"Depreciating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and it was in the course of their first interview at Lord Sligo's table that Lady Hester, with that "lively eloquence" for which she was remarkable, briskly assailed the author of "Childe Harold" for the depreciating opinion he was supposed to entertain of all female intellect. Being but little inclined, were he even able, to sustain such a heresy against one who was in her own person such an irresistible refutation of it, Lord Byron had no other refuge from the fair orator's arguments than ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... to Mary brimful of annoyance with Louis's folly, a mild word of assent was sufficient to make him turn round and do battle with the imaginary enemy who was always depreciating Fitzjocelyn. To make up for Clara's avoidance of Mary, he rendered her his prime counsellor, and many an hour was spent in pacing up and down the garden in the summer twilight; while she did her best to pacify him by suggesting that thorough relaxation ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... has already been effected? and how long can such a currency be floated within a contracting circle, and in the face of our new levies and our unbounded national credit? If the war should last another year, and this depreciating currency can be floated at all, it is safe to infer from the history of the past that the debt of the South must increase at least one thousand millions. Under the pressure of such growing weight its end may be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... day, indulgence in idleness, roguery, arrogance, excessive indulgence and total abstention from all indulgence in objects of the senses, should be relinquished by one desirous of achieving what is excellent.[1467] One should not seek self-elevation by depreciating others. Indeed, one should, by one's merits alone, seek distinction over persons that are distinguished but never over those that are inferior. Men really destitute of merit and filled with a sense of self-admiration depreciate men of real merit, by asserting their own virtues and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... and heavy hat of English manufacture, as witness the name of a Bond Street hatter in its crown; by the slight discolouration of its leather, had seen service without, however, depreciating in utility, needing only brushing and ironing to restore its pristine brilliance; carried neither name nor initials on its lining; and lacked every least hint as to its ownership—or so it seemed until the ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... morals into an independent science, we shall soon find that its highest inductions only lead us to a point beyond which we are condemned to wander in doubt and in darkness. But, on the other hand, by depreciating philosophy, or the light which is derived from the moral impressions of the mind, we deprive ourselves of a most important source of evidence in support of revelation. For it is from these impressions, ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... this time the new poets came forth, in his own style, and actuated by his example and success. He recognized in Byron, Moore, Crabbe, and others, genius and talent; and, with his generous spirit, exaggerated their merits by depreciating his own, which he compared to cairngorms beside the real jewels of his competitors. The mystics, following the lead of the Lake poets, were ready to increase the depreciation. It soon became fashionable to speak of The Lay, and Marmion, and ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... who represented the United States at the court of ——. On being told, this person paused, and then resumed, "I am surprised that your government should employ that man. He has always endeavoured to ingratiate himself in my favour, by depreciating everything in his own country." But why name a solitary instance? Deputies, members of parliament, peers of France and of England, and public men of half the nations of Europe, have substantially expressed to the writer ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... quite certainly going to lose the war, she had issued an immense paper coinage which had all the purchasing power of gold. Germany, on the other hand, with her dear Ally to help her, was just as certainly going to win the war. How, then, could there be the slightest risk of the German paper money depreciating a single piastre in value? That sounded very good sense to Turkey, who was equally convinced that she would be on the victorious side (else she would not have joined it), and down went the loan with a pleasant sensation of sweetness. A ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... there is nothing common, it is almost depreciating a collection to enumerate a few articles as rare. It is a marked feature of this library, that Mr. Grenville did not collect mere bibliographical rarities. He never aimed at having a complete set of the editions from the press of Caxton or Aldus; but Chaucer and Gower by Caxton ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... then," said Mrs. Thrale, "he has always taken me in; he seemed to me the humblest creature I knew; always speaking so ill of himself—always depreciating all that belongs ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... full of amorous fancies—far-fetched conceits, befitting his occupation; for True Love thinks no labour to send out Thoughts upon the vast, and more than Indian voyages, to bring home rich pearls, outlandish wealth, gums, jewels, spicery, to sacrifice in self-depreciating similitudes, as shadows of true amiabilities in the Beloved. We must be Lovers—or at least the cooling touch of time, the circum praecordia frigus, must not have so damped our faculties, as to take away our recollection that we were once so—before we can duly appreciate the glorious vanities, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... spectacle of a philosopher on the throne who proclaimed toleration, and contempt for Christianity, was too tempting and too useful controversially to allow of much circumspection in handling it. The odious comparisons it offered were so exactly what was wanted for depreciating the Most Christian king and his courtly Church, that all further inquiry into the apostate's merits seemed useless. Voltaire finds that Julian had all the qualities of Trajan without his defects; all the virtues ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... been with her become less attached to me.' Soon her salon was emptied by an emphatic intimation that those who entered it would incur the displeasure of the First Consul. Official scribes were busily employed in depreciating her, and these measures were speedily followed by the long exile which darkened the ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... his limitations he is all too likely to go to extremes in depreciating his own business ability. Many such people are seemingly proud of their deficiencies in business sense. "I am no business man. You attend to it, I'll trust you," they say. While a lack of natural business ability may not be a man's fault, it is nothing to be proud of. You may not be born with keen, ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... acquire the notice of the large and lofty Sir Geoffrey Peveril, who, being at least three inches taller than his son, was in so far possessed of that superior excellence, which the poor dwarf, in his secret soul, valued before all other distinctions, although in his conversation, he was constantly depreciating it. "Good comrade and namesake," he proceeded, stretching out his hand, so as to again to reach the elder Peveril's cloak, "I forgive your want of reminiscence, seeing it is long since I saw you at Naseby, fighting as if you had as many arms as ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... dealing with blushing. It is shown to depend on self-attention, excited almost exclusively by the opinion of others. "Every one feels blame more acutely than praise. Now, whenever we know, or suppose, that others are depreciating our personal appearance, our attention is strongly drawn towards ourselves, more especially to our faces." This excites the nerve centres receiving sensory nerve for the face, and in turn relaxes the blood capillaries, and fills them with blood. "We can understand why the young ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... diagnosis would have indicated, an insidious ailment may so take advantage of the lapse of time as to root itself too deeply into the economy to be subverted, and become transformed into a disabling chronic case, or possibly one that is incurable and fatal. Hence the impolicy of depreciating early symptoms because they are not accompanied with distinct and pronounced characteristics, and from a lack of threatening appearances inferring the absence of danger. The possibilities of an ambush can never be safely ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... always respectable, and they are always necessary when we would act for the good of mankind, in any of the more arduous stations of life. While, therefore, we blame their misapplication, we should beware of depreciating their value. Men of a severe and sententious morality have not always sufficiently observed this caution; nor have they been duly aware of the corruptions they flattered, by the satire they employed against what is aspiring and prominent in the ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... reply, for it was difficult so to do without depreciating others or depreciating myself; but I changed the subject by commenting on the beauties of the park, and the splendid timber with which it was adorned. "Yes, Peter," replied my father, with a sigh, "thirty-five thousand a year in land, money in the funds, and timber worth at least forty thousand ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... intellectual facilities in the formation of religious opinions might enable us to criticise the ethical inferences drawn in reference to man's responsibility for his belief. Those who think that our characters, moral and intellectual, are formed for us by circumstances, are consistent in denying or depreciating responsibility.(86) There is a danger however among Christian writers of falling into the opposite error, of dwelling so entirely on the moral causes, in forgetfulness of the intellectual, as to teach not only that unbelief of the Christian religion is sin, (which few ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... they appeared to Hugh, or that his tone of superiority, so overbearing last night, so ingratiating to-day, was any worse for the change. Hugh was biassed—felt bias and anger as an encumbering and untimely weight. In self-depreciating contrast he recalled a certain young lady's airy, winning way—airy way of winning—and coveted it for himself here and now: a wrestler's nimble art of overcoming weight by lightness; of lifting a heavy antagonist off his feet into thin air where his heaviness would be against him. His small, ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... those things that were done well before him, a whole figure, and even a group; yet the result was ever a work that none could ever suspect to be by any hand but Raffaelle's. In saying that Mr Poole has seen Nicolo Poussin, we do not mean to insinuate more than that fact: others may say more; and, depreciating a work of surprising power, and that, too, coming from an artist who has hitherto exhibited nothing to be compared with it, will add that he has stolen it from Nicolo Poussin. This we boldly deny. The works of Nicolo Poussin of similar subjects are well ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... observers, the French,—who have a double turn for sharp observation, for they have both the quick perception of the Celt and the Latin's gift for coming plump upon the fact,—it is to be noticed, I say, that the French put a curious distinction in their popular, depreciating, we will hope inadequate, way of hitting off us and the Germans. While they talk of the 'betise allemande,' they talk of the 'gaucherie anglaise;' while they talk of the 'Allemand balourd,' they talk of ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... remained deplorable. Nothing was done for the provinces whose paper currency was depreciating from month to month in an alarming manner; whilst the rivalries between the various leaders instead of diminishing seemed to be increasing. The Tutuhs, or Military Governors, acting precisely as they saw fit, derided the authority of Peking and sought to strengthen their old ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... agreed. "You go in and clean up. Run these gunmen down the valley. Cut out this amatoor wild West business—it's hurting us. Property is depreciating right along. We certainly can't stand any more of this brimstone business. Go to it! We'll see that you're ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... from depreciating her, I want to convince you that it is an insult to pursue her in this ridiculous ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... least as old as the beginning of the 9th century. In 1160 the system had gone to such excess that government paper equivalent in nominal value to 43,600,000 ounces of silver had been issued in six years, and there were local notes besides; so that the Empire was flooded with rapidly depreciating paper. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... useless study, and knew little of its examples and its warnings. But he was sure that the Future must be different, and might be better. In the same disdainful spirit he rejected Religion as the accumulated legacy of childhood, and believed that it arrested progress by depreciating terrestrial objects. Nevertheless he had the confidence of Lubersac, Bishop of Treguier, and afterwards of Chartres, who recommended him to the clergy of Montfort ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... were approved in Paris, which was about the middle of July, 1913, the French Cabinet was at its wit's end to provide the financial end of the tremendous military budget. Investment markets were sluggish, and there were thousands of notes whose values were rapidly depreciating. The French Government was unable to float a loan of $200,000,000 which was necessary ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... it would. Now, s'posen an old feller that don't know nothin' says somethin'?" said Kent, good-humoredly; for he, as is generally the case with those of his class, had a habit of depreciating his own sagacity and foresight, when he really knew how much superior it was ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... putting an additional sum in circulation. The rate of exchange, and the price of all commodities, soon disclosed the political truth that, however the quantity of the circulating medium may be augmented, its aggregate value cannot be arbitrarily increased; and that the effect of such a depreciating currency must necessarily be, to discourage the payment of debts, by holding out the hope of discharging contracts with less real value than that for which they were made; and to substitute cunning and speculation, for honest and regular industry. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... not be understood as decrying or depreciating dress. It is a duty as well as a delight. Mrs. Madison is reported to have said that she would never forgive a young lady who did not dress to please, or one who seemed pleased with her dress. And not only young ladies, but old ladies and old gentlemen, and everybody, ought to make their ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... as a trustworthy authority has depreciated considerably, and it is still depreciating. More accurate study and wider knowledge have exposed his grave defects as an historian, and the critical standpoint has dissipated the halo with which his supposed Christian sympathies had invested him, and laid bare his weakness and his essential unreliability. ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... age; yet he seems even then to have been able to decide on many writers in logic and rhetoric, philosophy and poetry. Of course he was familiar with the works of his friend Wordsworth, of whom he cleverly observed, in reply to the depreciating opinion of Mackintosh, "He strides on so far before you, that he dwindles ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... worth seeing—but more, that one may say one has seen it, than for any sublimity it possesses in itself. Like most things, great or small, in this country, you hear of it with considerable exaggerations. Basil Hall was really quite right in depreciating the general character of the scenery. The widely-famed Far West is not to be compared with even the tamest portions of Scotland or Wales. You stand upon the prairie, and see the unbroken horizon all round you. You are on a great plain, which is like a sea without water. I am exceedingly ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... the great and good man has his greatness and goodness to support him, though the world should unite in depreciating him. The artist has his genius, the beautiful woman has her beauty. 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus and thus; and if fame must have gossip for its seamy side, there are some satisfactions that cannot be stolen away, and some laurels that ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... one to share Scott's deeper anxieties, or to participate in his dreams. Yet Mrs. Scott was not devoid of spirit and self-control. For instance, when Mr. Jeffrey, having reviewed Marmion in the Edinburgh in that depreciating and omniscient tone which was then considered the evidence of critical acumen, dined with Scott on the very day on which the review had appeared, Mrs. Scott behaved to him through the whole evening with the greatest ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... incompetent for those things for which he is competent. Hence it is written (Prov. 26:16): "The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that speak sentences." For nothing hinders him from depreciating himself in some things, and having a high opinion of himself in others. Wherefore Gregory says (Pastoral. i) of Moses that "perchance he would have been proud, had he undertaken the leadership of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... far succeeded in depreciating his personal courage, that even his friends were apprehensive he might not sustain his last moments with dignity. The event proves how much injustice has been done him in this respect, as well as in many others. His behaviour was ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... prefabricated bin can prevent a person from readily turning the heap and can almost force a person to also buy some sort of shredder/chipper to first reduce the size of the material. Also, viewed as a depreciating economic asset with a limited life span, many composting aids cost as much or more money as the value of all the material they can ever turn out. Financial cost relates to ecological cost, so spending money on short-lived plastic or ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... Semitism, as having sprung from Judaism; nevertheless the Arian world can lay claim to the fundamental conception of Christianity as its own, since it is most highly probable that the Semitic peoples received the first germ of it from the Arians. I say this not for the purpose of depreciating the service performed by the great Semitic martyr to freedom. I cannot, alas! deny that we Arians were not able to accomplish anything of our own strength with the divine idea that sprang from our bosom. While it is probable that the horrors of the Indian system of caste, that ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... multitude of support services. About a quarter of the population is too poor to be able to afford an adequate diet. India's international payments position remained strong in 2001 with adequate foreign exchange reserves, and moderately depreciating nominal exchange rates. Growth in manufacturing output has slowed, and electricity shortages continue in many regions. India has large numbers of well-educated people skilled in English language; India is a major exporter of software ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... And this over and above every kind of direct evidence. First, foremost, and enough, the evidence of Ben Jonson that he had "little Latin and less Greek"; then Shakespeare had as much Greek as Jonson would call some, even when he was depreciating. To have any Greek at all was in those days exceptional. In Shakespeare's youth St. Paul's and Merchant Taylor's schools were to have masters learned in good and clean Latin literature, and also in Greek if ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... of Julian, his discontented mind was prepared to receive the subtle poison of those artful sycophants, who colored their mischievous designs with the fairest appearances of truth and candor. Instead of depreciating the merits of Julian, they acknowledged, and even exaggerated, his popular fame, superior talents, and important services. But they darkly insinuated that the virtues of the caesar might instantly be converted into the most dangerous crimes if the inconstant multitude should prefer ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... finest style of railing and raillery, of modern French literature, not one of them, perhaps, perfectly just, but all drawn with the finest, boldest strokes, and, from his point of view, masterly. All were depreciating, except that of Beranger. Of him he spoke with perfect justice, because ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... that the evidence was incapable, at this point of time, of justification to the exoteric, and that the question had sunk now to one of character, to which her opponent answered that it had always been one of character. And you must admit that the direct and unmitigated manner of depreciating the reputation, not merely of Jane Arrowsmith, but of Mrs. Wynyard, a personal friend of Miss Martineau's to whom she professes great obligations, could not be otherwise than exasperating to a woman of her generous temper, and this just in the crisis of her gratitude ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... of Hispaniola is certainly here meant, to which Americus has chosen to give the fabulous or hypothetical name of Antilia, formerly mentioned; perhaps with the concealed intention of depreciating the grand discovery of Columbus, by insinuating that the Antilles were known long ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... where several other women were examining and depreciating Mrs. Lincoln's costly carpets, pronouncing them "half cotton," &c., Mary made her way up the stairs, where in a chamber as yet untouched, she found Jenny and with her William Bender. Mrs. Lincoln's cold, scrutinizing eyes were away, and Mr. Lincoln ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... madness of innovation is as destructive as the bigotry of ancient establishments. The learning and the views of the rising century must have different objects from those of the wisdom and benevolence of Alfred, Balsham, or Wolsey; and, without depreciating or destroying the magnificence or establishments of universities, may not their institutions be improved? May not their splendid halls echo with other sounds than the exploded metaphysics of the schools? And may not ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... not in the least by way of depreciating or even making an apology for nineteenth century letters, but only in order to put the reader in a proper state for critical estimation of them. Nor is it necessary to repeat—still less to discuss—the more general lamentations with some reference to ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... you examine the three classes of men, and ask of them in turn which of their lives is pleasantest, each will be found praising his own and depreciating that of others: the money-maker will contrast the vanity of honour or of learning if they bring no money with the solid advantages ...
— The Republic • Plato
... done must be done there, and that after all—after having conquered 100,000,000 of people—it is not in our power to interfere for the improvement of their condition. Mr. Kaye, in his book, commences the first chapters with a very depreciating account of the character of the Mogul Princes, with a view to show that the condition of the people of India was at least as unfavourable under them as under British rule. I will cite one or two cases from witnesses for whose testimony the right hon. Gentleman (Sir ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... to be ridiculous to believe that the English government was deliberately depreciating the work of the Irish soldiers, and he said so. "They hardly mention the names of any ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... That isn't so high here, though. People do plunge for as much as eight or ten thousand. It all depends." McKibben was in a belittling, depreciating mood. ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... of the Medical Departmt have diverse Times applied to Congress for Consideration on Accot of the depreciating Currency. It appears to me that they are as much intitled to it, as the officers of the Line; for altho they may not run Risques in the fighting Way, they very probably do, equally, in the Midst of putrid Fevers &c. Those of them who are the Subjects of this State, have applied ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... had been exhausted, by the operation of the plan he was recommending, others would be supplied for its action, in the proportion of the excess of colored population it would be necessary to throw off, by the process of voluntary manumission or sale. This effect must result inevitably from the depreciating value of the slaves ensuing their disproportionate multiplication. The depreciation would be relieved and retarded at the same time, by the process. The two operations would aid reciprocally, and sustain each other, and both ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... question of which of the alien objects presented to his choice it would cost him least to profess to handle. What he had already paid, a spectator would easily have gathered from the long, the suppressed wriggle that had ended in his falling back, was some sacrifice of his habit of not privately depreciating those to whom he was publicly civil. It was plain, however, that when he presently spoke his thought had taken a stretch. "I'm sure I've fully intended to be everything that's proper. But I don't think Mr. Vanderbank cares ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... various localities and industries. These problems are engaging our most earnest attention. But for the overwhelming majority of our working people, the past year has meant good jobs. Moreover, the earnings and savings of our wage earners are no longer depreciating in value. Because of cooperative relations between labor and management, fewer working days were lost through strikes in 1954 than in any ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... opportunity for pausing to consider what manner of man it was who had so suddenly passed into the intimate favour of the Queen. Naunton has described Raleigh with the precision of one who is superior to the weakness of depreciating the exterior qualities of his enemy: 'having a good presence, in a handsome and well-compacted person; a strong natural wit, and a better judgment; with a bold and plausible tongue, whereby he could set out his parts ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... proposed his reforms. He sought to remove the burdens of the people, first, by remitting all fines which had been imposed; second, by preventing the people from offering their persons as security against debt; and third, by depreciating the coin so as to make payment of debt easy. He replaced the Pheidonian talent by that of the Euboic coinage, thus increasing the debt-paying capacity of money twenty-seven per cent, or, in other words, reduced the debt about that amount. It was further provided that all debts could be paid in ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... thing that we do misses the aim, if you consider what a man's aim ought to be. We have grown a great deal wiser than the Puritans nowadays, and people make cheap reputations for advanced thought by depreciating their theology. We have not got beyond the first answer of the Shorter Catechism, 'Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.' That is the only aim which corresponds to our constitution, to our circumstances. A palaeontologist will pick ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... from the savages on the other shore. Had the acquaintance between these young people been of longer date than it actually was, Margery could not have entertained a notion so injurious to the bee- hunter, for a single moment; but there was nothing either violent, or depreciating, in supposing that one so near being a total stranger would think first of himself and his own interests, in the situation in which this ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... the present day are so rich and various; there is such an eagerness among their possessors to publish family papers, even sometimes in shapes, and at dates so recent, as scarcely to justify their appearance; that modern critics, in their embarrassment of manuscript wealth, are apt to view with too depreciating an eye the more limited resources of men of letters at the commencement of the century. Not five-and-twenty years ago, when preparing his work on King Charles the First, the application of my father to make some researches in the State Paper Office was refused ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... be remembered that he himself had a habit of depreciating his own acquaintance with books, and his own dependence on them. He did this, it would seem, partly from a consciousness that it would only increase his hold on the sympathy and support of the mass of the ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... often find peeping out in Defoe's writings that roguish cynicism which we should expect in a man whose own life was so far from being straightforward. He was too much dependent upon the public acceptance of honest professions to be eager in depreciating the value of the article, but when he found other people protesting disinterested motives, he could not always resist reminding them that they were no more disinterested than the Jack-pudding who avowed that he cured diseases from mere love of his kind. Having yielded to circumstances ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... atmosphere and into other relations where your life may spread its wings out new, and gather on every separate plume a brightness from the sun of the sun! Is it possible that imaginative writers should be so fond of depreciating and lamenting over their own destiny? Possible, certainly—but reasonable, not at all—and grateful, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... and that while Christians are made really holy and good, their sanctification is to be traced to the grace of God in Christ Jesus. In neither passage is there any statement on which to rest an argument for the arbitrary and unconditional decree of the Calvinist, nor for depreciating the intrinsic value of those really good works which the Christian performs in faith. Calvinism has no foundation in the word of God. It is in direct collision with that sacred authority. St. Paul rests the divine election on the foreknowledge ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... constituent betraying weakness, and cracking, swelling, and disintegrating in a very significant manner. This last result is regarded as a valuable quality of the new method of testing cement, the general effect of which appears to be to enhance the test value of really good cements, while depreciating those of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... the appalling total of two thousand millions of dollars and its daily cost was four millions. The paper of the Treasury was rapidly depreciating and the premium on gold rising until the value of a one dollar green-back note was less than fifty cents in real money. The bankers, fearing the total bankruptcy of the Nation, had begun to refuse further loans on bonds ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... Congress had pledged its faith to the redemption of issues at their face value, "but this was done on a principle of policy, in order to prevent the rapid depreciation which was taking place." He argued that "money lent in this depreciated and depreciating state can hardly be said to be lent from a spirit of patriotism; it was a ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... one young man from the example of those miserable dilettanti, who in books and sermons are whimpering meagre second-hand praises of celibacy—depreciating as carnal and degrading those family ties to which they owe their own existence, and in the enjoyment of which they themselves all the while unblushingly indulge—insulting thus their own wives and mothers— nibbling ignorantly at the very ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... Philip's more inactive mind, formed into perfect thought his master's crude ideas while they yet hung on his lips, and liberally allowed him the glory of the invention. Granvella understood the difficult and useful art of depreciating his own talents; of making his own genius the seeming slave of another; thus he ruled while he concealed his sway. In this manner only could Philip II. be governed. Content with a silent but real ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... having admired too much, by afterwards despising and depreciating without mercy—in all great assemblies the perception of ridicule is quickly caught, and quickly too revealed. Lady Clonbrony, even in her own house, on her gala night, became an object of ridicule,—decently masked, indeed, under the appearance ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... and at his greatness. I could not bear Euripides at college. I now read my recantation. He has faults undoubtedly. But what a poet! The Medea, the Alcestis, the Troades, the Bacchae, are alone sufficient to place him in the very first rank. Instead of depreciating him, as I have done, I may, for aught I know, end by ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... them, under like penalty, from investing their money in foreign stocks. This was soon followed by another decree, forbidding any one to retain precious stones in his possession, or to sell them to foreigners; all must be deposited in the bank, in exchange for depreciating paper! ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... Fall in securities, silver depreciating. Now did I put in anything about the Democrats ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... disobliged by the depreciating catalogue of her apparel, replied to the last question with some spirit,—"The mode may have altered, madam; but I only wear such garments as are now worn by those of my age and condition. For the poniard, may it please ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... silver. I do not know how gold came to be money; neither do I understand the universal desire, but it exists, and we take things as we find them. Gold and silver make up, you may say, the money of the world, and I believe in using the two metals. I do not believe in depreciating any American product; but as value cannot be absolutely fixed by law, so far as the purchasing power is concerned, and as the values of gold and silver vary, neither being stable any more than the value of wheat or corn is stable, I believe that legislation should ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... was intended to be a predominant influence in the world through her moral and spiritual being, principally, I must not be understood as depreciating the value to her of mere subjective knowledge. So far from this, I believe that her means of acquiring knowledge of all kinds should be limited only by her capacity. The more her intellect is enlightened and disciplined, the better will she be qualified to exert that refining, elevating ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to her son of what had happened. She was superior to the cheap satisfaction of avenging his injury by depreciating its cause. She knew that in sentimental sorrows such consolations are as salt in the wound. The avoidance of a subject so vividly present to both could not but affect the closeness of their relation. ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... can be put in two extreme classes, those who render the children insufferably conceited and unbearable by overestimating their abilities and overpraising their achievements, and those who render them morbid and self-depreciating by a lack of ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... over at length. I had to force him to each point, for suspicion was strong in him. I stood out for a larger party. He strongly opposed this as depreciating the shares, but I had no intention of going alone into what was then considered a wild and dangerous country. Finally we compromised. A third of the treasure was to go to him, a third to me, and the rest was to be divided among the men ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... spared. I had the best teachers—and, of course, the most expensive; with none others would I have been satisfied, for I had come naturally to regard myself as on a social equality with the fashionable young friends who were my companions, and who indulged the fashionable vice of depreciating everything that did not come up to a certain acknowledged standard. Yearly I went to Saratoga or Newport with my sisters, and at a cost which I now think of with amazement. Sometimes my mother went with us, but my father never. He was not able to leave his business. ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... form,—to come afresh to a self-consciousness of our function. It is not good for any man to hold a debased and inferior opinion of himself or of his work, and in the field of schoolcraft it is easy to fall into this self-depreciating habit of thought. We cannot hope that the general public will ever come to view our work in the true perspective that I have very briefly outlined. It would probably not be wise to promulgate publicly so pronounced an affirmation of our function and of our worth. The ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... was an excellent sort of woman she rarely lost an opportunity of depreciating, in this way and with the most superb contempt and disgust, the wealth, birth and position of all the people she knew. It was not out of spite, nor was it for the pleasure of slandering and backbiting, nor yet because she was envious. She would refuse to believe in the respectability and ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... plants? This is a broad subject, but withal an important one, since these influences act indirectly on man as well as on the lower animals. On man, inasmuch as it interferes with the vegetable portion of his food, either by checking its production or depreciating its quality. On the lower animals, since by this means not only is their natural food deteriorated or diminished, but through it injurious effects are liable to be produced by the introduction of minute fungi into the system. These remarks apply mainly ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... of our appearance or conduct, cause us to blush much more readily than does praise. But undoubtedly praise and admiration are highly efficient: a pretty girl blushes when a man gazes intently at her, though she may know perfectly well that he is not depreciating her. Many children, as well as old and sensitive persons, blush when they are much praised. Hereafter the question will be discussed how it has arisen that the consciousness that others are attending to our personal appearance should have led to the capillaries, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... not come within my present purpose to try to reconcile the discrepancies between them. I am furnishing materials for history, not writing it, and my chief duty is to observe accuracy, even at the risk of depreciating the value ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various
... skjutsbonder very often do not know the rates, and take implicitly what the traveller gives them. I have yet to experience the first attempt at imposition in Sweden. The only instances I heard of were related to me by Swedes themselves, a large class of whom make a point of depreciating their own country and character. This habit of detraction is carried to quite as great an extreme as the vanity of the Norwegians, and is the less pardonable vice ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... gigantic imposition by financial jugglery that history has recorded, and has been effected chiefly by manipulation and contraction of the currency to make debts more oppressive, and during the war by depreciating the people's money. After the war when $500,000,000 were needed to compensate the destruction of confederate money, a criminal contraction of $500,000,000 dealt a crushing blow to the South, and to the whole country. Let us look at it from ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... Southampton's—which kept the finest of all company at a distance. Lady Castlemaine had called at Chilton in her coach-and-four early in July; and her visit had not been returned—a slight which the proud beauty bitterly resented: and from that time she had lost no opportunity of depreciating Lady Fareham. Happily her jests, not over refined in quality, had not ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... customs duties are greatly decreased from what they might amount to. Large quantities of contraband goods are, moreover, carried to the South American colonies, thus injuring the exports from the mother country. The Chinese wares are apparently cheap, but their poor quality, and their depreciating effect on the values of Spanish goods, diminish the real profits of the Chinese trade. The necessity of protecting the silk industry in the kingdom of Granada is used as a strong argument against allowing the Chinese silk trade in the Spanish colonies, as the former adds greatly to the revenues ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... bellicose and amorous of adventure, and more than all other nations has a tendency to clothe its patrimonial ardour of defence in beautiful terms and gallant attitudes. This is one of the points on which the British race, with its scrupulous reserve, often almost its affectation of self-depreciating shyness, differs most widely from the French, and is most in need of sympathetic imagination in dealing with a noble ally whose methods are not necessarily the same as ours. It is difficult to fancy ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... they always say and do what they like before the dear old man, without the smallest regard for his feelings) had made a strong impression on his mind; for, naturally enough, it must have pained him to hear the emperor he so devotedly loved and served spoken of in that depreciating manner." ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in his "History of Medical Education," quotes an old writer[213:1] who inveighed against those practitioners who were wont to fill the ears of their patients with stories of their own professional skill, while depreciating the services of others of the fraternity. Such unscrupulous quacks sought also to win over the patient's friends by little attentions, flatteries and innuendoes. Many, said this philosopher, recoil from a man of skill even, if he is a braggart. "When the doctor," he continues, "attended ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... Irving's Hamlet is simply—hideous—a strong expression for Spedding to use. But—(lest I should think his condemnation was only the Old Man's fault of depreciating all that is new), he extols Miss Ellen Terry's Portia as simply a perfect Performance: remembering (he says) all the while how fine was Fanny Kemble's. Now, all this you shall read for yourself, when I have token of your Whereabout, and Howabout: ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... about leaving the cars at Dunleith and taking the steamboat for St. Paul. There is a tremendous rush for the boats in order to secure state-rooms. Agents of different boats approach the traveller, informing him all about their line of boats, and depreciating the opposition boats. For instance, an agent, or, if you please, a runner of a boat called Lucy— not Long— made the assertion on the levee with great zeal and perfect impunity that no other boat but the said Lucy would leave for St. Paul within twenty-four hours; when it must have ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... and it was gently taken from his hand, but before the fingers had embraced the substituted ball, a depreciating look and word of remonstrance gave a sense of ill-usage and there was ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... if it is? Does that make it less virtue? Suppose I say that sculpture is a "mere way" of stone-cutting, and painting a "mere way" of daubing canvas, and music a "mere way" of making a noise, the statements are quite true; but they only show that I see no other method of depreciating some of the noblest aspects of humanity than that of using language in an inadequate and misleading sense about them. And the peculiar inappropriateness of this particular nickname to the views in question, arises from the circumstance which Mr. Mivart would doubtless have ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... into the remoter mysteries of nature; not to trace the path of our system through space, or its history through past and future eternities. These, indeed, are noble ends and which I am far from any thought of depreciating; the mind swells in their contemplation, and attains in their pursuit an expansion and a hardihood which fit it for the boldest enterprise. But the direct practical utility of such labours is fully worthy of their speculative grandeur. ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... has just been married. You all of you use your ink in depreciating social life, on the pretext of enlightening us! Why, there are couples a hundred, a thousand times happier than your boasted ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... announced in the public square that the railway blockade was broken in Clairfield, a city to the east of Buffland about a hundred miles. The hands had accepted the terms of the employers and had gone to work again. An orator tried to break the force of this announcement by depreciating the pluck of the Clairfield men. "Why, gentlemen!" he screamed, "a ten-year-old boy in this town has got twice the sand of a Clairfield man. They just leg the bosses to kick 'em. When they are fired ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... doctors are interested in depreciating the value of the property, by making it appear haunted, they would have a good object in preventing us from finding out what causes the queer noises and ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... forced a passage for themselves to some share of approbation, in the very teeth of favouritism and prejudice. Some there were who could discern no merit at all in him; some who industriously employed themselves in depreciating and denying the little which others allowed him. At last his vigorous struggles made it necessary to call in a corps de reserve which he little suspected; his private life was impeached, and the careless, irregular habits of youth—habits, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... one makes gifts to one's friends only. But my interest in yours is depreciating so rapidly that, should you delay much longer, it will be on sale for the sum ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... and they shrink from the reproach of its unfortunate reputation. What! you don't think so?" he impetuously asked, moved, perhaps, by my suggestive silence. "You are suspicious of these two poor old women? What reason have you for that, Miss Saunders? What motive could they have for depreciating the value of what was once ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... written will be regarded, I trust, as depreciating the essential excellence, power, and (in its scholarly way) even the greatness of Sir Sidney Colvin's book. But a certain false emphasis here and there, an intelligible prejudice in favour of believing what is good of his subject, has left his book almost too ready ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... the most memorable year of the war, with the price of living at the South running up to eight hundred and nine hundred dollars per day, and currency depreciating so rapidly that one's salary had to be advanced every morning in order to keep pace with the ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... experienced in the attempt to exalt certain facts in the history of the Hebrews from their subordinate position in human affairs, and, indeed, to give the whole of that history an exaggerated value. This was done in a double way: by elevating Hebrew history from its true grade, and depreciating or falsifying that of other nations. Among those who have been guilty of this literary offence, the name of the celebrated Eusebius, the Bishop of Caesarea in the time of Constantine, should be designated, since in his chronography and synchronal ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... wrong kind of boy, Gerald had been a worse kind. He murmured, "We are different, very," and Miss Pembroke, perhaps suspecting something, asked no more. But she kept to the subject of Mr. Dawes, humorously depreciating her lover and discussing him without reverence. Rickie laughed, but felt uncomfortable. When people were engaged, he felt that they should be outside criticism. Yet here he was criticizing. He could not help it. He ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... conversation, which certainly would have given Elise pleasure, and in which she might have taken part, had not a feeling of depression stolen over her, as she fancied she perceived a something cold and depreciating in the manners of her husband towards her. She grew stiller and paler; all gathered themselves round the brilliant Emelie; even the children seemed enchanted by her. Henrik presented her with a beautiful flower, which he had obtained from Louise by flattery. Petrea seemed to have got ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... depreciating Thayer, Beatrix. He is one of the finest fellows who ever came out of the Creator's hands. In his worst moods, he is away ahead of most of the men one meets. Some day, I hope you may know him for ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... give a very good notion of his great inventive power and judgment. Some of them have furnished Varchi with the subject of Discourses. It must be remembered, however, that he practised poetry for his amusement, and not as a profession, always depreciating his own talent, and appealing to his ignorance in these matters. Just in the same way he has perused the Holy Scriptures with great care and industry, studying not merely the Old Testament, but also the New, together with ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... who alone appeared dissatisfied at this interruption, and now approached the stranger; "I warn you, Senorias! I recognise in this caballero"—he spoke the word in an ironical and depreciating tone—"the same gentilhombre whom the alguazils were so lately seeking. Beware! his presence may get ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... the vanity of wealth and the crimes committed in the name of taste, visits Lord Timon's villa, and finds plenty of pegs on which to hang criticism—ample scope for satire. With depreciating eyes he surveys the house and grounds, their fittings and garniture, almost as though he were going to make a bid for them. 'He that blames would buy,' says the proverb. Then he passes to the out-buildings, taking notes like a broker ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... to proceed. She looked at him now. As he bent forward, to be nearer, with the utmost show of delicacy and respect, and with his teeth persuasively arrayed, in a self-depreciating smile, she felt as if she could have ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... granted that they have so far counterpoised the depreciating language of my fellow-countryman and fellow-teacher as to gain me a reader here and there among the youthful class of students I am now addressing. It is only for their sake that I think it necessary to analyze, or explain, or illustrate, or corroborate any portion of the following Essay. But ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of Rowley, appeared to derive pleasure from depreciating Chatterton, who had avowed himself the writer of that inimitable poem, "The Death of Syr Charles Bawdin," but well knowing the consequences which would follow on this admission, he laboured hard to impeach the veracity of our bard, and represented him as one who, from vanity, assumed ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... point of view from which a man writes; and I can only say that, if the distinguished Major-general is right, from a purely British point of view, in depreciating the island and its resources, he thereby furnishes a very strong argument why Great Britain should, for a reasonable compensation, cede this island to the United States. I am perfectly sure that the majority of the 200,000 inhabitants would not have the slightest objection to exchange the Union ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell
... to his friends, when relating what had passed,) began to consider that I was depreciating this man in the estimation of his Sovereign, and thought it was time for me to say something that might be more favourable." He added, therefore, that Dr. Hill was, notwithstanding, a very curious observer; and ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... most bitter charges constantly reiterated against us was that we were depreciating the study of ancient classical literature. Again and again it was repeated, especially in a leading daily journal of the metropolis under the influence of a sectarian college, that I was "degrading classical studies.'' No- thing ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... of certain Latin-American republics, in which the authors studiously avoid touching on such embarrassing subjects as revolutions, assassinations, earthquakes, finances, or fevers for fear of scaring away foreign investors or depreciating ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... out her hand and said her good-by cordially. The sense that Sir James was depreciating Will, and behaving rudely to him, roused her resolution and dignity: there was no touch of confusion in her manner. And when Will had left the room, she looked with such calm self-possession at Sir James, saying, "How ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... out as abruptly as he had entered, and he paused long enough outside to know that a silence marked his going. Then he heard Ed Koran's voice depreciating him. Frankly ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... when she had the books she would not be so beaten. She tried Francis, but he really did know next to nothing, and whenever he came to a word above five letters long stopped short, and when told to spell it, said, "Mamma never made him spell;" also muttering something depreciating about civilians. ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Without depreciating the labors of the various advocates of slave emancipation who have appeared from time to time on both sides of the Atlantic, they may conscientiously award to you the praise of having brought about the present universal and enthusiastic sentiment ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... be to your Excellency a source of the highest gratification to hear that His Imperial Majesty's Hebrew subjects are far from depreciating the advantages which the human mind in general derives from education. Wherever and whenever I had an opportunity of addressing them on that subject, they assured me that they were ever ready most zealously to assist in the promotion of their mental and social improvement, and they joyfully ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... settled. There was a time when the embargo law threw our slaves out of employment. The North then contemplated a dissolution of the Union. Why? Because she thought the Government wanted power—was inefficient. Now, there is a sense of insecurity felt throughout the South. Our property is depreciating, going down every day. We feel this want of security very deeply, this want of faith in the Government under which we live. The South is ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... national possessions exercised undisputed control. Everywhere, at that time, in the departments of Var, Bouches-du-Rhone, and Vaucluse, "a club of would-be patriots" had long prepared the way for their exactions. It had "paid appraisers for depreciating whatever was put up for sale, and false names for concealing real purchasers; "a person not of their clique, was excluded from the auction-room; if he persisted in coming in they would, at one time, put him under contribution for the privilege of bidding," and, at another time, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... active in depreciating the merit of this work. Herman Ravespenger, Professor at Groningen, attacked it with so much rudeness, that Balthasar Lydius, who, however, was not of the Arminian party, told him his criticism was wretched, and he was ready to answer it. The Gomarists, ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny |
