"Overestimate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but I sat by myself, and I matured, I think, the maddest scheme that ever entered a sane man's head. Desperate diseases, as everybody knows, ask for desperate remedies, and here I do not know how it was possible for anybody to overestimate the urgency of the case. Count Rossano has gone peacefully to his rest now this many a year, but I had learned to love the man with a loyal affection and esteem, the like of which I never felt for any human creature, except my wife and my own children. It made for a good ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... period, from being able to give any but the evasive answer he actually did give to the searching philosophical questions put by his youthful admirer. But it is not easy, especially in the light of Isaac Hecker's subsequent experiences, to overestimate the influence which this new presentation of our Saviour had upon the development of his mind and character. For reasons which we have tried to indicate by a brief description of some of his life-long interior traits, ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... overestimate the influence of these associations, of these Soldiers'-Aid Societies, rising up in every city and village, in producing just such a state of mind, in keeping the soldier one of us, one of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... overestimate their abilities, and their wandering disposition brings them into trouble. Once I found a herd of seven up to their backs in soft snow, and tired out,—a strange condition for a caribou to be in. They were ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... is impossible to overestimate the far-reaching influence of such a Council. An interchange of opinions on the great questions now agitating the world will rouse women to new thought, will intensify their love of liberty and will give them a realizing sense ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... and that many are kept away from the witchery of him because they do not well know the fine art of approaching him. I would, therefore, be a doorkeeper, and throw some doors wide open, that men and women may unhindered enter. This essay aims to stand as a porter at the gate. We shall never overestimate Shakespeare, because we can not. Some men and things lie beyond the danger of hyperbole. No exaggeration is possible concerning them, seeing they transcend all dreams. Space can not be conceived by the most luxuriant imagination, holding, as it does, all worlds, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... Mr. North, speaks excitedly," said the elder gentleman; "yet I think she does not overestimate the unfortunate position in which your odd fancy places you. I know nothing of the reasons that have impelled you to this step; I only know that the popular opinion is that the cause is utterly inadequate. You are still young, with a future before you. I need not say how your present conduct may ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... intriguers, without an atom of moral sense or loyalty, and both possessed ability, differing in kind, perhaps, which they used in the accomplishment of their own ends. France can never overestimate the great evil these two men did to the national cause. Napoleon's power and penetrating vision kept them in check only when he could grasp the nettle. Even when absent on his campaigns, they knew he was kept in close touch with what was going on. It was not until treason ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... shape the somewhat vague speculations as to development and evolution which had long been floating in the minds of naturalists. In the actual working out of Darwin's great theory it is impossible to overestimate the influence of Lyell. This is made abundantly clear in Darwin's letters, and it must never be forgotten that Darwin himself was a geologist. His training in this science enabled him to grasp the import of the facts so ably marshalled by Lyell in the "Principles ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... presupposed suggested itself to me with surprising force. I found that just the ones who perceive the repetition least hate it most, and that those who have a strong perception of the uniform impressions and who overestimate their number are the ones who on the ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... to greatness. He had none of the advantages which even the poorest boys may now enjoy. But he achieved greatness by always making the best use of such opportunities as came in his way. He was not afraid of work. He did not give up to discouragements. He did not overestimate his own abilities. He was earnest and faithful in little things; and that, after all, is the surest way of attaining to great things. There is no man to whom we Americans owe a greater debt of gratitude. Without his aid the American colonies would hardly ...
— Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln - A Book for Young Americans • James Baldwin
... medieval romances there is this direct and real dependence. The Medea of Apollonius Rhodius is at the beginning of medieval poetry, in one line of descent (through Virgil's Dido as well as Ovid's Medea); and it would be hard to overestimate the accumulated debt of all the modern poets whose rhetoric of passion, whether they knew it or not, is derived somehow from the earlier medieval masters of Dante or Chaucer, ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... impossible to overestimate the value of the insistence on the social aspect of human affairs as Mrs. Gilman has ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... third and fourth generation. When a slave escapes from a Southern plantation, he at once takes a name as the first step in liberty—the first assertion of individual identity. A woman's dignity is equally involved in a life-long name, to mark her individuality. We can not overestimate the demoralizing effect on woman herself, to say nothing of society at large, for her to consent thus to merge her existence so ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... solidarity vitally perceptible to the adherents of a primitive tribe, and it is at the same time one of the best preparations for war, for the gymnastic dances correspond in more than one respect to our military exercises. It would be hard to overestimate the importance of the primitive dance in the culture development of mankind. All higher civilization is conditioned upon the uniformly ordered co-operation of individual social elements, and primitive men are trained to this co-operation by ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... highlanders; but whether I have or not, the reader must, I am sure, admit that the proverbs, songs and anecdotes above translated are at least indications of great latent capability, of unusual versatility of talent, and of a wide range of human feeling and sympathy. It is possible that I overestimate their value on account of my inability to separate the impressions made upon me by the people themselves from those made by their literature; but I am confident that the general outlines of the Caucasian character as I have tried here to sketch them are accurate, and that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... tones of his voice are determined before he is able to express them. This influence is also marked when the child begins to talk. Babies and young children instinctively do what adults learn not to do only by study,—follow the pitch of others' voices. Can we then overestimate the effect upon pupils' character of teachers who ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... believe that although the business genius must have a good inheritance, yet the inheritance does not determine what its possessor shall make of himself. Many persons are inclined to overestimate the influence of inheritance in determining success in business. The folly of this attitude is every day becoming more and ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... miles of the city; and in the city itself, it was said that the personal roll of Peter Poyas embraced a membership of six hundred names. More than one witness placed the conjectural strength of Vesey's forces as high as 9,000, but I am inclined to write this down as a gross overestimate of the people actually enrolled as members ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... plight of their offspring, and utter incapacity to alter it, are the inevitable result of their slavery. It is hopeless to attempt to reform their habits or improve their condition while the women are condemned to field labour; nor is it possible to overestimate the bad moral effect of the system as regards the women entailing this enforced separation from their children and neglect of all the cares and duties of mother, nurse, and even house-wife, which are all merged in the mere physical toil of a human ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... topic which has been so often expounded. I think that at present the tendency is rather to do injustice to the common-sense embodied in this system, to the soundness of its aims, and to its value in many practical and immediate questions, than to overestimate its claim to scientific accuracy. That claim may be said to have ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... of this factor in the campaign are hard to overestimate. The insufficient number of horses and their debility have doubtless accounted {p.098} for much of the delay and seeming languor of action, which has appeared otherwise inexplicable; the utter weakness of the poor beasts having indeed ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... bound or blended with the power to be indifferent to involuntary annoying emotions, and that self-command is in itself the highest mental pleasure, or one which surpasses all of any kind. He who does not overestimate the value of money or anything earthly is really richer than the millionaire. There is a foolish story told by COMBE in his Physiology of a man who had the supernatural gift of never feeling any pain, be it from cold, hunger, heat, or accident. The rain beat upon him in vain, the keenest north wind ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... present time. But if you hanker for these pictures of the past that is another matter. I will merely issue a warning that you should preserve this book on some shelf not too accessible by those who are still young enough to overestimate ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... long way inland Mr. Weaver and others described it as of the like good quality as at the Mission, but with much muskeg. It is difficult to estimate the extent of the latter, for, being more noticeable than good land, the tendency is to overestimate. Its proportion to arable land is generally put at about 50 per cent., which may be over or under the truth, for only actual township or topographic surveys ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... scrutin d'arrondissement. Five Republicans, not six, were chosen, and the defeated Republican candidate was no less a person than M. Jules Ferry himself! The first district of St.-Die gave him 6,192 votes, and elected a Monarchist to replace him by 6,403 votes. It is not easy to overestimate the significance of this change. Probably enough the majority will emphasize it by 'invalidating' the election of ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... The victories by which the struggles between the European conquerors themselves were ended deserve lasting commemoration. Yet, sometimes, even the most important of them, sweeping though they were, were in parts less sweeping than they seemed. It would be impossible to overestimate the far-reaching effects of the overthrow of the French power in America; but Lower Canada, where the fatal blow was given, itself suffered nothing but a political conquest, which did not interfere in the least with ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... assumptions, incorrect assumptions (error) 495. V. misjudge, misestimate, misthink[obs3], misconjecture[obs3], misconceive &c. (error) 495; fly in the face of facts; miscalculate, misreckon, miscompute. overestimate &c. 482; underestimate &c. 483. prejudge, forejudge; presuppose, presume, prejudicate[obs3]; dogmatize; have a bias &c. n.; have only one idea; jurare in verba magistri[Lat], run away with the notion; jump to a conclusion, rush ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... not overestimate the magnitude of the victory they had won. It compelled the Germans to move back their artillery, which up to that time was a source of danger to the French supply depots and works on the other side of the Meuse, and also ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... stimulating essays, 'On Actors and the Art of Acting,' has told us that audiences are inclined to overestimate the genius of an actor and to underestimate his trained skill. We are prone to accept the fallacy of the "inspiration of the moment," and to give little credit to the careful preliminary rehearsing which is at once a humble substitute for inspiration, should this ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... older connexion with the baronage into so close and intimate a union with the representatives of the towns that at the opening of the reign of Edward the Third the two orders are found grouped formally together, under the name of "The Commons." It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this change. Had Parliament remained broken up into its four orders of clergy, barons, knights, and citizens, its power would have been neutralized at every great crisis by the jealousies and difficulty of co-operation among its component ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... pardon the criticism, but you talk too much, and too many of you try to talk at once. My head is aching from the roar and din of your noisy orators. Gentlemen, what does it all amount to? You are talking about prohibition, but you overestimate your political strength. Disastrous failures attend upon all your endeavors to conquer existing evils by the votes of men alone. Give women the legal power to combat intemperance, and they will soon be able to prove that they do not like drunken husbands any better than ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... own language Never left any chance for newspaper controversies Never uses a one-syllable word when he can think of a longer one No satisfaction in being a Pope in those days Not afraid of a million Bedouins Not bring ourselves to think St John had two sets of ashes Old Travelers One is apt to overestimate beauty when it is rare Only solitary thing one does not smell in Turkey Oriental splendor! Original first shoddy contract mentioned in history Overflowing his banks People talk so glibly of "feeling," "expression," "tone," Perdition catch all the guides Picture which one ought to see once—not ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Mark Twain • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
... picture Bach as settled in his Weimar home, no longer as a student, but as a player and composer whose fame was gradually spreading throughout the country. So rapid had his progress been both on the organ and the pianoforte that he was even led to overestimate his own powers, and one day remarked somewhat boastingly to a friend that he could play any piece, however difficult, at sight without a mistake. The friend, disbelieving his statement, invited him to breakfast shortly afterwards, and placed several pieces on the pianoforte, ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... enemy was near he wanted nothing but to drive on up to the end of the shaft, come out into that world wherever the shaft ended, then try to fight his way through to the great hall where he hoped to find Phee-e-al. And his haste made him overestimate the passing time; their journey had been ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... anything was required to convince it of the value of the possession it was the fact that it was being constantly pushed off. To a firm-minded cat this alone gave the counter a value difficult to overestimate, and sometimes an obsequious customer fell into raptures over its beauty. This was soothing, and the animal allowed customers of this type to scratch it ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... not overestimate the fervent love of liberty, the intelligent courage, and the sum of common sense with which our fathers made the great experiment of self-government. When they found, after a short trial, that the confederacy of States was too weak to meet the ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VIII.: James A. Garfield • James D. Richardson
... to overestimate the value of the Celtic contribution to our national literature and character: the race that gave us Ossian, and Finn, and Cuchulain, that sang of the sorrowful love and doom of Deirdre, that told of the pursuit of Diarmit and Grania, till every dolmen and cromlech in Ireland ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... overestimate of their influence. They cannot, as Diana said, comparing them with men on the Parliamentary platform, cannot feel they are aboard the big vessel; they can only strive to raise a breeze, or find one to swell; and they cannot measure the stoutness or the greatness ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... trustfulness of her revelation seemed as inconsistent with his previous impression of her reserve and independence as her girlish reasoning and manner was now delightfully at variance with her tallness, her aquiline nose, and her erect figure. Mr. Boyle, like most short men, was apt to overestimate the qualities of size. ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... broad enough to include both ideas, the human mind is prone to overestimate the one or the other. Traces, at least, of a similar mode of thought persisted by the Greek Fathers of the Church, and disappeared, if ever, with the predominance of Latin theology. To the oriental the idea of evolution is natural. The earth is to him no inert, resistant clod; ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... always so ready to appreciate what others do, and especially to overestimate my desultory efforts, that I cannot be surprised at your very kind and flattering remarks on my papers. I am glad, however, that you have made a few critical observations, and am only sorry you ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... president if he does not overestimate the importance of standing up so straight that there is danger of falling over backward? There is no difference of opinion as to the commercial value of the great asset which he has established for the Companies, in so completely winning the confidence of the people at ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... Christ and fruitfulness in serving God and man. No pen-portrait of him which fails to make these features very prominent can either be accurate in delineation or warm in colouring. It is difficult to overestimate their importance in their relation to what ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... and Physical Education. While outdoor games are not necessary to maintain health, yet we can scarcely overestimate the part that the great games of baseball, football, tennis, golf, and croquet, play in the physical development of young people. When played in moderation and under suitable conditions, they are most useful and beneficial exercises. They are played in the ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... arrangements for ventilation, cleanliness, and separation of the sexes, such as health and comfort require; they would really be conferring an amount of benefit on the community at large, and, at the same time, we believe, upon themselves, which it would not be easy to overestimate. ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... Let not the reader gather from the very brief glance at the attainments of New Japan, that she has overtaken the nations of Christendom in all important respects; for such is far from the case. He needs to be on his guard not to overestimate what ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... not disposed to blame the politicians and the business men. They govern the nation, it is true, but they do it in a rather absentminded fashion. Those revolutionists who see the misery of the country as a deliberate and fiendish plot overestimate the bad will, the intelligence and the singleness of purpose in the ruling classes. Business and political leaders don't mean badly; the trouble with them is that most of the time they don't mean anything. They picture ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... hero. But in the spiritual region, strength and courage do go together. The consciousness of the divine power with us, and that alone, will make us bold with a boldness that has no taint of levity and presumption mingled with it, and never will overestimate its own strength. The charge to Joshua, then, not only insists upon the duty of strength, but on the duty of conscious strength, and on the duty of measuring the strength that is at my back with the weakness that is against me, and of being ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the interests of those who feel that female dignity is compromised by it, I have here omitted a woman's flippant overestimate of the number of women in London society who suffer from nervous disorders at ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... entertaining, our opera box, the theater and social frivolities aggregate no inconsiderable sum, which I will not overestimate at ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... Such notions may be superstitious and unscriptural, as indeed they are, but they are quite distinct from a belief in the necessity of a human priest to give the sacraments their virtue. And, without going to such lengths as this, men may overestimate the efficacy of the sacraments, to the disparagement of prayer, and preaching, and reading the Scriptures, and yet may be perfectly clear from the opinion which makes this efficacy depend immediately on a human administrator. And so again, men may hold episcopacy ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... unquestionably have certain value for comparative psychology, it is well known that unless an observer knows the history of an act, he is not able to evaluate it in terms of intelligence and is especially prone to overestimate its value ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... Darwinism with the Bible, but these efforts, while honest and sometimes even agonizing, have not been successful. How could they be when the natural and inevitable tendency of Darwinism is to exalt the mind at the expense of the heart, to overestimate the reliability of the reason as compared with faith and to impair confidence in the Bible. The mind is a machine; it has no morals. It obeys its owner as willingly when he plots to kill as when ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... killed," or "Seven men met their death," attracts a reader's interest at once. As a very natural result, and justly, too, newspapers have been broadly accused of exaggeration for the sake of a large number. But at present many papers are inclined to underestimate rather than overestimate, perhaps to avoid this accusation. In a number of instances in the past year, among them the Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York, the first figures were smaller than the official count printed later. That does not mean, however, ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... Bethlehem teaching lasted long enough to build up a very fine and critical standard of embroidery in America. It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of the influence of this school of embroidery upon the needlework practice of a growing country. Its qualities of sincerity, earnestness, and respect for the art of needlework gave importance to the work of hands other than that of necessary ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... defects is to balance their real importance against both the good and the bad qualities shown not only by the individual but by his brothers, sisters, parents, and other relatives. Conscientious sufferers from visible defects of any kind are apt to overestimate their importance. Moreover, many supposedly hereditary defects may equally well be the result of an unfavorable environment like that which caused similar defects in the parents. Under ideal conditions they might never appear ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... may have had values influential in determining the course of events. It chanced that I myself was an actor in one of these lesser incidents, when second secretary to our legation in France, during the summer of 1862. I may possibly overestimate the ultimate importance of my adventure, for Mr. Adams, our minister of the court of St. James, seems to have failed to record it, or, at least, there is no allusion to it in his biography. In the perplexing tangle of the diplomacy of the darker days of our civil war, many strange ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell
... being fixed by the value of the capital, and the latter being measured by the tax, to depreciate his real estate would be to reduce his revenue. On the other hand, it is equally evident that the same proprietors could not overestimate the value of their property, in order to increase their incomes beyond the limits of the law, since the tenants and farmers, with their old leases in their ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon |
