"Exaggerate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exaggerate the extent of the subjection of women among uncivilised people. As a matter of fact, it usually is exaggerated. Not all travellers are capable of accurate observation, and very many are led astray by what are really ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... in the galleons of the royal armada for the trade-route of the Indias, and as its vessels number eight, and sometimes twelve, and it acts as convoy to twenty or thirty other and smaller vessels, the highest figure named by those who exaggerate this excess is one million; but never, by dint of diligent efforts and the experience of so many years, has there been known, found, or discovered one-half million. Therefore, if it can scarcely be supposed with probable foundation that thirty or forty ships, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... so. I am sure you exaggerate. You cannot, in those few days, have pledged your faith to another. Let me see your finger. Ah! there's my ring on it still: bless you, my own darling Zoe—bless you;" and he covered her hand with kisses, and bedewed it with ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... not with a scientific mind, but with preconceptions which mar their judgment. For example, the socialist exaggerates the effect of bad wage conditions, and the Woman's Auxiliary Department of the police exaggerate the influence of home conditions. Again, personal testimony is unreliable, because, on the one hand, victims of the social evil are liable to blame external conditions; and, on the other hand, well-fed, well-housed ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... of tenderness to others—little sharp words which did not seem so bad at the time, careless or selfish neglect of the wishes we could have gratified with just a little trouble—how they all rise up afterwards and refuse to be forgotten! Our grief may then exaggerate our past unkindness perhaps, and, as is the way with our weak human nature, things out of our reach seem of double value; the affection we knew to be always at hand we never prized enough till we lost it. But should we not take this as a warning? Avoid the habit of small unkindnesses, of sharp, ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... crossed as was intended. Nevertheless, it is highly probable that self-fertilised seedlings have sometimes by this means got included amongst the crossed seedlings. The effect would be, as in the former case, not to exaggerate but to diminish any average superiority of the crossed over the ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... events two things must be distinguished—the moral service of them from the fortitude which they display. War has been much praised and celebrated among us of late as a school of manly virtue; but it is easy to exaggerate upon this point. Ages ago, war was the gory cradle of mankind, the grim-featured nurse that alone could train our savage progenitors into some semblance of social virtue, teach them to be faithful one to another, ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... not said you had better die then? On no other terms will I go on those sands. But I tell you frankly what I think about this matter. I think that you absurdly exaggerate the effect the knowledge of her father's crime will ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... stop him. He sat and bit his finger-nail while Kilshaw pointed out the discrepancies between what Medland had foreshadowed and what he was doing. He did not consciously exaggerate, but he made as good a case as he could; and he talked to an ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... the misfortunes of princes that there are always to be found in their entourage people who, to demonstrate their attachment, claim to be alarmed at the slightest indisposition and exaggerate the precautions which should be taken, which is what happened on this occasion. The master-of-horse, Caulaincourt, advised the Emperor to return to Dresden, and the other great officers dared not give the much more sensible advice to continue to Pirna, which ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... 'Oh, don't exaggerate, Monsieur Valmont,' cried Dacre with a gesture of pathetic protest; 'his pocket held one sixpence, two pennies, and a halfpenny. How came you to suspect ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... "You exaggerate a woman's influence, Guy, I admit that there are women who are grand enough for this, but they are very rare; woman, it is true, has much in her power, a great deal in her ambition, but to accomplish all that you say, one needs ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... not exaggerate when he spoke of the widespread interest excited by his novel psychophysiological experiment. Long before the hour had arrived the room was filled by a galaxy of talent. Besides the celebrities whom he had ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... or to "sneer at the idea of any manifestation of design in the material universe,"[III-9] is one thing; while to consider, and perhaps to exaggerate, the difficulties which attend the practical application of the doctrine of final causes to certain instances, is quite another thing: yet the Boston reviewers, we regret to say, have not been duly regardful of the difference. Whatever be ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... you know," said Jimmie. "You are not yourself this morning, and I don't wonder, after the condition I found you in last night. Things always look black after a spree. You exaggerate, of course, when you talk about ruin. You are all unstrung, Bertie. Tell me your troubles, and I'll do what I can to help ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... George Sand over to republicanism. Without wishing to exaggerate the service he had rendered her by this, it appears to me that it certainly was one, if we look at it in one way. Rightly or wrongly, George Sand had seen in Michel the man who devotes himself entirely to a ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... outspokenness, admitting no ambiguous relations and clearing away the clouds from human intercourse, I have not known his equal. The great Sir Walter himself, as this book will prove, was not more manfully free from artistic jealousy or irritability under criticism, or more unfeignedly inclined to exaggerate the qualities of other people's work and to underrate those of his own. Of the humorous and engaging parts of vanity and egoism, which led him to make infinite talk and fun about himself, and use his own experiences as a key for unlocking the confidences of others, Stevenson had plenty; but ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a great thing for a man to pride himself on what he is and make the best of it. The pride of craftsman betokens a valuable man. We exaggerate our worth, and this is Nature's plan to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... who directed operations. At no time did the great body of the American people warmly respond to the demands made upon them by congress to support Washington. Had it not been for New England and Virginia the war must have more than once collapsed for want of men and supplies. It is impossible to exaggerate the absence of public spirit in the States during this critical period of their history. The English historian, Lecky, who has reviewed the annals of those times with great fairness, has truly said: "The ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... let alone the deed. Yet, they must talk, they must exchange the day's news, they must have news that no one else had; and this competition is the cause of half the misery on earth. What if they exaggerate a little here and a little there? No harm is meant. Human nature, having found its speech, must have something to talk about; that which it has neither seen nor ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... taught what to admire in the one case as they have been enjoined what to believe in the other. With regard to his character, I think Moore has succeeded in proving that he was far from deficient in amiable qualities; he was high-minded, liberal, generous, and good-natured, and, if he does not exaggerate his own feelings, a warm-hearted and sincere friend. But what a wretch he was! how thoroughly miserable with such splendid talents! how little philosophy!— wretched on account of his lame foot; not even his successes with women could reconcile him to a little personal deformity, though ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... and better than all, he brought letters from Franklin, the charming old man, whose fondness for "that dear nation" which he could not leave without regret was returned a thousand fold by its admiring affection. De Rayneval did not exaggerate when he wrote to him,—"You will carry with you the affection of all France"; and De Chastellux told the simple truth in the graceful compliment he sent to the old sage after his return home,—"When you were here, we had no need ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... the fires. Then we walked through the "wheat" and wallabies! May Satan reprove me if I exaggerate their number by one solitary pair of ears—but from the row and scatter they ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... literature has to bestow may be obtained by reading and by practical exercise in writing and in speaking; but I do not exaggerate when I say, that none of the best gifts of science are to be won by these means. On the contrary, the great benefit which a scientific education bestows, whether is training or as knowledge, is dependent upon the extent to which the mind of the student is brought into ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... it. The sonnet, then, proves less than it has sometimes been made to prove; and in any case it proves no intimacy. Perhaps after all, in the case of Milton as in that of most men who deal with public affairs, we are apt to exaggerate the importance in their daily lives of these visible official activities. The world thinks it knows men who fight battles, or make speeches, or write books; but it knows nothing of their private thoughts or studies and still less of their private loves and joys and sorrows which ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... in the interest of the State, would hamper the activities of those in charge and be regarded as a nuisance. It was natural that the Press should chafe at the restraint and should be disposed to exaggerate the inconvenience to which it was put. But the public, it must be remembered, have heard only one side of the story. The country has derived its information concerning the Press censorship from the Press ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... school, to which you next advance, possesses merit, and is distinguished by a character of a very different description. It was the well-known object of this school, to present an exact and faithful imitation of nature; to exaggerate none of its faults, and enhance none of its excellencies, but exhibit it as it really appears to the eye of an ordinary spectator. Its artists selected, in general, some scene of humour or amusement, in the discovery ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... to have existed, it is hard to say what is impossible. The Ichthyophagi of Diodorus, while they retained their human form, were more than half-fish, fishes in blood and instinct very clearly. Tendencies exaggerate themselves very strangely in a few centuries. A negro's under-lip has been so big as to hang down before him like an apron. Cuvier declares that we "may trace the gradations of one and the same plan, from man to the last of the fishes"; and Mr. Darwin's theory appears to involve ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... grew to be proud of the title. If any impostor had arisen to claim it, he would have shed tears in resentment of the attempt to deprive him of his rights. A disposition began to be perceived in him to exaggerate the number of years he had been there; it was generally understood that you must deduct a few from his account; he was vain, the fleeting generations ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Washington, estimated the Confederate army at 97,000 men, and his official reports made frequent mention of Lee's overwhelming strength.* (* Mr. Lincoln had long before this recognised the tendency of McClellan and others to exaggerate the enemy's strength. As a deputation from New England was one day leaving the White House, a delegate turned round and said: "Mr. President, I should much like to know what you reckon to be the number the rebels have in ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... I don't know. Is it far to Chicoutimi?" He knew, but he asked, hoping the man would exaggerate the distance, and then he would not have ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... no letter from an editor to read (like the last speaker), and tells a story of a Methodist, on request, praying for rain; and when a terrible storm came, the man who asked, was heard to murmur: "How these Methodists do exaggerate." This was to show the excellence of the dinner. Two other stories were used by the speaker, about the length and discursiveness of his talk. The people need and will read deep, accurate, and scholarly productions. There ought to be a general paper for such. ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... adding of some: as, burden, burdensome; game, gamesome; toil, toilsome. These denote plenty, but do not exaggerate. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... times embodied reminiscences of Southampton when he was only seventeen or eighteen. {143a} But Shakespeare, already worn in worldly experience, passed his thirtieth birthday in 1594, and he probably tended, when on the threshold of middle life, to exaggerate the youthfulness of the nobleman almost ten years his junior, who even later impressed his acquaintances by his boyish appearance and disposition. {143b} 'Young' was the epithet invariably applied to Southampton by all who knew anything of him even when he was twenty-eight. In 1601 Sir ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... rude outline of sail in Fig. 3, and now considering it as a jib of one of our own sailing vessels, slightly exaggerate the loops at the edge, and draw curved lines from them to the opposite point, Fig. 4; and I have a reptilian or dragon's wing, which would, with some ramification of the supporting ribs, become a bat's or moth's; that is to say, an extension of membrane between the ribs (as in an umbrella), which ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... Post, should now adorn the broad page of the Telegraph was a thing to talk about at the press club; the fact of his large salary got abroad in that little world as well, and, after the way of that world, managed to exaggerate itself, as most facts did. He began to be sensible of attentions from men of prominence—small things, mere nods in the street, perhaps, or smiles in the theater foyer, but enough to show that they recognized him. What ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... enemies had been reinforced, though it was still too dark to count them with anything like accuracy. Indeed I don't, exaggerate when I say that our sight was not a little disturbed by the showers of arrows which they sent among us. In spite of their numbers, we rather astonished them with the warm reception provided for their entertainment. Old Short ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... deserved, he could find no excuse; but that he could more easily conceive how some might speak better of them than they deserved, without any ill intention; for, as Kings had much in their power to give, those who were favoured by them would frequently, from gratitude, exaggerate their praises; and as this proceeded from a good motive, it was certainly excusable, as far as ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... rumors of all sorts fail to exaggerate, and still the more horrify the true histories of these deadly encounters. For not only do fabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very body of all surprising terrible events,—as the smitten tree gives birth to its fungi; but, in maritime life, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Daphne's face. She was undoubtedly in earnest. He grew quite pale. "Not here, my dear," he entreated; "not now. Let our thoughts be single for this one hour that we shall be alone together. Let it wait for a little, this woeful confession. I think you probably exaggerate your need of it, as young souls are apt to who have not learned to bear the pain of self-knowledge, or self-reproach without knowledge. Let us forget ourselves, and ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... welcomes given to him by great official personages, that these remarks do not in the least exaggerate the feeling created all over the country by the activities of The Army. Had The General merely made great proposals he would only have been looked upon in the generally favourable way in which men naturally regard every prospector of benevolent schemes. ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... of wandering out of the subject? Who will say that I exaggerate the tendencies of our measures? Will any one answer by a sneer, that all this is idle preaching? Will any one deny that we are bound, and I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... according to the fancy of the moment. Let none pretend to understand the value of such whose lives are all leisure; who take up a book to pass the time; who saunter in gardens because there are no morning visits to make; who exaggerate the writing of a family letter into important business. Such have their own enjoyments: but they know nothing of the paroxysm of pleasure of a really hardworking person on hearing the door shut which ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... thing not only useful, but absolutely necessary, that the excess of honour and admiration with which our existing stock of inventions is regarded be in the very entrance and threshold of the work, and that frankly and without circumlocution, stripped off, and men be duly warned not to exaggerate or make too much of them. For let a man look carefully into all that variety of books with which the arts and sciences abound, he will find everywhere endless repetitions of the same thing, varying in the method of treatment, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... him was that which would have been made by marble, and if the chevalier had been left to himself the consequences of this admiration would have been no less harmless. Moreover, the chevalier did not attempt either to exaggerate or to conceal this impression, and allowed his sister-in-law to see in what manner she struck him. The abbe, on the contrary, was seized at first sight with a deep and violent desire to possess this woman—the most beautiful whom he had ever met; but being as perfectly capable ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of four or five minae." "They who teach wisdom," continues he, "ought certainly to be wise themselves; but if any man were to sell such a bargain for such a price, he would be convicted of the most evident folly." He certainly does not mean here to exaggerate the reward, and we may be assured that it was not less than he represents it. Four minae were equal to thirteen pounds six shillings and eightpence; five minae to sixteen pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence. Something ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... easy, however, to exaggerate Cooper's faults, which do not, after all, seriously interfere with the enjoyment of his works. A teacher, who was asked to edit critically The Last of the Mohicans, said that the first time he read it, the narrative carried him forward with such a rush, ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... there is generally a tendency to overestimate. Where negroes make wrong estimates, in three cases out of four they will be found excessive. With whites the variation will be diminutive as often as excessive. In judging of numbers of men, a column of troops, for example, both races are liable to exaggerate, the negro generally going beyond the pale-face. Fifty mounted men may ride past a plantation. The white inhabitants will tell you a hundred soldiers have gone by, while the negroes will think there were two or ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... for weeks," Fenn answered, "have spoken of the wonderful wave of socialistic feeling throughout the country. He is an honest man, and he does not exaggerate. He assures us that half the ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... this coast pressure produced upon the welfare of the several sections is indicated here and there by official utterances. The war party naturally inclined to minimize unfavorable results, and their opponents in some measure to exaggerate them; but of the general tendency there can be no serious doubt. Mr. Pearson, an opposition member of the House from North Carolina, speaking February 16, 1814, when the record of 1813 was made up, and the short-lived ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... triumphant barbarism had produced an appalling state of things. It is impossible to exaggerate the hideousness of the regime of Mahdism. A ferocious tyranny terrorised and reduced to desolation the whole of the upper basin of the Nile; and the population is said to have shrunk from 12,000,000 to 2,000,000, although exact figures are of course unattainable. ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... much pride of their haughty virtue. Thinking well over it there is some sensuality in prizing too highly the flesh and guarding excessively what one ought to despise. There are some matrons to be met with who believe they have a treasure and who visibly exaggerate the interest God and the angels may have in them. They believe themselves to be a kind of natural Holy Sacrament. St Mary the Egyptian was a better judge. Pretty and divinely shaped as she was, she considered that it would be all too proud of her flesh to stop in the course of a holy pilgrimage ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... all grounds of pure science it "holds the field," as the only hypothesis at present before us which has a sound scientific foundation. It is quite possible that you will apply to me the remark that has often been applied to persons in such a position as mine, that we are apt to exaggerate the importance of that to which our lives have been more or less devoted. But I am sincerely of opinion that the views which were propounded by Mr. Darwin 34 years ago may be understood hereafter as constituting an epoch in the intellectual history ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... of revolution in which Del Ferice proposed to have a hand. He meditated playing a very small part in some great movement; and when the fighting should be over, he meant to exaggerate the part he had played, and claim a substantial reward. For a good title and twenty thousand francs a-year he would have become as stanch for the temporal power as any canon of St. Peter's. When he had begun talking of revolutions to Madame Mayer and to half-a-dozen harebrained youths, ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... the bottom of the sea as light as day. Our boatman informed us, after we were well under way, that we were approaching the place called "The Garden of the Sea Gods," one of the most beautiful submarine views on the coast. He did not exaggerate, as we were soon to know, for the scene was truly wonderful, and rightly named. All kinds of sea life began to pass before our eyes, like the fast changing figures of a kaleidoscope. Here the delicate sea moss lay like a green ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... have been trustworthy, and whose help worth having, stayed away altogether; and when the celebrated personages had paid their call and gone their several ways he was left to the flattery of a pack of incompetent fools. This is not to exaggerate—it is simply to explain the loneliness and sad tragedy of the end of Berlioz's life. He must in his heart have known the bitter truth. One friend of Wagner's must not be omitted—Lehrs. From him Wagner obtained ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... relate, [16] which it is yet necessary for me to tell, in order to fulfil my duty and to remove the clouds arising from rumors and letters that will go there. I am here and see everything; and there is never a lack of those who tell many new things, and exaggerate matters that are not so great as they will relate and descant there, where no one can report and declare what has ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... I'm pilin' on the agony, either. I couldn't exaggerate Lindy if I tried. And if you imagine it's cheerin' to have a human being as humble as all that around, you're mistaken. Kind of made me feel as if I was a ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... we come to Alfred's literary achievements, we find no tendency to exaggerate or embellish the sober truth. His hand is manifest in the Laws, and strongly surmised in the Chronicles. In both these vernacular products we find a new start, a fresh impulse, under Alfred. But that which stamps ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... satire. To have written a popular work is as much as a man's character is worth, and sometimes his life, if he does not happen to be on the right side of the question. The way in which they set about stultifying an adversary is not to accuse you of faults, or to exaggerate those which you may really have, but they deny that you have any merits at all, least of all those that the world have given you credit for; bless themselves from understanding a single sentence in a whole volume; and unless you are ready to subscribe to all their articles of peace, will ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... the basket Principles is another name for prejudices She bears our children—ours as a general thing Some civilized women would lose half their charm without dress The Essex band done the best it could Time-expired man, to use Kipling's military phrase To exaggerate is the only way I can approximate to the truth Two kinds of Christian morals, one private and the other public What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? When in doubt, tell the truth Women always want to know what ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Mark Twain • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
... "Do not exaggerate. Be calm; be reasonable," said Mr. Brown. "Observe, I do not accuse you of wilful misrepresentation, but of misapprehension, perhaps of prejudice. There is a difference. Note it, and do not take offence, my ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... center all your suspicions on me. You exaggerate my importance, Mr. Glenarm. I’m only the man-of-all-work at a ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... metaphysical free-will, we do not deny personal responsibility. We can fill the memory of the young generation with such associations as will prevent wrong doing or dissipation.... Cruelty in the penal code and the tendency to exaggerate punishment are sure signs of a low civilization and of an imperfect educational system.... It seems to me that we can no more expect to unravel the mechanism of associative memory by histological or morphological methods than we can expect ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... limits himself only by the range of the virtuoso, which by definition far transcends the modesty of nature. If my Russians seem more Muscovite than any Russian, and my English people more insular than any Briton, I will not plead, as I honestly might, that the fiction has yet to be written that can exaggerate the reality of such subjects; that the apparently outrageous Patiomkin is but a timidly bowdlerized ghost of the original; and that Captain Edstaston is no more than a miniature that might hang appropriately on the walls of nineteen out of twenty English country houses ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw
... caught up and telegraphed all over the country. But it need to surprise even the Colonel when he read it, it was embellished to that degree that he hardly recognized it, and the hint was not lost on him. He began to exaggerate his heretofore simple conversation ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... in part tell the truth about him, after they are safe; but was there ever a voluntary courtier whose opinion of his monarch could be believed? The more distinguished the courtier the greater his necessity to exaggerate his royal master—or mistress—to others and ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... paper I wrote for the 'report'? Mr. Anagnos was delighted with it. He says Helen's progress has been 'a triumphal march from the beginning,' and he has many flattering things to say about her teacher. I think he is inclined to exaggerate; at all events, his language is too glowing, and simple facts are set forth in such a manner that they bewilder one. Doubtless the work of the past few months does seem like a triumphal march to him; but then people seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... Navajo blankets you see. From Colorado to the Coast the Navajo blanket carpets the earth. I'll bet any amount within reason that in six weeks' time I saw ten million Navajo blankets if I saw one. As for other things—bows and arrows, for example—well, I do not wish to exaggerate; but had I bought all the wooden bows and arrows that were offered to me I could take them and build a rustic footbridge across the Delaware River at Trenton, with a neat handrail all the way over. Taking the figures of the last census as a working basis I ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... and lowered eyes. He was a sort of amateur monk, and, like all amateurs, he was apt to exaggerate outward signs. It was Marcos who ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... my dear," said the parson; "these are Irish, and genuine Celts, too, as one can tell from the hair and nose. I think, however, you exaggerate their beauty. Have you not read the European letters of Thurlow W—— and Horace G——, which described the middle and upper classes of the Irish as the most beautiful complexioned and dignified people in Europe or the world? Now, this is my mind, that you must get some farmers in a good ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... personal to be completely shared; for the most part J—— and I read not together, but each by each, he sitting in his morris chair by the desk, I sprawled upon his couch, reading, very likely, different poems, but communicating, now and then, a sudden discovery. Probably I exaggerate the subtlety of our enjoyment, for it is hard to review the unself-scrutinizing moods of freshmanhood. It would be hard, too, to say which enthusiast had the greater enjoyment: he, because these glimpses through magic casements made him merry; ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... to appear seeking credit for a courage, or rather a coolness, which the reader may conceive I exaggerate, I may be pardoned if I pause to indulge in one or two ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... one considers the exact relation of their height to the distances one views from them, they ought to claim no such effect, and that they can produce that effect is related to another thing—the way in which they exaggerate their own steepness. ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... and of all other nations whose names were connected with Persia, either by lineage or conquest, were subjects which required the talents of a simple narrator who had such love of truth as not willfully to exaggerate, and such judgment as to select what was best worthy of attention. But Thucydides had a narrower field. The mind of Greece was the subject of his study, as displayed in a single war which was, in its rise, progress, and consequences, the most important ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... beaux pretending to be polar bears. Nay, even when modern ladies paint their faces a bright mauve, it is doubted by some naturalists whether they do it with the idea of escaping notice. So merry-makers (or Mummers) adopt their costume to heighten and exaggerate their own bodily presence and identity; not to sink it, primarily speaking, in another identity. It is not Acting—that comparatively low profession-comparatively I mean. It is Mummery; and, as Mr. Kensit would truly say, all elaborate religious ritual is Mummery. That is, ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... simplicity—the sufferers from innovation, their adherence to ancient manners. Many a victim of the turbulence of party in Athens sighed for the repose of the Lacedaemonian city; and as we always exaggerate the particular evils we endure, and admire most blindly the circumstances most opposite to those by which we are affected, so it was often the fashion of more intellectual states to extol the institutions of which they saw only from afar and through a glass the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a part of the busy great world; he understood society and social ways: all these talents and acquirements made him a pleasant old gentleman when at his best, but it needed only a touch of suspicion or jealousy to put him at his worst. It was easy enough to see that Helen did not exaggerate when she told me he had nothing to care for but herself; and his care for her was so mixed with morbid fears that he was not first in her heart, so embittered by a distrust of her love for her father, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... her happiness, he of course knew nothing about. Until this success—which she, having no basis for comparison, could not but exaggerate—she had been crushed and abused more deeply than she had dared admit to herself by her birth which made all the world scorn her and by the series of calamities climaxing in that afternoon and night of horror at Ferguson's. This success—it seemed to her to give her the right ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... has been and still is a vexed question. Volumes have been written to prove that he was a drunkard, and volumes to prove that he was a sober man; and, as is always the case, both sides exaggerate. He kept an alehouse at Delft, but it did not pay; then he set up a tavern and things went worse. It is said that he was its most assiduous frequenter, that he would drink up all the wine, and that when the cellar was empty he would take down ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... would not have quite the same ridiculous-like appearance that it would before. Besides which, it's supposed that our affairs have got so much ravelled up (as I was saying) that it would be better to let them be the way they are. In my view, this part of the thing is vastly exaggerate, and if I were you I would not ware two thoughts on it. Only it's right I should mention the same, because there's no doubt it has some influence on James More. Then I think we were none so unhappy when we dwelt together in this town before. I think we ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Imogen. Besides, we do not want the reader to imagine that, before the war, the Belgians were ideally in love with one another. Like the English, the Americans and the French, we had our differences. It is one of the unavoidable drawbacks of Democracy that politics should exaggerate the importance of dissensions. Therefore it is all the more remarkable that the sudden friendship which sprang up between classes, parties and races in Belgium, on the eve of August 4th, should so long have defied the untiring efforts of the enemy and should remain as unshakeable ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... is to have its full effect upon the souls of men. And as a matter of fact, the periodical revolts against churches and ecclesiasticism, are never against societies in which all these characteristics are still alive; but against those which retain and exaggerate formal tradition and authority, whilst they have lost zest ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... whigs might exaggerate the success of their teachers; yet, it must be owned, that their doctrine of insubordination, joined to their vagrant and lawless habits, was calculated strongly to ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... deeply the immense importance of this question and the gravity of the appeal with which the speaker closed his address, I would not have ventured to say a word. My first question is this: Does not Mr. Allen greatly exaggerate the danger of war with Germany? And my reasons for this question are these. Every one knows that the relations between Great Britain and Germany have been steadily improving during the last two or three years. I note in this connection a statement ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... I to do? I can't exaggerate the sense of urgency Mlle. Malo's appeal gave me, or my faith in her sincerity. No one who had seen her meeting with Rechamp the night before could have doubted her feeling for him: if she wanted him away it was not because she did not delight in his presence. ...
— Coming Home - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... counties came under the sway of the dukes of Burgundy, national unity was realized, as it was realized in England or in France at the same time, through the increasing power and centralizing action of modern princes. A few prejudiced writers have vainly endeavoured to exaggerate the racial or linguistic factor, and contended that, in the eyes of science, Belgian nationality could not exist. The duty of a scientist is not to distort the manifestations of natural phenomena in the light of some more or less ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... to think of proceeding, anxious as we were to arrive at the main range itself. We killed this day one of the largest kangaroos we had seen in any part of New South Wales, being from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty pounds weight. These animals live in flocks like sheep; and I do not exaggerate, when I say that some hundreds were seen in the vicinity of this hill; it was consequently named Kangaroo Hill: several beautiful little rills of water have their source in it, but are soon lost in the immeasurable ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... dreamily, after a pause, "if that is not the bare truth. Ask Colville, ask Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, ask Miriam Liston, sitting here beside us, if I exaggerate the importance of—of myself." ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... this method. The pupil knows that, if he cannot expand a metaphor, he does not understand it. All teachers will admit that to force a pupil to see that he does not understand any thing is a great stride of progress. It is difficult to exaggerate the value of a process which makes it impossible for a pupil to delude himself into the belief that he understands when he does ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... is apt to exaggerate things on a workaday Saturday afternoon. She looked more like a pretty bisque figurine; slim and clear-cut, and a little neglected, perhaps, by its owners, and dressed in working clothes instead of the pretty draperies it should have had; but needing ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... humorism, he would, as we have seen, condemn himself to delineation of the parades of a watering-place; but the moment he permitted himself to be enthusiastic, vaster imaginations crowded in upon him: to modify his old conception in the least, was to exaggerate it; the mount of Pendennis is lifted into rivalship with Ehrenbreitstein, and hardworked Falmouth glitters along the distant bay, like the gay ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... homage as by a perpetual annuity. Better than an inheritance of service rendered to England herself, has sometimes proved the most insane hatred to England. Hyder Ali, even his far inferior son Tippoo, and Napoleon, have all benefited by this disposition amongst ourselves to exaggerate the merit of diabolic enmity. Not one of these men was ever capable, in a solitary instance, of praising an enemy—[what do you say to that, reader?] and yet in their behalf, we consent to forget, not their crimes ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... great violence. No lesser word would fit either the intensity of my feeling or the confused state of my mind. "Death here! where all are so happy! Remember your bride's ingenuous face! Remember the candid expression of Dorothy's eye—her smile, her noble ways! You exaggerate the situation. You neither understand aright the simple expression of surprise you heard, nor the feminine frolic which led these girls to carry off this romantic specimen of ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... rebellion up to the 25th March 1863 when Gordon assumed the command will make clear what follows to the general reader. It would be as great a mistake to minimise the fighting military strength of the Taepings as it would be to exaggerate it. There was a moment, years before Gordon came on the scene, when the Imperial commanders by a little energy and promptitude might have stamped out the rebellion; but having missed the opportunity ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... not often so in drawing, for the aspects of things are so subtle and confused that they cannot in general be explained; and in the endeavor to explain some, we are sure to lose sight of others, while the natural overestimate of the importance of those on which the attention is fixed causes us to exaggerate them, so that merely scientific draughtsmen caricature a third part of Nature, and miss two-thirds. The best scholar is he whose eye is so keen as to see at once how the thing looks, and who need not therefore trouble himself ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... injured the books from the artistic point of view is another question. It undoubtedly injured them exactly in proportion as the philanthropic motive led the writers to distort or to exaggerate the truth. It is perfectly justifiable, artistically, to lay the scene of a novel in a workhouse or a gaol, but if the humanitarian impulse leads to any embroidery of or divergence from the truth, the novel is artistically injured, because the selection and grouping ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Columbia," said Mr. Sumner, "concerns directly some twenty thousand colored persons, whom it will lift to the adamantine platform of equal rights. If it were regarded simply in its bearings on the District it would be difficult to exaggerate its value; but when it is regarded as an example to the whole country under the sanction of Congress, its value is infinite. It is in the latter character that it becomes a pillar of fire to illumine the footsteps of millions. What we do here will be ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... a Government train on its way to Fort Stevenson, and the officer in charge seeing the scouts before they discovered him, and believing them to be Sioux, had sent out to bring his herds in. It would be hard to exaggerate the relief that this discovery gave us, and we all breathed much easier. The scare was a bad one, and I have no hesitation in saying that, had we been mounted, it is more than likely that, instead of showing fight, we would have taken up a ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... "Don't you exaggerate what my brother wants?" my mother asked. "He knows too well the value of time to wish to waste that of anybody, and he ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... did not exaggerate, Monsieur Martin, when you said that your brother-in-law had already distinguished himself. In fact, there can be no doubt that the splendid defence he made at that little river, where he held Berruyer's ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... strengthening the stomach. Within the stomach we find the beginning of all vital blood- making processes. Here is where the food first passes through the changes essential to create the life-building fluid called the blood. We therefore cannot exaggerate the importance of strength to this important organ. When referring to a strong stomach, I do not mean strength in the abdominal muscles lying immediately in front of the stomach; I mean strength of the muscles within the walls of the stomach itself, which, to ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... at its mouth the mental scale by which we estimate distances and magnitudes is lost and the wildest conjectures result. We fail at first to realize the stupendous scale on which the work was done, and when we do finally realize it we swing to the opposite side and exaggerate. At the junction of Monument canyon there is a beautiful rock pinnacle or needle standing out clear from the cliff and not more than 165 feet on the ground. It has been named, in conjunction with a somewhat similar pinnacle on the other side of the canyon, "The Captains," and its height has been ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... of Italy did not heat very thoroughly: one drops into the way of doing as others do, and grows accustomed to putting up with cold in winter. Leslie often expressed the opinion that in America people really exaggerate in the matter of heating their houses. Nevertheless, just for the joy of the eyes and, through the eyes, of the depressed spirit, she was glad to-day of the big fire dancing and crackling ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... ran rather upon his career, and usually, I am glad to recall, with a note of satisfaction and approval. In his delirious phases he would most often exaggerate this self-satisfaction, and talk of his splendours. He would pluck at the sheet and stare before him, and whisper half-audible fragments ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... still quoted, as you see, by Mr. Pickering, (page 33,) as if it were genuine, and really written by me. And even Judge Marshall makes history descend from its dignity, and the ermine from its sanctity, to exaggerate, to record, and to sanction this forgery. In the very last note of his book, he says, 'A letter from Mr. Jefferson to Mr. Mazzei, an Italian, was published in Florence, and republished in the Moniteur, with very severe strictures on the conduct ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... whiskey as the average hymn-writer cannot give immortality to the joys of being drunk with the love of God. Style, then, does seem actually to be a form of life. The critic may not ignore it any more than he may exaggerate its place in the arts. As a matter of fact, he could not ignore it if he would, for style and spirit have a way of corresponding to one ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... part, sir, I cannot but think that silence is a censure too gentle of that wickedness which no language can exaggerate, and for which, as it has, perhaps, no example, human kind have not yet provided a name. Murder, parricide, and treason, are modest appellations when referred to that conduct by which a king is betrayed, and a nation ruined, under pretence of promoting its ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... soft sigh. A few hours before, this would have conveyed to my suspicious mind deep and mysterious meanings; but I was seeing everything now in a different light, and I found myself no longer inclined either to exaggerate or to misinterpret these little marks of filial solicitude. Trying to rejoice over the present condition of my mind, I was searching in the hidden depths of my nature for the patience of which I stood in such need, ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... "You exaggerate the power of upheaval which a worm would be able to bring into play in the limited time available," said Clovis; "if you put in a strenuous ten minutes with a really useful fork, the result ought to suggest the operations of an unusually masterful ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... yourself will find it most prudent to act without remonstrating, or appearing to be aware of this little anecdote. Julia is very like a certain friend of mine; she has a quick and lively imagination, and keen feelings, which are apt to exaggerate both the good and evil they find in life. She is a charming girl, however, as generous and spirited as she is lovely. I paid her the kiss you sent her with all my heart, and she rapped my fingers for my reward with all hers. Pray return as soon as you can. Meantime, rely upon ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... she was feeling your absence so acutely. Possibly it is always wiser to subtract at least half of the impression conveyed in both written and spoken words. Please understand that I am speaking in generalities when I say that we are exceedingly apt to exaggerate our own importance to others, and their importance ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... the King of England, asking him to interfere in their countryman's favour. They succeeded in their benevolent request for his English Majesty obtained at last from his son-in-law, the Dutch philosopher's liberation, who (I don't exaggerate) was made a present of to the British king; maybe as a sort of lion, which the king of Morocco had never yet thought of bestowing upon the monarch ...
— Notes & Queries,No. 31., Saturday, June 1, 1850 • Various
... many—descriptions of a Roman dinner, but the tendency, especially with the novelist, is to exaggerate grossly the average costliness and gluttony of such banquets. Undoubtedly there were such things as "freak" dinners almost as absurd as those of the inferior order of American plutocrat. Undoubtedly also there was often a detestable ostentation of reckless ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... of six hundred and odd hectares is a specimen of high farming on a large scale, such as I had never before witnessed in France. I do not exaggerate when I say that from end to end could not be discerned a single weed. Of course, the expense of cultivation on such a scale is very great, and hardly remunerative at the ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... trace the origin of the nervous and mental disease from which she suffered. Kerner's account of her childhood shows plainly that she was born temperamentally imaginative and unstable and that she was raised in an environment well calculated to exaggerate her imaginativeness and instability. Ghosts and goblins were favorite topics of conversation among the peasantry of Prevorst, while the children with whom she played were many of them unstable like herself, neurotic, hysterical, ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... any class of persons whose creed is, in all essential particulars, the same with our own, and who err only in this, that they believe a great deal too much. It is, therefore, to be regretted, that in their zeal to remove error, so many well-intentioned persons should exaggerate the faults which they combat; for, independently of the wound which is thereby inflicted upon Christian charity, prejudices are but confirmed in proportion as indignation is roused. "You may demonstrate to me, if you can, that we are mistaken in supposing that the souls of the faithful hear ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... suspicion [Footnote: I have in my possession an old manuscript book, written by my grandfather in 1796, in which this point is brought out. Being a Quaker, he naturally did not approve of the way those early preachers conducted services. Yet he would not be likely to exaggerate what came under his notice. This is what he says of one he heard: "I thought he exerted every nerve by the various positions in which he placed himself to cry, stamp and smite, often turning from exhortation ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... with a low, wide forehead, arched brows, a straight, slightly tip-tilted nose, a mouth sweet and full, dimpled cheeks, and a strong chin set above a faultless throat. His imagination, in casting off its first impression, was inclined to exaggerate Alice's beauty and to dwell upon its picturesqueness. He smiled as he walked back to the fort, and even found himself whistling gayly a snatch from a rollicking fiddle-tune that he had heard ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... of sentiment, where public opinion was silent, or a transaction strictly private. His courting his ward Publilia for her dower, his caressing Dolabella for the sake of getting his debt paid, his soliciting the historian Lucceius to color and exaggerate the merits of his consulship, display a grievous want of magnanimity and of a predominant sense of right. Fortunately his instinct taught him to see in the constitution of the republic the fairest field for the display ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... take a retrospect of some of the moral and religious movements that have occurred within my memory—in several of which I have taken part—and I shall note also the changes for better or worse that I have observed. If as an optimist I may sometimes exaggerate the good, and minimize the evil things, it is the curse of a pessimist that he can travel from Dan to Beersheba and ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... and French it is only because Germany has had less intimate relations than England with the culture spheres of classical Rome and France. This is true to a considerable extent, but it is not the whole truth. We must not exaggerate the physical importance of the Norman invasion nor underrate the significance of the fact that Germany's central geographical position made it peculiarly sensitive to French influences all through the Middle Ages, to humanistic influences in the latter fifteenth ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... one which it is difficult to exaggerate. We read in the pages of that great historian and great bishop, Gregory of Tours, the terrible tale of their crimes, their brutal luxury, their lust for blood, the {45} unbridled licence of their passions. That was the record of the days of their ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... accordingly it naturally comes about that the conductors of journals such as I have referred to, if they cannot provide a sufficient quantity of sensationalism true or partly true, have either to invent it or exaggerate some perhaps innocent or innocuous incident. I am sorry to say that yellow journalism is not only not unknown in Japan, but is apparently in a very flourishing condition there. I regret the fact all the more because the people of Japan are not yet sufficiently ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... if some did not exaggerate none of us would get a hearing—especially if we happened to be in a minority; ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... force finds free access to the world, and he is delivered from the peril of self-consciousness. He who cares supremely for some worthy activity and gives himself to it has no time to reflect on his own woes, and no temptation to exaggerate his own claims. He sees clearly that he is an undeveloped personality to whom the supreme opportunity comes in the guise of the discipline of work. To forget oneself in heroic action as did Drake, or in heroic toil as did Symonds and Stevenson, is ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... were Evangelical women, very public-spirited, and thinking nothing of their nephew in comparison with their duty; and he was at that time of life, and of that disposition, which, for fear of being supposed to wish to deceive them, would rather exaggerate and make a display of the difference of his own views. Not for freedom, not for Lucy, would the Perpetual Curate temporise and manage the matter; so the fact was that he stood at the present moment in a very perilous predicament. But for this family living, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... not to suppose that she blamed him for the unhappiness he had caused. She quite freed him from all intention of wrong. And after all, it might not be so bad. A mother's anxiety might exaggerate the danger; she would try and hope for the best. Change of scene must be tried; in the meantime, her fear was, that pique, or wounded pride, or disappointed affection might induce the unhappy child to—in short Mr Elliott must understand—. ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... We must not exaggerate this element. For one thing the power represented by the great Capitalist Press was a power equal with that of the great advertisers. For another, there was no clear-cut distinction between the Capitalism ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... any imputation of ability or power that this term didn't seem to cover. In many a girl so great a kindness might have been fanned to something of a flame by the breath of close criticism. I probably exaggerate little the perversity of pretty girls in saying that our young woman might at this moment have answered her sister with: "No, I wasn't in love with him, but somehow, since you're so very disgusted, I foresee that I shall be if he ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... The famous victory of the Marne, I believe, is still unknown in Germany—I have been so informed by an American who spent last winter in Germany. The battle of the Marne may not rank in history as quite the greatest battle in the history of the world. The French may exaggerate its importance as a military event. The English have certainly exaggerated the part played by their little expeditionary force of less than a hundred thousand in "saving France." That is for others to dispute. But it was without any question a great moral victory for the French of the utmost ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... think less of the players on account of it, for it is this fact that entitles the actor to speak of his art and not merely of his craft. It is because the player must select, eliminate, exaggerate, diminish and, in a word, modify his matter but may not be photographic, that he is entitled to call ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... novelist and poet, Gabriele d'Annunzio, under a very thin disguise, revealed his relations with the famous actress, Eleanora Duse. Anglo-Saxons thrust such books aside with a feeling of disgust for the man who could so betray a sacred confidence and perhaps exaggerate a simple indiscretion into actual guilt. But it is not so in France and Italy. And this is ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... rest, be it nowise apprehended, that any personal connection of ours with Teufelsdrockh, Heuschrecke or this Philosophy of Clothes, can pervert our judgment, or sway us to extenuate or exaggerate. Powerless, we venture to promise, are those private Compliments themselves. Grateful they may well be; as generous illusions of friendship; as fair mementos of bygone unions, of those nights and suppers of the gods, when, lapped in the symphonies and harmonies of Philosophic ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... the fishermen, because there are a great number of them in debt, and in the transition from the one system to the other they would require to pay up their debts, so far as their means would go' (Q. 10,015).* One cannot avoid observing that this class of objectors to cash payments exaggerate both the inability of the people to provide against the evil future, and the value of the 'merchants' as a source of credit in bad times. It is impossible to judge of the energy that would be exerted under the stimulus of necessity by a population which has always had landlords, ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... smoking factories and the torrent of munitions, the Britain of the men and subalterns of the new armies, the Britain which invents and thinks and achieves, and stands now between German imperialism and the empire of the world. I do not want to exaggerate the quality of greater Britain. If the inner set are narrowly educated, the outer set if often crudely educated. If the inner set is so close knit as to seem like a conspiracy, the outer set is so loosely knit as to seem like a noisy confusion. ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... to fifteen hundred (Crespin, ubi supra). It must have been not less than seven hundred or eight hundred; for private letters written immediately after the occurrence by prominent and well-informed Roman Catholics state it at about seven hundred, and they would certainly not be inclined to exaggerate. The rumor at Paris even then set it at twelve hundred. See the letters in Puyroche, 365-367. Among the one hundred and twenty-three names that have been preserved, the most interesting is that of Claude Goudimel, who set Marot's and Beza's psalms to ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... "It's hard—hard, for sometimes I think she loves me, she's so sweet and so tender. At such times I'm a god. But I know it can't be; that it is only pity and gratitude that prompts her. Heaven knows I'm uncouth enough at best, but now I have to exaggerate my rudeness. I play a part—the part of a lumbering, stupid lout, while my heart is breaking." He bowed his head in his hands, closing his dry, feverish eyes once more. "It's cruelly hard. ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... found himself obliged to defend himself against the Frondeurs, who, as he believed, sought to assassinate him. All those that were his own creatures thought they were not zealous enough for his service if they did not exaggerate the imminent danger he had escaped, and the Court parasites confounded the morning adventure with that at night; and upon this coarse canvas they daubed all that the basest flattery, blackest imposture, and the most ridiculous credulity ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... it is in virtue of right. If I wanted to take your ladyship's property, your dogs would be justified in refusing me my way.—I do not think I exaggerate when I say that, if my mare here had her way, there would not be a living creature about your house ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... magistrate might quite reasonably ask him why he desires to live, and why the person who wishes to kill him should not be gratified. Also whether he can prove that his life is a pleasure to himself or a benefit to anyone else, and whether it is good for him to be encouraged to exaggerate the importance of his short span in this vale of tears rather than to keep himself constantly ready to ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... the baronet, smiling after his own peculiar fashion, that is to say, with a kind of bitter sarcasm, "I have as good a right, I think, to exaggerate the failings of my daughter as you have to magnify those of your son. But a truce to this, and to be serious: I know the girl; you know, besides, something about women yourself, my lord, and I need not say that it is unwise to rely upon the moods and meditations of ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... who live under the European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did any where. Among the latter, under pretence of governing, they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... "They exaggerate my power. But for argument's sake suppose it true. Why should I ask it? What have I ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... long and moderate summer, with a short and mild winter. At present, in consequence of the predominance of sea in the southern hemisphere, the extremes to which its astronomical conditions subject it, are much ameliorated; while the great proportion of land in the northern hemisphere, tends to exaggerate such contrast as now exists in it between winter and summer: whence it results that the climates of the two hemispheres are not widely unlike. But 10,000 years hence, the northern hemisphere will undergo annual variations of temperature ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... with him. "But, Claude, you mustn't exaggerate things or put the punishment out of proportion to the crime. Admitting that what you did to Rosie ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... Indians in the West who were known as the Mandans. Wherever he went, among the Chippewas, the Crees, or the Assiniboines, some one was sure to speak of the Mandans, and the stories grew more and more marvellous. La Verendrye knew that Indians were very much inclined to exaggerate. They would never spoil a good story by limiting it to what they knew to be true. They liked a joke as well as other people; and, when they found that the white men who visited them were eager to know ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee
... Exhibition of 1851, the Birmingham jewellers did not exhibit, except through the London houses they were in the habit of supplying, and the specimens shewn by these middlemen were of a very unsatisfactory character as regards design. It is almost impossible to describe them without appearing to exaggerate. Construction in relation to use went for nothing. A group of Louis Quatorze scrolls put together to form something like a brooch with a pin at the back to fasten it to the dress, which it rather disfigured than adorned; heavy chain-like bracelet, pins, studs, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... "You exaggerate the danger, wife. There are no Indians, in this part of the country, who would dare to molest a settlement like ours. We count thirteen able-bodied men in all, besides seven women, and could use seventeen or eighteen muskets and rifles on an emergency. No tribe would dare commence hostilities, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... the hypocrisies and superficialities of civilized life, these were the game for his faculties. The interior of Paris households he transferred to the stage with biting wit, doubling the attractiveness of his pictures by comic hyperbole. His portraits are caricatures, not because they exaggerate vices or foibles, but because they so bloat out a single personage with one vice or one folly as to make him a lop-sided deformity. Characters he did not seek to draw, but he made a personage the medium of incarnating ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... still a little hysterical, and you exaggerate. If I had more time I could afford to wait." He ogled her with his luminous gaze. "I would let you play with me to your heart's content and exercise your power until you tired and were ready ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... stung our faces and blinded our eyes. For the entire distance of thirty-five miles, that wind howled and raved and tore. It almost took the ponies off their feet. I have not exaggerated it one bit. It would be impossible to exaggerate. When we reached the house where we had taken dinner going up, we found the dirt blown from the roof, likewise the tar-paper, leaving great cracks through which the dirt rattled. Everything was an inch deep in dirt, but ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various
... speech not only discussing the errors of those who exaggerate and those who minimize the use of force, but by imitation show their weaknesses. Do not burlesque, but ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... find here a well studied repast, but will meet with many incongruities of good eating and some barbarisms against good taste. If our good friend Damis had ordered it, all would be according to rule; there would be elegance and erudition everywhere; and he would not fail to exaggerate to you the excellence of every dish, and to make you acknowledge his high capacity in the science of good eating. He would speak to you of a loaf with golden sides, crusty all over, and yielding tenderly under ...
— The Shopkeeper Turned Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere (Poquelin)
... many years back, with the record of his ability. Mr. Rein-hart took his first steps and made his first hits in Harper, which owes him properly a portrait in return for so much portraiture. I may exaggerate the charm and the importance of the modern illustrative form, may see in it a capacity of which it is not yet itself wholly conscious, but if I do so Mr. Reinhart is partly responsible for the aberration. Abundant, intelligent, ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... talk about it, there was a theory that art and imaginative literature ought to deal with contemporary life; but they never did so; for, if there was any pretence of it, the author always took care . . . to disguise, or exaggerate, or idealise, and in some way or another make it strange; so that, for all the verisimilitude there was, he might just as well have dealt with the times of ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... of men anxious to show it. Especially was this true of that class which looked upon it as the supreme effort of critical judgment to exaggerate the value of everything written in Europe and depreciate everything of native origin. There was a prevailing belief among those who mistook their own individual impotence for the incapacity of a whole people, that nothing good could come out of America. Many showed their faith by their conduct. ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... clergy of former times did right to preach hell hot and strong, stuff it with fire, and keep it burning for ever. They had coarse and ignorant people to deal with, and were obliged to use realistic language. Besides, it was necessary to exaggerate, in order to bring out the infinite contrast between heaven and hell, the elect and the reprobates, the saved and the damned. Mr. Mivart maintains, therefore, that the old representation of hell "has not caused ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... chains, from east to west, in the custody of what are called "ten leopards." This tale at the time was likely to be exceedingly popular. Ever since the rise of Montanism—which made its appearance about the time of the death of Polycarp—there had been an increasing tendency all over the Church to exaggerate the merits of martyrdom. This tendency reached its fullest development in the early part of the third century. The letter of Ignatius to the Romans exhibits it in the height of its folly. Ignatius proclaims his most earnest desire to be torn ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... of a man's son, the delight which the father took in his childhood, his love for him, his hope of him, the comfort he derived from him, the pains he took in his bringing up, and all other instances of the same sort, may be mentioned so as to exaggerate ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... weighed twenty pounds. The gold excitement in Monterey had entirely abated, the immense mineral wealth of the country being looked upon as an established fact. There was no disposition (except among the landholders) to exaggerate. For a year past Lieutenant Lanman has been performing the duties of collector at the port of Monterey; and, having seen every man who had returned from a visit to the mines, his opportunities for obtaining authentic information were better than if he had visited the mines in person. ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... thousand miles above the sea-level. The eye, then, judges the horizon to be where it usually is—on the same level as the observer; but looking downwards, the eye perceives, and at once appreciates if it does not even exaggerate, the great depth at which the earth lies below the balloon. The appearance, then, as judged by the eye, is that of a mighty basin whose edge rises up all round to the level of the balloon, while its bottom lies two or three miles or ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... "uncircumcised," "jabberers," are epithets of contempt and abomination. The Tupis called the Portuguese by a derisive epithet descriptive of birds which have feathers around their feet, on account of trousers.[17] For our present purpose the most important fact is that ethnocentrism leads a people to exaggerate and intensify everything in their own folkways which is peculiar and which differentiates them from others. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... blood would mingle in his footprints. He was going back to Russia, where death would be a thing to be welcomed and desired. He had listened to the tales of escaped prisoners, and he knew that no words could exaggerate this frozen Hell in which flourished vices unnamable, where men rotted alive, and women strangled themselves with their own hair, or cut their throats with a scrap of glass to escape the brutalities of a ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... dear aunt, who was compassionate of him, however thoroughly she condemned his ruinous extravagance, and the shifts and evasions it put him to. She feared, that instead of mending the difficulty, he had postponed merely to exaggerate it in the squire's mind; and she was now of opinion that the bringing him down to meet the squire was very bad policy, likely to result in danger to my happiness; for, if the money should not be forthcoming on the date named, all my father's faults would ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the effects of the anthrax bacteridium and the microbe of pus may be combined and the two diseases may be superposed, so as to obtain a purulent anthrax or an anthracoid purulent infection. Care must be taken not to exaggerate the predominance of the new microbe over the bacteridum. If the microbe be associated with the latter in sufficient amount it may crowd it out completely—prevent it from growing in the body at all. Anthrax does not appear, and the infection, entirely ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... "Maybe I did exaggerate a trifle," Costigan interrupted him, "but the more helpless he thinks we are the better for us. And we want to stay out of any of their cities as long as we can, because they may be hard places to escape from. I've got a couple of ideas, but they aren't ripe enough ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith |
