"Rational" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... final retirement from public life, in 1809, Mr. Jefferson lived as became a wise man. Surrounded by affectionate friends, his ardor in the pursuit of knowledge undiminished, with uncommon health and unbroken spirits, he was able to enjoy largely the rational pleasures of life, and to partake in that public prosperity which he had so much contributed to produce. His kindness and hospitality, the charm of his conversation, the ease of his manners, the extent of his acquirements, and, especially, the full store of revolutionary ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... severed meshes, to replace broken threads, to adjust the new to the old, in short, to restore the original order by assembling the wreckage would be a far-reaching feat of prowess, a very fine proof of gleams of intelligence, capable of performing rational calculations. Our menders excel in this class of work. They have as their guide their sense, which measures the holes, cuts the new piece to size and fits it into its proper place. Does the Spider possess the counterpart of ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... be men here?" asked Babs. "I don't mean actually men, but—manlike creatures? Why couldn't there be rational creatures like us? I ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... to believe him guilty of this act. Now, Moiron seemed so normal, so quiet, so rational and sensible that it seemed impossible ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... worth a king's ransom, or but an animal which, though it may be crossed in love, is not engaging in appearance or in any feature or quality commendable. There is the chance; and it appeals to most rational men. Secretive Fortune lures on, promising the bubble pearl 'and proffering that which satisfieth not, until the stress and perils of the avocation tell on the enthusiast, who finds himself not exuberant as wont; that Fortune has been tricking him; that in the pursuit of pearls Chance is oft repellent; ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... Whewell no sooner arrives at any truth which admits of an unconditional positive statement—a statement defying all rational contradiction—than he abstracts it from amongst the acquisitions of experience, and throwing over it, we suppose, the light of these fundamental ideas, pronounces it enrolled in the higher class of universal and necessary truths. The first laws of motion, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... parental claims of the two sexes. If the elective fran- 63:21 chise for women will remedy the evil with- out encouraging difficulties of greater magnitude, let us hope it will be granted. A feasible as well as rational 63:24 means of improvement at present is the elevation of society in general and the achievement of a nobler race for legislation, - a race having higher aims ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... of woman to be more thoroughly discussed and better understood;—by making it more frequently the theme of rational meditation to the young and ardent, who, from the force of defective education, are apt to regard all "the sex," beyond a very limited circle, as mere accessaries to animal enjoyment,—whose peace they may wound without ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... their shapes and colours, and pass away like clouds." Our admiration at such words is quickly stifled when we recall the confident, unsparing, immoderate criticism which both preceded and followed this truly rational exposition of the danger of advising, in cases where we know neither the men nor the opportunities. Why was savage and unfaltering denunciation any less unbecoming than, as he admits, crude prescriptions would ...
— Burke • John Morley
... origin of these rocks cannot be rationally understood unless we assume that they were so deposited. These hypotheses are universally received as safe and indispensable "geological theories," because they alone give a rational ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... express so much disgust, as at conversations where, for a great length of time, the pleasures of the table, or the comparative excellence of dishes, had been the sole topic of conversation; yet he was very far from being an enemy to rational mirth, and he always exerted himself to entertain and promote the pleasures of his friends. In all his proceedings he was most open and unreserved: from selfishness none could be more free. Dr. Kennicot often said that, of the many he had employed in his great biblical undertaking, none ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... good! Skating improves the figure, and makes a girl balance and carry herself upright and well; it is a most becoming exercise for her, and is much in every way to be commended. Moreover, skating gives a girl courage and self-reliance. Dancing, followed as a rational amusement, causes a free circulation of the blood, and provided it does not induce her to sit up late at ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... moral and intellectual powers, graces, and accomplishments; a man whose masterly and heroic energy left nothing undone in defending a just cause while there was a possibility of striking for it a rational and hopeful blow, and whose sublime resignation when the last blow was struck in vain, and when human virtue was challenged to match itself with the consummation of human adversity, taught wiser, more ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... for certain heinous sins of omission and commission—neglecting to call, and persisting in drinking Burton Ale—astonishes everybody into convulsions of laughter by volunteering the most extraordinary comic songs that ever were heard. And thus the evening passes, in a strain of rational good-will and cheerfulness, doing more to awaken the sympathies of every member of the party in behalf of his neighbour, and to perpetuate their good feeling during the ensuing year, than half ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... "created" means, "brought into existence;"—that the term "all things," as here used, indicates, "all the worlds in Nature, with their inhabitants;"—that the phrase to "shew," means to "exhibit to his rational creatures;"—and that his "greatness," at the close implies, his ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... I prove it? Could the seemingly impossible be made possible and the unexplainable receive a solution satisfying to a rational mind? I determined to make an effort to accomplish this, if only to relieve the mind of my wife, who had not recovered her equanimity as readily ...
— The Gray Madam - 1899 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... aware of this, rank themselves naturally on the side of that splendid system that elevates them to the dignity of machines, and rage so wildly against the intrusion of the intellectual faculty into any question that concerns life, that one is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. But let us turn from the practical sphere, and say no more about the wicked philanthropists, who, indeed, may well be left to the mercy of the almond-eyed sage of the Yellow River ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... also endeavored to set forth in this humble volume the common relation of all rational creatures of all worlds to one Infinite Creator. We do not question the truth of this fact, and those who ask for proof ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... outline of the salient points of what I consider to be a rational, though, it may be, incomplete, theory of the geyser action I saw in the Yellowstone Park, I shall now add a concluding word on the probable mode of action of the so-called 'earth-sod emetic' that my daughter describes ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... alleviate or to pity the distress of the people. Unless he had been able to revive the martial spirit of the Romans, or to introduce the arts of industry and refinement among their savage enemies, he could not entertain any rational hopes of securing the public tranquillity, either by the peace or conquest of Germany. Yet the victories of Julian suspended, for a short time, the inroads of the Barbarians, and delayed the ruin of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... lie idle in the bank, get your father to invest it in your name on good security. It is a little present to you from your more than betrothed. He will, I think, Elfride, feel now that my pretensions to your hand are anything but the dream of a silly boy not worth rational consideration.' ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... be observed that while some forbid beverage, others rather insist upon its employment in greater or less quantities. Under such circumstances, it would seem but rational, before undertaking to relieve obesity, to establish its exact nature, and also the role taken by fluids in the phenomena ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... Senator means to out-radical the Radicals, "Come on, Macduff," nobody will object provided you can show us you are sincere. That is the point. If it is mischief you are at, you will have a hard time to get ahead. While we are radical we mean to be rational. While we intend to give every male citizen of the United States the rights common to all, we do not intend to be forced by our enemies into a position so ridiculous and absurd as to be broken down utterly on that question, and whoever comes here in the guise ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... were going to their own rooms, a messenger came from the Professor that Clifford was awake, and appeared to be rational, and was now partaking of food. After breakfast they hurried over to the Professor, and ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... understanding and articulation in answers given. No word invented by himself; calls his nurse wola, probably from the often-heard "ja wohl." Correct use of single words picked up increases surprisingly (153). Misunderstandings rational; words better understood; reasoning developed (154). Inductive reasoning. Progress in forming sentences. Sentence of five words. Pronouns signify objects or qualities ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... unlucky.[1007] Similar lists of lucky and unlucky days are found among existing tribes,[1008] and the popular luck codes in Christian communities are numerous and elaborate.[1009] These have done, and still do, great harm by substituting irrational for rational rules of conduct. ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... of cheer. Now and then, in the night, when the lamp burned low and gusts of wind shook the old house, fearful thoughts came to him—the canal, with its filthy depths. Daylight brought reason, however. Harmony had been too rational, too sane for such ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... myth, the post-Christian mere annals, the mediaeval a scuffling of kites and crows, and the modern alone deserving of some slight consideration. That writer will be in Ireland most praised who sets latest the commencement of our history. Without study he will be pronounced sober and rational before the critic opens the book. So anxious is the Irish mind to see that effaced which it is conscious of ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady
... It is the only rational way to account for the injustice, the sorrows, and the miseries of earth. It gives long opportunities for the modification of character; it acts as retribution to the evil and the vicious and the selfish; it gives a far deeper sense ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... know, that possessions are no more to be controuled than feelings are? Did it not perceive, that in the present crisis, every rational man would be afraid of exposing his fortune? Did it not see, that in the beginning of a Republic it permitted to itself the exercise of such acts of despotism as are unknown even in the countries which are moulded to, and ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... deals with the factors affecting the mechanical properties of wood. This is a subject of interest to all who are concerned in the rational use of wood, and to the forester it also, by retrospection, suggests ways and means of regulating his forest product through control of the conditions of production. Attempt has been made, in the light of all ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record
... principles of definition, the law of contradiction, the fallacy of arguing in a circle, the distinction between the essence and accidents of a thing or notion, between means and ends, between causes and conditions; also the division of the mind into the rational, concupiscent, and irascible elements, or of pleasures and desires into necessary and unnecessary—these and other great forms of thought are all of them to be found in the Republic, and were probably first invented ...
— The Republic • Plato
... sink the shop, and get back to the rational and instructive conversation that we—or, to be more accurate, that I was engaged in when this digression began. I presume you are aware that all ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... worldly position of these victims may, however, have saved others of lesser note, and the dignity of the sacrifice may have been regarded in the fortunate light of a compensation for its limited extent. The object of the people and of their present agents, the knights, so far as a rational object can be discerned in such a carnival of rage and vengeance, was to teach a severe lesson to the governing class. Their full purpose had been attained when the lesson had been taught. It was not their ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... religion; they only left untouched the most rigid article of faith. Their intellectual successors, being taught by them how to make use of science and reason, employed them against whatever beliefs remained. Thus rational theology engendered natural philosophy. ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... the floor, in furious pursuit of nothing in particular, upsets me. But an invisible dog under a dining-room table is a dreadful experience. It is true that I managed to give Mrs. Harrington a fairly rational account of the woman's suffrage parade. But was she aware, as I sat there smiling spasmodically, what agonies of fear were mine as I waited for those white fangs under the table to sink into my flesh? If, ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... Exmoor coronet upon it. Why don't you open it? I hope it's an invitation for you to go down and stop at Dunbude for a week or two. Nothing on earth would do you so much good as to get away for a while from your ranters and canters, and mix occasionally in a little decent and rational society.' ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... to lay this parliamentary resolution before the Congress and to express my sincere gratification that the sentiment of two great and kindred nations is thus authoritatively manifested in favor of the rational and peaceable settlement of international quarrels ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... had long been solved by common sense ('solvitur ambulando'); the fact of the co-existence of opposites was a sufficient answer to them. He will leave them to Cynics and Eristics; the youth of Athens may discourse of them to their parents. To no rational man could the circumstance that the body is one, but has many members, be ...
— Philebus • Plato
... between two opposing elements. "What then," say they, "does not the deliberative element in a man often hold different views, and is it not swayed to different opinions as to expediency, and yet it is one and the same thing?" Certainly, I reply; but the case is not similar. For the rational part of the soul does not fight against itself, but though it has only one faculty, it makes use of different reasonings; or rather the reasoning is one, but employs itself in different subjects as on different ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... is obvious that Henley, in improving literature and philosophy, had a deeper design—to set up a new sect! He called himself "a Rationalist," and on his death-bed repeatedly cried out, "Let my notorious enemies know I die a Rational."[50] ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... arts, however, and in religion and philosophy, we are still in full career towards disintegration. It might have been thought that a germ of rational order would by this time have penetrated into fine art and speculation from the prosperous constructive arts that touch the one, and the prosperous natural and mathematical sciences that touch the ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... nations politically according to their failure or success in attaining this supreme end. When thus considered in the light of the comparative method, our American history acquires added dignity and interest, and a broad and rational basis is secured for the detailed treatment ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... seemed to express notions, more consonant than those of Calvin, to the sentiments entertained by rational Christians, of the goodness and justice of the Deity, it is not surprising that they found many advocates among the learned and moderate; but some ardent spirits were offended by them, and instilled their dislike of them into the populace. This, Arminius was soon made to feel. In 1603, ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... been in the habit of using? Let us look at some of the more striking parts of this system. The first that stares us in the face, is the unnatural and destructive practice of forced labour. Here we see men working without any rational stimulus to elicit their exertions, and therefore they must be followed by drivers with whips in their hands. Well might it be said by Mr. Botham to the Committees of Privy-council and House of Commons, "Let it be considered, how much labour is lost by the persons ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson
... filthy, adhesive, earthy glue, by the feet and hooves of the semi-naked children, pigs, fowl, and cattle." Now, can there be a more perfect picture of desolation and misery than this man's case presents? Could any rational person raise a doubt as to the truth of the sufferer's representations?—his potatoes were rotten, "and he proved it by taking them indiscriminately from a heap." Nothing could be more conclusive—"here there could be no deception"—and the graphic ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... succeeded Franz Reinhard (1753-1812) in 1813 as court preacher and member of the consistorial court at Dresden, retired from these offices in 1849, and died on the 21st of May 1850. Seeking to establish for himself a middle position between rationalism and supernaturalism, he declared for a "rational supernaturalism," and contended that there must be a gradual development of Christian doctrine corresponding to the advance of knowledge and science. But at the same time he sought, like other representatives ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... includin' the turkey red headpiece with the bells on it. He's standing on a heap of shells and waving this rusty boat-hook around. Course, I expects when he sees Mr. Robert and realizes how he's been rescued he'll come out of his spell and begin to act rational once more. But it don't work out that way. When Mr. Robert calls out to him and he sees who it is, he keeps right on ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... he recognized it pridefully. Behind her temporary, rational vagaries there was a quality of steadfastness. It was clear to him now from its contrast to his own devious mind. But he found a sharp pleasure in the mental image of the Beggs woman. He recalled the ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... accused by Europeans of being cold and reserved towards strangers; for my part, I found them sociable and communicative in the extreme. A few hours after I had embarked on board the steamboat I found myself quite at home. I was much pleased to observe the rational manner in which the passengers amused themselves. Little groups were formed, where religion, politics and business matters were discussed with excellent sense and judgment. These seemed to be the common topics of discourse ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... and from the similarity of several kinds of wild beasts which are found in America, with those of Hyrcania and Tartary, he arrives at what he deems, a [16] rational conclusion, that more than one nation in America had Scythian ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... instead of the eyes, and ears, and understandings of others, imbecility, credulity and folly would be as rare as they are now common in community. But, unhappily, to borrow the words of Ganganelli, a large majority of mankind are 'mere abortions:' calling themselves rational and intelligent beings, they act as if they had neither brains nor conscience, and as if there were no God, no accountability, no heaven, ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... hundred millions of dollars, was their heaviest item of wealth, but they seemed unable to turn this wealth to the greatest advantage. With the climate and soil in their favor, they paid little attention to the cheaper luxuries of rational living, but surrounded themselves with much that was expensive, though utterly useless. On plantations where the owners resided, a visiter would find the women adorned with diamonds and laces that cost ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... In the evening he behaved as if nothing had passed between us. He would have thought it ridiculous if such a reproof had unsettled a clerk at the bank, and why should it unsettle me? The clerk expects to be taught his lesson daily. So does every rational being. ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... is a result of an interruption of the solar current is rational to suppose. It is indisputable that the interruptions which produce these manifestations have an important bearing upon terrestrial phenomena. Winds, storms, vegetation, healthfulness, are manifestly influenced, and in a ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... at the dissolution of the Roman world, Socialism constitutes the only force which restores the hope of a better future to the old and disintegrating human society—a hope no longer begotten by a faith inspired by the unreasoning transports of sentiment, but born of rational confidence in the inductions of ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... Dam to address her, and found his reply. With feverish cheeks, and eyes in which glowed excitement rather than happiness, she read it as soon as she was alone on the road, and returned as quickly as possible. Her mind was in a wild tumult, but she would not allow herself one rational thought. She spent most of the day in her room preparing for her flight. But when she came down to see Hannibal about their meagre lunch, he said in ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... gentleman will think that a State can be called at the bar of the Federal court. Is there no such case at present? Are there not many cases, in which the Legislature of Virginia is a party, and yet the State is not sued? Is it rational to suppose that the sovereign power shall be ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... I would rather live under the feet of the Czar than in those states of perfectibility imagined by Fourier and Cabet, if I might choose my 'pis aller.' All these speculators (even Louis Blanc, who is one of the most rational) would revolutionalise, not merely countries, but the elemental conditions of humanity, it seems to me; none of them seeing that antagonism is necessary to all progress. A man, in walking, must set one foot before another, and in climbing (as Dante observed long ago) the foot behind ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... where, fortunately for the natives of it, they never bear at all. The queens of Eyeo are, to all intents and purposes, slaves, and so are also other queens; but then they are slaves to foolish and ridiculous customs, to stiff starched etiquette, and to ceremonies degrading to a rational being. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... decent way in which a civilized man and a civilized woman may approach one another. Passionate desire is not enough. What is called love is not enough. Pledges, rational considerations, all these things are worthless. All these things are compatible with hate. The primary essential is friendship, clear understanding, absolute confidence. Then within that condition, in that elect relationship, love is permissible, ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... depriving him of all the means of mental development and culture,—the unnatural detention of a human soul in a state of irrational animality." "An attempt," he says, "by artificial contrivances, to seclude a man from Nature and from all intercourse with rational beings, to change the course of his human destiny, and to withdraw from him all the nourishment afforded by those spiritual substances which Nature has appointed for food to the human mind, that it may grow and flourish, and be instructed and developed and formed,—such an ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... homeward-bound car, Queed fully recaptured his poise, and redirected his thoughts into rational channels. ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... same stall, and dropped, with a smile and a nod, upon the opposite seat. "I wouldn't intrude, Sir," he said, "but every other place is filled. It's wonderful how Boston gives itself up to oysters on Saturday nights,—all other sorts of rational enjoyment ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... again faced the speaker. There was sincerity in his tone—a determined appeal. But what on earth could he be talking about? He looked perfectly rational, although his ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... those who are seeking light on the question of rational living and to all who are suffering from the effects of wrong living. Thought along this line expresses growth and progress, and with it comes knowledge. Common sense and judgment, following a natural instinct, will go a long way toward attaining better health. But those who, through ...
— Food for the Traveler - What to Eat and Why • Dora Cathrine Cristine Liebel Roper
... Mr Maurice and Mr Sterling were his father's guests, and hence it may be inferred that there was an altar in the house, and that the sacred flame burnt thereon. Mr Palmer almost worshipped Mr Maurice, and his admiration was not blind, for Maurice connected the Bible with what was rational in his friend. 'What! still believable: no need then to pitch it overboard: here after all is the Eternal Word!' It can be imagined how those who dared not close their eyes to the light, and yet clung to that book which had been so much to their ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... hostile. They reproach me, not with my manner of explaining the facts, but with having explained them at all. And the more my explanations are clear, natural, rational and derived from the most authoritative sources, the more these explanations displease them. They would wish the history of Joan of Arc to remain mysterious and entirely supernatural. I have restored the Maid to life and to humanity. ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... received with a universal shudder, and disavowed as an atrocious slander. But Mr. Mill can meet such ethical problems only by reverting to that general principle of Kant, which he elsewhere repudiates: "So act that the rule on which thou actest would admit of being adopted as a law for all rational beings." Mr. Mill says of such instances, "The action is of a class which, if practised generally, would be generally injurious, and this is the ground of the obligation to abstain from it." But under the rule of utilitarianism, it is the injuriousness ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... them the exact distinction between the several kinds of white blood corpuscles, a rational definition of leukaemia, polynuclear leucocytosis, and the knowledge of the appearances of degeneration and regeneration of the red blood corpuscles, and of their degeneration in haemoglobinaemic conditions. The same process, then, has gone on in the microscopy of the blood that we see in other ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... feeling, and a cause of a great part of the ills from which mankind is suffering; and that, consequently, this feeling should not be cultivated, as is now being done, but should, on the contrary, be suppressed and eradicated by all means available to rational men." ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... chapter, where Polycarp is represented as sending several of the Ignatian Epistles to the Philippians along with his own letter. This theory is at all events intelligible; and, so far as I can see, it is the only rational theory of which the ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... dear lady has had some worried moments lately. Elise has got over her dumps and is behaving like a rational human being, and I am the only one who has not reformed. I am going to get my lunch and go right back to Paris and tell them what a brute I am and how good I am going to be. Kent would hate me for worrying his mother, and he despises meanness ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... better to yield to a long, rational calculation? I marry you because I love you, and also because I am certain that without you I cannot be happy. Frankly, I acknowledge that I need you, your tenderness, your love, your strength of character, your equal ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... consciences? When instead of not swearing at all, many of you seldom open your lips, but the first and last words which you utter, are blasphemous oaths, and horrid imprecations? Is this acting like rational or accountable creatures? Who gave you the powers of reason and speech? Was it not God? And can you think that he gave them to you, that you may blaspheme his holy name, and to use the most profane, obscene, and desperately ...
— An Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies, Established in New South Wales and Norfolk Island. • Richard Johnson
... any advantage of new discoveries, because these discoveries are beside a way of thinking they have been long used to. Resolved, therefore, that, if ever I live to years, I will be impartial to hear the reasons of all pretended discoveries, and receive them, if rational, how long soever I have been used to another way of thinking. I am too dogmatical; I have too much of egotism; my disposition is always to be telling of my dislike and my scorn.' What a fine, fresh, ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... rational explanation of this," Merriwell declared, as they again approached the window. "There must be! It is the wildest ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... dry. Fearful of expulsion from the school, the terrified pupils chose Vandyck to restore the work, and he completed it the same day with such success that Rubens did not at first perceive the change, and afterwards concluded not to alter it. Walpole entertains a different and more rational view respecting Rubens' supposed jealousy: he thinks that Vandyck felt the hopelessness of surpassing his master in historical painting, and therefore resolved to devote himself to portrait. One authority states that the above mentioned incident only increased ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... Romanes I said, "I will not characterise this accusation in the terms which it merits." {248b} Mr. Romanes, in the following number of Nature, withdrew his accusation and immediately added, "I was induced to advance it because it seemed the only rational motive that could have led to the publication of such a book." Again I will not characterise such a withdrawal in the terms it merits, but I may say in passing that if Mr. Romanes thinks the motive he assigned to me "a rational one," his view of what is rational ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... precisely, "that you will not continue to call your daughter by such an absurd abbreviation. That sort of thing was all very well in the wilds of Ireland, but here we must have something rational, ladylike, and recognised." ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... his companion Augustus had been enjoying the rational amusement at Ranelagh, and were just leaving that celebrated place when they were arrested by a crowd at the entrance. That crowd was assembled round a pickpocket; and that pickpocket—O virtue, O wisdom, O Asinaeum!—was Peter MacGrawler! We have ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... at last to Miss Prior. We parted with all friendliness and respect; from the fact, possibly, that we parted ignorant of each other. It was the most rational relation that I had ever held with any one. We parted without emotion or regret, and I started on my ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... sure that she is perfectly safe," Vera said. "Of course, she was terribly excited and upset at first, but she was quite calm and rational all the way down, as Gerald will tell you. All Beth wants now is quiet and change, and to feel that her troubles are over. Let's go and have tea in that grand old hall. If the others don't care to come in to tea we will try ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... somewhat diversified of late. The six weeks that finished last year and began this, your very humble servant spent very agreeably in a madhouse at Hoxton. I am got somewhat rational now and don't bite any one. But ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... dependent, he could boast to her of his disinterestedness, and hope that she would be economical through a principle of gratitude; and being the nearest relation to the opulent General St. Leger and his unmarried sister there seemed to be every rational probability of her inheriting the bulk of their fortunes. Upon these hints of ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... philanthropy and practical benevolence which ought to adorn every parish priest. To qualify himself properly for the holy office, he subjected his mind to the severest discipline; and his letters display a rational piety, and an enlightened view of religious obligations, that confer much greater honour upon his name, than his Poetical pieces, whether as proofs of talent, or of ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... of that which makes sacrifice rational. It is because he conceives this presupposition to be mistaken, that Lucretius declares the practices and fears which are founded upon it to be folly. It is the same with all that is practically based upon the expectation of ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... graduates of the universities, were qualified to diffuse that sound scholarship which was once the boast of England. There is no record of Shakespeare's having been at this school, but there can be no rational doubt that he was educated there. His father could not have procured for him a better education anywhere. To those who have studied Shakespeare's works without being influenced by the old traditional theory that he had ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... one of the early champions of American independence, taken prisoner in a raid into Canada; wrote a defence of deism and rational ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... her figure, white and conspicuous in its night-dress, kneeling upright in bed, and praying like some Catholic or Methodist enthusiast—some precocious fanatic or untimely saint—I scarcely know what thoughts I had; but they ran risk of being hardly more rational and healthy than that ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... different velocities in different parts[1] of its orbit, as laid down by the law of Kepler, or whether it turns once on its axis in a month, or not, as either theory will answer for its phases, as well as for the face of the "Man in the Moon," but I will endeavor to give a more rational theory for the ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... is either rational or irrational, cannot be resolved into, Either every animal is rational, or every animal is irrational. The former belong to pure categoricals, to latter to hypotheticals [Query disjunctives]. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... commission, whether before or after the Act, of crimes of intimidation, or incitement thereto." The conflict over the latter bill, which was first introduced, made the House of Commons more like a bear-garden than a place of rational deliberation and debate. Even Mr. Bright and Mr. Gladstone became exasperated, and charged back upon their assailants with an energy and violence quite unwonted. Mr. Gladstone's speech in particular aroused the ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... the conditions whereunder the Mediums maintain that the manifestations of Independent Slate Writing are alone possible, involves the extreme difficulty, we might almost say the impossibility, of any genuine or rational investigation. Even the very spirit of investigation, or of incredulity, seems to exercise a chilling effect and prevents a successful manifestation. Indeed Mr. Hazard once told us that the true spirit in which to approach the study of Spiritualism is 'an ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... disabled by cold, cannot act, and its duties are largely performed by the kidneys. Though reflex action is easily traced in the lower organic processes, some writers have placed it on a level with rational deliberation. Undoubtedly, all animals having perception have also what perception implies—consciousness—and this indicates the possession, in some degree, of reason. Compound reflex action extends into the domain of thought. Simple reflex action, or ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... intelligence and skill as compared with property ought to be met, and may be met with justice and with safety, in the manner we have pointed out; that the income tax in its operation ought to be mitigated by every rational means, compatible with its integrity; and, above all, that it should be associated in the last term of its existence, as it was in the first, with those remissions of indirect taxation which have so greatly redoubled to the profit of this ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... exportation asked, no rational objection can of course be made, though its efficiency in the present state of things may be doubted. With regard to the duties, if any be imposed, there must always be a queston of degree. The principal objection ...
— Observations on the Effects of the Corn Laws, and of a Rise or Fall in the Price of Corn on the Agriculture and General Wealth of the Country • Thomas Malthus
... and in earth, "upholding all things by the word of his power," the universe is His magazine of means. Nothing which acts or exists, is exempted from promoting in its own place the purposes of His kingdom. Beings rational and irrational, animate and inanimate; the heavens above, and the earth below; the obedience of sanctified, and the disobedience of unsanctified men; all holy spirits; all damned spirits; in one word, every agency, every element, every atom, are but the ministers ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... forbids, yet we have a will and power to choose either, as it is written, 'Behold I have set before you good and evil, for you have tasted of the tree of knowledge'" (Tom., p. 320). Origen (A.D. 230) says, "We have frequently shown, in all our disputations, that the nature of rational souls is such as to be capable of good and evil" (Tom., p. 323). Ambrose (A.D. 374) says, "The Lord Jesus came to save all sinners" (Tom., p. 377). Chrysostom (A.D. 398) says, "Hear also how fate speaks, and how it lays down contrary laws, and learn how the former are declared ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... which says three are all! An earthly Trinity! which wears the shape Of Heaven's, as man is mimicked by the ape. A pious Unity! in purpose one— To melt three fools to a Napoleon[ek]. Why, Egypt's Gods were rational to these; 400 Their dogs and oxen knew their own degrees, And, quiet in their kennel or their shed, Cared little, so that they were duly fed; But these, more hungry, must have something more— The power to bark and bite, to toss and gore. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... These "Rational Monogenists," or, at any rate, the more modern among them, hold, firstly, that the present condition of the earth has existed for untold ages; secondly, that, at a remote period, beyond the ken of Archbishop Usher, ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... "woman is without rational excuse who revenges herself for her husband's suspicion by her own shame. It is as though a man should thrust his sword through his own body, because unable to slay his foe, or should bite his own fingers because he cannot scratch him. She ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... by this time, was convinced I must be a rational creature. He spoke often to me, but the sound of his voice pierced my ears like that of a watermill, yet his ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... of our present data, examined by a rational method, leads to the conclusion, so far as we can know from these data, that the verbal sense proceeded in lines from left to right, in columns from top to bottom; just as the present page is written, ...
— Studies in Central American Picture-Writing • Edward S. Holden
... very wealthy city, probably the largest and wealthiest in the world. The whole of the peninsula will be covered, and as much more space beyond it, and around the bay shores to and beyond Carquinez strait. Viewed in the light of history and progressional phenomena, this is the only rational conclusion. ...
— Some Cities and San Francisco and Resurgam • Hubert Howe Bancroft
... world he could not tell, nor where the bodies they had lost might be, whether they still raved about the earth, or whether they were closed forever in death against return. That they were the spirits of the dead neither he nor I believe. But Doctor Wilson Paget thinks they are the rational souls of men who are lost in madness ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... man and God. Why, then, he had a right to be here! He had a connection with these regions; they had a hold upon him. He was not here like an Indian Brahmin, who visits Europe from a principle of curiosity, however rational or however refined. The land which the Hindoo visits is not his land, nor his father's land; the laws which regulate it are not his laws, and the faith which fills its temples is not the revelation that floats ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... motions below, and we believe it also of the circular revolutions of the heavens above, that there is a day coming in which they shall cease, as having performed all they were appointed for. And as it is in things natural, so it is in things rational in a more eminent way. Their desires, affections, and actions, which are the motions and stretches of the soul towards that it desires and apprehends as good, tend of their own nature, and are directed by the very intention of the soul to some rest ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... could listen to you with delight all day long!" cried Ardan, enthusiastically, though with some embarrassment, for he felt a twinge of conscience in acting so falsely towards his beloved friend. "The fact is," he went on, "such a rational conversation as the present, on such an absorbing subject, with such ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... equalization of human joys and opportunities are early attracted. It is this type of mind which is in itself so often obnoxious to the man of conquering business faculty, to whom the practical world of affairs seems so supremely rational that he would never vote to change the type of it even if he could. The man of social enthusiasm is to him an annoyance and an affront. He does not like to hear him talk and considers him per se "unsafe." Such a business man would admit, as an ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... better served by his instinct, had known the rattle from the first; and that was Chuchu, the dog. No rational creature has ever led an existence more poisoned by terror than that dog's at Silverado. Every whiz of the rattle made him bound. His eyes rolled; he trembled; he would be often wet with sweat. One of our great mysteries was his terror of the mountain. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the social scale, and coming down to the level where we are accustomed to regard people merely as men and women, we greatly question if any other portion of the world can furnish a parallel to the manly, considerate, rational, and wisely discriminating care, that the New England husband, as the rule, bestows on his wife; the father on his daughter; or the brother on his sister. Gershom was a living, and, all things considered, a ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... the shepherds seemed to get the him, so he still retired, and dug another and when certain other shepherds of Abimelech began to offer him violence, he left that also, still retired, thus purchasing security to himself a rational and prudent conduct. At length the gave him leave to dig a well without disturbance. He named this well Rehoboth, which denotes a large space; but of the former wells, one was called Escon, which denotes strife, the other ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... be had, however, that this cultivating of the feelings be conducted along rational lines, lest it run not to faith but to fanaticism. There is a wide difference between emotion designed for display or for momentary effect, and that which arises from strong inner conviction and sympathetic interest in others. Spurious, unnatural feeling will invariably fail to ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... We may conclusively infer, that if they do not reveal the character of those motions, then nowhere in Scripture is their character revealed. In the second place, it is obvious that the cited texts do not reveal the nature of the motions. It would be as rational to hold that our best almanacs reveal the Ptolemaic astronomy. In the scientific portion of our almanacs there occur many phrases which are perfectly well understood, and indicate very definitely what the writer ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... to show with pride.... There in the peaceful little House in the Wood national disputes are settled, not by sacrificing the lives of thousands of innocent, helpless young men, not by creating thousands of widows and orphans, but by threshing out all matters relating to the dispute in a rational, calm, judicial and honorable way.... It seemed to me that this 20th century battleground, this quiet, peaceful House in the Wood, augured well for a new era, one in which our swords will indeed be turned into ploughshares and our spears into pruning ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... intercourse was only after a cousinly sort, he believed she loved him. The thought did come into his mind sometimes whether his cousin was all to him that a woman might be, but never painfully. He did not doubt that, as years went on, they would be very happy together after a quiet, rational fashion, and he smiled, now and then, at the fading remembrance of many a boyish dream as to how his wife was to ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... of "hero-worship" is not well to be conceived of. Instead of taking the rational view of it, however, and mercifully shutting up the actors in a mad-house, the authorities of that day, conceiving it to be a stupendous blasphemy, and themselves God's avengers in the matter, sent Nayler under strong guard up to London, to be examined before ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... tried, both those of the little circulating library, and of the more rational subscription collection maintained by this intellectual people. But neither the light reading of the one, nor the heavy artillery of the other, suited my purpose. I always fell asleep at the fourth or fifth page of history or disquisition; and it took me a month's hard reading ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... two places. The first is a group of signals for 'attacking the enemy at anchor by passing either outside them or between them and the land,' and for 'anchoring and engaging either within or outside the enemy.' Here we have a rational embodiment of the experience of the Nile. The second is a similar attempt to embody the teaching of Trafalgar, and the way it is done finally confirms the failure to understand what Nelson meant. So extraordinary is the signification of the signal and ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... it appears that in 1874, while the Liberals in the United Kingdom, in the aggregate, had a majority of 214,000 votes, the Conservatives had a majority of 60 in the members elected, whereas with a rational system of representation the Liberals should have had a ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... what they really are and no more: that is, patentees of highly questionable methods of thinking, and manufacturers of highly questionable, and for the majority but half valid representations of life. The schoolboy who uses his Homer to throw at his fellow's head makes perhaps the safest and most rational use of him; and I observe with reassurance that you occasionally do the same, in your ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... impulse of the reaction carries men from one extremity towards another. The pursuit of a remote and ideal object, which captivates the imagination by its splendour and the reason by its simplicity, evokes an energy which would not be inspired by a rational, possible end, limited by many antagonistic claims, and confined to what is reasonable, practicable, and just. One excess or exaggeration is the corrective of the other, and error promotes truth, where the masses are concerned, by counterbalancing a contrary error. ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... he believe? Gladly he would have fooled himself into believing it all, but the rational soul in him cast out credulity. Every phrase of the letter was calculated for its impression. And the very risk she had run, was not that too a matter of deliberate speculation? She might succeed in her design upon Narramore; ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing |
