kind are every day made even by those who philosophize the most negligently: And nothing can be more requisite than to enter upon the enterprize with thorough care and attention; that, if it lie within the compass of human understanding, it may at last be happily achieved; if not, it ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... earth, and that the earth is fixed, and further that the sun for a certain period remained still. (69) Many, who will not admit any movement in the heavenly bodies, explain away the passage till it seems to mean something quite different; others, who have learned to philosophize more correctly, and understand that the earth moves while the sun is still, or at any rate does not revolve round the earth, try with all their might to wrest this meaning from Scripture, though plainly ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... reader will perhaps give a shrug of the shoulders at the mere idea of my having the will to philosophize so soon after such a terrible adventure. Well, I confess I did not feel inclined to do so after another which was even ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... last portion of the 'History,' while all of his merits as a historian are not conspicuous, neither are some of his chief defects. Here the tendency to philosophize, to marshal stately sentences, and to be discursive, is ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... with the facts to support us, let us philosophize a little. We have here, recognized as of excellent standard by all the expert classifiers, so fastidious in the arrangement of their lists, a generic group, called Anthidium, containing two guilds of workers entirely dissimilar in character: the cotton-fullers and the ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... Dover Street days I did not philosophize about my private character, nor about the immigrant and his ways. I lived the life, and the moral took care of itself. And after Dover Street came Applepie Alley, Letterbox Lane, and other evil corners of the slums of Boston, till it must have ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... phenomena early realized the arduous path they had to travel. They had to escape, above all things, from the past. They perceived that they could look for no help from those whose special business it was to philosophize and moralize in terms of the past. They had to look for light in their own way and in the directions from which they conjectured it might come. Their first object was, as Bacon put it, light, not fruit. They had to learn before they could undertake changes, and Descartes is very careful ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... don't think so much! Damn all this analysis! If you want a drink, drink, no need to philosophize as to whether it's bad for you or not. . . . Damn ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... this to Maimon, and roundly denied as impossible when he first heard of it. A man who could enter the lists with the doughtiest champions of Christendom, whose German prose was classical, who could philosophize in Socratic dialogue after the fashion of Plato—such a man a creature of the Ghetto! Doubtless he took his Judaism in some vague Platonic way; it was impossible to imagine him the literal bond-slave of that minute ritual, winding phylacteries round his left arm or ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... mover of philosophical thinking. From the first awakening of reflection, it is this that pushes to the fore, right under the eyes of consciousness, the torturing problems, the questions that we cannot gaze at without feeling giddy and bewildered. I have no sooner commenced to philosophize than I ask myself why I exist; and when I take account of the intimate connection in which I stand to the rest of the universe, the difficulty is only pushed back, for I want to know why the universe ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... otherwise? The old ballads were everything which the eighteenth century was not. They were rough and wild, where that was smooth and tame; they dealt, with fierce sincerity, in the elementary passions of human nature. They did not moralize, or philosophize, or sentimentalize; were never subtle, intellectual, or abstract. They were plain English, without finery or elegance. They had certain popular mannerisms, but none of the conventional figures of speech or rhetorical artifices like personifications, periphrasis, antithesis, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... concerns himself rather with the results than the events of our recent war. This is always Mr. Smith's manner of dealing with the past; but in considering a period known in all its particulars to his audience, he has been able to philosophize history more purely and thoroughly than usual. He arrives directly and clearly at the moral of the Ilias Americana, and sees that Christianity is the life of our political system, and that this principle, without which democracy is a passing dream, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... sent to live with his grandfather at Hartford and apprenticed to the law; but John Ledyard hated the pettifogging of the law, hated roofed-over, walled-in life, wanted the kind of life where men do things, not just dicker, and philosophize, and compromise over the fag-ends of things other men have done. At twenty-one years of age, without any of the prospects that lure the prudent soul, he threw over all ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... irony and sarcasm, had been frequent with him as to his future career. He would leave that building up of a future family of Marquises,—if future Marquises there were to be,—to one of those young darlings whose bringing-up would manifestly fit them for the work. For himself he would perhaps philosophize, perhaps do something that might be of service,—would indulge at any rate his own views as to humanity;—but he would not burden himself with a Countess and a nursery full of young lords and ladies. He had often said to Roden, had often said to Vivian, that her ladyship, his stepmother, ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... special marching order had been agreed upon, everybody was at liberty to follow his inclinations within certain limits. The hunters could scour the plain, amiable folks could talk to the fair occupants of the wagon, and philosophers could philosophize. Paganel, who was all three combined, had to be and was ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... veteran commander. "If I am mistaken, so much the better; but in my opinion, without pretending to philosophize about the matter, the necessity of war lies far deeper than these honest gentlemen suppose. What! is there a field for all the petty disputes of individuals? and shall there be no great law court for the settlement of national difficulties? ...
— Earth's Holocaust (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... philosophize about women, they are generally unjust, taking the subject from the standpoint that whatever frailties they have, the male is at all events exempt from them. Now that is nonsense—Neither sex is exempt—and neither sex ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... see clearly that the tattooing is admired for other than esthetic reasons, and we realize how foolish it is to philosophize about the peculiar "taste" of these Indians in admiring a girl who looks like "a Turkish carpet" or "a Stygian fury." If they had even the rudiments of a sense of beauty they would not ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... intuitive. He gradually became a devotee to his own method of thinking, and it was his aim not to teach what but how to think. He often told his students that he had no intention or desire to teach them philosophy, but how to philosophize. It was through Kant that the terms Rationalist,—one who declares natural religion alone to be morally necessary, though he may admit revelation,—Naturalist—one who denies the reality of a supernatural divine revelation,—and ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... Dolabella was immediately declared an enemy to the Republic. Cicero inveighs against him with all his force, and says that such as Dolabella is, he had been made by the cruelty of Antony. But he goes on to philosophize, and declare how much more miserable than Trebonius was Dolabella himself, who is so base that from his childhood those things had been a delight to him which have been held as disgraceful by other children. Then he turns to the question which is in dispute, whether Brutus ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... dinner, Caesar again joined Mme. Dawson and began to talk with her. The Frenchwoman had a tendency to philosophize, to criticize, and to find out everything. She had no great capacity for admiration, and nothing she saw succeeded in dragging warm eulogies from her lips. There was none of the "bello! bellissimo!" of the Italian ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... a similar law, as Basil had just shown. Philosophize as we will, we cannot comprehend why it is so—why Nature requires the sacrifice of one of her creatures for the sustenance of another. But although we cannot understand the cause, we must not condemn the fact as it exists; nor must we suppose, as some do, that the destruction ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... other. The censure of all the Bishops, and of both Houses of Convocation; re-echoed, as it has been, through all ranks of the community, is a great fact;—a fact which I cordially recommend to Mr. Pattison's attention, when he would philosophize on the religious ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... built in red and white; so coquettishly, airily, daintily placed is the City of Chocolate amid orchards and gardens, that, at first sight, a spectator is inclined to take it rather for a settlement of such dreamers as assembled together at Brook Farm to poetize, philosophize, and make love, than of artizans engaged in the practical business of life. This long street of charming cottages, having gardens around and on either side, is planted with trees, so that in a few ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... honest feeling as the effort of an active intellect, searching heaven and earth for clever and striking things to say. Instead of learning from the folk-song, Schiller had learned originally from Klopstock; and what he had learned was to pose and philosophize and invest fictitious sentiment with a maze of bewildering and far-fetched imagery. Then he had lost sympathy with Klopstock's religiosity, had acquired a better opinion of the things of sense, and had had his introduction to doubt and disgust and rebellion. When now these moods sought ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... in explanations and discussions of principles, theories, broad social topics, and the like—when we expound, moralize, or philosophize,—our subject matter is general. We approach our readers or hearers on the thinking, the rational side of their natures. Our phraseology is therefore normally abstract. But when, on the other hand, we narrate an event or depict an appearance, our subject matter ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... lazily that, it was said, the art of venery ran great risk of degenerating at the court of France. D'Artagnan then thought of the wishes of poor Raoul, of that desponding letter destined for a woman who passed her life in hoping, and as D'Artagnan loved to philosophize a little occasionally, he resolved to profit by the absence of the king to have a minute's talk with Mademoiselle de la Valliere. This was a very easy affair; while the king was hunting, Louise was walking with some other ladies ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... inspiriting, are rather heavy diet for the young, immature minds growing quickly tired in the efforts to digest them—Damaris, having reached this happy, if partially erroneous, climax of emancipation, ceased to philosophize either consciously or unconsciously. The russet moorland and spacious landscape shut the door on her, had no more to tell her, no more to say. Or, to be strictly accurate, was it not rather perhaps that her power ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... distinction between Intelligence and Intuition. Some of his early statements are reactionary and crude and give the impression of a purely anti-intellectualist position involving the condemnation of Intellect and all its work. [Footnote: E.g., the statement "To philosophize is to invert the habitual direction of the work of thought"—Introduction to Metaphysics p. 59.] In his later work, however, Bergson has made it more clear that he does not mean to throw Intellect overboard; it has its place, but is not final, nor is it the supreme human faculty which most ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... Susan to free women from unjust property laws, Mrs. Stanton asked only that Susan get a good lawyer, and one sympathetic to the cause, to look up New York State's very worst laws affecting women.[43] She could think and philosophize while she was baking and sewing, she assured Susan, but she had no time for research. Susan produced the facts for Mrs. Stanton, and while she worked on the speech, Susan went from door to door during the cold blustery days of December ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... allowed but scant time to philosophize upon these ethnological phenomena. As the douar became stirred into general activity, he, along with his two companions, was rudely started from his attitude of observation, and ordered to take a share in the toils of ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... that this turning, this renaissance of the early Christian humanitarianism, is going on in America, in Chicago, if you please, without leaders who write or philosophize, without much speaking, but with a bent to express in social service and in terms of action the spirit of Christ. Certain it is that spiritual force is found in the Settlement movement, and it is also true that this force must be evoked and must be called into play ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... to philosophize; that's your proper line," Jim answered with a laugh. "Let's see if the creeks ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... to undertake them, since he views the world through the glasses of his system. Thus philosophy in Germany, pursued chiefly by specialists, remains a professional affair, and has not exercised a direct transforming influence on life (for Fichte, who helped to philosophize the French out of Germany, was an exception); but its influence has been the greater in the special sciences, which in Germany more than any other land are handled in a ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... at length. "I got it—where I didn't expect it—but I guess that's the way with every one. The troubles we expect, don't happen, and then the trouble that we didn't expect gets us when we're not watching." He tried to philosophize; to get a fresh grip on himself. "Where are we, anyway?" he continued. "This country looks familiar." He got up again and walked about, finding his way back to the road. He went along it a little way. Vague impressions suggested that he should know the spot, and yet ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... size, generally take the z in all such as are essentially formed by means of the termination; and the s in monosyllables, and all such as are essentially formed by means of prefixes: as, gormandise, apologize, brutalize, canonize, pilgrimize, philosophize, cauterize, anathematize, sympathize, disorganize, with z;[117] rise, arise, disguise, advise, devise, supervise, circumcise, despise, surmise, surprise, comprise, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... army. At the moment the States General were opened, Necker said: "We are not sure of the troops." The officers were becoming humanitarian and philosophical. The soldiers, recruited from the lowest class of the population, did not philosophize, but they no longer obeyed. In their feeble minds the ideas of equality meant simply the suppression of all leaders and masters, and therefore of all obedience. In 1790 more than twenty regiments threatened ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... with a talent for satire. He begins by begging to be permitted to express his gratitude for the honor which Beethoven has done him in being allowed to drudge for him, but states that he wants no more of it. He then proceeds to philosophize on the situation, saying that the dissonances which have marked their intercourse in the past have been regarded by him with amused toleration. "Are there not" asks this Junius, "in the ideal world of tones many dissonances? Why ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... most of us, do not philosophize: we only live. We like one another, we hardly know why; we love one another, we still less know why. If on the day she first saw—in church it was—Mr. Lyon's grave, heavy-browed, somewhat severe face—for he was a Scotsman, and his sharp, strong Scotch features did look "hard" beside the ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... as I suspect, To philosophize, why, then, reflect: If the cunning rascal upon the limb Hadn't tempted ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... cylinder. I've no time for either worries or wishes, though Peter once remarked that life is only as deep as its desires, and that the measure of our existence lies in the extent of its wants. That may be true, in a way, but I haven't time to philosophize over it. Hard work can be more than a narcotic. It's almost an anesthetic. And soil, I've been thinking, should be the symbol of life here, as it is with the peasants of Poland. I feel that I'm getting thinner, but I've an appetite that I'm ashamed ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... that a Jew is forbidden to speculate or philosophize about the truths of religion. This is not so. Genuine and sincere reflection and speculation is not prohibited. What is forbidden is to leave the sacred writings aside and rely on any opinions that occur to one concerning the beginnings of time and space. ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... the century saw signs of increasing skepticism in the frequent {629} trials of heretics who denied all Christian doctrines and "all principles save natural ones." But a spirit far more dangerous to religion than any mere denial incarnated itself in Rabelais. He did not philosophize, but he poured forth a torrent of the raw material from which philosophies are made. He did not argue or attack; he rose like a flood or a tide until men found themselves either swimming in the sea of mirth and mockery, or else swept off their feet by it. He studied law, theology and ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... theme of conversation for the moment,—a conversation which assumed, as in the case of the interviews with Danglars and Morcerf, a turn analogous to the persons, if not to the situation. "Ah, you philosophize," replied Villefort, after a moment's silence, during which, like a wrestler who encounters a powerful opponent, he took breath; "well, sir, really, if, like you, I had nothing else to do, I should seek a ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... attempted it would they play golf with me? Personally I didn't care. I would have taken a job that day. But there were the wife and boy. They were held in ransom. It's all very well to talk about scorning the conventions, to philosophize about the dignity of honest work, to quote "a man's a man for a' that"; but associates of their own kind mean more to a woman and a growing boy than they do to a man. At least I thought so at that time. When I saw my wife surrounded ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... sat and watched the Mayor go saunteringly down the street, with his crustiness carried like a child on his shoulder, which it delighted him to have knocked off, so that he could philosophize in the restoring of it to its position, suddenly a realization of the relation of Glendale to the world in general was forced ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Women of Middlesex do not take Tabacco: And why should they wonder at it? In truth, our Wonderments are very pleasant Things!" And with that sage and satisfactory conclusion to his catechism we may leave M. Misson, though he goes on to philosophize about the effect of smoking by the English clergy upon ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... Whether this God be transcendent or immanent, whether he be One, the Creator, the eternal and immutable Principle, or whether he be, as say the doctors beyond the Rhine, the ideal objectivation of our Me, is not the question for the heroes of humanity. The soldier in the thick of battle does not philosophize as to how much truth or falsehood there is in the patriotic sentiment; he takes his arms and fights at the peril of his life. So the soldiers of spiritual conflicts seek for strength in prayer, in reflection, contemplation, ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... mind can settle at rest. Though not clear of inquietudes, because no earthly situation is so, they are fewer in number, and mixed with more objects of contentment, than in any other mode of life. But I must not philosophize too much with her, lest I give her too serious apprehensions of a friendship I shall impose on her. I am with very great esteem, Dear Sir, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... conversation and a few hearty laughs, the ladies proposed to take a walk, in order, I believe, to leave HERSCHEL and me together. We walked and talked round his great telescopes till it grew damp and dusk, then retreated into his study to philosophize. ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... personal acquaintance with life, and artistic expression. The more abstract and theoretical it becomes, the more precarious its worth. I do not mean that the essayist may not generalize, but his generalizations should be limited to the scope of his experience of life. I do not mean that he should not philosophize, but his philosophy should be, like Goethe's or Emerson's, an expression of intuition and faith. Properly, the literary essay is a distinct artistic genre—the expression of a concrete thinking personality, and its value consists in the living wisdom it contains. Such essays as those of ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... men had stopped to consider their life-work as a whole, some of them might have turned back. But they had no time to philosophize. They were like the boy who learns how to swim by being pushed into deep water. Once the telephone business was started, it had to be kept going; and as it grew, there came one after another a series of congestions. Two courses were open; either the business ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... however, felt little inclination to philosophize upon this subject. The hope of coming liberty strengthened their limbs, and they bent all their energy to the task of moving forward; walking, running, creeping, until the dawn of day approached, when weary and footsore they sought some secure spot and lay down ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... I tell you?" said Pierre suddenly, rising and beginning to pace up and down the room. "I always thought it.... That girl is such a treasure... she is a rare girl.... My dear friend, I entreat you, don't philosophize, don't doubt, marry, marry, marry.... And I am sure there will not be a ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... 'for to define true madness,' as Polonius says, 'what is it but to be nothing else but mad.' If the 'all licensed fool,' as Goneril peevishly calls him, under cover of his assumed imbecility, could carry his traditional privilege to such dangerous extremes, and carp and philosophize, and fling his bitter jests about at his pleasure, surely downright madness might claim to be invested with a privilege as large. But madness, when conjoined with royalty, makes a double privilege, one which this Poet finds, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... musicians say), but it can never become music so long as it remains isolated. When we recognize that it bears certain relationships with other tones in respect of time or tune (to use simple terms), it has become for us musical material. We do not need to philosophize about the nature of those relationships, but we ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... anything that serves to make a human being exercise the function for which his brain was originally intended should be regarded with thankfulness. It is a thousand times better for the development of the mind to speculate about the motives of acquaintances, or to philosophize on the shortcomings of the maid-of-all-work, than to babble off the dates of the Sovereigns from William the Conqueror, or to construe Horace's Odes without taking in a ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... whoever should see a creature of his own shape or make, though it had no more reason all its life than a cat or a parrot, would call him still a MAN; or whoever should hear a cat or a parrot discourse, reason, and philosophize, would call or think it nothing but a CAT or a PARROT; and say, the one was a dull irrational man, and the other ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... impressions, otherwise such a casualty as I speak of will in an instant obliterate them, as though they had never been. We are but clay, sir, potter's clay, as the good book says, clay, feeble, and too-yielding clay. But I will not philosophize. Tell me, was it your misfortune to receive any concussion upon the brain about the period I speak of? If so, I will with pleasure supply the void in your memory by more minutely rehearsing ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... dear Robert. But I don't philosophize about the distinction. At any rate a woman dreads her birthday only because she is afraid of growing old, and there can be no question of that with you. At your age a man is ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... lawful for any one who has not studied philosophy, and departed this life perfectly pure, to pass into the rank of gods, but only for the true lover of wisdom. And on this account, my friends Simmias and Cebes, those who philosophize rightly, abstain from all bodily desires, and persevere in doing so, and do not give themselves up to them, not fearing the loss of property and poverty, as the generality of men and the lovers of wealth; nor, again, dreading disgrace ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
... I think I'd rather enjoy the wildness of this scene than to philosophize. Tell me about the bear and deer we ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... this part of the subject we oppose the Epicureans, an effeminate and dreamy sect who philosophize in their own paradise, amongst whom virtue is the handmaid of pleasures, obeys them, is subject to them, and regards them as superior to itself. You say, "there is no pleasure without virtue." But wherefore is it superior ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... who were 'jerked' to hold on to. I observed where they had held on they had kicked up the earth as a horse stamping flies.... I believe it does not affect those naturalists who wish to get it to philosophize about it; and rarely those who are the most pious; but the lukewarm, lazy professor is subject to it. The wicked fear it and are subject to it; but the persecutors are more subject to it than any, and they have sometimes cursed and sworn ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... there ensued a hundred-yard dash for a pair of swinging doors behind which dazzled lights splashed gaudily on soapy mirrors. I did not really desire a drink at the time; but I took two, and the other men did likewise. I understood at once (for I must always philosophize a little) why excessive drinking is induced in prohibition states. Tell me that I may not laugh, and I wish at once to laugh my head off,—though I am at heart a holy person who loves Keats. This incongruous emotion must have been felt, ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... is being forced upon me that nature orders me to stay quietly at home this winter and it may be that it is to enable me to get a greater literary culture than I possibly could, amidst the hurry and bustle of continual meetings. Somehow I can not philosophize away a shrinking from going into active work. I can not get up a particle of enthusiasm or faith in the success, either financial or spiritual, of another series of conventions. For the past five years I have gone through this routine and something within ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... at this dance was foolish enough to philosophize. Everybody was out for a good time, and a Scotsman from the British embassy came up to claim Lady Clifton-Wyatt's hand and body for the next dance. Davidge had been mystically attuned anew to Mamise, and he found her in a mood for reconciliation. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... of women never philosophize on the principles that underlie national existence, there were those in our late war who understood the political significance of the struggle: the "irrepressible conflict" between freedom and slavery; between national and State rights. They saw that ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... reed when May's wind heaves The reed-bed that the stream kisses and sighs, In love that shrinks and murmurs and believes What yet the wisest of the starriest wise Whom Greece might ever hear Speaks in the gentlest ear That ever heard love's lips philosophize With such deep-reasoning words As blossoms use and birds, Nor heeds Leontion lingering till they rise Far off, in no wise over far, Beneath a heaven all amorous of its ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find, as we saw in our opening chapters, that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell
... young ladies, who philosophize in kid slippers and French dresses, are the tulips and roses—very charming, and delightful, and sweet, but fit for nothing on earth ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... eating at other tables. They had no qualms; upon their faces was the hue of health, and they were eating as heartily as the creatures of the field or forest do, and with as little prejudice against surroundings. George Henry tried to philosophize again and to be like these people, but he failed. He noted before him on the table a jar of that abject stuff called carelessly either "French" or "German" mustard, stale and crusted, and remembered that ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... disordered circumstances arouses my disgust. Jesus was neither engaged in any kind of a business, nor did he possess as much as a bank account, nor even a steady home. He preached to the poor. What for? The poor should work and not philosophize. The Scriptures tell nowhere that Jesus returned the mule, upon which he made his entry into Jerusalem, to the owner, or that he paid him for it. I strongly suspect he did not do it. One thing is certain, I ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... reason why we should help each other? This carries us back to the other illustration with which we started. We may philosophize as coolly and correctly as we choose about our duties and about the laws of right living; no one of us lives up to what he knows. The man struck by the falling tree has, perhaps, been careless. We are all careless. Environed as we are by risks and ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... tall from the rich mud in the ditch below. Nothing soothes a nettle sting like philosophy and dock-leaf; so I shall rub a little of the leaf on my hand and then sit awhile on the Hole Farm gate here to philosophize about nettles and things generally, as is my humble wont. There is a great deal more in nettles, I believe, than most people are apt to imagine; indeed, the nettle-philosophy at present current with the larger part of the world seems to me lamentably one-sided. As a rule, the sting is the only ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... conducive to small talk; but on the way from the drawing-room to the dining-table, this clever woman directed the talk into light vein by assuring the scholar and diplomat that there was nothing dangerous about her even if she did possess a university degree; that she would neither bite nor philosophize on all occasions; that she was quite as full of life and frolic as if she had never seen a university. You can imagine the effect of this vivacity upon the profoundest of men, and you can see how this clever woman's ability at small talk made a comrade of a notable academician. ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... the soldiers fools; but does it do any good? The war will go on; the enemy will destroy our homes, separate our families, take away our bread and leave us to starve; but we have the privilege to philosophize, if we like. For myself, I ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... Eusebius mentions that Plato thought that no one could understand human things who did not first look at divine things; and tells a story of an Indian who met Socrates in Athens and asked him how he must begin to philosophize. He replied that he must reflect on human life; whereupon the Indian laughed and said that as long as one did not understand divine things he could know nothing about ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... answered indifferently. He wandered away to his own room, leaving Strefford to philosophize to ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... morbid!" answered Dexter, in a lively manner. "Dreams in the place of realities, Miss Loring. Don't philosophize; don't speculate; don't think—at least not seriously. Your thinkers are always miserable. Take life as it is—full of beauty, full of pleasure. The sources of enjoyment are all around us. Let us drink at them and ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... speculation has involved you. The most erudite scholar of the age, and one of the finest metaphysical minds the world has ever known, he expressly sums up his vast philosophic researches with the humble confession: 'There are two sorts of ignorances; we philosophize to escape ignorance, and the consummation of our philosophy is ignorance; we start from the one, we repose in the other; they are the goals from which, and to which, we tend; and the pursuit of knowledge is but a course between two ignorances, as human ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... facts from the recesses of German records; he gives his own interpretation to the facts. He has no respect for established fame, for existing theories. He delights in shocking his readers. In his "Goetzendaemmerung," or "Twilight of the Gods," Nietzsche has shown us how to "philosophize with a hammer." Treitschke has written history with a hammer, and all his writings are strewn with the fragments of ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... philosophize?—that is to say, why does he investigate the first causes and ultimate ends of things? Why does he seek the disinterested truth? For to say that all men have a natural tendency to know ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... beauty' is the watchword. Talk not to me about rules and forms in court when the enemy's cannon are pointed at the door, and the flames encircle the cupola! The man whose stoicism would enable him to philosophize coolly under these circumstances would fiddle while the Capitol was burning, and laugh at the horror and anguish that surrounded him in the midst of the conflagration! I claim not the possession of these remarkable feelings. I concede them all ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... to philosophize about these things than it is to record them in cold fact. With shame and sorrow do I say it, but say it I must: My love went the way of the love of other men who feel (this was and remains the truth) far less than I. ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... opinion professed by most philosophers (and by most persons who do not philosophize). They hold that we know things partly as they are in themselves, partly as they are merely in relation ...
— Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.' • George Grote
... the reformation of ideas. Little matters it that they find me dry and austere. I mean to conquer by a bold struggle, or die in the attempt; and whoever shall come to the defence of property, I swear that I will force him to argue like M. Considerant, or philosophize like ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... shrouded in darkness, and we sallied out to the beach at the head of the bay to find relief in movement. The time passed quicker then, and at last we sat down on some wreckage there and watched the tropic night as it revealed its wealth of stars, and sitting there we began to philosophize, moralizing upon the destiny of man and his relations to things seen and unseen, upon spiritual force; most of all upon divine justice, which in the end evens up all things. But like so many other philosophers who write the style of the gods and make ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... philosophize," added Fritz, "I might prove to you that for a long time men have been ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... love and sold them for money, in a generation that preferred iron pots for utility. Every Indian woman is an artist,—sees, feels, creates, but does not philosophize about her processes. Seyavi's bowls are wonders of technical precision, inside and out, the palm finds no fault with them, but the subtlest appeal is in the sense that warns us of humanness in the way the design spreads into the flare ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... existence under the laws of an Infinite Spirit. He, too, believes in the natural, and believes that the highest law of the soul is, to be true to every pure impulse arising within us. To calculate, to philosophize, he holds to be always to man's injury, that nature when perfectly obeyed is the only guide. He studies man as affected by all the circumstances of his existence, and as wrought upon by the great social forces which ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... in your own interests you would be wiser to philosophize with your books, and seek the key to the sciences, rather ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... men, but thinkers. In their little, dingy shops they sit all day with their eyes down, isolated from the "hum and scum" about them, to the tune of their "tap, tap, tap," their minds are detached to think and philosophize and vision. ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... spot was the favorite residence of Lorenzo Magnifico; concerning whose probable ponderings, as he sat upon his terrace, with his legs dangling over Florence, much may be learned from the guide-book of the immortal Murray, so that he who runs may read and philosophize. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... had been in a condition and mood to philosophize, he would doubtless have reflected that seven-tenths of the desperate causes, both good and bad, which fail in this world, fail because they are wrecked by some woman's love or jealousy—or both. But it is unlikely that he was able ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... experience in philosophy is the experience of all as thought by a synthetic mind. Hence the wealth of life depicted by Shakespeare serves only to point out the philosopher's problem, and to challenge his powers. Here he will find material, and not results; much to philosophize about, but no philosophy. ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... BEGINNINGS OF PHILOSOPHY.—The Greek historian Herodotus (484-424 B.C.) appears to have been the first to use the verb "to philosophize." He makes Croesus tell Solon how he has heard that he "from a desire of knowledge has, philosophizing, journeyed through many lands." The word "philosophizing" seems to indicate that Solon pursued knowledge for its own sake, and was what we call an investigator. As for the word "philosopher" ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... interpretation. And the ancients, moved by their piety, occupied themselves only with Midrashic exegesis as being the most important, and they failed to dwell at great length upon the literal meaning. Add to this the fact that the scholars advise us not to philosophize too much upon the Scriptures. And R. Solomon, my maternal grandfather, the Torch of the Captivity, who commented on the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa, devoted himself to the development of the natural meaning of the text; and I, Samuel son of Meir, discussed ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... more than ordinary penetration to perceive anything but a kind of grandiose folly in Brother Hecker. The impulse to talk about the conversion of America, to plan it and advocate it, to proclaim it possible and prove it so, and to philosophize on the profoundest questions of the human reason, was irrepressible. This he did with an air of matured conviction and with the impact of conscious moral authority, but in terms as strikingly eccentric as the thoughts were lofty and inspiring, ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... like your Method. You do philosophize very well. Your humble Servant, Mr. Philosopher; not of the Stoick School, ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... previously represented his own disqualifications. He loved profane studies and profane sports; he was incapable of supporting a life of celibacy; he disbelieved the resurrection; and he refused to preach fables to the people unless he might be permitted to philosophize at home. Theophilus primate of Egypt, who knew his merit, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... discomfiture of the supposed scoffer. But when I proceeded to walk four or five times across the mysterious place, the rod pointing steadfastly toward the zenith all the while, our friend became grave and began to philosophize. "Well," said he, "you see, your temperament is peculiar; the conditions ain't favourable in your case; there are some people who never can work these things. But there's water below here, for all that, as you'll find, ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... those of Tacitus, which ensure the interest by their recurring shocks. He writes history with the pen of a reviewer, and gives verdicts with the authority of a judge. He seems to say, Believe the autocrat; do not venture to philosophize. ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... his letters to her, sings you the song which he composed when he was au desespoir at their parting, asks your opinion of it, then whirls off to a discussion on the nature of love; leaves that the next moment to philosophize upon friendship, compliments you, en passant, and claims you for his friend; hopes that the connection will be perpetual, and concludes by asking you to do him the honour of telling him your name. In this manner he is perpetually occupied; ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... entirely satisfied with the result of the Civil War, and he was eager to have its facts and meanings brought out at once in history. He ridiculed the notion, held by many, that "it was not yet time" to philosophize the events of the great struggle; that we must "wait till its passions had cooled," and "the clouds of strife had cleared away." He maintained that the time would never come when we should see its motives and men and deeds more clearly, and that now, now, was the hour to ascertain them ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a simple description of this tempest, he adds:—"I have learned to philosophize during my travels, and, if I had not, what use is there ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... well then, nothing is simpler nor truer than Christ.' 'I should wish', Erasmus says elsewhere, 'that this simple and pure Christ might be deeply impressed upon the mind of men, and that I deem best attainable in this way, that we, supported by our knowledge of the original languages, should philosophize ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... running it, you know," he told her. "Leave the worry to the Authorities. I can't philosophize any better than that at twenty dollars a minute. I wish ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... upon the Great Idea herself? By the Great Idea I mean, of course, the conviction that the Force involved was still existent, and could be applied now just as it was applied by Christ's Disciples and their converts, and as successfully. 4. Did she philosophize it, systematize it, and write it down in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... measure the form and quality of his philosophy. He was a poet, gifted with keen and lively sensibilities, open at all pores to the delightfulness of nature, recoiling from nothing that is human. At no period of his life was he merely a solitary thinker or a student of books. When he came to philosophize, when the spiritual mistress, Sophia, absorbed all other passions in his breast, his method of exposition retained a tincture of that ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... one monad became an oyster and another a Man,—would you not say this cosmogony could scarce have misled the human understanding even in the earliest dawn of speculative inquiry? Yet such are the hypotheses to which the desire to philosophize away that simple proposition of a Divine First Cause, which every child can comprehend, led two of the greatest geniuses and profoundest reasoners of modern times,—La Place and La Marck.(13) Certainly, the more you examine those arch phantasmagorists, the philosophers who would ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a year in his advertisements, and grows incredibly rich by the expenditure. Men and women flock in crowds to his shop. He lives at Albert Gate in a house big enough for a royal duke, and is the lord of ten thousand acres in Yorkshire. Barlywig cannot have been wrong, let that philosopher philosophize as he will!" But still the dream was there, crushing him like ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope |
