"Ignorance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... representatives from South Carolina, attracted unusual attention by his speech in reply to Alexander Stephens on the constitutionality of the Civil Rights bill. At the same time among the Negro legislators there was also considerable ignorance, and there set in an era of extravagance and corruption from which the "carpet-baggers" and the "scalawags" rather than the Negroes themselves reaped the benefit. Accordingly within recent years it has become more and ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... with a contemptuous snort. "What does the boss know about 'em? I used to own the only snake that was worth having. Ever hear of 'Big Pete'?" The Stranger confessed his ignorance, and the other settled back in his chair and lighted ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... she had not much interest in Drumloch, though Maggie wrote to her daily, and Maggie's letters were wonderfully clever and amusing. And yet she had not received any special lessons; she had simply passed in a silent sort of way out of a region of ignorance, into one penetrated by the thought of educated men and women. There had been in her mentally a happy unconscious growth upward, like that of a well-watered plant. But no system of education could have been so excellently fitted for her ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... alone, and are of no use to any person in the world apart from herself: in case of her being already dead before me, the box and all its contents should be burnt without opening or disturbing anything. And lest anyone should plead ignorance of the contents, I swear by the God I worship and by all that is most sacred that no untruth is here asserted. If anyone should contravene my wishes that are just and reasonable in this matter, I charge their conscience therewith ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... matters varying greatly with her mood and condition. Her day-dreaming was to a large extent directed toward matters literary and artistic. Sometimes, when she had read some novel with a markedly sentimental appeal, she talked vaguely of old ambitions to write, but as a rule it was her ignorance of music that she deplored. In the meantime her lace-making and her embroidery proved an artistic sense not wholly confined to dreams. She was always busy with some work of that kind, but her longings went far beyond it, and it happened more than once that she let her work drop in her lap while ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... without corruption, supposing the probity of the Representative to be proof against the powerful motives by which it may be assailed, the will of the people is still constantly liable to be misrepresented. One may err from ignorance of the wishes of his constituents; another from a conviction that it is his duty to be governed by his own judgment of the fitness of the candidates; finally, although all were inflexibly honest, all accurately informed of the wishes of their constituents, yet under the present ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... and their first move on board was toward the little cabin on deck wherein coffee was served. The headwaiter at the improvised breakfast table—as I inferred not less from his look and manner than from his ostentatiously professed ignorance of his native tongue—was an English duke in reduced circumstances; and his assistants, I fancy, were retired French senators. Indeed, those dignified functionaries had about them an air of high comedy so irresistible, and so many of the ladies whom they served were personages of the Odeon or the ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... that we ever knew his real name. Our ignorance of it certainly never gave us any social inconvenience, for at Sandy Bar in 1854 most men were christened anew. Sometimes these appellatives were derived from some distinctiveness of dress, as in the case ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... with a black eye in the bargain. I looked on upon these proceedings, although not without laughter, yet with impatience and disgust. I am one that cannot bear to see things botched or gone upon with ignorance; and the thought that some poor devil was to hazard his bones upon such premises revolted me. Had I guessed the name of that unhappy first adventurer, my sentiments might have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the summer it is impossible to go minutely. What Mr. Dillwyn did in Canada, and how Lois fought with ignorance and rudeness and prejudice in her new situation, Mrs. Barclay learned but very imperfectly from the letters she received; so imperfectly, that she felt she knew nothing. Mr. Dillwyn never mentioned Miss Lothrop. Could it be that he had prematurely brought things to a decision, and so got them ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... wert thou taken from me, my mother!" said he, as he bowed still lower before God, as if crushed beneath the weight of so mighty a sorrow. "How can I be any thing without thy gentle guidance, and with none to help me out of my ignorance and nothingness?" ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... mentioned his name, or referred in the slightest possible way to his business abroad before Mr. Benjamin, that young gentleman would have promptly abandoned his expedition and returned to town. But, as he did not, all three traveled on together in a happy state of ignorance concerning each other; and Mr. Benjamin Levy was very near experiencing the greatest disappointment ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... did not intrude themselves upon us. They were brought here in chains and held in the communities where they are now chiefly found by a cruel slave code. Happily for both races, they are now free. They have from a standpoint of ignorance and poverty—which was our shame, not theirs—made remarkable advances in education and in the acquisition of property. They have as a people shown themselves to be friendly and faithful toward the white race under temptations of tremendous strength. They have their ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... following morning and visit Achenbach, the caterer. She was to be as self-confident as possible. He might have been instructed not to tell anyone where and when his services were ordered. Landis was not to be led off by his assumed ignorance. She was to tell him plainly that she referred to the order sent in by Miss Hobart ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... individual suffering; and when the victory was gained, they not infrequently improved it to the utter destruction of all who had taken part in the attack. Whichever side were most to blame in the feud, no quarter was given by either. It was an internecine war of numbers, ignorance, and anarchy against science and order. On both sides there still remained much of the spirit generated in times when life was less precious than the valour by which alone it could be held, and preserved through milder ages by the belief ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... them," said Rod over his shoulder, "and they say 'where ignorance is bliss 'tis a folly to be wise.' Right now they may be over in England, pitying us for being left behind in the land of the ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... half the village was agog over the flirtation of the new drug-clerk with Madeline Brand, and Laura was lying awake nights fretting about it, Henry went gaily to and from his work in a state of blissful ignorance. And it was very blissful. He was exultant over the progress he had made in his courtship at the picnic. He had told his love—he had kissed her. If he had not been accepted, he had, at least, not been rejected, and that was a measure of success quite enough to intoxicate so ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... stood Immovably suspended, like to those, The shepherds, who first heard in Bethlehem's field That song: till ceas'd the trembling, and the song Was ended: then our hallow'd path resum'd, Eying the prostrate shadows, who renew'd Their custom'd mourning. Never in my breast Did ignorance so struggle with desire Of knowledge, if my memory do not err, As in that moment; nor through haste dar'd I To question, nor myself could aught discern, So on I ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... "these fellows do not know a word of French. All along the way which they will have to traverse they will meet friendly outposts, who will report to them on the condition of the roads and warn them of any danger that might be ahead. Their ignorance of our language may be a source of infinite peril to them. They need an interpreter to accompany them over ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Archibald died, quite suddenly, of peritonitis—fortunately in ignorance of what was happening, and with her husband and daughter and Barty round her bedside at the end. She ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... things should aim upward not downward. The line running down through the center of the face calls upon the gods above to send down rain upon the earth and health to all people. Two or three children started through ignorance to run the meal down one of the cheeks; they were instantly stopped by Hasjelti, but not until the people looking on had expressed great horror. All in the line having gone through this ceremony the crowd of spectators sprinkled the masks ...
— Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand Painting of the - Navajo Indians • James Stevenson
... An angry curiosity made her look at what stood there: "A believer in one God who, without wilful fault on his part, knows nothing of the Divine Mystery of the Trinity, is held capable of salvation by many Catholic theologians. And there is the 'invincible ignorance' of the heathen. What else is possible to the Divine mercy let none of us presume to know. Our part in these matters ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... which obscured her judgment when her expedition to Russia was contemplated. She was a delicate woman, and there did not seem to be much scope for her services in Russia. She was not a qualified nurse, and the distance from home, and the handicap of her ignorance of the Russian language, would probably have prevented her organising anything like comforts for the soldiers there as she had done in Belgium. To those of us who loved her the very uselessness of her efforts in Russia adds to the poignancy ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... Geology, which is history down to historic time, expecting to take advantage of the ignorance of the careless student. ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... learn as one of the highest privileges of freemen. The ballot gives them the power to secure that privilege. All parties and all public men in the South agree that, if colored men vote, ample provision must be made in the reorganization of every State for free schools. The ignorance of the masses, whites as well as blacks, is one of the most discouraging features of Southern society. If Congressional reconstruction succeeds, there will be free schools for all. The colored ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... higher things and better days; The unbounded hope and heavenly ignorance Of what is called the world and the world's ways; The moments when we gather from a glance More joy than from all future pride or praise, Which kindled manhood, but can ne'er entrance The heart in an existence of its own Of which another's ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... were set going, but the water still gained on the crew. On the morning of the 23rd February, in the hopes of being able to stop the leak, the ship was steered in for the bay, and came to an anchor. Dampier devised a plan for stopping the leak; but either through the carelessness or ignorance of the carpenter, it was only made worse. Notwithstanding all his endeavours to check it, the water rushed in with such force that it was very evident the ship could not be ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... been two years manufacturing and collecting, and then went on through the whole list of Yankee notions, giving my full description of everything, to the great satisfaction of my audience and the surprise of my partner, who was in ignorance of the fact of my ever having ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... compound of irony, satire, pathos, tenderness, and moral indignation. The general wretchedness of the serfs, the indifference of their owners to their condition, the pettiness and utter meanness of village gossip, the ridiculous affectations of small-town society, the universal ignorance, stupidity, and dulness—all these are remorselessly revealed in the various bargains made by the hero. And what a hero! A man neither utterly bad nor very good; shrewd rather than intelligent; limited in every way. He is a Russian, but a universal type. No one can ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... discovering his every desire to the lady, contrived with acts and words so to do that he had his will of her, of which Meuccio soon became aware and albeit it sore misliked him, yet, hoping some time or other to compass his desire, he feigned ignorance thereof, so Tingoccio might not have cause or occasion to do him an ill turn or hinder him in any of his affairs. The two friends loving thus, the one more happily than the other, it befell that Tingoccio, finding the soil of his gossip's demesne soft and eath to till, so delved and laboured there ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... There was scarce a farm house near the coast, but the occupants had relations with the smugglers, assisting with their carts and men at the landings, or having hiding places where goods could be stowed away. At first, therefore, all professed entire ignorance of the events of the previous night; but, when persuaded by the earnestness of the old soldier's manner that his mission was a friendly one, they became more communicative, and even owned that some of their men had been taken ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... person who has not travelled in Scotland can scarcely imagine the pleasure we have had from a stone house, though fresh from the workmen's hands, square and sharp; there is generally such an appearance of equality in poverty through the long glens of Scotland, giving the notion of savage ignorance—no house better than another, and barns and houses all alike. This house had, however, other recommendations of its own; even in the fertile parts of Somersetshire it would have been a delicious spot; here, ''Mid mountain wild set like a ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... her son was born, Lucy Hampden made no announcement of his birth to the General, and he remained in ignorance of it. ...
— The Christmas Peace - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... huddled by the center table, struggled against their impotence to seize the situation. This was not their idea of the proper return of a woman who had sinned against Heaven, to say nothing of the house of Montgomery. Their course was the more difficult by reason of their ignorance of the cause of her descent upon them. Amzi should suffer for this; but first she must be dealt with; and they meant to deal with her. Their rage surged the more hotly as they saw their husbands' quick capitulation. They, ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... is pure and elevated. It aims to assimilate the character of man to light, to dissipate the darkness of ignorance; it acknowledges Ormuzd as the ruler of the universe; it seeks to extend the triumph of virtue over the material ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... arrived at the point at which it will be plain that the condition produced in these cases, and known under a varied jargon invented either to conceal ignorance, to express hypotheses, or to mask the design of impressing the imagination and possibly prey upon the pockets of a credulous and wonder-loving public—such names as mesmeric condition, magnetic sleep, clairvoyance, ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... profound silence; it was chiefly occupied with an account of my wanderings in Guayana; and being little more than a catalogue of names of all the places I had visited, and the tribes and chief or head men with whom I had come in contact, I was able to speak continuously, and so to hide my ignorance of a dialect which was still new to me. The Guayana savage judges a man for his staying powers. To stand as motionless as a bronze statue for one or two hours watching for a bird; to sit or lie still for half a day; to endure pain, not seldom ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... meet social as well as intellectual recognition while at West Point, let them study on and acquit themselves like men, for they will meet, out in the world, a worthy reception among men of worth, who have put by the prejudices of race and the shackles of ignorance. Emerson says somewhere that "Solitude, the nurse of Genius, is the foe of mediocrity." If our young men of ability have the stuff in them to make men out of, they need not fear "to be let alone" for a while; they will ultimately come to the surface ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... (N. Y.): It is often said that we have too many voters; that the aggregate of vice and ignorance among us should not be increased by giving women the right of suffrage. In the enormous immigration which pours upon our shores every year, numbering nearly half a million, there come twice as many men as women. What ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... he is not to be connumerated with any thing; but is so perfectly exempt from all multitude, that he is even beyond being; and he so ineffably transcends all relation and habitude, that language is in reality subverted about him, and knowledge refunded into ignorance. What that trinity however is in the theology of Plato, which doubtless gave birth to the Christian, will be evident to the intelligent from the notes on the Parmenides, and the extracts, from Damascius. And thus much for the doctrine of Plato concerning the principle of things, ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... new plot for the old. The young king was to pretend ignorance of the betrayal. He installed himself accordingly in the best lodgings of Senlis, talking loudly about hunting prospects, arranged to see a performance by travelling actors, and sent such a message back to Catherine and Henri that they believed ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... than herself. That was the young man's lookout, you say. We hold it was Margaret that was to blame. What does a young blade of twenty-two know? Not half so much as he thinks he does. His exhaust-less ignorance at that age is a discovery which is left for him to ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... with the Catholic prelate; but, in the excitement, truth could not outrun misstatement, nor could the patriotism that made Seward solicitous to extend school advantages to the children of foreign parents, who were growing up in ignorance, be ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... decree of the Senate, as an act of thanksgiving to the Virgin for putting an end to a pestilence by which 60,000 people had been carried off. It is a most beautiful structure, full of fine things; and altogether a curious monument of that delusion of ignorance and misdirected piety which made men assign to a chapter of priests the duty now committed to a Board of Health, and persuaded them that a church was of much greater efficacy for the cure of the pestilence than ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... fabulous price on this part of our treasure; I think in our ignorance we mentioned ten thousand pounds as about their value; but when they were sold in London some months after, in a well-known auction room, they realised but little more than a ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... hardly thought enough to imagine the lofty trepidation of these thrilling hours. The neighbors never knew of the merciless joke Fate played on them when, in their ignorance, they believed the Lord had sent them a sign. They dwelt in a fools' paradise for a long ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... They shall. You've wronged me, Ulric, More with your unkind thoughts than sword: I would The last were in my bosom rather than The first in yours. I could have borne yon noble's 300 Absurd insinuations—ignorance And dull suspicion are a part of his Entail will last him longer than his lands— But I may fit him yet:—you have vanquished me. I was the fool of passion to conceive That I could cope with you, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... burst out one day, after being held thus spellbound. "Oh, my dear, what a splendid man your brother is! I feel sometimes I could sink through the floor with shame at my ignorance, when ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... knew that Sohrab was the son of Rustem. He was also aware that it was very dangerous to have two such mighty warriors alive, since if they became known to each other, they would form an alliance. He planned, therefore, to aid Sohrab in the war, keeping him in ignorance of his father, and to manage in some way to have the two meet in battle, that one or both ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... under its mighty dome; and it lacked but half an hour of noon when I had come out at the Poultry and finished gaping at the Mansion House. I missed Threadneedle Street and went down Cornhill, in my ignorance mistaking the Royal Exchange, with its long piazza and high tower, for the coffeehouse I sought: in the great hall I begged a gentleman to direct me to Mr. Dix, if he knew such a person. He shrugged his shoulders, which mystified me somewhat, but answered with a ready good-nature that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... brightening their lives. He was holding their children for them, and opening a way for them to seek higher paths. It would all come out as he desired. It was a splendid field of work that had been given him—and he had rebelled so in his ignorance! ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... misapplied words, with little or no meaning, have, by prescription, such a right to be mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, that they are but the covers of ignorance, and hindrance of true knowledge. To break in upon the sanctuary of vanity and ignorance will be, I suppose, some service to human understanding; though so few are apt to think they deceive or are deceived in the use of words; ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... Orthography, however, and grammar are in these later inscriptions greatly changed, the character of the changes being indicative of corruption and decline, unless, indeed, we are to ascribe them to mere ignorance on the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... to tell you, Jim—of all impossible horrors! The man who had killed Michael wanted to marry me!—Oh, don't groan, darling; you make me so unhappy! But I do not wonder you find it difficult to believe. He cared very much, poor boy; and I suppose he thought that, as I should remain in ignorance, the fact need not matter. It seems hard to understand; but a man in love sometimes loses all sense of proportion—at least so I once heard someone say; or words to that effect. I did not allow it ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... moral principles, she was not innocent. Are there any such? Innocence is, of necessity, the sister of ignorance. The conditions of modern existence render it impossible for any girl, once she has attained the age of fifteen, to continue unacquainted with the main facts of life, and some are initiated at an even tenderer age. How is it possible ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... impos'd upon 'Tis by your own temptation done, 200 That with your ignorance invite; And teach us how to use the slight. For when we find y' are still more taken With false attracts of our own making; Swear that's a rose, and that a stone, 205 Like sots, to us that laid it on, And ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... I say, my good friend; and I never felt less like jesting in the whole course of my life. I know that you good folk down here in the quiet country judge of these things as you have spoken; but that is entirely on account of your ignorance of court life, and what is now termed nobility. What I tell you is strictly true, that falsehood and intrigue, and lying, that daily sales of honor, that adultery and infamy of all kinds are every day occurrences in Paris, and that the wonders ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... regarded as the incestuous offspring of Arthur and his sister, the wife of King Lot. Next it was represented that Arthur was ignorant of the relationship. Mr Rhys supposes that the mythical scandal (still present in Malory as a sin of ignorance) arose from blending the Celtic Arthur (as Culture Hero) with an older divine personage, such as Zeus, who marries his sister Hera. Marriages of brother and sister are familiar in the Egyptian royal house, and that of the Incas. But the poet has a perfect right to ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... tolerate in him this remnant of superstition on account of his great services; let us nevertheless examine this phantom in man which he regards with infantile vision. We admit it into our minds through faith, and faith is always suspicious. It is forged by ignorance, fear, and imagination, which are all deceptive powers. At first it was simply the fetish of savages; in vain have we striven to purify and aggrandize it; its origin is always apparent; its history is that of a hereditary ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... thoroughly respectable man in the estimation of the community. That such a man was capable of defrauding a poor widow, counting on her ignorance, would have plunged all his friends and acquaintances into the ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... asked myself how the bees could so accurately distinguish the age of their captives. Undoubtedly I should do better to answer this question by a simple avowal of my ignorance. At the same time, I must be permitted to state a conjecture. You will admit, that I have not, as some authors, abused the right of giving myself up to hypothesis; may not the humming or sound emitted by the young queens in ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... my heart," said the poor Aunt. "But what can we do? I am not able to give the child proper food even, or decent clothes. If we keep her she must grow up in ignorance. These English strangers offer every thing; we have nothing to offer. If we could count on the bare necessaries of life,—no more than those,—I would never, never give up Annie. As it is, it would be sinning against her ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... that one half of men broke them, and the other half only obeyed them unwillingly through slavish fear, loving the sin they dared not do. That men got worse and worse as time rolled on. That kings, instead of being shepherds of their people, were only wolves and tyrants to keep them in ignorance and misery. That priests only taught the people lies, and fattened themselves at their expense. That, in short, as David said, men would not learn, or understand, and all the foundations of the earth, the grounds and principles of society, politics and religion, ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... so accurately do they correspond in their manner of judging. A stranger does, indeed, sometimes meet with Americans who dissent from these rigorous formularies; with men who deplore the defects of the laws; the mutability and the ignorance of democracy; who even go so far as to observe the evil tendencies which impair the national character, and to point out such remedies as it might be possible to apply; but no one is there to hear these things beside yourself, and you, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... and, for a time, much to my chagrin. Mr. Allison, since a distinguished Member of the United States Senate, was elected secretary of the convention. I had never presided over any assembly excepting an Odd Fellows' lodge. When I assumed the chair I no doubt soon exposed my ignorance. A declaration of ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... to be productive of immense good, for it will cause reflection on a subject but little thought of by many with a vast amount of ignorance as to the true form of government calculated to confer the greatest benefits and happiness on a people, and which, I think, you have clearly pointed out. In our present position, were the Government to try the experiment, and take Parliament ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... for patience. "Well! at any rate," said the boy, "straight is straight, and crooked is crooked, and that is all I know about it." It was evident from the teacher's manner that he was half inclined to think the boy was endeavoring to impose upon him by feigning ignorance; and he dismissed him to his seat for the time being, thinking, no doubt, that he had met with a case out of the common order of school experience. It seems that the boy had never before attended school with punctuality, and it required a long time to teach him to ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... was not until more than a hundred despatches had been opened that they came to one from the Minister of the Interior and another from the Empress announcing the birth. Popular reports at the time represented the Emperor as boiling over with anger at his being kept or left in ignorance of the happy event. As a matter of fact, he was in high good-humour, and himself mentioned a similar occurrence at Metz in 1870, when an important movement of the French army was not reported because it was assumed that it was already ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... sick-room such guests as could be trusted were gathered together in the colonel's den, where they talked in whispers. All agreed that the ladies and the older men must be sent home as soon as possible, and in complete ignorance of what had occurred. If Willits lived—of which there was little hope—his home would be at the colonel's until he fully recovered, the colonel having declared that neither expense nor care would be spared to hasten his recovery. If he died, the body ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... my ignorance of Dutch and Buginese, I was unable to obtain a dependable account of this curious legend, but the several versions which I heard agreed in the ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... a Spaniard in this part of the island. If he is discovered near Enramada he will undoubtedly be killed without a chance to explain who he really is. But that is the way with you Americans. Confident in your own ignorance, you are always pushing ahead without ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... there that her mother had taught her to read; it was there that, later on, she had fallen asleep while listening to her masters, so greatly did the fatigue of learning daze her. And now she made fun of her own ignorance; she was a well-educated young lady, and no mistake, unable even to repeat the names of the Kings of France, with the dates of their accessions; a famous musician too, who had never got further than ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... naught. For take away order and rule, and what thing can any man make, eyther beautifull to the eye, or of commendable proportion and durable: then it must needes follow, that the cause of such inconuenient errors doth proceed from ignorance, and hath his beginning from illiterature. And this notwithstanding, that although the perfection of this arte dooth not varie, & fall from his rectitude, yet the discreet and cunning architect to grace the obiect, to the behoulders: may lawfullye eyther with adiection or deminution, ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... heart. Yet it would leave scarcely the faintest sign. No blood, no wound, just a tiny pin-prick, as it were; and who would be the wiser? Imagine an average coroner's jury and the average examination of the village doctor, who would die rather than expose his ignorance, and therefore gives 'heart failure' as the cause ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sustained what St. Jerome found the more searching trial. I find scattered indications of contempt among his biographers, because he could not resign one indulgence—that of scholarship; and the usual sneers at monkish ignorance and indolence are in his case transferred to the weakness of a pilgrim who carried his library in his wallet. It is a singular question (putting, as it is the modern fashion to do, the idea of Providence wholly aside), whether, but for the literary enthusiasm, which was partly a weakness, ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... As the extreme ignorance of the age made deeds or writings very rare, the county or hundred courts were the places where the most remarkable civil transactions were finished. Here testaments were promulgated, slaves manumitted, bargains of sale concluded; and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... was not long kept in ignorance. Of all the vast demesne of Appleby Hundred there was no roof to shelter the son of the outlawed Roger Ireton save that of this poor hunting lodge in the mighty forest of the Catawba, overlooked, with the few runaway blacks inhabiting it, in the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... discovered us with the Moorish coast low on our starboard horizon. To Mr. Fett and Mr. Badcock this meant nothing, and my father might have left them to their ignorance had he not in the course of the forenoon caught them engaged upon a silly piece of mischief, which was, to scribble on small sheets of paper various affecting narratives—as that the Gauntlet was sinking, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... and superintendence, save in some rare cases, is hard to come by, where it is to be vigilantly and constantly exercised. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? As to reformation, I have no great belief in it, when the ordinary class of culprits, who are vicious from ignorance or habit, are the subjects of the experiment. "A shave from a broken loaf" is thought as little of by the male set of delinquents as by the fair frail. The state of society now leads so much to great accumulations of ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... from under us, and the bare land is worth over one hundred dollars an acre for farming. She is not poor, she is—I don't know what she is. A great trouble soured and warped her. It made her peculiar. She does not in the least understand, but it is because she doesn't care to, instead of ignorance. She ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... read Sainte Beuve, Major Noltitz; perhaps this sceptical academician was right in a general way. But for my part, I am an exception to the rule, and I wish to learn what I do not know. And in all that concerns Russian Turkestan, I am in a state of ignorance." ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... read such things?" asked Maria, and there was a hard ring in her voice. It seemed to her that she was stretched on a very rack of innocence and ignorance. ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... with this man-mewing," he cried—"with these outbursts of ignorance. A fine magnificence, truly! all made up of gas and petroleum! I can't eat such stuff as that. Everything here is so fine and bright now, that one's ashamed of one's self, without exactly knowing why. Ah, if we only ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... excelled. But the yoke of tradition has everywhere weighed heavily. In one sense, the Chinese have been a literary people. The system of competitive examinations for public offices has diffused through the nation a certain degree of book-learning; yet the masses have been kept in a state of ignorance. At the foundation of all learning are the "nine classics," which consist of five works, edited or written by Confucius, of which the "Shoo King," or Book of History, stands at the head, together with the four books written by his disciples and the disciples of Mencius. Great as ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... of Staffordshire on foot. They will own that, in spite of the praiseworthy labours of both Church and Dissent,—in spite of the progress of Temperance Societies and Savings' Banks,—a crowd of children are daily growing up in a state of ignorance, dirt, and degradation fearful to contemplate. To active philanthropists, not to seekers of the picturesque, archaeologists, and antiquarians, do we address ourselves. Still we ought to add that, in the iron works and rolling mills, there are studies of half naked men in active ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... every thing to ruin. At no time since the Spanish Conquest has the country been as orderly, as prosperous, or as populous as they found it. It has fallen to a much lower condition. Industry and thrift have been supplanted by laziness and beggarly poverty. Ignorance and incapacity have taken the place of that intelligence and enterprise which enabled the old Peruvians to maintain their remarkable system of agriculture, complete their great works, and made them so industrious and skillful in their manufactures. The region covered ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... ferocity.... He calls up all the dreams and illusions by which men have been destroyed and saved, and lays them mockingly naked.... He shows the bare side of every virtue, the hidden heroism of every vice and crime. He summons before him all the injustices that have come to birth out of ignorance and self-love.... And in all this there is no judgment, only an implacable comprehension, as of one outside nature, to whom joy and sorrow, right and wrong, savagery and civilization, are ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... in confirming her conversion to the Moosulmaun religion. He afterwards related to her the whole story of his life to that time. When he was fully assured of her good intentions respecting him, he asked her how she could continue to keep her sister Cavama in ignorance of them; and prevent her treating him as barbarously as she used to do? "Let not that trouble you," replied Bostama; "I know how to order matters so that she shall ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... the restraint. While they were busy with their pipes and coffee, I took the opportunity to take a glance into the neighboring apartments, and in a few minutes I saw enough to fill me at once with disgust and compassion for these poor creatures, whom idleness and ignorance have degraded almost below the level of humanity. A visit to the women's baths left a no less melancholy impression. There were children of both sexes, girls, women, and elderly matrons. The poor children! how should they in after life understand what is meant by modesty ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... became not only interested in what was happening around them, but the shrewdest observers of the signs of the times. Like other boys of his race, Booker Washington ran wild when he was not engaged in his customary errands, and without so much as learning even the English alphabet. But this compulsory ignorance seems to have intensified that ardent desire for knowledge which was part of his nature. Among his errands he might have to go to a schoolhouse where companies of happy young people were engaged over their books, and he was naturally much affected by what he saw and heard. Why was not he privileged ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... great agitator for his last parliamentary effort. He declared that two millions of the Irish population must perish if the parliament did not come forward with adequate relief; while he proclaimed their measures totally inadequate, and showing either ignorance of the state of the country, or want of sympathy for its sufferings. He affirmed that in the ruin which had fallen on the land, any attempt to levy rates would be abortive, and drive the people to desperation. The honourable and venerable member ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... ship by the fall of a mast, had swum to the galleon and taken refuge beneath her bowsprit until she sank, and how, when picked up and carried on to the Spanish ship, he feigned to have lost his senses in order to conceal his ignorance of Spanish. ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... Holyrood Chapel, during his stay in Edinburgh in 1616-17. His proposal to erect in the chapel representations of patriarchs and saints shocked even the bishops, on whose remonstrances he withdrew his orders, incidentally administering a severe rebuke to the recalcitrant prelates, "at whose ignorance he could not but wonder". Not till the following year were the articles accepted at Perth, under fear of the royal displeasure, and considerable difficulty was ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... dull time; but she retired from the interview with her father still manfully displaying an outward cheerfulness, while depression grew heavier within, as if she had eaten soggy cake. Her father knew nothing whatever of the stage, and she was aware of his ignorance, yet for some reason his innocently skeptical amusement reduced her bright project almost to nothing. Something like this always happened, it seemed; she was continually making these illuminations, all gay with gildings and colourings; and then ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... not wish to repeat all my own bons mots in praise of study, and on the disadvantages of profound ignorance, but I would, willingly, if I could, give an idea of the mixed indignation and contempt expressed by our companion at the idea that study was necessary to the formation of taste, and to the development of genius. At last, however, he ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... breathed though it was by tender lips, and launched in ignorance of the barb which carried it to his heart, Mr. Sutherland recoiled and cast an anxious look upon the door. Then with forced composure he quietly said: "If you who are so much nearer his age, and, let me hope, his sympathy, do not feel sure of his real ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... 4 o'clock in the morning, and read Cicero's Second Oration against Cataline, which pleased me exceedingly: and more I discern therein than ever I thought was to be found in him; but I perceive it was my ignorance, and that he is as good a writer as ever I read in my life. By and by to Sir G. Carteret's, to talk with him about yesterday's difference at the office; and offered my service to look into my old books or papers that I have, that may make for him. He was well pleased ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... remark their failure to present him to her. The omission may have been due to ignorance or uncertainty on their part, but that was not the construction he put upon it. Striker was the free-and-easy type who would have made these strangers known to each other in some bluff, awkward manner,—probably by their Christian names; he would never have overlooked this ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... long in ignorance upon that point. As the news went out from regiment to regiment that afternoon, the undisciplined, ragged mobs of raw recruits began to shout for Santa Anna. Perhaps many of them had previously served under the one-legged veteran ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... Alas for Liddy's ignorance! she was always rather foolish in her fondness for Willy; but didn't she know any better than to put a dish of red coals so near him in a small room, and then go out and shut the door? She often said she didn't "see any use in all this book-larning," and wondered Mrs. ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... at our own shining face is the bane of the spiritual life and of the ministry. Oh for closest communion with God, till soul and body—head, face, and heart—shine with divine brilliancy! but oh for a holy ignorance of our shining! Pray for this; for you need it as ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... who suffer. Oh, this system of society is false! Some day will come that which is true. Then there will be no more lords, and there shall be free and living men. There will be no more masters; there will be fathers. Such is the future. No more prostration; no more baseness; no more ignorance; no more human beasts of burden; no more courtiers; no more toadies; no more kings; but Light! In the meantime, see me here. I have a right, and I will use it. Is it a right? No, if I use it for myself; yes, if I use ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... There is no regulation against visitors to our reservation here just now, although there will be, of course, later on. There is a rule against building fires on the beach, but you broke that in ignorance, I'm sure. The reason why you have been cross-questioned to-day is a special one. A construction plan has been lost, as Lieutenant Rayburn here informed you. It was on his desk in the office and it has ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... encourage the first kind of wrongdoing, are no more dangerous to the community, but are morally even worse, than the labor men who are guilty of the second type of wrongdoing, because less is to be pardoned those who have no such excuse as is furnished either by ignorance or by dire need. When the Department of Agriculture was founded there was much sneering as to its usefulness. No Department of the Government, however, has more emphatically vindicated its usefulness, and none save the Post-Office Department ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... of reunion with Rome in her present condition is unmeasured. "The notion almost reminds us of the cruel jest of Mezentius, who bound the living bodies of his enemies to corpses." It is the contempt both of a great scholar and a great Englishman for ignorance and a somewhat ludicrous pretension. "The caput orbis has become provincial, and her authority is spurned even within her own borders." England could not kneel at this Italian footstool without ceasing ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... deep sympathy she excited; she answered us civilly and gaily, and seemed amused at our fancying there was something unusual in red pepper pods; she gave us several of them, and I felt fearful lest a hard mistress might blame her for it. How very childish does ignorance make us! and how very ignorant we are upon almost every subject, where hearsay evidence is all ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... novelties, the new title of "Sir Horace" to the Honourable H. Walpole: surely a perusal of the life of the unfortunate boy, whose fate Mr. I. deplores, might have prevented this piece of ignorance, twice repeated in the same page; and we wonder at the malicious fun of the printer's devil in permitting it to stand, for he certainly knew better. We must be excused from a more detailed notice of Mr. Ireland ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... testifying it were not so poor a one, that it is in a double spirit of respectfulness the application is made. Should it be of a nature calculated to give your Lordship any perplexity, I can only blush for having been the occasion of it, and beg it may be laid to the account of an ignorance which lives very much out of the world. The same reason will plead my excuse for not knowing whether a letter to Her Majesty ought, or ought not, to accompany the book; and for begging your Lordship, after its perusal, to suppress it or otherwise ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... They were now brought face to face with the sovereign authority; the contempt of silence; nor did they think it prudent to renew military preparations of resistance, as they had done in 1634; their policy now was to "avoid and protract," by pleading exile, ignorance, innocence, begging pardon and pity, yet denying that they had done anything wrong, and insinuating that if their Charter should be cancelled, their allegiance would be forfeited and they would remove, with the greater part of the population, and set up a new government. ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... to despise! This system, moreover, is only kept up by a flourish of weapons. We have here what you may call an armed aristocracy. The class over which these instruments of main force are held is chosen for its servility, ignorance, and cowardice; hence, indolence in the ruling class. When a man's social or civil standing is not dependent on his knowing how to read, he is not likely to become ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... consummation of all mortal hope! 295 Thou glorious prize of blindly-working will! Whose rays, diffused throughout all space and time, Verge to one point and blend for ever there: Of purest spirits thou pure dwelling-place! Where care and sorrow, impotence and crime, 300 Languor, disease, and ignorance dare not come: O ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... suppress emotions, to inhibit volitions, must demand always a most subtle disentanglement of the most widely different components. He abstains from approaching that ground at all rather than to blunder by his ignorance of psychology. And after all, he is right. But is he right in allowing that ignorance? Can the medical profession afford to send into the world every year thousands of young doctors who are unable to use some of the most effective tools of modern medicine, and ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... that they are often parasitic for each other, smaller forms entering into and living upon the larger. Variation does not seem to be so marked in the protozoa as in the bacteria, though this is possibly due to our greater ignorance of them as a class. We are not able, except in rare instances, to grow them in pure culture, and study innumerable generations under changes in the environment, as the bacteria ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... Ignorance alone has given the goatsucker its name. When the moon shines bright, it may be seen close by the cows, goats, and sheep, jumping up every now and then under their bellies. "Approach a little nearer," says Waterton; "he is not shy, he fears no danger, for he knows no sin. ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... a man, so incapable of all the posts he had occupied, who displayed chimeras and audacity in the place of prudence and sagacity, who everywhere appeared a trifler and a comedian, and whose universal and profound ignorance (except of the meanest arts of the courtier) made plainly visible the thin covering of probity and of virtue with which he tried to hide his ingratitude, his mad ambition, his desire to overturn all in order to make himself ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... his ignorance were wise, Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance. I hear your Grace hath sworn out house-keeping: 'Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord, And sin to break it. But pardon me, I am too sudden bold: To teach ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... While the young men are willing to allow much to the school of experience, many of them are the followers of Locke, and believe in the doctrine of innate ideas. They believe, to continue the comparison, that experience and wisdom do not always spring from length of years, nor does ignorance appertain to youth as a necessity. They dare assert that, as there are those who would never be men, lived they to be as old as Methuselah, so there are some whose minds are as well filled, whose judgments are as mature at twenty-five and eight, and ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... late by the brilliant achievements of some philosophic enquirers, receive but scant encouragement, and for the most part a man's labour must be his own reward. In our elementary schools History is almost utterly ignored. A whole people is rapidly breaking with the past from sheer ignorance that there is any past that is worth knowing. Who shall estimate the immeasurable harm that must be wrought to a nation that has lost touch with the past? Let men but believe, to ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... take a lawyer to see the case through the courts. And let me tell you one thing very emphatically." She looked at him brightly. "Many a case as strong as this has been lost, just by legal quibbling and ignorance of how to handle it properly. Many a case without a leg to stand on has been won, by smooth work on the part of some lawyer. Now, I'll just jot down what they'll have to do, and prove, if they get that land—and look here, Mr. Man, here's another thing to consider. Maybe Baumberger ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... ignorance of the tender and truthful promptings of her own bosom, we have shown you the HEART'S SECRET, and in the vicissitudes that attended the career of Lorenzo Bezan, the ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... when he had managed to shoot a bird of this bad and mischievous family. However, in 1813, on my return from the wilds of Guiana, having suffered myself, and learned mercy, I broke in pieces the code of penal laws which the knavery of the gamekeeper and the lamentable ignorance of the other servants had hitherto put in force, far too successfully, to thin the numbers of this poor, harmless, unsuspecting tribe. On the ruin of the old gateway, against which, tradition says, the waves of the lake have dashed for the better part of a thousand years, I made a place with stone ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... Prince of the Power of the Air returned upon him, or that he thought it an unfitting occasion for such a lesson when the wind was roaring so as might render its divine origin questionable, he said no more. Bewildered, I fancy, with my ignorance, he turned, after a ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... That Man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a being suited to his place and rank in the Creation, agreeable to the general Order of Things, and conformable to Ends and Relations to him unknown, v.35, etc. III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of future state, that all his happiness in the present depends, v.77, etc. IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more Perfection, the cause ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... that Landson did it?" said Zen, who had an element of caution in her when her father was concerned. She had a vision of a fight, with Landson pleading entire ignorance of the whole cause of offence, and her father probably summoned by the ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... penal code of the Romans in reference to breaches of trust or carelessness or ignorance, by which property was lost or squandered, may have been too severe, as is still the case in England in reference to hunting game on another's grounds. It was hard to doom a man to death who drove away his ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... was no soothing, rest-giving darkness that night, but instead there was a hazy, cheerless, unnatural light, so even was there no rest-giving darkness—ignorance—for Nekhludoff's soul. Everything was clear. It was plain that all that is considered important and useful is really insignificant and wicked, and that all that splendor and luxury were hiding old crimes, familiar to every one, and not only stalking ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... manifestation. In its ordinary manifestation it is instinctive, is roused by the spectacle of need calling us to its aid. There come to our knowledge from time to time instances of what seem to us very grievous failures in sympathy, but investigation shows that ignorance is very commonly at the bottom of them. When human beings are convinced of a need they are quite ready to respond. Indeed this readiness to respond makes them the easy victims of all sorts of impostures, of baseless appeals which ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... these means of salvation been in existence when Daniel was a boy, he would have been taught to worship the true God, and might have been instrumental in the conversion of many people. But his youth was spent in ignorance and in the service of Satan. Thank God, there is now a change for the better. There are Missionaries who preach the Gospel in many parts of the Mysore country; there are schools for children, and also for those converted young men who wish to be taught how to preach the Gospel to ...
— Old Daniel • Thomas Hodson
... indeed singular," Mr. Smart continued, "that so magnificent an instrument should have lain buried so long; that even those best acquainted with such matters should be in perfect ignorance of its existence. I shall have to revise the list of famous instruments in the next edition of my 'History of the Violin,' and to write," he added smiling, "a special paragraph on the 'Worth ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... man, who was still under the sway of the old-fashioned notion, that there was no absolutely necessary connection between dullness and accuracy. To this particular criticism Cooper replied in the "Democratic Review" for May and June, 1842. In the first article he exposed the ignorance and dishonesty of James. In the second he devoted himself to the assertions of the "Edinburgh." The game was hardly worth the candle. His arguments could not reach the men who alone needed to know them. In international quarrels of any kind there are few who read both ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... that is it," said the prisoner. "A Spaniard is a man from the East; he is a Catholic Turk; his blood either flags or boils; he is lazy or indefatigable; indolence makes him a slave, ardor a tyrant; immovable in his ignorance, ingenious in his superstition, he needs only a religious book and a tyrannical master; he obeys the law of the pyre; he commands by that of the poniard. At night he falls asleep in his bloodthirsty misery, ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... of regret that it could no longer serve him, and Tom knew that volplaning alone would save him now. He was still over the enemy country, and had his plight been guessed at by the Germans, undoubtedly they would have sent a machine up to attack him. But they were in ignorance. ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... children until long afterwards. Sir J.G. Frazer has further shown that even now some of the Australian aborigines are ignorant of the physical fact of paternity and its relation to sexual intercourse. That such ignorance could have survived so long is the strongest evidence in favour of the universal priority of female to male descent. It is doubtful, however, whether even the mother could remember her children after they had become adult, prior to the introduction of personal ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... mischief he had wrought. When the real significance of his act came to him he groaned in spirit. What a fool he had been! Only a few short hours and he must start on a perilous journey, leaving the girl he loved in ignorance of his real intentions. Who was to tell her that he loved her? Who was to tell her that it was because his whole heart and soul had gone to her ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... are on the verge of a fearful upheaval of ignorance and superstition. Religion, our greatest blessing, perverted, will become our greatest curse. I cannot understand it, Cora; but we are on the brink of some terrible volcano, which will destroy many, ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... her in a fervent manner and a cool hall, fluttered round the corner, and bore down upon Milk Street, bent on discovering Mc K. if such a being was to be found. He wasn't, and the ignorance of the neighborhood was really pitiable. Nobody knew anything, and after tumbling over bundles of leather, bumping against big boxes, being nearly annihilated by descending bales, and sworn at by aggravated truckmen, I finally elicited the advice to look for ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... way in which he had lived on the island since he had been deserted. Sometimes he had thought of building a vessel and making his way to some civilised port; but the want of proper tools for cutting down large timber, and his ignorance of nautical ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... was the 'Wild Hunter of the Plains.' Didn't you ever see or hear of him?" said Ben, as if surprised at her ignorance. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... nothing! nothing WHATEVER, Mr. Temple Barholm!" she exclaimed, her agitation doing its best to hide itself behind a fine little dignity. He saw in an instant that his style of putting it had been "'way off," that his ignorance had betrayed him, that she had misunderstood him altogether. He almost jumped ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to be a pervading principle in things, which gives an accumulating energy to any active property that may happen to be in the ascendant, at the time being.—Money produces money; knowledge is the parent of knowledge; and ignorance fortifies ignorance.—In a word, like begets like. The governing social evil of America is provincialism; a misfortune that is perhaps inseparable from her situation. Without a social capital, with twenty or more communities divided by distance and political barriers, her people, who are ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... not ignorance of its contents that had kept her silent. To confess the horrid truth, Grizel had read the book suspiciously, looking as through a microscope for something wrong—hoping not to find it, but peering minutely. The ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... sinner's. The imputation is God's, not the sinner's. The cause of imputation is God's grace and love, not the sinner's works of righteousness. The time of God's imputing righteousness is when the sinner was a sinner, wrapped up in ignorance, and wallowing in his vanity; not when he was good, or when he was seeking of it; for his inward gospel-goodness is a fruit of the imputation of justifying righteousness. Where is boasting then? Where is our Pharisee then, with his brags of not being as other ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... alone then. Both trembled as they clasped hands. He bent forward to kiss her lips; but Gaud turned them aside, through ignorance of that kind of kiss; and as chastely as on the evening of their betrothal, she pressed hers to Yann's cheek, which was chilled, almost frozen, ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti |
