"Bias" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... English, speaking in the House of Commons is eminently practical. "The bias of the nation," says Mr. Emerson, "is a passion for utility." Conceive of a company of gentlemen agreeing to devote, gratuitously, a certain portion of each year to the consideration of any questions which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... tastes, of these young writers being mostly on the side of established models, their authority, as long as it influenced him, would, to a certain degree, interfere with his striking confidently into any new or original path. That some remains of this bias, with a little leaning, perhaps, towards school recollections[6], may have had a share in prompting his preference of the Horatian Paraphrase, is by no means improbable;—at least, that it was enough to lead him, untried as he had yet been in the new path, to content himself, for the present, with ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the left, east of Jebel Surgham, Maxwell's left was to extend to and pass over the hill, whilst Lewis and Macdonald would sweep part of the valley between Surgham and South Kerreri. Such was the general direction to be taken, exposing a front measured on the bias, of fully one mile. Once more the 21st Lancers trotted out towards Jebel Surgham to make sure there were no large bodies of the enemy in hiding. Keeping somewhat closer to the river than previously, and avoiding the main field of battle, they passed to the east of the hill. ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... it would be a farce, did I not? How could it be otherwise, when a man like Hubbard was the presiding magistrate? His sympathies were entirely with those who had violated the law; and though he made an effort to conceal his bias, the attempt was ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... of dealing in the fairest possible manner with my readers, I have looked into the various records of those events which might have escaped my memory. But I have not suffered them to bias opinions conceived long since, and conceived in the spirit of sincerity. Such is my design. It is given to the public with a perfect freedom from all party influence; with a total avoidance of all personality; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... kindest hospitality by some of those who have been rendered thus exclusive by the bad taste and worse conduct of foreigners. I feel, as I write, that any remarks I make on New York society cannot be perfectly free from bias, owing to the overwhelming kindness and glowing hospitality which I met with in that city. I found so much to enjoy in society, and so much to interest and please everywhere, that when I left New York it was with the wish that the few weeks which ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... showed a certain quality of appreciation of his own side of the question which especially pleased him, because it proved that she possessed that most desirable power, rare among those of her sex as he knew them—the ability to hold herself free from undue bias. ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... inexcusable. He abruptly directed his thoughts to Peyton and Claire Morris; how exact Claire had been in the expression of her personality! What, he grasped, was different in her from other women was precisely that; together with an astonishing lack of sentimental bias, it operated with the cutting realism of a surgeon's blade. She ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... thing people mistrusted about Sylvia was her father. He had no visible means of support; and if his manner was amiable, his ways were furtive. He had a bias in favor of Mexican associates, and much of his time was spent down under the river bank, where a few small wine-shops and gambling establishments still existed in those days. There were also rumors of drinking and gambling orgies in the house under the mesquite-tree, and people said that many ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... Horace, that the translation of "Poeta nascitur, non fit"[456-1] was "a nasty poet for nothing fit"—a remark which I took in high dudgeon. His repugnance to the "humanities" had, also, much increased of late, by an accidental bias in favor of what he supposed to be natural science. Somebody had accosted him in the street, mistaking him for a no less personage than Doctor Dubble L. Dee, the lecturer upon quack physics. This set him ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... state his "mental bias, pro or con," with regard to such matters as Creation, Providence, etc., he reiterates his words ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... did not do this, although he did reform not only the school of Rugby, but gave a bias to the education of the sons of what is still the most influential class in this country, which has lasted to the present day, and that in a direction and in a manner which surprised his opponents, and at one ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... constantly on the move, and from meeting innumerable types of men, becomes very shrewd in judging character. Resource, readiness, abundance of glib phrases must in time become his. He must not, for fear of offence, show any marked bias in politics or religion. His temper must be well under control; he must have the patience of an angel; he must smile with those that are merry, be lugubrious with those that are in the dumps, and listen, with apparent interest, to the stock stories of hoary-headed ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... ordinary person, but which were so controlled by his fortune as to contribute not a little to his success. He appears to have been by his temperament prone to almost every kind of sensual pleasure; but as his life was too busy to allow him often to indulge his bias, his occasional excesses wore the air of an amiable condescension. So his natural humor would perhaps have led him too often to forget his dignity in his intercourse with his inferiors; but to Philip, the great king, the conqueror, the restless politician, these intervals of relaxation occurred ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... might naturally seem to lead—the question, namely, of the results, immediate and remote, of the mission system in California. The widely divergent conclusions on this subject registered by the historians will, on investigation, be found, as in most such cases, to depend quite as much upon bias of mind and preconceived ideals, as upon the bare facts presented, concerning which, one would imagine, there can hardly be much difference of opinion. To decide upon the value of a given social experiment, we must, to begin with, wake up our minds as to what we should wish to see achieved; and where ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson
... characters a whole series of inanimate objects, such as Bread, Sugar, Milk, Light, Water, Fire and Trees, besides the Cat, the Dog and other animals, investing them all with individuality,—making for instance, with characteristic bias, the Dog the faithful friend of his boy and girl companions and the ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... not aware that I have been influenced by any more bias in regard to the Gadarene story than I have been in dealing with other cases of like kind the investigation of which has interested me. I was brought up in the strictest school of evangelical orthodoxy; and when I was old enough to think ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... knowledge of the language or a familiarity with national customs and ideas, remain always aliens with the Easterner. They cannot sympathize with him in his joys and sorrows, his likes and dislikes, his prejudice and bias, or understand anything of his point of view. This is one of the hardest lessons for the European traveler in China who has little of the language. Because we do not understand him, we call the Chinese ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... "un—gigot!—cuit a l'eau, jamais! Neverre!" And rather than spoil, as he conceived it, a good leg of mutton he quitted her service. [38] Like most boys, Burton was fond of pets, and often spent hours trying to revive some bird or small beast that had met with misfortune, a bias that affords a curious illustration of the permanence of character. The boy of nine once succeeded in resuscitating a favourite bullfinch which had nearly drowned itself in a great water jug—and we shall find the man of sixty-nine, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... on us can say of oursel," said Malcom, showing the doctrinal bias of his mind, "but I ken fra' yer bonnie ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... removed many dark doubts from my own mind. From that time, my desire to read the New Testament was greatly increased, that I might discover the best means of acting according to the doctrines of Jesus. I endeavored to divest myself of all selfish bias, and loved more and more to inquire into religious subjects. I saw, as I still see, many doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, that I could not believe, and which I found opposed to the truths of the Gospel, and I wished much to find some of her best teachers to explain them to ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... to ask Mr. FISHER to ban Coriolanus on the ground that many of the speeches of the chief character betray an anti-democratic bias, out of keeping with the ideals that should be set before the rising generation. Phrases like "The mutable rank-scented many," applied to the proletariat, could only foster the bourgeois prejudices of jaundiced reactionaries ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... brought out in the Bible and sustained by consciousness, is the penalty a man pays for personal and voluntary transgression. Nor will consciousness accept the doctrine that the sin of a mortal—especially under strong temptation and with all the bias of a sinful nature—is infinite. Nothing which a created mortal can do is infinite; it is only finite: the infinite belongs to God alone. Hence an infinite penalty for a finite sin conflicts with consciousness and is nowhere asserted in the Bible, which is transcendently ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... inspected all the portraits of his feminine ancestors that he might decide, as one without bias, whether Matocton had ever boasted a more delectable mistress. Equity—or in his fond eyes at least,—demanded a negative. Only in one of these canvases, a counterfeit of Miss Evelyn Ramsay, born a Ramsay of Blenheim, that had married the common great-great-grandfather of both the colonel and ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... methods. That some of these methods are superior to others, needs no argument to illustrate. But what method is best, is our province to inquire. Let us endeavor to examine the subject without prejudice to bias our judgment. ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... sincere, and generally promised less than the honest hearts that dictated them intended to perform. There is in some persons a hereditary feeling of just principle, the result neither of education nor of a clear moral sense, but rather a kind of instinctive honesty which descends, like a constitutional bias, from father to son, pervading every member of the family. It is difficult to define this, or to assign its due position in the scale of human virtues. It exists in the midst of the grossest ignorance, and influences the character in ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... verdure. Who need think of the torrents of rain which must precede it? The little episode with Jack outside the door afforded her secret entertainment, and although she did not look upon it as a bona-fide proposal, that did not bias her intention of relating the anecdote for Bertie's delectation. It might be just as well to let him see if he couldn't speak out, others could, and if he were jealous, why so much ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... the possible exception of Porcupine Jim, whose hide no mere sarcasm could penetrate. There was general envy of the temerity which enabled Jim to ask for more biscuits when the plate was empty. Even Smaltz shrank involuntarily when she came toward him with her mouth on the bias and a look in her deep-set eyes which said that she would as soon, or sooner, pour the steaming contents of the coffee-pot down the back of his neck than in his cup, while Woods averred that "Doc" Tanner who fasted forty days didn't have anything ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... the organic, as He has done in the inorganic world." Thus, then, there is not only no necessary antagonism between the general theory of "evolution" and a Divine action, but the compatibility between the two is recognized by naturalists who cannot be suspected of any strong theological bias. ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... as to be a thing perceptible; it is still more rare that a person capable of making the observation has had the opportunity of perceiving it; and it is fortunate for the present theory, that our author, without prejudice or the bias of system, had been led, in the accuracy of a general examination, to make an observation which, I believe, will hardly correspond with any ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... upon their families; wherefore the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so and the phrase PARENT or MOTHER COUNTRY hath been jesuitically adopted by the king and his parasites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from EVERY PART of Europe. Hither ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... you it's quite without either political or religious bias!" she said defiantly. She had failed to keep her secret, but she went down with ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... larceny on the part of the Republican party. It is not the part of an historian, who is absolutely destitute of political principles, to pass judgment. Facts have crept into this history, it is true, but no one could regret it more than the author; yet there has been no bias or political prejudice shown, other than that reflected from the historical sources whence information was ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... with her parents, and afterwards with her husband, and thus her natural bias was encouraged. It was not until her two sons were of age to be educated that she remained stationary—on their account. As the business concerns of her husband required his presence alternately in ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... been most forbearing all these years. We've overlooked your incomprehensible phobia—this—this confoundedly unfounded impossible bias against such an irreproachable philanthropist as Launcelot Raichi—because of the sterling quality of your ... ah ... ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... fairly certain, the authorship is quite uncertain, as is also its relationship to another source of importance, viz. that from which are derived the accounts of the Four Hundred and the Thirty. The view taken of the character and course of these revolutions betrays a strong bias in favour of Theramenes, whose ideal is alleged to have been the [Greek: patrios politeia]. It has been maintained, on the one hand, that this last source (the authority followed in the accounts of the Four Hundred and the Thirty) is ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... sorry that you have let the form of any person come in to give right thought and honorable purpose a distorting bias. I did hope that you would see Miss Loring under the influence of a better state. And I pray you still to be calm, rational, generous, manly. Go to her in a noble, unselfish spirit. If you love her truly you desire her happiness; and to make her happy, would ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... Lutheran professors and preachers were attacking some of its leading doctrines. First, they denied the doctrine of the Fall, whittled away the total depravity of man, and asserted that God had created men, not with a natural bias to sin, but perfectly free to choose between good and evil. Secondly, they rejected the doctrine of reconciliation through the meritorious sufferings of Christ. Thirdly, they suggested that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity was an ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... having any strong musical bias, did not greatly appreciate the career that Lance had chalked out for himself; and while thrilled by the boy's devotional feeling, thought it tinged by enthusiasm, and had seen enough of Cathedral singing-men to have no wish to see him ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... merely an attempt to clutch at human immortality in an emotional and unscientific spirit. To this, however, I in no way plead guilty. My ideas about life may be quite wrong, but they are as cold-blooded and free from bias as possible; moreover, they apply not to human life alone, but to all life—to that of all animals, and even of plants; and they are held by me as a working hypothesis, the only one which enables me to fit the known facts of ordinary vitality into a thinkable scheme. ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... doctrines contained were emphasized by teacher and preacher so that the children were saturated with the religious ideas set forth. No book except the Bible did so much to form the character, and none so much to fix the religious bias of the children. Almost equal importance was given to the Catechism in Catholic lands (R. 182, sec 21-22), though there supplemented by more religious influences derived from the ceremonial ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... you don't get mixed up and describe monkish fichus and gold leaf on the bias, or you'll be everlastingly disgraced in ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... estimate of consequences may sometimes make dissimulation my duty were truths that did not speedily occur. The discovery, when made, appeared to be a joint work. I saw nothing in Ludlow but proofs of candour, and a judgment incapable of bias. ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... a vote was passed on the 26th of March, a week after the committee had presented their report, desiring them to reserve all the printed copies not sent to Europe, as their distribution might tend to bias the juries; but even had this precaution been observed, it came too late, for the damage was done when the Narrative was read in Faneuil Hall; in fact, however, the order was eluded, for "many copies, notwithstanding, got abroad, and some of a second edition were sent from England, ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... abandoned by all whose opinion carries weight; and the more reasonable theory that the education given in the elementary school should be as far as possible adapted to the environment of the school—that it should be given a rural bias, for example, or a marine bias, or even an urban bias—has begun to take its place. That it should ever have found advocates is interesting as showing how easy it is for unenlightened public opinion ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... Dulwich, which has Modern, Science, and Engineering sides, the primacy still belongs to Classics, and the captaincy of the school is rigidly confined to boys on the Classical side. My son believed that this bias for Classics was bad educationally. He thought the prestige given to Greek and Latin as compared with English Literature, Science, Modern Languages and History was simply the outcome of a pedantic scholastic tradition, which made for narrowness not for broad culture. ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... institutions (religion, school of philosophy, political theory), and was led to distort facts in such a manner as to represent his friends in a favourable and his opponents in an unfavourable light. These are instances of a general bias which affects all the statements of an author, and they are so obvious that the ancients perceived them and gave them names (studium and odium); from ancient times it has been a literary commonplace for historians to protest ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... culminated in the historic one of March 26-27, began in the fall of 1937. Lady Astor had been having teas with Lady Ravensdale and had entertained von Ribbentrop, Nazi Ambassador to Great Britain, at her town house. Gradually the Astor-controlled London Times assumed a pro-Nazi bias on its very influential editorial page. When the Times wants to launch a campaign, its custom is to run a series of letters in its famous correspondence columns and then an editorial advocating the policy decided upon. During October, 1937, the Times sprouted letters ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... was an elemental force," wrote the old poet, "and astonished me by her amount of life, when I saw her day after day radiating every instant redundant joy and grace on all around her. Though the bias of her nature was not to thought but to sympathy, yet was she so perfect in her own nature as to meet intellectual persons by the fulness of her heart, warming them by her sentiments, believing, as she did, that by dealing nobly with all, all ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... widows perhaps, turned to go, saying merely:—"I'll wish you a good-morning, guv'nor. Good-morning!" Uncle Mo watched him as he lurched up the Court, noting the oddity of his walk. This man, you see, had been chained to another like himself, and his bias went to one side like a horse that has gone in harness. This gait is known in the class he belonged to as the "darby-roll," from the name by which fetters are ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... according to their party bias, discussed it pro and con, and rent each other in a furious war of words, the prelude to the sterner struggle that ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... Protestant Church towards Catholicism,(22) this grave and philosophical writer, whose works I can never look into without sighing that such a man was lost to the Catholic Church, as Dr. Butler before him, by some early bias or some fault of self-education—he, in a review of a work by Mr. Edgeworth on Professional Education, which attracted a good deal of attention in its day, goes leisurely over the same ground, which had already been ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... pudding, vegetables, and bread, for dinner. Cake on special fete-days as an extra. The boys do credit to their rations, and show by their bright faces and energy their good health and spirits. They are under strict military discipline, and both by training and heredity have a military bias. There is no compulsion exercised, but fully 90 per cent. of those who are eligible finally enter the army; and the school record shows a long list of commissioned and non-commissioned officers, and even two Major-Generals, ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton
... the court party to obtain a conviction of Shaftesbury owing to the political bias of the sheriffs for the time being, determined them to resort to more drastic measures to obtain the election of candidates with Tory proclivities. In order to understand the method pursued it will be necessary to review briefly ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... great as to throw off all the restraint of Earth's civilization? Apparently so. He had killed, and someone had informed on him, and a judge had sentenced him to Omega. He was a murderer on a criminal's planet. To live here successfully, he simply had to follow his natural bias toward murder. ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... been vouchsafed to him had influenced him profoundly. He had now a new estimate of values and results. The centre of his mental life was permanently shifted, and a new bias had been given to ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... doubt if any considerable number of Englishmen were effectively swayed by that humanitarian philosophy of France which in the actions of its maturity so awfully belied the promise of its youth. We are, I think, on surer ground when, admitting a national bias towards material benevolence, and not denying some stimulus from literature and philosophy, we assign the main credit of our social regeneration ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... passion warm and unreasoning. It was strong enough to induce the leaning toward him which, on Carrie's part, we have seen. She might have been said to be imagining herself in love, when she was not. Women frequently do this. It flows from the fact that in each exists a bias toward affection, a craving for the pleasure of being loved. The longing to be shielded, bettered, sympathised with, is one of the attributes of the sex. This, coupled with sentiment and a natural tendency to emotion, often makes refusing ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... learning. His words are plain, direct, and convincing. "Nature is simple, plain, and true in all her works, and those who strictly adhere to her laws, and closely attend to her appearances in their infinite varieties are guarded against any prejudicial bias from truth; while those who have seen many things that they cannot well understand, and read many books which they do not fully comprehend, notwithstanding all their parade of knowledge, are apt to wander about it and about it; perplexing themselves and ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... testimony, whether historical or scientific, it is a consideration of the position and character of the writer which chiefly enables us to decide on the credibility of his statements, to account for the bias of his opinions, and to estimate his entire evidence at its just value. The remark also applies, in a qualified sense, to productions of ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various
... "I really cannot understand your objection to a man's evidence whose bias lies your way; and I must say, it speaks well for Mr. Eden that he has ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... a pink satin dress, plain in front but with a good deal of rake to it—to the train, I mean; it was said to be two or three yards long. One could see it creeping along the floor some little time after the woman was gone. Mrs. C. wore also a white bodice, cut bias, with Pompadour sleeves, flounced with ruches; low neck, with the inside handkerchief not visible, with white kid gloves. She had on a pearl necklace, which glinted lonely, high up the midst of that barren waste of neck and shoulders. Her hair was frizzled into a tangled chaparral, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... this machine conception of government. It is probably the most important instance we have of the deliberate application of a mechanical philosophy to human affairs. Leaving out all question of the Fathers' ideals, looking simply at the bias which directed their thinking, is there in all the world a more plain-spoken attempt to contrive an automatic governor—a machine which would preserve its balance without the need of taking human nature into account? What other explanation is there for the ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... friend!" he exclaimed with alacrity. "If you are really in earnest, I am as really delighted. So far from taking your distrust ill, I regard it as a providentially fortunate bias of your mind, since it will keep us together for a time. You will be the only loser. You ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... further novels from the pen of Chesterton we shall expect them to have a Roman bias, but we shall hope that they will not bear any signs that Rome has dictated the policy that has made many of her best priests mere puppets, afraid, not of the Church, but of the Pope, who often enough in history has been a ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... of skill between Thessalus, Alexander's favourite actor, and another of the name of Athenodorus, the king, though in his heart deeply interested for the success of Thessalus, would not say a word in his favour, lest it should bias the judges, who actually proclaimed Athenodorus victor: the hero then exclaimed that the judges deserved commendation for what they had done, but that he would have given half his kingdom rather than see Thessalus overcome. This was certainly ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... critic writes, he himself should be the first to submit to a grilling; in a word, to be put through his paces and tell us in advance of his likes and dislikes, his prejudices and passions. Naturally, it doesn't take long to discover the particular bias of a critic's mind. He writes himself down whenever ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... Allowing for bias this is no unfair account of Marvell's method, and it was just because this was Marvell's method that he succeeded so well in amusing the king and in pleasing the town, and that he may still be read by those who love reading with a fair ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... Campion with a sigh. "But I don't think your father has given quite the bias to his mind that I should have liked best. I have always hoped that he would spend his strength in the service of the Church; but——You have not heard him say much about his future career, have ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... apt to draw down severe punishment. In the law courts the Natives do not get the same justice as the whites. A Native convicted of an offence gets, in the first place, the punishment which a white man would get and something extra for the colour of his skin — often lashes. The bias of white juries in trying Natives charged with offences against whites is such as to have brought the jury system into disrepute, and become a chief argument among lawyers for its entire abolition. The Natives suffer various restrictions on their liberty; they may not use the side-walks, nor ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... which prevails in Huxley's "Science and Hebrew Tradition" and in Spencer's chapters on "The Unknowable" (so the Synthetic Philosophy denominates God), caused a revulsion of sentiment,—the anti-religious bias of evolution standing forth the clearer to my mind, the longer I ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... encumber my life with a perpetual companion. Has not some sage said, 'Nothing too much'? and another, 'I carry all my effects with me'? I have been taught these two aphorisms in Latin and in Greek; one is, I believe, from Phaedrus, and the other from Bias. Well, my dear father, in the shipwreck of life—for life is an eternal shipwreck of our hopes—I cast into the sea my useless encumbrance, that is all, and I remain with my own will, disposed to live perfectly alone, and consequently ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of Saint-Saens in the history of French music lies in his attitude towards the art as a whole, especially of the German masters,—the absence of national bias in his perceptions. He was foremost in revealing to his countrymen the greatness of Bach, Beethoven and Schumann. Without their influence the present high state of French music can hardly ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... yearns the heart of France after her lost and mutilated provinces! On the whole, and speaking as a naive amateur, I should say that no country in the world could show a grander military spectacle. Enthusiasm reigned amongst all beholders, but there was no display of political bias or any discordant note. Cries of "Vive la France!" were as frequent as ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Ante-Nicene Christian Library. All the Christian writings antecedent to the Nicene Council have been put into the hands of competent translators. These will make it their first and principal aim to produce translations as faithful as possible, uncoloured by any bias, dogmatic or ecclesiastical. They will also endeavour, in brief notes, to place the English reader in the position of those acquainted with the original languages. They will indicate important variations in the text; they will give different translations of the same passage ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... has a right to drop into the chair that has stood near one all day long. Yet it is not until the system has become at least in a great measure used to such physical effort that one can judge without bias. When I had grown so accustomed to the work that I was equal to a long walk after ten hours in the factory; when I had become so saturated with the tenement smell that I no longer noticed it; when any bed seemed good enough for the healthy sleep of a working girl, and ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... ninety-nine percent of the newsmen involved in the affair thought they were honestly giving the news as they saw it, and none of them saw the invisible but very powerful hand of Stanley Martin shifting the news just enough to give it the bias he wanted. ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... was not to blame," began the generous girl, forgetting her embarrassment in zealous defence of the aunt she loved. "It was not she who presented me to Mr. Chilton, and she has never attempted to bias ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... evidence of what I have just said, I may instance the often-repeated injunction to accept things as little children; which cannot mean with the ignorance and helpless submission of infancy, but with minds free from bigotry, bias, or prejudice, like those of little children, and with an inclination, like them, to receive instruction. At what period of life do any of us learn so rapidly and eagerly as in childhood? We acquire new ideas every time we open our eyes; we are ever attracted by something ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... true aspect of the insurrection; to these must be added the narrative of M. de Bezenval, who was commandant at this time with M. de Chatelet. Almost all other narratives are amplified or falsified through party bias.] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the latter part of May a middle-aged man was walking homeward from Shaston to the village of Marlott, in the adjoining Vale of Blakemore, or Blackmoor. The pair of legs that carried him were rickety, and there was a bias in his gait which inclined him somewhat to the left of a straight line. He occasionally gave a smart nod, as if in confirmation of some opinion, though he was not thinking of anything in particular. An empty ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... you prize an alliance with me at Rome, considering that there you will have in me an excellent host, and a patron apt, zealous and potent to serve you as well in matters of public interest as in your private concerns. Who, then, dismissing all bias from his mind, and judging with impartial reason, would deem your counsel more commendable than that of Gisippus? Assuredly none. Sophronia, then, being married to Titus Quintius Fulvus, a citizen of ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... behavior of mine into contempt. He arose in a terrible passion, slouched his funnel down over his eyes, swore a vast oath, uttered a threat of some character, which I did not precisely comprehend, and finally made me a low bow and departed, wishing me, in the language of the archbishop in "Gil Bias," beaucoup de bonheur et un peu plus ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... ourselves, because nobody else in the world knew it but the billing pair of lovers; and even they have got the start of us only by a few hours. As for Henry Clements, he was a free man in all senses, with nobody to bias his will or control his affections—an orphan, unclogged by so much as an uncle or aunt to take him to task on the score of his attachment, or to plague him with impertinent advice. His father, Captain Clements of the seventieth, had fallen "gloriously" on the bloody field of Waterloo, and the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... so salutary a change should have been made by an usurper. Vane wished it to have been made by the Rump; Clarendon wished it to be made by the King. Clarendon's language on this subject is most remarkable. For he was no rash innovator. The bias of his mind was altogether on the side of antiquity and prescription. Yet he describes that great disfranchisement of boroughs as an improvement fit to be made in a more warrantable method and at a better time. This is that better time. What Cromwell attempted to effect by an usurped ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... says Dysart, fixing a cold gaze on him. It is so cold, so distinctly hostile, that Beauclerk grows uncomfortable beneath it. When uncomfortable his natural bias leads him towards ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... difference between myself and those to whom Zee was accustomed, might serve to bias her fancy was probable enough, and as the reader will see later, such a cause might suffice to account for the predilection with which I was distinguished by a young Gy scarcely out of her childhood, and very inferior in all ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... various other feelings, independent of misrepresentation, do, at the time, induce people to form their judgment, to say the best, harshly, and but too often incorrectly. It is for posterity to calmly weigh the evidence handed down, and to examine into the merits of a case divested of party bias. Actuated by these feelings, we do not hesitate to assert, that, in the point at question, Mr Vanslyperken had great cause for being displeased; and that the conduct of Moggy Salisbury, in cutting off the tail of Snarleyyow, was, ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... been away from me six weeks, and it takes longer than that to alter any one. By the way,' he went on smoothly, 'how have you been all this time? I have no doubt your tour has been as adventurous as that of Gil Bias.' ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... difference, the wonderful individuality in each speaker's way of telling the same story; at the profound art with which the rhythm, the metaphors, the very details of language, no less than the broad distinctions of character and the subtle indications of bias, are adapted and converted into harmony. A certain general style, a certain general manner of expression, are common to all, as is also the case in, let us say, The Tempest. But what distinction, what variation of tone, what delicacy and expressiveness of modulation! As a simple matter of fact, ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... history (though he has no Catholic history to read) there is no danger of the foolish bias against civilization which has haunted so many contemporary writers, and which has led them to frame fantastic origins for institutions the growth of which are as plain as an historical fact can ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... judge of Euclid. Now in this very letter of Feb. 2, there is a sentence which I highly value, because, as aforesaid, it is on a point on which he would never have yielded anything, to which he had paid life-long attention, and on which he had the bias of having long stood alone. In fact, knowing—and what I shall quote confirms me,—that in the matter of Euclid his hand was against every man, I expected, when I sent him a copy of my 22-column article, "Eucleides" ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... to intend the domination of the ideas of their own time over all the past and into all the future. Marriage seems to them an everlasting institution, a godly regulation, through which they can lend to their individual bias, the dignity of that which is humanly purest and highest. Consequently it also seems to them that the present form of marriage and its accompanying conditions for motherhood, resting as these do on the mutual consent of God and man, that these are to be in all eternity the ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... touchstone, a standard. When I meet someone for the first time, I ask myself this question: Given the Caesarean environment, which of the Caesars would this person resemble—Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero? I take each trait of character, each mental and emotional bias, each little oddity, and magnify them a thousand times. The resulting image ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... watchful spirit—there it ends The all that's glorious from the heaven descends; As some sweet mistress loves us, freely still Come the spontaneous gifts of heaven!—Above Favor rules Jove, as it below rules love! The immortals have their bias!—Kindly they See the bright locks of youth enamored play, And where the glad one goes, shed gladness round the way. It is not they who boast the best to see, Whose eyes the holy apparitions bless; The stately light of their ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Erskine[1141], an intimate friend of Lord Bute, who was the favourite of the King; and surely the most outrageous Whig will not maintain, that, whatever ought to be the principle in the disposal of offices, a pension ought never to be granted from any bias of court connection. Mr. Macklin[1142], indeed, shared with Mr. Sheridan the honour of instructing Mr. Wedderburne; and though it was too late in life for a Caledonian to acquire the genuine English cadence, yet so successful were Mr. Wedderburne's instructors, and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... claim the vague tribute of his spirit. Then fell the flash by which he saw deeply concealed in his bosom, and disguised with a host of spiritual wrappings, what he uncompromisingly identified as the artistic bias, the aesthetic point of view. The discovery worked upon him so that he spent three days without consummated prayer at all, occupied in the effort to find out whether he could yet indeed worship in purity of spirit, or how far the paralysis of the ideal ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... misunderstanding, misquoting, omitting and even adding, but I have never once seen reason to suspect him of conscious misrepresentation, of knowingly giving a false impression. ... It is easy to show that Mr. Froude erred contrary to his bias on occasion, and it must never be forgotten that he did what no consciously dishonest historian could possibly do. He deposited at the British Museum copies, in the original Spanish, of the documents, very difficult of access, ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... influence, or to mistake. I well know, however, and could, and did, discount the sources of error. I was on my guard against the twin fallacies of describing all savage religion as "devil worship," and of expecting to find a primitive "divine tradition". I was also on my guard against the modern bias derived from the "ghost-theory," and Mr. Spencer's works, and I kept an eye on opportunities of "borrowing".(1) I had, in fact, classified all known idola in the first edition of this work, such as the fallacy of leading questions and the chance of deliberate deception. I sought ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... ever so much developed in respect of other things, here, where he has not meditated, he must understand as a child, think as a child, speak as a child. He can as yet generate no sufficing or worthy form natural to himself. But the utterance is not therefore untrue. There was no professional bias to cause the stream of Ben Jonson's verses to flow in that channel. Indeed, feeling without thought, and the consequent combination of impulse to speak with lack of matter, is the cause of much of that common-place utterance concerning things of religion which is so wearisome, ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... to the full. I did so willingly enough; and that honest master of mine took marvellous delight in my performances. He had an only son, a bastard, to whom he often gave his orders, in order to spare me. My liking for the art was so great, or, I may truly say, my natural bias, both one and the other, that in a few months I caught up the good, nay, the best young craftsmen in our business, and began to reap the fruits of my labours. I did not, however, neglect to gratify my good father from time to time by playing on the flute or cornet. Each time ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... challenged and set aside, at the trial, for any special personal disqualification; such as mental or physical inability to perform the duties; having been convicted, or being under charge, of crime; interest, bias, &c;. But it is clear that the common law allows none of these points to be determined by the court, but ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... were killed at sea as would have fallen in a moderately important battle. The number of missing steamers was great, and there is no doubt but that most of these vessels foundered. The "Coquet" was built under the eye of a critic who did not suffer champagne to bias his ideas of solid workmanship. She is still earning heavy dividends for her owners. The steamers that broke in two and went down were not superintended on the stocks by a shrewd and vigilant overlooker: so they drowned ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... through life, and never see the one to whom her heart could give itself away. But every village might possess a hero whom the imagination of Ellinor could clothe with unreal graces, and to whom the lovingness of her disposition might bias her affections. Both, however, eminently possessed that earnestness and purity of heart, which would have made them, perhaps in an equal degree, constant and devoted to the object of an attachment, once formed, in defiance of change and to ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Liberia. The value of his evidence, as to the condition and prospects of that colony, must depend, not upon any singular acuteness of observation or depth of reflection, but upon his freedom from partizan bias, and his consequent ability to perceive a certain degree of truth, and inclination to express it frankly. A northern man, but not unacquainted with the slave institutions of our own and other countries—neither an Abolitionist nor a Colonizationist—without ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... French Parnassus," that the world has always known Boileau, Before him the art of criticism had hardly existed. Authors had received indiscriminate praise or blame, usually founded upon interested motives or personal bias; but there had been little comparison with an acknowledged standard. This "slashing reviewer in verse," as Saintsbury calls him, was a severe pedagogue, but his public did learn their lesson. He made mistakes, was neither broad-minded nor profound in attainments, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... to investigate "the existing state of the Corporation of the City of London, and to collect information respecting its constitution, order, and government." These commissioners, unlike their predecessors, exhibited from the commencement of their proceedings a strong bias and feeling of hostility against the Corporation. The witnesses they called before them were, with scarcely an exception, the avowed enemies of the existing state of things, and prepared to convert trifling blemishes into radical and ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... however, propose to discuss the "preparedness" of the State to care for its unfortunates. And I propose to do this without any party bias and without blame upon any particular individual, but in just criticism of ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... times one speaker would succeed in raising a laugh or extracting a groan, and when he did so those listening to his rivals turned and surged towards him. There was plenty of movement. It was what the newspapers call an animated scene—or a disgraceful scene—according to their political bias. ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... swoop of intenser expression. He was fonder of the vague, perhaps I should rather say the indefinite, where more is meant than meets the ear, than any other of our poets. He loved epithets (like old and far) that suggest great reaches, whether of space or time. This bias shows itself already in his earlier ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... They are at least proof of the inalienable part played, in the functioning of our complex vision, by sensation as an organ of research. But they have a further interest. They are an illuminating revelation of the inherent character and personal bias of the individual soul who is philosophizing. I suppose to a great many minds what we call "the universe" presents itself as a colossal circle, without any circumference, filled with an innumerable number of material objects ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... often so happens that two selvedges meet at the slit, which renders binding unnecessary; in that case take a small square of stuff, turn in the raw edges, top-sew it into the slit on two sides, turn in the other two, fold over on the bias, and hem them down over the top-sewing, as shewn in fig. 36. Such little squares of material, inserted into a slit or seam, to prevent its ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... far as you may suppose from assuming that what you speak to me of as the 'political' bias is the only ground on which the work of our corps for the Allies should appeal to the American public. Political, I confess, has become for me in all this a loose and question-begging term, but if we must resign ourselves to it as explaining some ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... and approved their opinions, quite down to our own times. But now, after weighing the question maturely, we are compelled to admit that the Apostle was not so wide of the mark after all—that, in fact, the latest and best authorities, with no bias in his favor, support his position and may almost be said to paraphrase his words. For according to a writer who ranks second to none in the science of ethnology, the severest and most recent investigations show that "not only ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... significance of forces not adequately known by the historians of the previous generation. Unquestionably each investigator and writer is influenced by the times in which he lives and while this fact exposes the historian to a bias, at the same time it affords him new instruments and new insight ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... came to blows about it. Finally they consulted the oracle at Delphi, which ordered it to be given to the wisest. Now it was first sent to Miletus, to Thales, as the men of Cos willingly gave it to that one man, although they had fought with all the Milesians together about it. Thales said that Bias was wiser than himself, and sent it to him; and by him it was again sent to another man, as being wiser yet. So it went on, being sent from one to another until it came to Thales a second time, and at last was sent from ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... impossible for the best parent to observe an exact impartiality to his children, even though no superior merit should bias his affection; but sure a parent can hardly be blamed, when that ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... scientific knowledge is required or even much favored, save some geometrical and mechanical drawing and its implicates. These schools instinctively fear and repudiate plain and direct utility, or suspect its educational value or repute in the community because of this strong bias toward a few trades. This tendency also they even fear, less often because unfortunately trade-unions in this country sometimes jealously suspect it and might vote down supplies, than because the teachers in these schools were generally trained in older scholastic ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... sparkling brilliancy. Schnitzler's profession, too, has not been without some influence upon his poetical work. A physician facing humanity daily not in strength and health, but in weakness and disease, cannot divest himself of a certain pessimistic bias. Brought up and practising in a city like Vienna, he cannot escape the cynicism which belongs alike to the man of the world as to the doctor before whom all veils and pretenses are discarded. It is difficult, indeed, to banish the idea that the consultation-room of Arthur Schnitzler, Dr. ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... Hanirabbat or Ugarit whom my messengers saw?" Then Nimmuria took up the tale, and complained that Kadashman-Bel sent only ambassadors who had never frequented his father's Court, and were moreover of adverse bias. "Send a kamiru" (evidently a eunuch is meant) "who knows thy sister." Further misunderstandings come under discussion, from which it is evident that the general situation between the two princes was ...
— The Tell El Amarna Period • Carl Niebuhr |
