"Preconceived" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... own sake, and from a mere desire of discovering truth, without any ulterior objects, they deserve no blame, though, for a time, they may lead to erroneous results. But when coincidences between different religions and mythologies are searched out simply in support of preconceived theories, whether by the friends or enemies of religion, the sense of truth, the very life of all science, is sacrificed, and serious mischief will follow without fail. Here we have a right, not only to protest, but to blame. There ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... through. It seems to have an elusive quality. About the time you feel that you have hold of a fact, it seems to be contradicted in a later verse. I am going to try to show you that this is due to your own preconceived notions of what some of the words and phrases mean. You, not Ezekiel, are supplying ...
— The Four-Faced Visitors of Ezekiel • Arthur W. Orton
... dimensions above the many that are to be found over the country. It is probable that the whole of the refugees might sleep in these several places, if there were no village there at the time, which seems probable; but it was merely my own preconceived notion that they all lived in one vast cavern. The text of Judg. xx. 47 ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... that the gain was all on his side. So far as the West Indies were concerned, the French expedition ended not only in a dead loss, but was a humiliating fiasco, unless, as I have stated before, it was a preconceived decoy for some other purpose. But whether it were strategy or decoy, it taxes one's intelligence to conceive why the French fleet did not proceed to bombard the British possessions on arrival, then steal into safe obscurity and make their way back to European waters. ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... Belville, Belfield, and Belgrave, but pages of inanity, similar to those which have been so christened for half a century past? I must modestly admit I am too diffident of my own merit to place it in unnecessary opposition to preconceived associations; I have, therefore, like a maiden knight with his white shield, assumed for my hero, WAVERLEY, an uncontaminated name, bearing with its sound little of good or evil, excepting what the reader shall hereafter be pleased ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... sometimes double in two concentral rings. The most usual is that alluded to by your correspondents, and though obviously German, neither old nor obsolete; having been viewed even by native decipherers, through the mist of a preconceived hypothesis, have never yet been by them satisfactorily accounted for. It is always repeated four times, evidently from the same slightly curved die; when, however, the enlarged circumference of the circle required more than this fourfold repetition to go round it, the die was set ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 9, Saturday, December 29, 1849 • Various
... may have been illustrated or pointed out to them by former works, which class would of course be violent in vituperation, and increase in animosity as the master departed farther from their particular and preconceived canons of right,—thus wounding their vanity by impugning their judgment; the other, necessarily narrow of number, composed of men of general knowledge and unbiassed habits of thought, who would recognize in the work of the daring innovator ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... would have "pulverized" him. Undoubtedly the honourable course for Ney would have been to have left his corps when he lost control over them; but to urge, as was done afterwards, that he had acted on a preconceived scheme, and that his example had such weight, was only malicious falsehood. The Emperor himself knew well how little he owed to the free will of his Marshal, and he soon had to send him from Paris, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... think I would permit you to leave me thus at random, going, you know not where, without any preconceived plans? Oh my poor, poor child, to be thrown ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... which has wrought so much destruction, the inventors of 'Ciencia media',* cradle from which has issued forth Molina, Suarez, and all those villains who, in the days in which the doctrine was unfashionable, decried mere faith, and took their stand on works — who in this land of preconceived opinion can spare it a good word? But, notwithstanding, even a Jansenist, if such be left, must yet admit the claim of Francis Xavier as a true, humble saint, and if the sour-faced sectary of Port Royale should refuse, all ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... each isolated event and yet give a totally misleading impression of the whole, solely by the selection of the incidents. For these reasons and many others I have found it difficult to make a [Page viii] faithful record of the years since the autumn of 1889 when without any preconceived social theories or economic views, I came to live in an industrial district ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... town, of even secondary rank, it will fall far short of any preconceived ideas which one may be possessed of concerning it, though its Cathedral of Notre Dame is in many ways one of those irresistible shrines, which at least promise, and often fulfil, a great deal more than their lack of ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... however, itself an evidence of design as much as the plan of a house. For to what standard are we referring when we say that two limbs are morphologically the same? Is it not an ideal plan, a mental pattern, a metaphysical conception? Now an ideal implies a mind which preconceived the idea, and in which alone it really exists. It is only as "an order of Divine thought" that the doctrine of animal homologies is at all intelligible; and Homology is, therefore, the science which traces the outward embodiment of a Divine Idea.[272] The principle of intentionality ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... himself doing anything to thwart him whose bread he ate, and to whose rise he had himself contributed, yet if he could remain true to him without injuring he; he would account himself happy. The day came when he had to decide between them, and, against all chances, against his own preconceived notion of what he would do under these circumstances, he chose ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... of a speculative atheism are as undoubtedly present on the other, there is thus in both cases a logical vacuum supplied wherein the pendulum of thought is free to swing in whichever direction it may be made to swing by the momentum of preconceived ideas. ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... elaborate schemes of the Collectivists, my attitude towards them all is the same. What these good people want to do, I also want to do. But I am a practical man, dealing with the actualities of to-day. I have no preconceived theories, and I flatter myself I am singularly free from prejudices. I am ready to sit at the feet of any who will show me any good. I keep my mind open on all these subjects; and am quite prepared to hail with open arms any Utopia that is offered me. But it must ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... connected with the early history of their own romantic land, and from them I heard enough of the Danes, but nothing commonplace, for they never mentioned them but in terms which tallied well with my own preconceived ideas. For at an early period the Danes had invaded Ireland, and had subdued it, and, though eventually driven out, had left behind them an enduring remembrance in the minds of the people, who loved to speak of their strength ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... to convey an idea of the country; it is so different from all preconceived notions. The country in many parts rises up to plateaus, slopes up to which are diversified by valleys lined with trees; or here and there rocky bluffs jut out; the plateaus themselves are open prairies covered with grass dotted over with trees, and watered by numerous streams. ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... Religion is only just beginning, and we must take care how we impede its progress by preconceived notions or too hasty generalizations. During the last fifty years the authentic documents of the most important religions of the world have been recovered in a most unexpected and almost miraculous manner. ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... in Chicago and speak with him any hour; when we cable across three thousand miles of water and receive a speedy reply; when wireless telegraphy wafts its message through the etheric currents of the air; when the electric motor is about to revolutionize all our preconceived ideas of distance and journeyings,—we see how space is being dominated and is no longer to be one of the conditions that limit man's activities. To a degree, overcoming space is also overcoming time. In an essay of Emerson's, ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... with him were engaged to love and esteem his character. He was naturally eloquent, both in illustrating and proving the reasonableness of his own opinions, and in converting others from their erroneous preconceived notions. Above all, he possessed that steady and persevering resolution, which not only enabled him to vanquish the greatest difficulties, but gave such appearance of success to every thing be promised or undertook, as secured the confidence of all who were under his command. As these extraordinary ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... otherwise. Pure poetry is not the decoration of a preconceived and clearly defined matter: it springs from the creative impulse of a vague imaginative mass pressing for development and definition. If the poet already knew exactly what he meant to say, why should he write the poem? The poem ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... consecutive narrative founded on the conception of the unity of the Roman empire, which he traces in the succession of the emperors, Charlemagne and his heirs following immediately after Constantine and Irene. "It is,'' says Wattenbach, "history from the point of view of authority and preconceived opinion, which exclude any independent judgment of events.'' Ado wrote also a book on the miracles (Miracula) of St Bernard, archbishop of Vienne (9th century), published in the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum; a life or Martyrium of St Desiderius, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... is. His voice and accent are peculiarly agreeable, but effeminate—clear, harmonious, and so distinct, that though his general tone in speaking is rather low than high, not a word is lost. His manners are as unlike my preconceived notions of them as is his appearance. I had expected to find him a dignified, cold, reserved, and haughty person, resembling those mysterious personages he so loves to paint in his works, and with whom he has been so often identified by the good-natured world; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... not altogether agree with the reader's preconceived idea of an entertainment presented before Elizabeth, in whose reign letters revived with such brilliancy, and whose court, governed by a female whose sense of propriety was equal to her strength of mind, was no less distinguished for delicacy and refinement than her councils for wisdom and ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... the time of Cromwell, not two hundred and fifty years ago, your direct ancestor was a powerful Irish chief, with large domains and many brave men to follow him to battle. When the English came with the cold-blooded, preconceived scheme of pacifying Ireland once and for all by the wholesale massacre of the inhabitants, our grandsire was overpowered by numbers, betrayed, surprised, and driven to his last refuge, a castle but little capable of defence. He was surrounded; his wife and children were with him, all young, one an ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... traditions gives us only a popular version of the sayings and doings of Jesus, falsely coloured and distorted by the superstitious imaginings of the minds through which it had passed, what guarantee have we that a similar unconscious falsification, in accordance with preconceived ideas, may not have taken place in respect of other reported sayings and doings? What is to prevent a conscientious inquirer from finding himself at last in a purely agnostic position with respect to the teachings of Jesus, and consequently with respect ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... curiosity, both ardent students and methodical practitioners would crowd round his simple bed, probing him with instruments, poking him with their fingers, and punching him with their fists; each with a new theory to propound and establish; and the more they were baffled and contradicted in their preconceived notions, the more obstinate they became in their enforcement. Panpan's own thoughts upon the subject always reverted to the brass button, although he found few to listen to or encourage him in his idea. His medical patrons were a ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... vain had arms, in vain had strength, in vain had courage been given them." While they were giving vent to such grievous reflections, the fatal hour of their disgrace arrived, which was to render every circumstance still more shocking in fact, than they had preconceived it in their imaginations. First, they were ordered to go out, beyond the rampart, unarmed, and with single garments; then the hostages were surrendered, and carried into custody. The lictors were next commanded to depart from the consuls, and the robes ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... arriving at the truth, as it appeared to him, by the logic of events, often finding evil where he wished to find good, but never hoodwinking himself or his readers by adapting or distorting the reality of things to suit a preconceived idea. ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... structure of evangelical history. According to Strauss, the sum of the historical truth contained in the narratives of the evangelists is, that Jesus lived and taught in Judea, where he gathered disciples who believed that he was the Messiah. According to their preconceived notions, the life of the Messiah, and the period in which he lived, were to be illustrated by signs and wonders. Messianic legends existed ready-made, in the hopes and expectations of the people, only needing to be transferred to the person and character of Jesus. The appearance of this work produced ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... desire to quit; and he knew he was indispensable to the successful production of the panorama. He also felt that he had won thus far. He did not yield, outwardly at least, but agreed that he would await Gideon's interview with Palmer. He had no preconceived ideas as to what to do or say further, but, like all who are disgruntled, he could not bring himself to ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... 1818). A more liberal man, Decazes, succeeded him. He was supported by a party which arose at this time, called Doctrinaires on account of a certain pedantic spirit, and a disposition to shape political action by preconceived theories or ideas, which was imputed to them. In their ranks were Royer-Collard, Guizot, Villemain, Barante, and others. They advocated a constitutional monarchy. Among the liberals not affiliated with them was La Fayette, who encouraged the Charbonniers, a secret society for ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... in a separate notice, free from all preconceived ideas, and free from all party spirit; I will not forget that an honest man ought not to calumniate any one, not even the ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... Adder, or Surda Echidna of Linnaeus.—Under this head may be classed all that portion of the spectators (for audience they properly are not) who, not finding the first act of a piece answer to their preconceived notions of what a first act should be, like Obstinate in John Bunyan, positively thrust their fingers in their ears, that they may not hear a word of what is coming, though perhaps the very next act may be composed in a style as different as possible, and be written ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... Forgetting entirely that criticism demands common sense, impartial judgment, intense sympathy, a total absence of prejudice, and a great deal of general information, they bring to their task minds deeply tinctured with preconceived systems of truth, goodness and beauty, upon whose Procrustean bed the unfortunate poet must be stretched; while, as if ignorant of the history of thought, they judge the productions of another age and another atmosphere ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... with heretics. Yet there was something of majesty, depressed indeed and overclouded, but still grand and imposing, in the manner and words of Father Buonaventure, which it was difficult to reconcile with those preconceived opinions which imputed subtlety and fraud to his sect and order. Above all, Alan was aware that if he accepted not his freedom upon the terms offered him, he was likely to be detained by force; so that, in every point of view, he was a gainer by ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... far off. Farther onward the country grew quite level around us, whereby I judged that we must now be in Lincolnshire; and shortly after six o'clock we caught the first glimpse of the Cathedral towers, though they loomed scarcely huge enough for our preconceived idea of them. But, as we drew nearer, the great edifice began to assert itself, making us acknowledge it to be larger than our ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... if I point out whence arise these discrepancies of opinion? We look into Scripture to confirm our preconceived notions, not with a reverent desire of learning the truth. Each sect prefers some portion of Christian doctrine to the whole, and urges its favourite tenet to an undue extreme. Unskilful interpreters separate texts from their contexts, or they found doctrines ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... and to predict where the vertical dip would be found. These deductions seem the more wonderful because at the time he made them the dip had just been discovered, and had not been studied except at London. His theory of the dip was, therefore, a scientific prediction, based on a preconceived hypothesis. Gilbert found the dip to be 72 degrees at London; eight years later Hudson found the dip at 75 degrees 22' north latitude to be 89 degrees 30'; but it was not until over two hundred years later, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... disagree with us upon the character of this legislation prefer to have the question settled now, even against their preconceived views, and perhaps settled so reasonably, as I trust and believe it will be, as to insure great permanence, than to have further uncertainty menacing the vast and varied business interests of the United States. Again, whatever action Congress may take will be given ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... and so longed to express her contempt for her (perhaps she had only come for that very purpose, as Rogojin said next day), that howsoever fantastical was the other woman, howsoever afflicted her spirit and disturbed her understanding, no preconceived idea of hers could possibly stand up against that deadly feminine contempt of her rival. The prince felt sure that Nastasia would say nothing about the letters herself; but he could judge by her flashing eyes and the expression ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to prove this point, it is not necessary to consult any medical theorist as to whether or not it is consistent with his preconceived notions that such a mode ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... naturally Mr Pecksniff and his family; of whom, and of the great obligations they had heaped upon him, Tom Pinch, with the tears standing in his eyes, drew such a picture as would have inclined any one of common feeling almost to revere them; and of which Mr Pecksniff had not the slightest foresight or preconceived idea, or he certainly (being very humble) would not have sent Tom Pinch to bring ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... impetuous men, likely to execute their work rather thoroughly than delicately; but, to judge by the surviving evidence, they were as upright and plain-dealing as they were assuredly able and efficient. It is pretended by some writers that the inquiry was set on foot with a preconceived purpose of spoliation; that the duty of the visitors was rather to defame roundly than to report truly; and that the object of the commission was merely to justify an act of appropriation which had been already determined. The commission ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... degraded in the romances of chivalry. Those who vilify them as only barbarous imitations of classical fancy condemn them as some do Gothic architecture, as mere corruptions of a purer style: such critics form their decision by preconceived notions; they are but indifferent philosophers, and to us seem ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... blank verse, and a little later Meistersinger, which is a comedy of domestic life, and has nothing to do with mythology. Then there are the Leitmotivs which are used so methodically in the Ring that it would seem there must have been some preconceived system. But Wagner never once mentions Leitmotivs in his writings, nor did he invent them. They have been dragged into the light by von Wolzogen, and whatever theories we have about them are due ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... pagan outlook on the proprieties positively stirred Drew to unholy mirth. But it did something else—it made him realize that the girl before him was quite outside the reach of any of his preconceived ideas. He could afford to sit down upon her plane and feel no moral indignation. Perhaps, after all, she had brought his work to ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... in the end that he is sincere in his viewpoint, whether you share it or not, and that he is made of the same human stuff as you, and has neither horns nor claws nor hoofs, much animosity, many preconceived notions are apt to vanish and you are not so cocksure any longer that the other fellow is a destructive devil of radicalism or a bloated devil of capitalism, ...
— The New York Stock Exchange and Public Opinion • Otto Hermann Kahn
... middle of the turnpike road. But one old fogy puts on his green spectacles to look for her, and another his red, and another his blue; and so they all miss her, because she is a colorless diamond. Those spectacles are preconceived notions, 'a priori reasoning, cant, prejudice, the depth of Mr. Shallow's inner consciousness, etc., etc. Then comes the observer, opens the eyes that God has given him, tramples on all colored spectacles, and finds Truth as surely as the spectacled theorists miss her. Say that the intellect ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... building. Here again I was surprised to find a most attractive interior. It looked like the inside of a prosperous club house. I don't know what I expected but I wouldn't have been startled if I'd found a hall filled with wooden settees and a prayer meeting going on. I had a lot of such preconceived notions knocked out of my head ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... later we were in Berlin, and a fiacre set me down at the hotel. One of the keenest pleasures of a traveler is that first drive through a hitherto unknown city, destroying or confirming his preconceived idea of it. All that is peculiar and characteristic seizes upon the yet virgin eye, whose perceptive power is ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... a great variety of plots and skeletons of tales, and kept them ready for use, leaving the filling up to the inspiration of the moment; though I cannot remember ever to have told a tale which did not vary considerably from my preconceived idea, and acquire a novelty of aspect as often as I repeated it. Oddly enough, my success was generally in proportion to the difference between the conception and accomplishment. I provided two or more commencements and catastrophes to many of the tales,—a happy expedient, ...
— Passages From a Relinquised Work (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... obtained. Yet one would think it an ungenerous act, to call in question, and before partial judges, the veracity of such men as are here named. Where a physician reports cases which agree too well with his preconceived theories, we doubt the correctness of his observations; and with justice: for we know that an already formed belief will greatly tinge the most honest seeings and hearings of very sensible and honourable heads. But this ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... what he did was done to preserve his country, and not from personal ambition; and he might have so contrived matters that no successor of his could ever turn to bad ends the means which he had used for good ends. But he was misled by a preconceived opinion, and failed to understand that ill-will is not to be vanquished by time nor propitiated by favours. And, so, from not knowing how to resemble Brutus, he lost power, and fame, and was driven an exile ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... his fantasy had received confirmation by the finding of the scarabaeus, or, perhaps, by Jupiter's obstinacy in maintaining it to be "a bug of real gold." A mind disposed to lunacy would readily be led away by such suggestions, especially if chiming in with favorite preconceived ideas; and then I called to mind the poor fellow's speech about the beetle's being "the index of his fortune." Upon the whole, I was sadly vexed and puzzled, but at length I concluded to make a virtue of necessity—to dig with a good will, and thus the sooner to convince the ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... becoming used to tiny and ingenious furniture, to doll-like desks, to miniature bowls with which to play at dinner, to the immaculate monotony of the mats, to the finely finished simplicity of the white woodwork. I am even losing my Western prejudices; all my preconceived ideas are this evening evaporating and vanishing; crossing the garden I have courteously saluted M. Sucre, who was watering his dwarf shrubs and his deformed flowers; and Madame Prune appears to me a highly ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... which must be discussed whatever our wishes or preconceived resolves. The separation between you and Mr. Oliver Ostrander cannot be so absolute (since whatever your cause of complaint you are still his father and he your son) that you will allow his whole life's happiness to be destroyed for the lack of a few ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... more than one occasion Mr. Ruskin has frankly admitted that his views and opinions were erroneous owing to being based on a partial appearance or influenced by pernicious ideas. A notable illustration of his thought being biassed by preconceived ideas is found in the religious opinions put forward in the early edition of parts I and II of "Modern Painters." And in a preface written in 1871 for a revised edition of his works, the philosopher calls attention to his early views, declaring ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... after the other, that the abandonment of Higgs had been a preconceived plan. Several of them added that Shadrach was in traitorous communication with the Fung, whom he had warned of our advent by firing the reeds, and had even contrived to arrange that we were to be taken while he and the other Abati, with the camels laden with our rifles ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... their desires, their hopes, their aspirations, their fears. We must discover and adopt their point of view, put ourselves in their surroundings, assume their burdens, unite with them in their daily effort. In this way alone, and not by forcing upon them a preconceived ideal, can we do them real good, can we help them to find a moral, spiritual, esthetic standard suited to their condition of life. Such an undertaking is impossible for most. Sure of its utility, inspired by its practical importance, I determined to make the sacrifice it entailed ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... them in mathematics somehow, so that I'm sure the fifth form will pass a better examination this term than any term since we first came here. Now that, you know, is really a great thing, even if he doesn't quite fall in with our preconceived social requirements.' ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... comprehend the true nature of man, and the place which he really occupies in the animal creation. Man should be estimated as all other products and phenomena of nature are estimated, according to his absolute value, divested, as in the case of all other physical and organic sciences, of preconceived ideas or prejudices in favour of the supernatural. He should be studied as in physics we study bodies and the laws which govern them, or as the laws of their motions and combinations are studied in chemistry, ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... extremely promising for the future. In a way, new men coming into Australia, and taking up wheatgrowing, stand a better chance than many of the long-settled farmers who have got into a groove—even a profitable one—and who do not care to bother greatly with progressive ideas. The new comer has no preconceived notions, and comes with an open mind adaptable to ...
— Wheat Growing in Australia • Australia Department of External Affairs
... the Negro's home life reveals him as an upright, religious character, and, even under the most adverse circumstances of his unholy environments, he was in many instances so tenacious of his preconceived standard of good morals that he defended his principles even to the extent ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... The equalization of educational opportunity does not at all mean the same duplicated method or content for all. That interpretation will controvert the very spirit and purpose of the principle stated. Any inflexible scheme which attempts to fashion all children into types, according to preconceived notions, and whose perpetuity is rooted in a psychology based on the uniformity of the human mind, simply must give way to the newer conception which harmonizes with the psychic laws of the individual, or else continue to waste much ...
— The High School Failures - A Study of the School Records of Pupils Failing in Academic or - Commercial High School Subjects • Francis P. Obrien
... stranger, more virgin thing than it was for either Schumann or Chopin. You knew even better than they how to listen for its proper voice. You were more deeply aware than they of its proper color and quality. You seem to have come to it absolutely without preconceived ideas. Your B-minor sonata, however unsatisfactory its actual quality, remains one of the magistral works of the sort. For few works better exhibit the various ranges of the instrument, better contrast different volumes of piano-sound. The sonata actually lies on different planes, proceeds ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... formulating a definition. Before we can gain a right concept of good citizenship as a world affair we must make a thoughtful study of world conditions. In so doing, we may have occasion to modify and correct some of our own preconceived notions and thus extend the horizon of ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... Preconceived opinions, minds made up, men not so easily beguiled to the pure good, you say? Woman quite as apt to make mistakes out of Paradise as in? That only returns us to the primal need and opportunity. Get the man to listen to you before ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... and there are many who must perforce go away sorrowful on account of their great possessions. Half the world guessed, however, at the truth, and every man judged the Sarrions from his own political standpoint, praising or blaming according to preconceived convictions. But there were some in high places who knew that a ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... the concert in the evening, Francis had again to admire the naturally fine taste of his younger cousin, and to lament with her that none of her talents had been cultivated. According to all his preconceived fancies, he should have fallen in love with Elsie; but it was not so. She was a sweet, amiable girl, with a great deal of quickness and undeveloped talent, but she was chiefly dear to him as Jane's sister. ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... kind is found in the early work of the West Virginia Station (Bulletin 60). With the preconceived notion that hens should have a nitrogenous diet an experiment was planned and ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... estimate the existence, or the continuation of the existence of ourselves, or any thing else, commensurate to the succession of any ideas in our minds, the duration of ourselves, or any such other thing co-existing with our thinking—and so according to that preconceived—You puzzle me to death, cried my ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... heterogeneous mass of diversified criticism we glean the prevailing idea that Plautus is lauded or condemned according to his conformity or non-conformity to some preconceived standard of comedy situate in the critic's mind, without a consideration of the poet's original purpose. We must seriously propound the question as to how far a grave injustice has been done him almost universally in criticising him for what he does not pretend ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... in moving, proved her as ready as her aunt had preconceived. She was immediately up, and wanting to quit the table; but so many were also moving, that she could not get away; and Mr. Knightley thought he saw another collection of letters anxiously pushed towards her, and resolutely swept away by her ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... from them the proper treatment of it, was as much the father of induction as Bacon himself. The error the ancients made was in not collecting a sufficient number of facts to warrant a sound induction. And the ancients looked out for facts to support some preconceived theory, from which they reasoned syllogistically. The theory could not be substantiated by any syllogistic reasonings, since conclusions could never go beyond assumptions; if the assumptions were wrong, no ingenious or elaborate reasoning would avail anything towards the discovery ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... first to examine into the external grounds, evidences, &c., and to weigh their value; and then to adduce the internal reasons derived from the quality of the work. The critics of Shakspeare follow a course directly the reverse of this; they set out with a preconceived opinion against a piece, and seek, in justification of this opinion, to render the historical ground suspicious, and to set them aside. Now Titus Andronicus is to be found in the first folio edition of Shakspeare's works, which it is known was published by Heminge ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... by some natives, who did not appear of the most friendly disposition. They apparently called the river Belyando, which name was adopted. On their getting noisy and troublesome, they were ignominiously put to flight by the dogs charging them. At this point Mitchell had reluctantly to alter his preconceived opinions and conjectures, and come to the conclusion that the northern fall of the waters was still to be looked for to the westward, and that a further continuance on his present course would lead him on to Leichhardt's track. Disappointed, he gave the order to turn back, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... ornate verbal picture, florid in its descriptive phraseology, but cognate enough to convince Crane it was Mortimer who had made one of the bets. His preconceived plan of the suspected man's operations was ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... of cunning from a man in a corner, which suggests with so persuasive an air that he has ruled his actions up to the very moment when he faces you, and had almost preconceived the present occasion, rather won Lady Charlotte; or it seemed to, or the scene had been too long for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... been brought up in the old country, and accustomed from infancy to adhere to the conventional rules of society, the mixed society must, for a long time, prove very distasteful. Yet this very freedom, which is so repugnant to all their preconceived notions and prejudices, is by no means so unpleasant as strangers would be led to imagine. A certain mixture of the common and the real, of the absurd and the ridiculous, gives a zest to the cold, tame decencies, to be found ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... all which adorns society is great, but there is a certain yearning toward those whose habits, education, and modes of thought are the same as our own, which I never can get over. In the full tide of conversation I often stop and think, "I may unconsciously be jarring the prejudices or preconceived notions of these people upon a thousand points; for how differently have I been trained from these women of high rank, and men, too, with whom I am now thrown." Upon all topics we are accustomed to think, perhaps, with more latitude, religion, politics, morals, everything. I like the English ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... ideas of creation.") According to his opinion (Vol. I. p. 245), comparative anatomy may no longer look for a "pre-arranged plan of construction by the Creator." Besides, he calls it an anthropocentric error to look upon man as a preconceived aim of creation and a true final purpose of terrestrial life; and on page 17, of Vol. II, he supports this judgment by comparing the relative shortness of the existence of mankind with the length of the preceding geological periods: "Since the awakening of the human ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... prophetic vision, their sacred songs, their philosophy, their dreams, and their aspirations. To most of us the Bible has long been a work of profound mystery, cryptical, undecipherable. And largely, I now believe, because we were wont to approach it with the bias of preconceived theories of literal, even verbal, inspiration, and because we could not read into it the record of Israel's changing idea of God, from a wrathful, consuming Lord of human caprice and passions, to the infinite Father of love, whom Jesus revealed as the Christ-principle, which worked ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... establishments of some of those most wealthy New York or Boston merchants, who think they are stimulating country farmers to healthy emulation by lavishing from thirty to forty thousand dollars on a barn and its appurtenant out-houses. With these preconceived ideas, it was an unexpected satisfaction to see quite a simple-looking, unassuming establishment, which any well-to-do farmer might make and own. The house is rather a large and solid-looking building, erected by Mr. Mechi himself, but not at all ostentatious of wealth or architectural taste. ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... in a Supreme Ruler of the Universe, and that spirits animated all life, and existed even in minerals; he also believed in preconceived purpose. With these views were associated the Dogmatic School of Medicine, and the name of Hippocrates, and this belief ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... mind. And yet my inner mind was clamouring intolerably for revelation. I realized the advantage he would derive from his simple attitude and from his lack of mental integrity, which enabled him to ignore any considerations that did not conform to his preconceived notions, and I realized the disadvantage of my complex attitude, made up as it was of so many conflicting impulses, at war with each other and with the ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... besieging much of what he knows to be the truth. No man needs to search for paradox in this world of ours. Let him simply confine himself to the truth, and he will find paradox growing every where under his hands as rank as weeds. For new truths of importance are rarely agreeable to any preconceived theories; that is, cannot be explained by these theories; which are insufficient, therefore, even where they are true. And universally, it must be borne in mind, that not that is paradox which, seeming to be true, is upon examination false, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... of some celebration; I believe the throwing off of the yoke of Spain. The city flocked into the plaza. Strangely enough, those who were disaffected—the soldiers under Urquijo—faced the loyal troops. By a preconceived plan, the artillery was under the command of Urquijo. Suddenly this Captain's murderous and traitorous guns swept the plaza, mangling women and children. There was a flaw, however, in the stroke. Urquijo fled, a reward ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... inexpressible softness, tenderness, and music of his accent. It was as if the whole heart were melting into that single word. All my preconceived resolutions vanished, all coldness, alienation, and constraint. "I had found him whom my soul loved." My arms were twined around him,—I was clasped to his bosom with the most passionate emotion, and the hearts so violently ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Perhaps he was dying—most probably he was. If so this was a lucid interval before death, and in it his mind was playing him no tricks. The supposed friend loomed in an unmasked and traitorous light which even the preconceived idea could not confuse or mitigate. Maggard did not want to give credence to the certainty that was shaping itself—and yet the conviction had been born and could not be thrust back into the womb ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... of placing the legs on tables; and, yet, both have been practised in Parliament from time immemorial! She had never seen her own Legislature, and having a set of theories cut and dried for Congress, everything that struck her as novel was referred to one of her preconceived notions. In this manner are books manufactured, and by such means are nations made ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... which may be discovered in Mr. Mill's history of the operation of preconceived opinions, in confining a vigorous and active understanding to a partial and one-sided view of a great question, no instance is more remarkable than the unrelenting pertinacity with which he labours to establish the barbarism of the Hindus. Indignant ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... the Manners and Customs of Italy. 1770. 2 vols. 8vo.—These works are noticed principally because they afford a curious and instructive proof of the very different views which may be taken of the same objects, according to the extent and accuracy of the knowledge, and the preconceived opinions and feelings of the observer. Barretti's work is certainly more accurate than that of Sharp, but in opposing him, he has sometimes gone into the opposite extreme: from comparing both, perhaps the reality may often be extracted. Manners and national character are ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... pleasure of dwelling upon the absurdities and oddities of the life as they strike him, but there is also another side to the question. Our own civilization, presenting so many features so extremely removed from his own ancient ideas and preconceived notion of things in general, probably looks quite as ridiculous from the standpoint of the Chinese. The East and the West each have lessons to offer the other. The West is offering them to the East, and they are being absorbed. And perhaps were we to learn ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... a mind has become mystified with preconceived ideas and prejudices, it is no easy task to reveal to it the truth, however simple. Mrs. Arnot had come into the light but slowly herself, and she had passed through too many deep and prolonged spiritual experiences ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... of all the handsome Pagets the best to look upon. She was dressed according to her youthful lights; every separate article of her apparel to-day, from her rowdyish little hat to her openwork hose, represented a battle with Mrs. Paget's preconceived ideas as to propriety in dress, with the honors largely for Rebecca. Rebecca had grown up, in eight months, her sister thought, confusedly; she was no longer the adorable, un-self-conscious tomboy who fought and skated and toboganned with ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... encountered in their endeavors to perfect the system. Those who have written upon the subject in the public press have been largely such as have given it but a cursory study, or such as have been totally unfit to discuss it from an impartial standpoint by reason of preconceived notions or prejudices in favor of the level premium system of insurance, if, indeed, they have not been retained for a consideration by that ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... tendril. I was so occupied with my own preconceived ideas that I forgot to sympathize with you. Tell me why or how I have made you unhappy. But I know; you need not. I assure you, however, that you are entirely wrong. It was a prudish and whimsical notion of my good old housekeeper's. You are never to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... a man as I consider the late Mr. Barry to have been, have that weight of authority in them which staggers at first hearing, even a long preconceived opinion. When I read his pathetic admonition concerning the shortness of life, and how much better the little leisure of it were laid out upon "that species of art which is employed about the amiable and the admirable;" and Hogarth's "method," proscribed as a "dangerous or worthless ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... flutter involved in a sense of due preparation; but he had then found that, however primed with prefaces and prompted with hints, he hadn't been prepared at all. How COULD he be, he asked himself, for anything so foreign to his experience, so alien to his proper world, so little to be preconceived in the sharp north light of the newest impressionism, and yet so recognised after all in the event, so noted and tasted and assimilated? It was a case he would scarce have known how to describe—could doubtless have described best ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... Piccadilly in his swift hansom, it occurred to him that if Nina were going to join the "Squire's Daughter" company, it might be just as well for her not to have any preconceived antipathy against Miss Burgoyne. For Miss Burgoyne was an important person at the ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... as an Ostrich does its young, to shift for themselves in the wilderness, and hurries on his way. This style of his, noticeable of old in regard to Silesia too, has considerably hurt him with the common kind of readers; who, in their preconceived suspicions of the man, are all the more disgusted at tracing in him, not the least anxiety to stand well with any reader, more than to stand ill, AS ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... "Judaeus," not only distinguishes him from an obscure Christian bishop, but it expresses the predominant characteristic of his teaching. It may be objected that I have pointed the moral and adorned the tale in accordance with preconceived opinions, which—as Mr. Claude Montefiore says in his essay on Philo—it is easy to do with so strange and curious a writer. I confess that my worthy appeals to me most strongly as an exponent of Judaism, and it may be that in this regard I have not always looked on him as the calm, dispassionate ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... Lepcha in one respect entirely contradicts our preconceived notions of a mountaineer, as he is timid, peaceful, and no brawler; qualities which are all the more remarkable from contrasting so strongly with those of his neighbours to the east and west: of whom the Ghorkas are brave and warlike to a proverb, and the Bhotanese quarrelsome, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... explaining. "I got my first clue down at Deepbrow. The tracks leading to the motor-car. They showed—to anyone not hampered by a preconceived opinion—that the girl and Vane had not gone on together (since the man's footprints proved him to have been running), but that she had gone first and that he had run after her! Arguments: (a) He heard the approach of the car; or (b) ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... into the world. I take with me the burden of no duty or responsibility. I draw in the fresh air, odour-laden from orchard and wood. I look about me as if everything were new—and behold everything is new. My barn, my oaks, my fences—I declare I never saw them before. I have no preconceived impressions, or beliefs, or opinions. My lane fence is the end of the known earth. I am a discoverer of new fields among old ones. I see, feel, hear, smell, taste all these wonderful things for the first time. I have no idea what discoveries ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... finally tied up the little packet of letters and locked it in his safe. He was not given to hasty generalizations; neither was he one who clung doggedly to a preconceived theory. ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... large-hearted, generous, and free, not fettered and bound by the errors of youthful training, the selfishness of sectarianism, the bigotry of orthodoxy, or the indifference of infidelity, but seek the truth, no matter from whence, or what it upsets or overturns of preconceived ideas. The command is, "Prove all things, and hold fast that which is good." To hear some people talk and lament, you would think that the command was, Prove nothing, but hold hard on to what you ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... pleading for Ireland's cause that minister might have found an ally in Swift; but the price to be paid was not to the man. From Swift's letter to Peterborough we are at once introduced to Ireland's case, and his point of view on this was so opposed to Walpole's preconceived notions of how best to govern Ireland, as well as of his settled plans, that Swift found, as he put it, that Walpole "had conceived opinions ... which I could not reconcile to the notions I had of liberty." Not at ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... of Eugene Carriere, for instance his masterly portrait of Paul Verlaine, a song, sometimes an entire role, may be worked out in monochrome; though the gradations of tint are numerous, they are consistently kept within their preconceived colour-scheme. Some few exceptional singers, like Jean-Baptiste Faure or Maurice Renaud, have this gift of many shades of the one colour in their singing of certain roles. The colour is determined by the psychological character of the personage portrayed; ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... tongue, to speak so long time as the sand in that glass will move towards its centre, and measure out an hour of this dying man's unspent life? Doubtless it cannot." And yet, after some faint pauses in his zealous prayer, his strong desires enabled his weak body to discharge his memory of his preconceived meditations, which were of dying; the text being, "To God the Lord belong the issues from death." Many that then saw his tears, and heard his faint and hollow voice, professing they thought the text prophetically ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... this time the soul of Augustine was not influenced by higher inspiration than pleasure, nor his mind by anything which did not correspond to his preconceived notions of philosophic accuracy. Nor was he yet a Christian by baptism, as it was the custom of the age to postpone the reception of this sacrament till later in life, both that it might be received with better dispositions ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... terrible "Hell" which one has pictured with all sorts of Dantesque accompaniments, is a pleasant room, gaily painted, with cosies all round it and a huge mass of gorgeous flowers in the centre. Nothing can be more unlike one's preconceived ideas than the gambling itself, or the aspect of the gamblers around the tables. Of the wild excitement, the frenzy of gain, the outbursts of despair which one has come prepared to witness, there is not a sign. The games strike the bystander ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... conclusion. He may conclude that the author has a sentimental affection for the criminal and would have all disturbers of the public peace treated with more compassion than the hard-working and honest labourer. But that reader will have jumped to his conclusion from his preconceived prejudices. The reformation of the criminal is no chimera, it has been undertaken for thirty years and every year has seen better results. The results for 1903 (86 per cent. of reforms) ought to convince the most sceptic that the reformation ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... the doctrine of finality, which says that the parts have been brought together on a preconceived plan with a view to a certain end. In this it likens the labor of nature to that of the workman, who also proceeds by the assemblage of parts with a view to the realization of an idea or the imitation of a model. Mechanism, here, reproaches finalism with its anthropomorphic character, and rightly. ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... evidence of his own senses, when he brought in tea and found them together, he could have sworn it was her ladyship; this general confusion of household arrangements, and culpable indifference to the important ceremony of dinner, forced him to admit that he was in a position of which he had no preconceived idea, and from which he doubted whether he could extricate himself with the dignity essential ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... guide's pretty wife could point it out and attempted to do so, but was for a long time unsuccessful, owing to the interference of preconceived notions—each of our travellers having set his heart upon beholding a majestic peak of rugged rock, mingled, perhaps, ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... carriage. I had my back to her but I could see her by means of the looking-glass with which the sides of the compartment were framed. I noticed her make a sign to the man. Of course, this put a different light on the affair. It was preconceived. For the life of me, though, I could not see how they could use the situation ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... clarify, uplift the consciousness which is open to receive it; a movement from without—subtle yet actual—answering each willed movement from within. "Your opening and His entering," says Eckhart, "are but one moment." When, therefore, you put aside your preconceived ideas, your self-centred scale of values, and let intuition have its way with you, you open up by this act new levels of the world. Such an opening-up is the most practical of all activities; for then and then only will your diurnal existence, ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... office. First of all he wanted fresh air. The quick, calm, business-like manner in which his promotion had taken place; the noiseless, well-ordered, automatic opening of another door leading to the future of his ambitions, so utterly at variance with preconceived ideas in this regard, had all but unnerved him. He had always held it as assured that some day he should walk his own bridge. But until a half-hour ago, this day seemed still to lie far ahead, a day to be attained, ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... misrepresentation to contradiction. Side by side with the abduction of "facts" such as those we have quoted, we find him arguing on one page that the Trinity was too grand a doctrine to have been conceived by man, and was therefore Divine; and on another page, that the Incarnation had been preconceived by man, and is therefore to be accepted as Divine. But we are less concerned with the fallacy of his "ready replies" than with their falsity; and even of this we can only afford space for a very few specimens. Here is one: "There is ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... had entered the world with too favourable a preconceived notion. In a spirit of idealism he had refused the military career for which his father had intended him, and had taken up the study of medicine, in the belief that he would thus be of most service to humanity. He had ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... I didn't, or wouldn't quite understand that; I was talking and acting, I'm afraid, from a preconceived notion." Lemuel made no reply, not having learned yet to utter the pleasant generalities with which city people left a subject; and after a while Sewell added, "I am glad to have seen your face so often at church. You have been a great ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... had, and such notes as I there made from the books bearing on French history, which I took with me wherever I went. As this book is not a treatise but a record, as it is not intended to maintain a preconceived thesis, but simply to indicate the grounds on which I have myself come to certain conclusions and convictions, I thought the method I have adopted the fairest, both to my readers and to myself, that I ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... consequences of that deed as affecting even ourselves who wrought it. Take this very story of the Sheikh; when recovering his precious harp he was but digging his own grave. So with all of us; we imagine we are marching bravely to accomplish some preconceived plan, when all the time we are merely groping with blinded eyes along the path of destiny, avoiding the mud holes, it may be, but failing to see the tiger, crouched for his spring, a few paces ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... be done? We must simply keep our preconceived notions of what people call primitive humanity in abeyance for a time, and if we find that people three thousand years ago were familiar with ideas that seem novel and nineteenth-century-like to us, well, we must somewhat modify our conceptions of the primitive ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... kept in Austria's toils, while the Bulgarian people was moved by patriotism to identify its cause with that of Ferdinand. And the arrangement was to my knowledge completed before the opening of the European war. Evidence of its existence was forthcoming, but the statesmen of the Entente, who allowed preconceived notions to overrule the testimony of their senses, declined to accept it. Since then the Bulgarian Cabinet, in the person of the Premier, has publicly admitted the truth of my reiterated statement. In a public speech, delivered in March 1916, "M. Radoslavoff confessed ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... was even more impressive, because she fitted better into Undine's preconceived picture of the Faubourg Saint Germain, and was more like the people with whom she pictured the former Nettie Wincher as living in privileged intimacy. The Duchess was, indeed, more amiable and accessible than Undine's conception of a Duchess, and displayed a curiosity as great as her daughter's, ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... quantity of their action; but it is difficult to distinguish them from the associations of motions treated of in Section XXXV. Where the actions of other persons are imitated there can be no doubt, or where we imitate a preconceived idea by exertion of our locomotive muscles, as in painting a dragon; all these imitations may aptly be referred to the sources above described of the propensity to activity, and the facility of repetition; ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... deal of the piquancy and novelty in Thoreau come from the unexpected turn he gives to things, upsetting all our preconceived notions. His trick of exaggeration he rather brags of: "Expect no trivial truth from me," he says, "unless I am on the witness stand." He even exaggerates his own tendency to exaggeration. It is all a part of his scheme to startle ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... selections must not be taken as giving the final word upon the subject. At best they represent merely the conclusions reached by three investigators. Attempts to arrive at positive differences in favor either of original nature or of education are frequently made in the interest of preconceived opinion. The problem, as far as science is concerned, is to discover what limitations original nature places upon response to social copies, and the ways in which the inborn potentialities find expression or repression in ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... said I, conscious of a shocking discrepancy between this description of Eleanore's character and all that I had preconceived ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... she flitted down the passage. He felt dizzy. Mental acrobatics always have an unsettling effect, and a young man may be excused for feeling a little dizzy when he is called upon suddenly and without any warning to readjust all his preconceived views on any subject. Listening to Eustace Hignett's story of his blighted romance, Sam had formed an unflattering opinion of this Wilhelmina Bennett who had broken off her engagement simply because on the day of the marriage his cousin ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... unstained by taint of personal prejudice and the love of power, will fortify us considerably. Am I to assume, then, that above all passion and pettiness, you are an impersonal force whose innumerable daily editions reflect nothing but abstract truth, and are in no way the servants of a preconceived and personal view of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Reminiscences and his Life have been published which put this estimate of him beyond all doubt. It is much to be regretted that a certain theory, a certain irresistible tendency to arrange facts so as to prove preconceived notions, a tendency more dangerous and unhistorical even than direct suppression of the truth or invention of what is not true, should have ruined Carlyle's biography. Professor Norton's edition of the Reminiscences should be compared with ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... which happened in the course of their dramatic attempts impressed Rex as a sign of her unusual sensibility. It showed an aspect of her nature which could not have been preconceived by any one who, like him, had only seen her habitual fearlessness in active exercises and her ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... a wonderful surprise to us. Our preconceived ideas, gathered from various books dating only a few years back, had led our fancies completely astray. Learning from these sources that, not much more than thirty years ago—in 1840,—the first ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... at length to disappoint the purpose of their lives and requite their care and piety with cruel pangs. (3) Mater Dolorosa. It is the particular cross of parents that when the child grows up and becomes himself instead of that pale ideal they had preconceived, they must accuse their own harshness or indulgence for this natural result. They have all been like the duck and hatched swan's eggs, or the other way about; yet they tell themselves with miserable penitence that the blame lies with them; and had they ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... imprisoned thus, I presently came wandering disconsolately back to the hay-pile and lying there began to ponder upon the extreme unlovely deportment of this strange creature whose almost every speech and look and gesture outraged all my preconceived ideas of "the sex", and bitterly to deplore my ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... sublime is the apex of her mathematically-definite program and is a moral quality attained by the few, every human being has his point of sublimity in the idea of a Supreme Being. On the one hand, beauty is a preconceived idea in the human species; on the other it is not preconceived, but developed. Finally, the rules of art are perceptions of moral virtue, yet art which exhibits these ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of - our Ideas of Beauty, etc. • Frances Reynolds
... neither trite nor vulgar, nor subtle and abstruse. He hit the House between wind and water; and, not being troubled with too anxious a zeal for any matter in question, he was never more tedious nor more earnest than the preconceived opinions and present temper of his hearers required, with whom he was always in perfect unison. He conformed exactly to the temper of the House; and he seemed to lead because he was ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... unimportant book containing one superb story, "The Stick-In-the-Muds," which I had the pleasure of printing last year in this series. It is one of the stories which Mr. Hughes has written for his own pleasure and not for the preconceived pleasure of his large and critical public. I consider that it ranks with the excellent series of Irish-American studies which Mr. Hughes ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... turning of one's coat—if confession of that amendment is a little like the white sheet and lighted taper of a penitent. Things are, or they are not. If they are, as will be set down, the inference is plain to anyone not hopelessly blinded by preconceived prejudice. If they are not, let them be authoritatively contradicted on the basis of fact, not sentiment—demonstration, not assertion. In any case it is a gain to obtain material for a truer judgment than heretofore, and thus to be rid of certain mental ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... conclusive proof of women's power in the maternal family. If this is denied, the only conclusion that suggests itself to me is that, those who seek to diminish the power of mother-right have done so in reinforcement of a preconceived idea of the superiority of the man as the natural and unchanging order in the relationships of the sexes. One suspects prejudice here. To approach this question with any fairness, it is absolutely essential ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... where serving, the men of which are not better supplied with all the necessaries and comforts of life than are the residents at Port Essington. All these have volunteered for the place, but their preconceived ideas formed in England almost always on reaching the place gave way to feelings of regret at the step they had taken; I well remember the excitement in the settlement, and the feelings of joy everywhere expressed, when in October 1845, the first party learned that their ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... eye for detail, this lack of general ideas and of guiding principles at least guarded Rashi against a danger more original spirits failed to escape, namely, of reading preconceived notions into the text, of interpreting it by an individual method, and, thus, of gathering more meaning, or another meaning, than was intended by the author. Unlike the Jewish and Christian theologians, Rashi felt no need to do ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... never broached the idea of a growth into political enfranchisement. Yet, in the long run, this has been the ideal towards which the healthy development of national life in Europe has constantly tended, only the steps towards it have not been taken to suit a preconceived theory."[32] ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... skilful literary artist has constructed a tale ... having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents—he then combines such events—as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, he has failed in the first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written of which the tendency direct or indirect is not ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead |
