"Criticise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exactly intellectually but emotionally and practically, and it would be worth any teacher's position for him to question any of their patriotic legends in print. However, they say that in their oral lectures, the professors of history of the universities criticise these legends. In the higher elementary school we visited in Osaka, we saw five classes in history and ethics, in each of which the Emperor was under discussion—sometimes the Emperor and what he had done ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... and those who disparage her are living in a blind world. As to the difficulty of the task—as to our own failures and mistakes in learning how to achieve it—we have probably fewer illusions than those who criticise us. But we shall do ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... shall not believe him," said Beverley. "I have not misunderstood you. There has been nothing. You have treated me kindly and with beautiful friendliness. You have not done or said a thing that Father Beret or anybody else could criticise. And if I have said or done the least thing to trouble you I repudiate it—I did not mean it. Now you believe me, don't ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... Patsy, promptly. "You're quite right, and I'm just one of those stupid creatures who criticise the sun because there's a cloud before it. Probably there are all grades of society, because there ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... postpone the Duma, then the peril will be upon thine own head!" I heard Rasputin shout. "Why allow these revolutionary deputies to criticise thy policy and undermine thy popularity with the nation? It is folly! Such policy is suicidal, and if thou wilt persist I shall withdraw and return to my home, well knowing that to-morrow the day of ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... Alexander was in his studio, and talked of art, Apelles advised him to be silent lest his color-grinder should laugh at him. Again, when he had painted a picture, and exposed it to public view, a cobbler pointed out a defect in the shoe-latchet; Apelles changed it, but when the man next proceeded to criticise the leg of the figure, Apelles replied, "Cobbler, stick to your last." These sayings have descended to our own day, and have become classical. All these anecdotes from so remote a time are in a sense ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... the journey, the length of time occupied in it, or the results which were the objects of the experiment, may justly be considered as one of the most interesting and most important ever undertaken. The best answer which one could give to those who would be disposed to criticise the employment of the peculiar means which we made use of, or to doubt their efficiency, would be to state that, after having traversed without hindrance, without either danger or difficulty, so large a portion of the European continent, we arrived at our destination still in possession ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... to criticise the naive intellectualism of such a view as this, which ignores or thrusts into the background the economic causes of advance and retrogression. But it is certainly not an unhistorical view. Burke dreaded fundamental discussions which "turn men's duties into doubts." The revolutionary ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... Sansevero, flushing darkly, flamed into speech. "Before you dare to criticise the woman who adorns our house! Here is the truth for you: I haven't one cent of private fortune—I gambled it all away long ago! More than half of Leonora's money is lost—I lost it. Some of it she ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... very easy to criticise other people's modes of dealing with their children. Outside observers see results; parents see processes. They notice the trivial movements and accents which betray the blood of this or that ancestor; they can detect the irrepressible ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... utter impatience of style, of writing merely in an approved manner. It is beyond criticism. It is possible to love it as I do; it is possible to hate it as Nietzsche did; but while this century lasts, it will be impossible to appreciate it sufficiently to wish to criticise it and yet preserve one's critical judgment with steadiness enough to ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... he applies in turn to the most opposite subjects, without ever forgetting his own identity or losing faith in his system." There were, however, in the case of M. Sainte-Beuve, further impediments to the assumption of an explicit and confident tone. Among the authors whom he was called upon to criticise were his acknowledged leaders, those by whom he had been initiated into the mysteries of modern art. Though he was fast outgrowing their influence, he was in no haste to proclaim his independence. An indefatigable student, he was accumulating stores of material without as yet drawing upon them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... the publication of the Official Papers, on reviewing the whole facts of the case, in a debate upon it in parliament, declared "that he found much to criticise in almost all the parties concerned, except ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... disappear after an existence of six months. Economical reasons are always worthy of respect, and the modesty of the Municipal Council on this occasion ought to be praised. But what one has a right to criticise is the unhappy idea which placed these pavilions in such a manner as to completely obstruct the view of the exterior porticos of the palaces and industrial sections when one stands before the central dome in the centre of the garden. This criticism ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... every thought. The superstructure—the practices of the Catholic Church to-day, the failures and sins of clerical society, the rigid ecclesiasticism—these he must in loyalty to fundamental truth, criticise, and if need be, condemn, where they interfere with the exercise of pure religion. But Benedetto engages very little in controversy; his method is to glorify the good, sure that the good requires only to be revealed in all its beauty and charm in order to draw irresistibly to itself souls that, ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... official and incongruous element in the group, stiffened him into persistent silence. All England laughed, when Blackwood's "Memoirs" saw the light, over his polite repulse of the kindly officious publisher, who wished, after his fashion, to criticise and finger and suggest. "I am almost alarmed, as it were, at the notion of receiving suggestions. I feel that hints from you might be so valuable and so important, it might be madness to ask you beforehand ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... the place, nor have I the space to criticise the various special theories of descent. One, however, must receive particular notice. According to Ameghino, the South American monkeys (Pitheculites) from the oldest Tertiary of the Pampas are the forms from which ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... the archduke, gently, "let us never forget that it does not behoove us to criticise the actions of the generalissimo, and that our sole duty is to obey. Do as I do; let us be silent and submit. But let us rejoice that something will be done at length. Just bear in mind how long this inactivity and suspense have lasted already. ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... benches sit the lookers-on, Who criticise their neighbours one by one; Each thinks herself in word and deed so bless'd, That she's a bright example for the rest. Numerous tales and anecdotes they hatch, And prophesy the dawn of many a match; And many a matrimonial scheme declare, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... of mathematical knowledge to be able to read the first chapter without being able to follow you into its application, and as these, moreover, are the very people who will think themselves privileged to criticise and use their privilege with the least discretion, I cannot recommend too much clearness, fulness, and order in the expose of the principles. Were I you, I would devote to this first part at least double the space you have done. Your familiarity with the results and formulae has led you ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... minutes during the remainder of the afternoon Morris visited the safe and inspected the diamonds until Abe was moved to criticise ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... cost of provisions and the charge she made for her table—was very good. Only it had become a habit for certain of the boarders, led by the jester, Crackit, to criticise the viands. ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... fellows," he said, "must have a lot of brains after all." And we have come to the conclusion that we will not criticise them any more, for they must know as well as we do, if not still better, how to win ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... As Knox had announced six years earlier, that, "as touching the chief points of religion, I neither will give place to man or angel . . . teaching the contrair to that which ye have heard," a controversialist who thought it worth while to criticise the Confession must have deemed himself at least an archangel. Two years later, written criticism was offered, as we shall see, with a demand for a written reply. The critic escaped arrest ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... sorry, but you are illogical. You acknowledge that this is a subject about which you know nothing, yet almost in the same breath you criticise and condemn. Men blame women for having no sense of justice, but they are just as bad. They are worse, and with less excuse. Women's perceptions are so keen that they see every side of a situation, so it happens sometimes that they ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... stood, the Family of Caxton,—all grouping round me, all eager officiously to question, some over-anxious prematurely to criticise. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to fight my way through the motley crowd of turbulent and ambitious persons. Timid as I am, I was ever tempted to select a plain and common-place career, which I might have ennobled inwardly. I had lost the desire to know, to scrutinise and to criticise; it seemed to me as if it was enough to love and to feel; but yet I quite feel that as soon as ever the heart throbbed more slowly, the head would once more cry out ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... say more. You can tell me which legend you disliked least; you can criticise my hero's conduct, and find fault with my heroine's manners; you can object to my plot, pick holes in my style. No, thank goodness, you can't do that; but you can take ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... because, forsooth, detail destroys general effect. Nature, in the results of Daguerre's process, has taken the pencil into her own hands, and she shows that the minutest detail disturbs not the general repose. Artists will learn how to paint, and amateurs, or rather connoisseurs, how to criticise, how to look at Nature, and, therefore, how to estimate the value of true art. Our studies will now be enriched with sketches from nature which we can store up during the summer, as the bee gathers her sweets for winter, and we shall ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... choice, is forced to peruse and re-peruse, even though he has nothing more lively than Boston's Fourfold State, or Hervey's Meditations among the Tombs. But he knows well what he has so often read, and is quite competent to discuss and criticise his little row of volumes. A few of the Highland townships have literary societies in which every variety of subject is debated: the meetings are usually opened with prayer, but not always closed in that way. There is a tiny clachan, some twenty miles distant from Ullapool, on the side ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... "to have acted in a thoroughly capable and praiseworthy manner. The only point in your conduct which I would permit myself to criticise is your omission to slay the kid. That, however, was due, I take it, to the fact that you were interrupted. We will now proceed to examine the future. I cannot see that it is altogether murky. You have lost a good job, but there are others, equally ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... criticise his own country, even to himself. But when a naval officer is studying—as he should continually do—what must be done, in order to protect his country from attack by some foreign foe, it would be criminal ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... Andrew," he said, speaking in that paternal fashion in which one small boy loves to address another. "Weel, ma little lad, yo'm coomin' along gradely." He leant back in his chair the better to criticise his subject. But Andrew, like all the Moores, slow of speech, preserved a stolid silence, sucking a chubby thumb, and regarding his patron a ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... only my second time," she said to him, with a kind of appealing protest; "you mustn't watch me and criticise me." She had just finished her ministrations on a pair of old-time family friends whom Rosy, in the fulness of her social efflorescence, had banished for consolation and reassurance to the tea-room. Somehow, the guests that had fallen to her side of the ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... the character of the King and the ministers, whom Mr. Walpole so often and so wantonly depreciates, to solicit the reader's attention to such passages as this, in which he imputes to others, and therefore implies in himself, an unfair disposition to criticise ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... having formed a plan, she was always filled with wild impatience to carry it out. But when we consider that Billie's plans concerned the pleasure and entertainment of other people and that her impatience was only another form of earnest enthusiasm, it would be difficult to criticise her. ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... held up to derision, that while to the ignorant and the low there was ample power given to suffer, there was no power given to understand; and that consequently it was their duty always to obey and never to criticise. ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... comment must pass for what it is worth. It is easy, after the event, for the smallest to criticise the greatest. Under whatever influences, General Lee determined not to retreat, either through the South Mountain or toward Emmetsburg, but marshalled his army for an attack on the ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... day was consumed in getting to the river, five miles away from the starting place, and as the afternoon waned the boys grew tired, while Jake Elliott began to manifest his old disposition to criticise Sam's plans. ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston
... yesterday, though I own I cannot much regret even a fault of my own, that helps to delay the publication of that paper. [This was probably a proof sheet of the Reflections.] It is the proper province, and ought to be the privilege, of an inferior to criticise and advise. The best possible critic of the Iliad, would be, ipso facto, and by virtue of that very character, incapable of being the author of it. Standing as I do in this relation to you, you would renounce your ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... was taken one evening to the play, but, unfortunately, what was called a naval drama was acted. Here both he and the midshipman were well qualified to criticise. He ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... bad a condition that the hyperbolical Sergeant Johnson calls them "half-starved, scorbutic skeletons." That worthy soldier, commonly a model of dutiful respect to those above him, this time so far forgets himself as to criticise his general for the "mad, enthusiastic zeal" by which he nearly lost the fruits of Wolfe's victory. In fact, the fate of Quebec trembled in the balance. "We were too few and weak to stand an assault," continues Johnson, "and we were almost ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... course; and neither view is open to criticism. All either man is justified in saying is that he, personally, wouldn't get much fun out of doing it the other way. As a matter of fact, human nature generally goes beyond its justifications and is prone to criticise. The Englishman waxes a trifle caustic on the subject of "pigging it"; and the American indulges in more than a bit of sarcasm on the subject of "being led about Africa like a dog on ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... better than the ball-room," she said. "By the way, you have not told me if you like my dress?" she added, anxious to bring him to the one subject she had at heart. "Do you remember that when we were children, Norman, you used to criticise my dress?" ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... bold advocate Has dared to criticise my poem, His name I have not learned, his fate Will be a warning when ...
— Briefless Ballads and Legal Lyrics - Second Series • James Williams
... people, dancing and singing to their wild music. In no instance have they been subjected to modification; and the English translation is, in general, very faithful to the original, as will easily be perceived by referring to the lexicon. To those who may feel disposed to find fault with or criticise these songs, we have to observe, that the present work has been written with no other view than to depict the Gitanos such as they are, and to illustrate their character; and, on that account, we have endeavoured, as much as possible, to bring them before the reader, and to make them speak for themselves. ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... martyrs in their deaths. And none more so than the very men of whom I now speak, in these sickly regions of Africa, where I behold them sinking, more or less gradually, but with certainty, and destitute of almost every earthly comfort, into their graves. I criticise portions of their conduct, but reverence their purity of motive; and only regret, that, while divesting themselves of so much that is worldly, they do not retain either more wisdom of this world, or less aptness to apply a ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... refugee from home? Can he ever now look on a little girl and not treat her kindly, gently, and lovingly, remembering his sister? A boy having ordinary natural goodness, and the home supports described, and the constant watching of men, ready to criticise, could but improve. The least exhibition of selfishness, cowardice, vulgarity, dishonesty, or meanness of any kind, brought down the dislike of every man upon him, and persistence in any one disreputable practice, or habitual laziness and worthlessness, resulted in ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... promising so undecided, for an enterprise which requires such a degree of tact and judgment as the conduct of a new journal,—and a journal, too, which is to address itself to the beau monde. However, it is not for me to criticise a selection which ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and Bigelow of packing-house products and preserved meats showed that of the latter only a small amount contained objectionable preservatives. The authors, after an extended investigation, reported favorably upon their composition and sanitary value, saying they found "so little to criticise and so much to commend in these necessary products." In this bulletin they do not ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... their cracked voices. Sometimes you see a space cleared in the street, and a foreigner playing, while a girl— weather-beaten, tanned, and wholly uncomely in face and shabby in attire dances ballets. The common people look on, and never criticise or treat any of these poor devils unkindly or uncivilly; but I do not observe ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... although she knew that his creed externally was not hers, her own was not sharply cut, and she persuaded herself that, in substance, his and her belief were identical. As she grew older her relationship to the Unseen became more and more intimate, but she was less and less inclined to criticise her husband's freedom, or to impose on the children a rule which they would certainly have observed, but only for her sake. Every now and then she felt a little lonely; when, for example, she read one or two books which were particularly her own; when she thought of her dead father and mother, and ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... vitality, such remarkable powers of endurance against great odds, are surely designed for some nobler purpose than merely to bear with fortitude the ills of life and the misery of starvation. It is the easiest thing in the world to criticise—the West criticises the Chinese because he is a heathen, because they do not understand him. Hundreds of millions of the Chinese race hate and fear the man of the West for exactly the same reason as would cause us to hate the ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... replied the girl nervously. She was already wishing herself back at Massapequa. The financier eyed her for a moment in silence as if trying to gauge the strength of the personality of this audacious young woman, who had dared to criticise his business methods in public print; then, waving her to a seat near ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... He began to criticise Archbishop MacHale's version of Moore's Irish Melodies with great severity and acuteness, citing whole poems both in the English and Irish, and then giving versions that he ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... appeal for the BENSON Bros. Only the other day did ROBERT HUGH write a clever and hauntingly horrible story round it, and now here is ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER discoursing at large upon the same theme in Where No Fear Was (SMITH, ELDER). It is a book that you will hardly expect me to criticise. One either likes those gentle monologues of Mr. BENSON or is impatient under them—and in any case the comments of a third party would be superfluous. Personally, I should call this one of the most charming of those many ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... the rest of you have done as much for this town as Honer'ble Bickford," broke in the president, testily, "you can have the right to criticise. As it is, I can't see anything but jealousy in it. And I've heard enough of it. Now, to make this thing all pleasant and agreeable to the Honer'ble Bickford, we've got to have Cap'n Sproul and Hiram Look act as judges with him. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... about less funny perhaps but decidedly more brilliant jests, until at last we retire one by one from the conversation and watch him with savage, weary eyes over our pipes. He invariably beats me at chess, invariably. People talk about him and ask my opinion of him, and if I venture to criticise him they begin to look as though they thought I was jealous. Grossly favourable notices of his books and his pictures crop up in the most unlikely places; indeed I have almost given up newspapers on account of him. ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... he did not criticise her. He was only afraid that she might do herself harm by receiving a Bohemian who was not welcome ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... cowardly to dare the—the unpleasant things. And I'm not hard with myself—only frank. But we were talking of the women. Poor things, what chance have they got? You scorn them for using their sex. Wait till you're drowning, dear, before you criticise another for what he does to save himself when he's sinking for the last time. I used everything I had in making my fight. If I could have got on better or quicker by the aid of my sex, ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... from anyone who can give you a hint, and don't set yourself up (or down) in some obscure country town and fancy you are great. Come out into the world, measure yourself against the best, criticise your own work as if it were a stranger's. Be honest, and say, "That man's work knocks mine into a cocked hat," and then go home miserable, but determined to beat that man's work or perish in the attempt. Never ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... acre of ceiling with an acre of apotheosis. As Walpole writes, 'His exuberant pencil was ready at pouring out gods, goddesses, kings, emperors, and triumphs over those public surfaces on which the eye never rests long enough to criticise, and where one should be sorry to place the works of a better master. I mean ceilings and staircases. The New Testament or the Roman History cost him nothing but ultramarine; that and marble columns and marble steps he ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... ize, ise, en, or ate: as, author, authorize; critic, criticise; length, lengthen; origin, originate. The termination ize is of Greek origin, and ise is most probably of French: the former is generally preferable in forming English derivatives; but both are sometimes to be ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... flippant when he is gravely told that the Greeks had no art-critics? I can understand it being said that the constructive genius of the Greeks lost itself in criticism, but not that the race to whom we owe the critical spirit did not criticise. You will not ask me to give you a survey of Greek art criticism from Plato to Plotinus. The night is too lovely for that, and the moon, if she heard us, would put more ashes on her face than are there already. But think merely of one perfect little work of aesthetic criticism, Aristotle's ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... criticise Bonaparte's acts in these years should consider these words, and remember that the great warrior in no case did any of the ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... merely requires in its construction a combination of sound mechanical principles. Neither Saunier nor Britten, in their works, give instructions for drawing this escapement which will bear close analysis. It is not our intention, however, to criticise these authors, except we can present better methods ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... We shall not criticise their belief—neither praise nor condemn it— but just give its chief points for the benefit of unknowing ones. Here they are: they believe in a trinity, not of persons but essentials—love, wisdom, and power; they do not believe in the doctrine of faith alone, but ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... Highness herself may be thought a cleverer sketch of youthful femininity than even the Hellenic Helen. It is hard to judge the play now. Custom has worn its freshness and made it too familiar: we know it too well to criticise it clearly. Besides, the actors have now overlaid the action with over-much "business." But in spite of these difficulties the merits of the piece are sufficiently obvious: its constructive skill can be remarked; the first act, for example, is one of the best bits of exposition on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... criticise a community as we criticise an individual man even when he is taken as abstracted from his social setting. The man's choices may be blind, conflicting, wayward, and ill-adapted to serve his interests taken as a whole. In the last chapter we saw ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... criticise me!' she cried, taking a position in the middle of the tent, and turning round like a wax figure. 'I have torn out my hair by the roots to give it a "done up" look, and have I succeeded? and shall I wear any flowers with this lace surplice? and what on earth shall I do with my ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the atmosphere felt charged with resistance and disobedience. There was more freedom of speech, and men's thoughts were more daring than their words. Those whom he distrusted now came nearer, and others had taken the liberty to criticise his intentions and his acts. Even in the Legislative Body, the arrangements of the code of criminal justice, recently submitted to the vote, had undergone a rather lively discussion. Fouche had the courage to raise the question of the succession to the throne, ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... words of Professor Thorstein Veblen: "The Socialism that inspires hopes and fears to-day is of the school of Marx. No one is seriously apprehensive of any other so-called Socialistic movement, and no one is seriously concerned to criticise or refute the doctrines set forth by any ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... once that in this sharp boy he had a critic far more dangerous than any he was likely to meet elsewhere. Others would pass him unnoticed; but his fellow-apprentice would criticise every act and word, and he felt somewhat disquieted to find that he had fallen under such supervision. It was now, he felt, all-important for him to discover what were the real sentiments of the boy, and whether he was trustworthy to his master, and to be relied ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... far apart as the poles, are apt to think alike on all questions except religion and temperance, perhaps I ought to add finance. Social problems they solve by the same rule, public officers they weigh in the same balance, party measures criticise and pronounce wise or unwise with the same verdict. I know of a few advocates of woman suffrage whose husbands, fathers, brothers, or some one dearer, do not directly or indirectly aid them. So far from alienating the married pair, so far from creating domestic ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... last I began to write of her. That is now five years ago. From time to time the stories which I offer to the public in this volume were given forth. It is likely that the old Anglo-Egyptian and the historical student may find some anachronisms and other things to criticise; but the anachronisms are deliberate, and even as in writing of Canada and Australia, which I know very well, I have here, perhaps, sacrificed superficial exactness while trying to give the more intimate meaning and spirit. I have never thought it necessary to apologise for this disregard ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... majorities, which Anarchists criticise, is in fact open to most of the objections which they urge against it. Still more objectionable is the power of the executive in matters vitally affecting the happiness of all, such as peace and war. But neither can be dispensed ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... the right of every Scot—secured to him by the Treaty of Union and confirmed by the Disruption—to criticise his minister with much freedom, but this privilege is exercised with a delicate charity. When it is not possible for a conscientious hearer to approve a sermon, he is not compelled to condemnation. "There wes naething ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... there was no sort of coiffure that could make Miss Nancy's cheek and neck look otherwise than pretty; and when at last she stood complete in her silvery twilled silk, her lace tucker, her coral necklace, and coral ear-drops, the Miss Gunns could see nothing to criticise except her hands, which bore the traces of butter-making, cheese-crushing, and even still coarser work. But Miss Nancy was not ashamed of that, for even while she was dressing she narrated to her aunt how she and Priscilla had packed their boxes yesterday, ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... creative and heroic in its constant acts of self-expression and self-sacrifice. They have their thoughts published in their books as well as through the medium of living men who think those thoughts, and who criticise, compare and disseminate them. Some at least of the drawbacks of their academic education are redeemed by the living energy of the intellectual personality pervading their social organism. It is like the stagnant reservoir of water which finds its purification ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... with them were burnt; as happened to Bruno and Vanini. How completely an ordinary mind is paralyzed by that early preparation in metaphysics is seen in the most vivid way and on its most ridiculous side, where such a one undertakes to criticise the doctrines of an alien creed. The efforts of the ordinary man are generally found to be directed to a careful exhibition of the incongruity of its dogmas with those of his own belief: he is at great pains to show ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer
... To criticise the peccadilloes of Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel does not shadow the virtues of Deborah, Huldah and Vashti; to condemn the laws and customs of the Jews as recorded in the book of Genesis, does not destroy the force of the golden rule and the ten commandments. Parts ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... not to criticise such innocent disdain of the public eye and ear—to him an every-day sight—but with a feeling for the picturesque and in mild humor making the point that such messages, so given, were hardly calculated to make life ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... Comte, it is no business of mine to criticise your conduct; you can do as you please with your wife, but may I count upon your keeping your word with me? Well, then, promise me to tell her that her father has not twenty-four hours to live; that he looks in vain for her, and has cursed her already as he lies on his deathbed,—that ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... of coming before you to defend or to criticise any form of government. All have their virtues, all their defects, and all have illustrated one period or another in the history of the race, with signal services to humanity and culture. There is not one that could stand a cynical ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... character arises this great convenience—that as it is bad manners to criticise our neighbors by name, we may hit them many a sly rap over the shoulders of their ancestors who wore turbans, or helmets, or bagwigs, and lived long ago in other countries. The Church especially finds great comfort in this resource, ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... divine thought, doing their appointed work. It was the duty of the church to deal with them all, not as though they existed through a power hostile to the deity, but as instruments of the deity to work out his unrevealed ends. The preacher then went on to criticise the attitude of religion towards science. "If there is still a feeling of hostility between them," he said, "it is no longer the fault of religion. There have been times when the church seemed afraid, but she is so no longer. Analyze, ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... which voted them. {271} He was a king, Frederick declares, "without ostentation and without deceit," and who won by his conduct the confidence of Europe. This latter part of the description is a little too polite. Kings do not criticise each other too keenly in works that are meant for publication. But the words form, on the whole, an epitaph for George which might be inscribed on his tomb without greater straining of the truth than is common in the monumental ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... Demosthenes, have listened to what I have written, or how would they have been affected by it? For what higher incentive to exertion could a writer have than to imagine such judges or such an audience of his works, and to give an account of his writings with heroes like these to criticise ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... dramatist who could not get the drama out of himself without the aid of music, and a musician who could not beat out his music without the aid of drama. Music and drama had simultaneous birth in the case of Tristan, and it is difficult to describe and criticise them separately. There is no other way of doing it, however, and as the drama is the structural foundation I have dealt with it first; but the music is of ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... good morning, and flies down the steps with the air of one who has performed her whole duty. Now that she has attained to married respectability, she feels quite free to criticise the rest of the world, and she rejoices in the fact that she does carry more ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... is contended that "the demand for commodities, which can only be got by labor, is as much a demand for labor as a demand for beef is a demand for bullocks." Criticise this position. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... failure all the more conspicuous. A few years after the expulsion of Pontius, St. Bernard wrote to the Abbot of the Cluniac house of St. Thierry a so-called apology, which, while professing a great regard for the Cluniacs Order and pretending to criticise the deficiencies of his own Cistercians, is in reality a scathing attack upon the lapse of the former from the Benedictine rule. He attacks their neglect of manual work and of the rule of silence; their elaborate cookery ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... selfishness? Is it in our principles, in our objects, or in our policy? Does he really imagine that the true character of any body of men and women is likely to be written out by a hostile partisan? Such a person might be a judge of our public actions, and we are far from denying his right to criticise them; but when he speaks of our private lives, before men of his own faith, and without being under the necessity of adducing a single scrap of evidence, it is plain to the most obtuse intelligence that his ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... discovery of Man. They were his youth personified. The note is still struck in the letters of his engagement period, and it was only forty years later, writing his Autobiography, that he was able to picture with a certain humorous detachment this group of boys who met to eat buns and criticise the universe. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... father's influence he would probably have ended by showing what he felt. Greifenstein, however, exacted from him an unvarying reverence and courtesy towards his mother, and never, even in moments of the greatest confidence, permitted the boy to criticise the ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... serpent. It is not expressly taught in any passage of the canonical Scriptures, but to the Church and to Milton it was as indisputable as the presence of sin in the world. Milton, I repeat, BELIEVED in the framework of his poem, and unless we can concede this to him we ought not to attempt to criticise him. He was impelled to turn his religion into poetry in order to bring it closer to him. The religion of every Christian if it is real is a poem. He pictures a background of Holy Land scenery, and he creates a Jesus who continually converses with him and reveals to him much ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... long time he had been disposed to criticise her; now that this criticism was extended to all that she said or did, the spirit of accusation tinctured her whole life; their joint past seemed altered ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... two classes of people in the church; the one is made up of those who do the hard work of the church, and the other of those who sit at home and—criticise. ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... not disposed nor prepared to take sides for or against the new hypothesis, and so, perhaps, occupy a good position from which to watch the discussion and criticise those objections which are seemingly inconclusive. On surveying the arguments urged by those who have undertaken to demolish the theory, we have been most impressed with a sense of their great inequality. ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... and the sacred law settled on the Roman Runnymede after the first secession to the Sacred Mount. After a few months the ten men produced ten laws, which were written out and set up in public places for the people to read and criticise. Suggestions for alterations might be made, and if the ten men approved them, they made them a part of their report, after which all was submitted to the senate and the curi, and finally approved. The whole code of laws was then engraved on ten tables of enduring ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... does the professor whose duty it is to criticise and approbate the pieces for this exhibition wish they were ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... her no right to criticise any member of her husband's family; their faults are out of her reach except by the force of tactful example. Her concern is with herself and him, not his family, and a wise girl, at the beginning of her married life, will draw a sharp ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... great town," he explained to the hotel clerk in the evening. "I feel as if I were not in a great city at all, because there are not the evidences of a large and wealthy population that we have everywhere in New York." Archie spoke of New York as if he had lived there always, and found much to criticise in Chicago. But toward evening he went up to Lincoln Park and the beautiful North Shore, and he felt that there was nothing more beautiful in New York than this magnificent park, and this handsome Lake Shore Drive, ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... quarrel with his author. The luxury, to most of us, is to lay by our judgment, to be submerged by the tale as by a billow, and only to awake, and begin to distinguish and find fault, when the piece is over and the volume laid aside. Still more remarkable is Mr. James's reason. He cannot criticise the author, as he goes, "because," says he, comparing it with another work, "I have been a child, but I have never been on a quest for buried treasure." Here, is, indeed, a wilful paradox; for if ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... even old Elder Concannon appeared unexpectedly in the reading-room one night to see what was going on. He came to criticise and remained to play a game of "draughts," as he called them, ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... Mr. Bowdoin had had a hangdog feeling with old Jamie ever since that day his son had laughed. He had dared criticise nothing he noticed at the office, and Jamie grew more crusty and eccentric every day. James Bowdoin was less indulgent, and soon saw that something new was in the wind. But the last thing that both expected was a demand on Jamie's part ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... the poet and dramatist, Mr. Thomas Sturge Moore, happened to be on the committee of this Society, and to him was entrusted the task of writing an opening scene to make the play complete. {1} It is not for me to criticise his work, but there is justification for saying that Wilde himself would have envied, with an artist's envy, ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde
... his style not only the plain good sense and other rare qualities enumerated, but pungent humour, quick insight, deep passion, and general power of mind, such as is given to few men in a century. But, as in his case the thought is really incarnated in the language we cannot criticise the style separately from the thoughts, or we can only assign, as its highest merit, its admirable fitness for producing the desired effect. It would be wrong to invert De Quincey's censure, and blame him because ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... and some had remarkable merit. They went off slowly but for handsome figures; and their places were progressively supplied with the work of local artists. These last it was one of my first duties to review and criticise. Some of them were villainous, yet all were saleable. I said so; and the next moment saw myself, the figure of a miserable renegade, bearing arms in the wrong camp. I was to look at pictures thenceforward, not with the eye of the artist, but the dealer; and I saw the stream widen ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... person who purchases newspapers (though it mostly consists of coloured evening editions arranged in a stiff skirt, like that of a saltatrice, round the waist of the wearer) has many mysterious points. The attire of a person prepared to criticise the Poet Laureate is something so awful and striking that I dare not even begin to describe it; the one fact which I am willing to reveal, and to state seriously and responsibly, is that it ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... to criticise adversely Lord Wellington's enactment against duelling, and Captain Tremayne defended it. They became a little heated, and the fact was mentioned that Samoval himself was a famous swordsman. Captain Tremayne made the remark that famous swordsmen ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini |
