"Rational" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will have another washing day; The decadents decay; the pedants pall; And H. G. Wells has found that children play, And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall; Rationalists are growing rational— And through thick woods one finds a stream astray, So secret that the very sky seems small— I think I will not hang ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... may we have wisdom to prepare no unsavory dishes, and strength to earn for ourselves, and others if necessary, the bread we daily need." This gave us a thought (that never grew old with me) of the needs of our neighbor, and also seemed so rational, and fitted our needs so perfectly. Aunt Hildy called it a common-sense blessing. I remember well how she spoke of it, in contrast with Deacon Grover's long-drawn-out table prayers, saying with emphasis; "The man, if he is a deacon, ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... contemporaries and, as we see, quoted for a few centuries by his successors, then they were ignored or quite forgotten; and if any philosopher of an ensuing age before the time of Leonardo championed a like rational explanation of the fossils, we have no record of the fact. The geological doctrine of Xenophanes, then, must be listed among those remarkable Greek anticipations of nineteenth-century science which suffered almost total ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... in on tiptoe after a timid little knock and the query, "Do I disturb you, Jack dear?"—a query which he answered with quite superfluous assurance to the contrary. Later, even after their wise conclusion that they must be rational, she had been accustomed to put the question, not at all as a purely perfunctory marital civility, but, as she shyly admitted to herself, because it was so sweet to hear Jack's negation and see the love-light in the eyes that soon brought ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... assured, quite efficacious. If a lad, free scholar or otherwise, misbehaves himself, he is called before the director and warned that a second reprimand only will be given, the necessity of a third entailing expulsion. No more rational treatment could be devised. ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... can reason thus. As the sensitive part of the soul has its eyes, with which it learns the difference of things, inasmuch as they are coloured externally; so the rational part has its eye with which it learns the difference of things, inasmuch as each is ordained to some end; and this is discretion. And as he who is blind with the eyes of sense goes always according to the ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... seems gave rise to the sm@rti literature. Discussions and doubts became more common about the many intricacies of the sacrificial rituals, and regular rational enquiries into them were begun in different circles by different scholars and priests. These represent the beginnings of Mima@msa (lit. attempts at rational enquiry), and it is probable that there were different schools of this thought. That ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... heads when they approach the Irish question and to become as rabid in their accusations as the paid political agitators themselves. I will give these two short extracts, the one from Mr. Morley's speech at Glasgow, and the other from Lord Powerscourt's temperate and rational commentary:— ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... and I found, so far as I can remember, that with by far the greater part their apparent concern in public was not just a transient qualm of conscience or merely a floating commotion of the affections, but a rational, fixed conviction of their ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... good-humour with each other, with all this shaking of hands, and nodding and laughing. I cannot conceive what he can be saying to them, for there are not three faces among the whole array that look as if they belonged to rational creatures." ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... than Zora had realized—she sent a page boy, in the true quality of his name of chasseur, to hunt down the quarry and bring him back. He would, therefore, be awakened at unearthly hours, at three o'clock in the afternoon, for instance, when, as he said, all rational beings should be asleep, it being their own unreason if they were not; or he would be tracked down at ten in the morning to some obscure little cafe in the town where he would be discovered eating ices and looking the worse for wear in his clothes of the night before. As this meant delay in the ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... we made as creatures: as a rational creature, who can understand and comprehend himself; how these members were fashioned; how this spark of vital flame was breathed into the lifeless lump or atom? Wonder-working Lord, thou only knowest. Wonderful are all the works of creation; but Oh, what are ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... as virtually its sole source of revenue, to deprive it of a power that might one day be vital to the safety of the Union, and to exhibit it in a condition of feebleness that was altogether incompatible with any rational conception of a sovereign State. It is true that the Supreme Court has changed not only its personnel, but its spirit, and its whole attitude toward questions of public policy, since 1895. It has more and more allowed the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... century.[297] The opinions of continental critics in general were similar. Among English critics Matthew Arnold aroused many protests when he ranked Byron as one of the two greatest English poets of the nineteenth century, but his views seem perfectly rational now; and though he remarked upon the extravagance of Scott's phrases his own verdict was not very unlike ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... soothingly, "I shouldn't hunt for a rational reason for their act. They have merely hastened the step we were ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... thousand Pounds; whereas, with us, it is at present obtain'd for the fiftieth Part of the Money. Besides, our Land pays to the Lords, but an easy Quit-Rent, or yearly Acknowledgement; and the other Settlements pay two Shillings per hundred. All these things duly weighed, any rational Man that has a mind to purchase Land in the Plantations for a Settlement of himself and Family, will soon discover the Advantages that attend the Settlers and Purchasers of Land in Carolina, above all other Colonies in the English Dominions in America. And as there is a free Exercise ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... possessions and the interest of the court and the new people of Brazil; and though the press, of course, did not boast of much freedom, nor indeed would its freedom at that time have been of any consequence, it formed the first step towards awakening rational curiosity and that desire for reading, which has become not only a luxury, but even a necessary, in some countries, and which makes a rapid and daily ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... time was convinced I must be a rational creature. He spoke often to me; but the sound of his voice pierced my ears like that of a water mill, yet his words were articulate enough. I answered as loud as I could in several languages, and he often ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... grave visage of thine, to dignify this joke, as it has done full many a one of thine own! Thou hast so happy a knack of doing the most foolish things in the wisest manner, that thou mightst pass thy extravagances for rational actions, even in the ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... breeding experiments a caterpillar without the three pairs of thoracic legs and yet developing into a moth that had normal three pairs. Morgan, with all his mutations of the adult Drosophila, says nothing of mutants possessing legs. The only rational conclusion is that legless larvae have lost the disuse, since those larvae which are destitute of legs do not go in search of food but either live in the midst of it or are fed by others, and that the pro-legs ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... boy; for one, who has seen so much of the horrors of war as I, knows how to put a rational value on the blessings ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... laudable ambition to be self-sustaining. To win a competency, to secure the necessities, to have even the luxuries of life, is perfectly praiseworthy, provided they are obtained in a legitimate manner. Every rational man seeks the occupation, trade or profession which insures the profitable employment of his best talents, and the science which discloses to the youth at the beginning of his education what those talents are and how they may be developed to perfection in early ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... ago—a man who had been found wandering in the woods with bits of what appeared to be bank-notes sticking to his skin. His skin had been scratched and bleeding in many places and the man when taken in hand had been delirious. Later, when he had become rational apparently and his condition had improved, he had refused positively to reveal his identity or to make any statement as to the circumstances which had led to his condition; so that he had been discharged ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... face and couldn't get anywhere. For the Dickys refused to be separated, and Mrs. Dick wouldn't tell her father, and Miss Patty wouldn't do it for her, and the minute Mr. Sam made a suggestion that sounded rational Mrs. Dick would cry and say she didn't care to live, anyhow, and she wished she had died of ptomaine poisoning the time she ate ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Almond, he declared his belief with much vehemence and agitation. This was soon after he had reached his eighteenth year. Maturer judgment "convinced him that 'zeal was to be tempered with discretion; that the service of Christ was a rational service'; that a strong assurance 'was not to be resorted to as the touchstone of our acceptance with God,' that it was not even the necessary attendant of religious life;" as more experience of his spiritual associates ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... rational, sensible, intelligent courier," replied McShane, "and so now let us finish the bottle. Here's good luck to Captain O'Donahue, alive or dead: and now—please the fleas—I'll be asleep ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... like himself, must at once make a similar concession, which is in turn repeated by the chair-bearers in favour of any one riding a horse. On similar grounds, an empty sedan-chair must give way to one in which there is a passenger; and though not exactly on such rational grounds, it is understood that horse, chair, coolie and foot-passenger all clear the road for a wedding or other procession, as well as for the retinue of a mandarin. A servant, too, should stand at the side of the road to let his master pass. As an exception to the ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... drawbacks, especially gay songs; they invariably evoke a vaporous melancholy. Card-playing Euphemia objects to because her uncle, the dean, is prominent in connection with some ridiculous association for the suppression of gambling; and in what are called "games" no rational creature esteeming himself an immortal soul would participate. In this difficulty it was that Euphemia—decided, I fancy, by the possession of certain really very becoming aprons—took ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... I suppose," said I, "he was never more rational. Just think what it is for a poor sinner all at once to feel that the eternal God is his; that He will be a God to him! We hear of some people dying at the receipt of good news; and I have seen some so happy at this experience, ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... to wait. The most rational alternative seemed to be to take the next train back to Avignon. But we might never again find ourselves at Orange. We recalled Addison's words, 'The remains of this Roman amphitheatre are worth the whole principality of Orange,' so we abided the storm. ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... if I had seen his bow and arrow. He made no account of my groans, which he accepted, as he had to accept so much else, as a piece of the inexplicable conduct of his elders. Those elders, who care so little for rational enjoyment, and are even the enemies of rational enjoyment for others, he had accepted without understanding and without complaint, as the rest of us accept the scheme of the universe." Miss Anna Buckland quotes in this connection a story of a little boy to whom his mother ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... in the special train which Kaid had sent for him, David watched the scene with grave and friendly interest. There was far, to go before those mud huts of the thousand years would give place to rational modern homes; and as he saw a solitary horseman spread his sheepskin on the ground and kneel to say his evening prayer, as Mahomet had done in his flight between Mecca and Medina, the distance between the Egypt of his desire and the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... She knew all that this meant, how much and how little. For an interval, long or short, as it should happen to be, she was again a rational human being. She abruptly swerved around from the window and swept the room with her eyes, recognizing it as the one she was occupying before she "went under," as she put it to herself, and trying, from association with the familiar objects around her, to form some idea ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... not but leave this short line to you, who, of all interests in the world, have been my greatest comfort, being now come to the utmost period of my time, and looking in upon my eternal state, it cannot be readily apprehended by rational men, that I should dare to write any thing, but according to what I expect shortly to be judged, having had such a long time to consider on my ways, under a sharp affliction. As for my case, I bless God it is many years since my interest ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... nor disturbed or exasperated by them; patient and meek yet intrepid; persisting for twenty years through good report and evil report; just and charitable even to his most malignant enemies; unwearied in every experiment to disarm the prejudices of his more rational and disinterested opponents, and supporting the zeal, without dangerously exciting the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... times. This is not an area of so great loyalty that any sovereign may venture to contend against such an imperial arm as Edward's. And would you—a boy in years, a novice in politics, and though brave, and till this day successful—would you pretend to prolong a war with the dictator of kingdoms? Can rational discrimination be united with the valor you possess and you not perceive the unequal contest between a weak state, deprived of its head and agitated by intestine commotions, and a mighty nation conducted by the ablest and most martial monarch of his age—a ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... will go instantly!" said Porthos, who went to execute the orders, casting all the while looks behind him, to see if the bishop of Vannes were not deceived; and if, on returning to more rational ideas, he would not recall him. The alarm was sounded, the trumpets brayed and drums rolled: the great bell of the belfry was put in motion. The dikes and moles were quickly filled with the curious and soldiers; ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... the learned gentleman in the silk gown apparently has the will. You it is, gentlemen of the jury, that are the arbiters of my fate: and, if I wished to gain a favourable verdict from you, I conceive (as I said before) that in so hopeless a case as mine I could take no more rational course towards that end than by giving you as little ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... punishment as the correct one, or even to recommend any one infallible rule. This must depend upon the parent, upon the child, and upon the circumstances. But there are certain definite principles which we must keep in mind and which will do much toward making our task of discipline more rational: ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... on the solid qualities of guinea-pigs or ferrets might haply blossom and bring forth fruit, when our governess appeared on the scene. Uncle George's manner at once underwent a complete and contemptible change. His interest in rational topics seemed, "like a fountain's sickening pulse," to flag and ebb away; and though Miss Smedley's ostensible purpose was to take Selina for her usual walk, I can vouch for it that Selina spent her morning ratting, along with the keeper's boy and me; while, if Miss Smedley walked with any one, ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... pure, looking for everything from God; thus will that beauty of soul remain, for which thy bridegroom to-day adores thee. I am no bigot, no fanatic; I am thy aunt of seven-and-twenty. I love all in innocent and rational amusements. But for this very reason I say to thee—be a dear, good Christian, and thou wilt as a mother, yes, as a ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... decrease in extent and deteriorate in quality, and as, with the increase of our population, the demands upon forest products of all kinds become greater, the necessity of a rational system of forestry, and the need of educated foresters becomes more apparent every day. We should, moreover, constantly bear in mind that, while there are trees, as the catalpa, the ash and the hickory, which will attain merchantable size in forty ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston
... Malone felt the faint stirrings of hope. Perhaps they would turn up a telepath yet who was completely sane and rational. ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... whose marvellous sweetness honey and manna are bitter to the taste. O value of wisdom that fadeth not away with time, virtue ever flourishing, that cleanseth its possessor from all venom! O heavenly gift of the divine bounty, descending from the Father of lights, that thou mayest exalt the rational soul to the very heavens! Thou art the celestial nourishment of the intellect, which those who eat shall still hunger and those who drink shall still thirst, and the gladdening harmony of the languishing soul which he that hears shall ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... and through his nephew, who was man-grown and presumably a rational human being; but what Mr. Starkweather actually saw was the vision of a little boy dressed in Lord Fauntleroy velvet, with silver knee-buckles and a lace collar; and much as a drowning man is supposed to review, in a lightning flash, every incident of his whole life, so was Mr. Starkweather reviewing ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... a whale's gullet—as if the story would be credible of a whale with an enlarged throat) and that no child on earth can stand moral instruction books or catechisms or any other statement of the case for religion in abstract terms. The object of a moral instruction book is not to be rational, scientific, exact, proof against controversy, nor even credible: its object is to make children good; and if it makes them sick instead its place ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... been the fate of any scheme of Indian legislation which was at its parliamentary crisis when the murder of Gen. Canby occurred? The work of years might well have been undone under the popular excitement attendant upon that atrocious deed. Yet it would be quite as rational to denounce the established systems for the care and control of the insane, and to turn all the inmates of our asylums loose upon the community because one maniac had in an access of frenzy murdered his keeper, as it would have been to abandon the established Indian ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... arrangement of the odes I have adhered to the traditional order. I should much have liked to place them in what must always be the most interesting and rational arrangement of a poet's works, that is, in chronological order. This would have been approximately possible, as we know the dates of the greater part of them. But convenience of reference and of comparison with the Greek text ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... history, and character of India and its people. But Phileas Fogg, who was not travelling, but only describing a circumference, took no pains to inquire into these subjects; he was a solid body, traversing an orbit around the terrestrial globe, according to the laws of rational mechanics. He was at this moment calculating in his mind the number of hours spent since his departure from London, and, had it been in his nature to make a useless demonstration, would have rubbed his hands for satisfaction. Sir Francis Cromarty had ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... before he came to me, I had, in a great deal of confusion of thought, and revolving every part of my circumstances in my mind, come to this resolution, that I would go to Lisbon, and consult with my old sea-captain; and if it was rational and practicable, I would go and see the island again, and what was become of my people there. I had pleased myself with the thoughts of peopling the place, and carrying inhabitants from hence, getting a patent for the possession and I know not what; when, ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... communication whatever with our surroundings if they were absolutely foreign to us. Man's complaint against nature is that he has to acquire most of his necessaries by his own efforts. Yes, but his efforts are not in vain; he is reaping success every day, and that shows there is a rational connection between him and nature, for we never can make anything our own except that which ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... a Christianity and an Evolutionism of this sort, there is an irreconcilable conflict. But it is because neither of them is a fair, rational, or ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... an innocent and healthful employment of the mind, distracting one from too continual study of himself, and leading him to dwell rather upon the indigestions of the elements than his own. "Did the wind back round, or go about with the sun?" is a rational question that bears not remotely on the making of hay and the prosperity of crops. I have little doubt that the regulated observation of the vane in many different places, and the interchange of results by telegraph, would put the weather, as it were, ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... wedlock is indissoluble holds out the strongest of all temptations to the perverse: they indulge without restraint in acrimony, and all the little tyrannies of domestic life, when they know that their victim is without appeal. If this connection were put on a rational basis, each would be assured that habitual ill-temper would terminate in separation, and would check this vicious and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... and moaned but Ramsey stared at him benumbed. She caught no rational grasp of his meaning; only stood and with immeasurable speed and a kind of earthquake sickness, in the space of one long breath, dreamed his words over and over. She felt neither fright nor horror, as she would as soon as thought ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... he) 'tis rational, Th' may be accountable in all: For when there is that intercourse Between divine and human pow'rs, That all that we determine here 225 Commands obedience every where, When penalties may be commuted For fines or ears, and executed It ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... as the physicist nears the confines of his kingdom he finds himself bewildered by touches and gleams from another realm which interpenetrates his own. He finds himself compelled to speculate on invisible presences, if only to find a rational explanation for undoubted physical phenomena, and insensibly he slips over the boundary, and is, although he does not yet realise ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... the dullness behind the mechanical brilliancy of Oscar Wilde, and recognize the strange hues of the whole AEsthetic Movement as the garments of men who could not, or would not see. There is really no rational alternative before our critics of the next century; if the men of the eighteen nineties, and the queer things they gave us, were not the products of an intense boredom, if, in strict point of fact, ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... means rare in the annals of history; eighteenth-century atheism, however, is of especial interest, standing as it does at the end of a long period of theological and ecclesiastical disintegration and prophesying a reconstruction of society on a purely rational and naturalistic basis. The anti-theistic movement has been so obscured by the less thoroughgoing tendency of deism and by subsequent romanticism that the real issue in the eighteenth century has been largely lost from view. Hence it has seemed ...
— Baron d'Holbach • Max Pearson Cushing
... "It is more rational in its plan than some I have heard of, since it takes in your nurse and your nurse's maid. Will this precious doctor ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... rightly used, rational enjoyment, power, fame,—these are all worthy objects of ambition; but they are not the highest objects, and you may acquire them all without achieving true success. But if, whatever you seek, you put good will into all your actions, you are sure of the ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... rampant lust and sexual abuses soon destroy the natural pleasures of intercourse, and unhappiness will be the result. Remember that intercourse should not become the polluted purpose of marriage. To be sure, rational enjoyment benefits and stimulates love, but the pleasure of each other's society, standing together on all questions of mutual benefit, working hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder in the battle of life, raising a family of beautiful children, sharing each other's joys and sorrows, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... misunderstood the objects of our labours—that we were not there to partition Turkey, and give them their share of Turkey, but for a very contrary purpose—as far as we could to re-establish the dominion of the Sultan on a rational basis, to condense and concentrate his authority, and to take the opportunity—of which we have largely availed ourselves—of improving the condition of his subjects. I trust, therefore, when I have pointed out to your Lordships this cardinal error in the views of Greece, that ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... to retain his self-respect if he were driven to take his glass of beer under the rules by which regimental canteens were governed. I believed, too, that the more the status of the rank and file could be raised, and the greater the efforts made to provide them with rational recreation and occupation in their leisure hours, the less there would be of drunkenness, and consequently of crime, the less immorality and the greater the number of efficient soldiers in the army. Funds having ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... should make God the object of all your actions is your first and most imperative duty, and the moment that you discharge your duties for any other end that moment they shall lose the dignity of deeds worthy of a Christian or even of a rational being; moreover, your mind, as you are fully aware, is endowed with perpetual activity, it is never idle,—you need only chose the objects to which you wish to apply it. But if you fail to apply it to things worthy of your sublime calling it will soon escape from your control, ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... the holy call? The blest Alliance, which says three are all! An earthly Trinity! which wears the shape Of Heaven's, as man is mimicked by the ape. A pious Unity! in purpose one— To melt three fools to a Napoleon[ek]. Why, Egypt's Gods were rational to these; 400 Their dogs and oxen knew their own degrees, And, quiet in their kennel or their shed, Cared little, so that they were duly fed; But these, more hungry, must have something more— The power to bark and bite, to toss and gore. Ah, how much happier were ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... this was an occasion upon which even adroitness of intellect and integrity of purpose might well have sought the shelter of conventional expressions. Lord Milner dispenses with any such protection. "In a rational world," he said, it would have seemed better to everybody that he, "with a big unfinished job awaiting him," and many of his fellow workmen unable to take the rest which they both deserved and needed, "should have arrived, and stayed, and returned in the quietest possible manner." ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... history and the fate of free states can never be sufficiently pondered by those upon whom so large and heavy a responsibility for the maintenance of rational human ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... decide upon questions before which man's reason stands impotent; and imagination and emotion, those great auxiliaries to all deep religious feeling, were bid to stand rebuked in her presence, as hinderers of the rational faculty, and upstart pretenders to rights which were not theirs. 'Enthusiasm' was frowned down, and no small part of the light and fire of religion ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... Close, where he was teased and laughed at as the Water-American, than in the House of Representatives, the Royal Society, or the Court of France. The great Printer, though recognised by accomplished politicians as a profound statesman, and by men of solid science as "the most rational of the philosophers," was regarded by his poor brother compositors as merely an odd fellow, who did not conform to their drinking usages, and whom it was therefore fair to tease and annoy as a contemner of the sacrament ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... hot-dry; the black bile that of earth, being cold-dry; the phlegm that of water, being cold-moist, and the blood that of air, being hot-moist.[FN394] There were made in man three hundred and sixty veins, two hundred and forty-nine bones, and three souls[FN395] or spirits, the animal, the rational and the natural, to each of which is allotted its proper function. Moreover, Allah made him a heart and spleen and lungs and six intestines and a liver and two kidneys and buttocks and brain and bones and skin and five senses; hearing, seeing, smell, taste, touch. The heart ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... whom she heard trying to beat down exorbitant prices in the shops, or whom she saw taking their change. The merchant's motto is, "A thing is worth all that can be got for it." Consequently, it never occurs to him that even competition is a reason for being rational. One striking case of this in my own experience was provided by a hardware merchant, in whose shop I sought a spirit lamp. The lamps he showed me were not of the sort I wished, and the price struck me as exorbitant, although I ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... who profess to follow reason? Yes, undoubtedly, if by reason they mean only conceits. Therefore such persons are now commonly called Reasonists or Rationalists to distinguish them from true reasoners or rational inquirers.—WATERLAND. ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... reasons carefully and logically usually meets with what to him, at least at first, seems to be an unsurmountable obstacle in the way of a rational explanation of Future Time Clairvoyance—when it comes to an understanding of how anyone can expect to see, or can really see, THAT WHICH HAS NEVER HAPPENED, he throws up his hands in despair. But, in this as in all the other phases ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... temperately gay, Pleased to enjoy, and willing to display. If thus your envy gives your ease its gloom, Give wings to fancy, and among us come. We're now assembled; you may soon attend - I'll introduce you—"Gentlemen, my friend." "Now are you happy? you have pass'd a night In gay discourse, and rational delight." "Alas! not so: for how can mortals think, Or thoughts exchange, if thus they eat and drink? No! I confess when we had fairly dined, That was no time for intercourse of mind; There was each dish prepared with ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... knows how to frame laws, commensurate with the progress of the age, to respect them and obey them, demonstrating that its national customs are not repugnant to this progress; that it is not ambitious for power nor honors nor riches aside from the rational and just aspirations for a free and independent life, and inspired by the most lofty idea of patriotism and national honor; and that in the service of this idea and for the realization of that aspiration it has not hesitated in the sacrifice ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... you wish a definition of the word "man" take it from this text teaching that he is a rational being, with a heart given to imagination. But what does he imagine? Moses answers, "Evil"; that is, evil against God or God's Law, and against his fellow man. Thus holy Scriptures ascribe to man a reason that is not idle but always imagines ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... governesses. Perhaps there is a satisfaction in patronizing where you have been ruled, and in conferring favors where you have only received 'impositions'—a pleasant consciousness of returning good for evil. There is no other rational way of accounting ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... than seven French and Spanish ships agreed with one accord to fall upon and destroy Lord Nelson's ship. And if they had only adopted a rational mode of doing it, and shot straight, they could hardly have helped succeeding. Even as it was, they succeeded far too well; for they managed to make England rue the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... gone, and Charles had recovered breath sufficiently to listen to rational conversation, I ventured to observe, "This comes of being too sure! We made one mistake. We took it for granted that because a man wears a wig, he must be an impostor—which does not necessarily follow. We forgot that not Colonel ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... sleep. Eliminate the useless, harmful fads, fancies and functions, which disturbed and prevented you from living a sane, rational life. ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... and achieve the protection, scientific study, and rational use of Antarctic seals, and to maintain a satisfactory balance within the ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... deliberately in those remarks which you remember we made, in our first lecture, about the empirical method; and it must be {321} confessed that after that act of renunciation we can never hope for clean-cut and scholastic results. WE cannot divide man sharply into an animal and a rational part. WE cannot distinguish natural from supernatural effects; nor among the latter know which are favors of God, and which are counterfeit operations of the demon. WE have merely to collect things together without any special a priori ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... these features of the scene with mechanical glances, but his mind was still unable to piece together or draw a rational conclusion from what he saw. And when he heard footsteps advancing on the gravel, although he turned his eyes in that direction, it was with no thought either for defence ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... can still be contemplated from a foreign standpoint and discussed in a foreign tongue. The age when the monarchical system made the courts of three-quarters of Europe a German's Fatherland has ended for ever. And with that, the last rational advantage of monarchy and royalist sentimentality disappears from the middle-class German's ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... here as a curious coincidence, that the same year which saw the birth of him who established rational government witnessed the death of him who perfected literature. In 1873, Martin Farquhar Tupper—next to Smith the most notable name in history—died of starvation in the streets of London. Like that of Smith, his origin is wrapped ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... two places. The first is a group of signals for 'attacking the enemy at anchor by passing either outside them or between them and the land,' and for 'anchoring and engaging either within or outside the enemy.' Here we have a rational embodiment of the experience of the Nile. The second is a similar attempt to embody the teaching of Trafalgar, and the way it is done finally confirms the failure to understand what Nelson meant. So extraordinary is the signification of the signal and its explanatory note that ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... violence surprises me, is wholly unlooked for, and unnecessary," he remarked, mildly. "From what Mrs. Clayton has told me, I had supposed that my disinterested care and assiduity with regard to your condition were about to meet their reward in your rational submission to the necessities of your case and mine. Resume your seat, I entreat you, and let us calmly discuss a matter that seems to agitate you so unduly. Perhaps I may be able to place it before you in a better light ere we have concluded our interview. You ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... Moonlight certainly has a tendency to make people melancholy and sentimental; it also makes them do foolish things. The most absurd and unreasonable notions I ever entertained, came into my head by moonlight, and wouldn't go away. Only twenty-five minutes ago, we were quite a rational, practical set of persons, eating our supper, (a well-cooked supper, too, though I say it myself), with a keen appetite, like Christians. And now, we have fallen to sighing and quoting poetry, and Browne waxes quite pathetic at the touching thought of getting a glimpse ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... things has infinitely diversified the works of his hands, but has at the same time stamped a certain similitude on the features of nature, that demonstrates to us, that the whole is one family of one parent. On this similitude is founded all rational analogy; which, so long as it is concerned in comparing the essential properties of bodies, leads us to many and important discoveries; but when with licentious activity it links together objects, otherwise discordant, by some fanciful similitude; it may indeed collect ornaments ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... All-Divine! Whose looks are so becoming, and of such infinite grace, whose study brings such Wisdom, and whose contemplation such Delight.... Since by thee (O Sovereign mind!) I have been form'd such as I am, intelligent and rational; since the peculiar Dignity of my Nature is to know and contemplate Thee; permit that with due freedom I exert those Facultys with which thou hast adorn'd me. Bear with my ventrous and bold approach. And since not vain Curiosity, nor fond Conceit, nor Love of aught ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... White would be striking a poor man dead with His lightning, if I attempted that. No, then: the modern Adam is some eight to twenty thousand years wiser than the first—you see? less instinctive, more rational. The first disobeyed by commission: I shall disobey by omission: only his disobedience was a sin, mine is a heroism. I have not been a particularly ideal sort of beast so far, you know: but in me, Adam Jeffson—I swear it—the human race shall at last ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... Cambridge man; and I was therefore the more shocked, for the sake of free thought in my University, at the appearance of a book which claimed and exercised a licence in such questions, which I must (after careful study of it) call anything but rational and reverent. Of the orthodoxy of the book it is not, of course, a private clergyman's place to judge. That book seemed dangerous to the University of Cambridge itself, because it was likely to stir up from without attempts to abridge her ancient liberty of thought; but it seemed ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... us that "there is one topic positively forbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their distempers. If you have not slept, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder stroke, I beseech you, by all the angels, to hold your peace, and not pollute the morning, ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... resist yielding to that triple surpassing loveliness. If this message is distinctly communicated to them, they will not be angry, but ever after revere and love my memory, as that of the truest and most rational ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... bigger than globules, only fit for fainting lady-birds, so I went to Lolly's, but her bottles have all gold heads, and are full of uncanny-looking compounds, and I made a raid at last on Sweet Honey's rational old dressing-case, poked out her keys from her pocket, and got in; wasting interminable time. Well, when I got back to my fainting damsel, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... be love, she thought, in the one rational moment that was vouchsafed her. If it was not love, it was too shameful. It could be nothing else than love. She loved the man whose arms were around her and whose lips were pressed to hers. She pressed more, tightly to him, with a snuggling movement of her body. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... was acknowledged to be the king of France, and a constituent part of the existing government. A new constitution was then framed, to which he was required to take an oath of obedience, and he took it per force. The leading patriots, who had nothing more in view than the enjoyment of rational liberty under a regular government, attempted to stop the revolution at the point of a limited monarchy. Mirabeau, that prodigy of genius and vice, was believed to have been of this number. The virtuous Lafayette ...
— Celebration in Baltimore of the Triumph of Liberty in France • William Wirt
... but its inconsistency with the chivalrous attitude he had just taken occurred to him in time to prevent him from becoming doubly absurd. His rage with Seth Davis seemed to him the only feeling left that was genuine and rational, and yet, now that Uncle Ben had gone, even that had a spurious ring. It was necessary for him to lash himself into a fury over the hypothesis that the letters MIGHT have been Cressy's, and desecrated by that scoundrel's touch. Perhaps he had read them and left them to be picked up by others. ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... Wilhelmina, i. 341 (without pathos).] But that was the naked truth of it: hot weather, agitation, want of sleep, want of food; not aversion to the Hereditary Prince, nothing of that. Rather the contrary, indeed; and, on better acquaintance, much the contrary. For he proved a very rational, honorable and eligible young Prince: modest, honest, with abundance of sense and spirit; kind too and good, hot temper well kept, temper hot not harsh; quietly holds his own in all circles; good discourse in him, too, and sharp repartee if requisite,—though ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... it is useless to endeavor to move this unfortunate man in his present condition; his mind is incapable of rational action. Only by care and soothing influence can he be restored to himself. He must be induced to accompany us to some asylum, some institution where he can be ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... nature—the edict of Eden—by which it is made equal in its pressure on men, our system depends in no particular upon legislation, but is entirely voluntary, the logical outcome of the operation of human nature under rational conditions. This question of inheritance illustrates just that point. The fact that the nation is the sole capitalist and land-owner of course restricts the individual's possessions to his annual credit, and what personal and household belongings he may have ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... It is this rational and common-sense view which I want to impress upon you to-night, to get you out of the region of mystery, marvel, wonder, and fear, which to so many people surround what is called psychism; to make you understand that you are unfolding consciousness, showing out your powers on one ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... in the New Testament which the Catholic creed interprets as giving divine authority to its representatives on earth is a late interpolation; the Trinity as stated above is a paradox which no rational being can understand, and its dogmas and idolatry are consistent with a civilization of ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... somewhat grimly. "I'm rational enough; if I hop about instead of walking, it's because I'm the tomb of more rabbits than I care to remember, but aside from that I'm all ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... a youth that which we hope may, in its development, become a power of this kind, should we instantly, supposing that we wanted to make a poet of him, and nothing else, forbid him all quiet, steady, rational labor? Should we force him to perpetual spinning of new crudities out of his boyish brain, and set before him, as the only objects of his study, the laws of versification which criticism has supposed itself to discover in the works of previous writers? Whatever gifts the boy had, would ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... work Kung Su had done in preparing hypno-recordings, Griffin had a working knowledge of the Rational People's language eleven days later when he sat down to drink herb infused hot water with Joe and other Old Ones in the low-roofed wooden building around which clustered a village of two hundred humanoids. He fidgeted through interminable ritualistic cups of ...
— Blessed Are the Meek • G.C. Edmondson
... cannot help the common course of things; and however hackneyed be the thought, however common-place the phrase, it is true, nevertheless, that beauty, singular beauty, would be the first idea of any rational creature, who caught but a glimpse of Emily Warren; and I should account it little wonder if, upon a calmer gaze, that beauty were found to have its deepest, clearest fountain in those large ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... to the whole life of man a real resurrection, and its second birth was followed by its second youth. This rejuvenescence was allotted to those wonderful centuries which popular ignorance confounds with the dark ages properly so called—an identification about as rational as if we were to compare the life within the womb to the life of intelligent though early childhood. Awakened to aspirations at once fresh and ancient, the mind of man took hold of the venerable ideals ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... subject was indeed worthy of all the interest it excited. The destiny of nearly a million of human beings—nay, the question whether they should be treated as men with rational souls, or as the beasts which perish—should enjoy the liberty to which all God's creatures are entitled, as of right, or be harassed, oppressed, tormented, and stinted, both as regarded bodily food, and spiritual instruction—whether the colonies should be peopled with ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... not to plead with you, who would overcome me,) I say that many reasons very readily offer themselves in answer why I have done this. Firstly, if there be aught thereof[484] in any of them, the nature of the stories required it, the which, an they be considered with the rational eye of a person of understanding, it will be abundantly manifest that I could not have otherwise recounted, an I would not altogether disfeature them. And if perchance there be therein some tittle, some wordlet or two freer, maybe, than liketh your squeamish hypocritical ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... fallacies for which these assumptions form the necessary basis. The principle, in short, which it is my object to enforce—that Home Rule in Ireland is more dangerous to England than Irish independence—lies at the bottom of all the rational opposition made by Unionists to the creation of an Irish Parliament, and, together with the arguments by which the principle is maintained, and the conclusions to which it leads, forms the true and just and reasonable case of England ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... 'Religion' may be used in a far wider sense, corresponding to a philosophy of the universe, whether that philosophy does or does not include this particular doctrine. But 'Philip Beauchamp's' assumption is convenient because it gives a rational reasoning to the problem of utility. Religion is taken to be something adventitious or superimposed upon other beliefs, and we can therefore intelligibly ask whether it does good or harm. Taking this definition for granted, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... critical moment; the mother screams when he speaks, frightening him, but the dog comes reassuringly to his arms and subsequently—or did he see it as a consequence?—his parents make much of him. In other words, at the start of his rational life the dog is a friendly element and the parents a frightening one. The details of the association drop soon enough from his conscious memory, but not from his subconscious. When the dog is with him, he feels secure. When ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... then shalt thou cease also to be subject to either pains or pleasures; and to serve and tend this vile cottage; so much the viler, by how much that which ministers unto it doth excel; the one being a rational substance, and a spirit, the other ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... Century of the Child, and elsewhere) has advocated for all young women a year of compulsory "service," analogous to the compulsory military service imposed in most countries on young men. During this period the girl would be trained in rational housekeeping, in the principles of hygiene, in the care of the sick, and especially in the care of infants and all that concerns the physical and psychic development of children. The principle of this ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... discoveries that it generally leads her to do wrong, she passes her life in a wistful melancholy which I cant dispel. I can only pity her. I suppose I could pet her; but I hate treating a woman like a child: it means giving up all hope of her becoming rational. She may turn for relief any day either to love or religion; and for her own sake I hope she will choose the first. Of the two evils, it is the least permanent." And Conolly, having disburdened himself, resumed his work without any pretence ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... no more;—but of these mysteries anon. I rejoice to see you looking life-like and rational. The film of the shadow has already passed from off your eyes. Be of heart, and fear nothing. Your allotted days of stupor have expired, and to-morrow I will myself induct you into the full joys and ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... the cultivated Englishman thought of a recent noisy and rather vulgar reception tendered to a new Governor for whom he is acting as private secretary. Chepstowe is suspected of being secretly amused at his surroundings. But his view of them is purely rational and matter-of-fact. ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... a military sense proved to be Germany, because of the strength of the industries and because of their modern and rational construction as against the archaic construction of the German State. France, with its undeveloped state of capitalism, proved to be far behind Germany, and even such a powerful colonial power as Great Britain, owing to the conservative and routine character of the English industries, ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... certain, incontrovertible, rational, substantial, consistent, indisputable, reasonable, true, demonstrable, indubitable, sagacious, undeniable, demonstrated, infallible, sensible, unquestionable, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... with a principled alacrity, to the ranks of the gathering and advancing army, their husbands and sons, their brothers and lovers, proceeded to organize relief for them; and they did it, not in the spasmodic and sentimental way, which has been common elsewhere, but with a self-controlled and rational consideration of the wisest and best means of accomplishing their purpose, which showed them to be in some degree the products and representatives of a new social era, and a new ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... related to us a curious incident illustrating the instinct of the swinish quadruped; but which to his mind, as well as to ours, seemed more like a proof of a rational principle possessed by the animal. The incident he had himself been witness to, and in his own woodlands. He ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... and carefully provides for the comfort of her young long ere she lays her fragile egg. Even look at that vulgar-looking beetle, whose coarse form would banish the idea of any rational feeling existing in its brain—the Billingsgate fish-woman of its tribe in coarseness and rudeness of exterior (Scarabaeus carnifex)—see with what quickness she is running backward, raised almost upon her head, while with her bind legs she trundles a large ball; herself ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... political institution. The constitution had emancipated the citizens, and it was necessary to emancipate the faithful, and to claim consciences for the state, in order to restore them to themselves, to individual reason, and to God. This is what philosophy desired, which is only the rational expression of the ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... discuss. Secretaries, councilors, theologians, they participate in all edicts; they have their hand in the government; they strive through its agency to bring a little order out of immense disorder; to render the law more rational and more humane, to re-establish or preserve piety, instruction, justice, property, and especially marriage. To their ascendancy is certainly due the police system, such as it was, intermittent and incomplete, which prevented Europe from falling into a Mongolian anarchy. If, down to the end of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... a little vanity, and was insnared, his suspicions quieted for the time. Valuing money himself supremely, it seemed most rational that father and daughter should regard him as the most eligible young man in ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe |
