"Sagacious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have put this plan in execution, could he have trusted to the prudence of Don Juan; but he feared to do so. The latter was somewhat rash, and not over-sagacious. Seeing Carlos in the act of escape, he might think it was his duty, as agreed upon, to show himself and his men on the edge of the thicket—the very thing Carlos now wished to prevent. For that reason the cibolero galloped direct ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... too have achieved immortality. Showily bound they make a favourite school prize and have given entertainment to generations of cultured refined persons, who have never paused in their reading to give a thought to the author of their enjoyment, the sagacious Prince to whose action they owe their emotional treat. His royal Highness's reward was his own aesthetic satisfaction. "By Heaven, this is more like," he rapturously exclaimed as he laid down the last volume of the collected works; "this verse has got some stuff in it." And on the occasion ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various
... were in the stirrups he set his horse bounding along the side of the herd, with the purpose of checking the stampede by changing its course. Grizzly understood matters and set off after him, leaving to the sagacious Cap to thread his way to the other side ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... Lawrence was upright, prudent, far-seeing, sagacious, and courageous; as a citizen, he was patriotic, public-spirited, and devoted; and as a man, he was a sincere, earnest, Christian husband, father, and friend. Viewed in any light, his character affords one of the most ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... shield for happiness and well-being, by that much is the mother indebted to her babe. Why is one man more successful than another in the street's fierce conflict? Because he has more resources; is prudent, thrifty, quick to seize upon opportunity, sagacious, keen of judgment. All these qualities are birth-gifts. The ancestral foothills slope upward toward the mountain-minded. And what do these distinguished mental ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... The sagacious Philip looked at her gravely. He thought to himself how piteous it was to see so young and lovely a creature, that had given up all hope of happiness for herself. These being his real thoughts, ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... and she confesses that at the first glance he reminded her more of an English red-complexioned country squire, who rides and hunts, eats good dinners, and takes life lightly, than of a profound and sagacious politician, who, with sure glance and firm hand, steers the vessel of the State towards its destined haven over the stormy waves of statecraft. But quickly that countenance lighted up, and the more Miss Bremer ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... He was previously at Sudborne, the seat of the Marquess of Hertford, where Toby, as our Russian friend was christened, became equally sagacious with bipeds, in distinguishing strong ale from small beer. To the former beverage, Toby became freely attached; but when we saw him at the Gardens in the Regent's Park, he appeared too docile for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... zibelo. sacrifice : ofero. saddle : selo. sagacious : sagaca. sage : salvio; sagxa. sail : velo; nagxi. salad : salato. salmon : salmo. salt : salo, "—meat," peklajxo. saltpetre : salpetro, nitro. same : sama. sample : specimeno, sanction : sankcii. sap : suko. sapphire ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... that we have, at a vast expense, completed our arrangements for the transmission of the earliest news from Ireland. We have just received the Over-bog Mail, which contains facts of a most interesting nature. We hasten to lay our sagacious correspondent's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... tried to follow their flight. Two kingfishers shot suddenly up on to their supper station, on a stunted willow stump, some twenty yards below him, and sat there in the glory of their blue backs and cloudy red waistcoats, watching with long sagacious beaks pointed to the water beneath, and every now and then dropping like flashes of light into the stream, and rising again, with what seemed one motion, to their perches. A heron or two were fishing about the meadows; and he watched them stalking about in their ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... details. The accurate and sagacious Richardson says, "The resemblance between the Northern American wolves (Canis lupus, var. occidentalis) and the domestic dogs of the Indians is so great that the size and strength of the wolf seems to be the only difference. I have more than once mistaken a band of wolves for the dogs ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... if the young man had, by an odd impression, throughout the meal, not been wholly deprived of Miss Theale's participation. Mrs. Lowder had made dear Milly the topic, and it proved, on the spot, a topic as familiar to the enthusiastic younger as to the sagacious older man. Any knowledge they might lack Mrs. Lowder's niece was moreover alert to supply, while Densher himself was freely appealed to as the most privileged, after all, of the group. Wasn't it he who had in a manner ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... distinguished and sagacious of modern missionaries has called attention to this fact. See Livingstone's "Missionary Travels in South Africa," ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... made all start, "BIScuits!!" Poor Mrs. Forster's agitation was sad to see, and between her and the butler the luckless lad was somehow got from the room. This attendant was an admirable comedy character, and in his way a typical servant, stolid and reserved. No one could have been so portentously sagacious as he looked. It was admirable to see his unruffled calm during his master's outbursts when something had gone wrong during the dinner. No violence could betray him into anything but the most placid and correct ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... utmost caution was used by the conspirators, this fact was not even suspected by any who were not in the secret of the whole proceeding. Understanding that his relation was an inefficient old man, Sir Reginald, himself an active and sagacious intriguer, had approached thus near to the old paternal residence of his family, in order to ascertain if his own name and descent might not aid him in obtaining levies among the ancient tenantry of the estate. That day he had actually intended to appear at Wychecombe, disguised, and under an assumed ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... deprived Of every planet under a poor sky, As much as may be tenebrous with cloud, Ne'er made unto my sight so thick a veil, As did that smoke which there enveloped us, Nor to the feeling of so rough a texture; For not an eye it suffered to stay open; Whereat mine escort, faithful and sagacious, Drew near to me and offered me his shoulder. E'en as a blind man goes behind his guide, Lest he should wander, or should strike against Aught that may harm or peradventure kill him, So went I through the bitter and foul air, Listening unto my Leader, who said only, ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... rear them in a Ministry. He was the first Englishman to whom a peerage was a sacrament of infamy, a baptism into the communion of corruption. As he was the earliest of the hateful list, so was he also by far the greatest; eloquent, sagacious, adventurous, intrepid, ready of invention, immutable of purpose, in every talent which exalts or destroys nations pre-eminent, the lost Archangel, the Satan of the apostasy. The title for which, at the time of his desertion, he exchanged a name honourably ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... subject. Maecenas may have been working too hard, and losing under the pressure something of his usual calmness; and Horace, while urging him to escape from town for a few days, may have had it in view to insinuate the suggestion, that Jove smiles, not at the common mortal merely, but even at the sagacious statesman, who is over-anxious about the future—"ultra fas trepidat"—and to ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... was astonishing to see how quickly a certain pleasant ease tranquillised your manner: snarl as I would, you showed no surprise, fear, annoyance, or displeasure at my moroseness; you watched me, and now and then smiled at me with a simple yet sagacious grace I cannot describe. I was at once content and stimulated with what I saw: I liked what I had seen, and wished to see more. Yet, for a long time, I treated you distantly, and sought your company rarely. I was an intellectual epicure, and wished to prolong the ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... Elephants living a long time since who were remarkably sagacious. They were married and it was their earnest desire that their son, if they ever had any, should be the one who should climb the sky and live among the stars. They often talked over the best way of securing this good, and ate up an immense number of different kinds of trees because they ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... caballero, courtly and sagacious. His forty-two years admonished him now to settle in life. When Alvarado was in cheeriest mood, at the feast, the Captain reminded him of his promise to release him. This would allow Peralta to locate a new ten-league-square ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... undreamed of an hour ago. But she held her natural agitation under good control and only a round red spot Upon each cheek betrayed her inward excitement as she prettily accepted the invitation. Beneath their drooping lashes Diana's sagacious eyes read the thoughts of the girl quite accurately. Miss Von Taer enjoyed disconcerting anyone in any way, and Louise was so simple and unsophisticated that she promised to afford considerable ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... were apt to be sagacious, especially when in the face of her prejudices, and this gave Margaret confidence. Cherry proved to have been carefully taught by a good clergyman and his wife, and to be of very different stamp from the persons to whom the girls ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... Rallywood may have been sagacious enough on some points, but on this particular one he was a fool. He was not at all aware that Madame de Sagan with her innocent eyes and small brain was ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... [B] Acute and sagacious as Jew Mike was, it did not occur to him, in his trepidation and alarm, that the note which he had just read, and which was in Lady Hawley's own handwriting, would clearly exonerate him from all suspicion of his having murdered her. But guilt ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... great genius, original, sagacious, and inventive, capable of discoveries in science no less than of improvements in the fine arts and the mechanic arts. He had a vast imagination, equal to the comprehension of the greatest objects, and capable of a steady and cool comprehension of them. He had wit at will. He had humor that, when ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... sagacious English saw that the policy of the French had undergone a revolution; that the policy of paltering and dawdling was ended; that in place of taking blows, blows were ready to be struck now; therefore they made ready for the new state ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... and enlargement too, are sufficiently evident, for at either extremity of the city, the fall of hammer and chisel give unceasing note of preparation. The circle designed and marked out as the limit of its future greatness by the sanguine mind of its sagacious founder has long since been overleaped; the wide Delaware on one side, and on the other the Schuylkill, seem incapable of bounding the ambitious city. Already does Market-street rest upon these two points, which cannot be less than ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... thinker and keen debater, inflexible in principle, untiring in effort; Ulysses Mercur, whose learning as a lawyer and whose worth as a man have since received their reward in a promotion to the Supreme Bench of his State; George V. Lawrence, one of the best known and most sagacious political leaders of Western Pennsylvania, inheriting his capacity from his honored father, Joseph Lawrence, who died during his membership of the Twenty-seventh Congress. John L. Thomas, junior, entered as the representative of the city of Baltimore; ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... had made him a priest. For the rest, he was a conscientious, hard-headed, hard-handed, brave, stern, implacable, faithful little man; a man almost without sympathy, ungentle, prejudiced, and rigid, but a man true to principle, honourable, sagacious, and sincere. It seems to me, reader, that you cannot always cut out men to fit their profession, and that you ought not to curse them because their profession sometimes hangs on them ungracefully. Nor will I curse Helstone, clerical ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... stupid countryman, this policeman, but he was visibly impressed—even flurried—by Hewitt's elaborate bumptiousness. He saluted, tried to look unnaturally sagacious, and confessed that he couldn't exactly say where the inspector was, things being put about so just now. He might be in Throckham village, but more ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... bar well stocked and freely opened to whoever along the river was influential in making or marring the reputation of steamboats. Fred finally got the captain into his own room, however, and made a freight contract so absent-mindedly that the sagacious captain gained an immense advantage over him; then he acted so awkwardly, and looked so pale, that the captain suggested chills, and prescribed brandy. Fred smiled feebly, ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... represented by different contemporaries. He appears to have had excellent natural qualities, perverted by a bad education. He was of the middle size, easy and graceful, with an agreeable countenance, and open, affable demeanor. His mind was quick and sagacious, rather than profound; and his quickness of intellect, and excellence of memory, supplied the lack of studious application. His wit was prompt and pungent; he expressed himself with vivacity and precision; ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... in yonder fork," said he. "We might have saved ourselves a good deal of trouble had we been more thoughtful. I suspected he was not in the log when the smoke failed to move him. The brute was too sagacious to hide there. It is not the first time I have known the hunter foiled ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... sagacious friend was right, and he was prepared to abide by his counsel—as long as Myler was at his elbow. But when he had got away from him, his mind began to wobble. Five hundred pounds!—what was it in comparison with what he might get by a little skilful ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... were moving about and sometimes disturbed the repose of the two Wachtersbach badger dogs, who were trained to keep side by side everywhere—in the room as well as in hunting. When the door opened they only raised their sagacious little heads ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and beasts talk, or can they not?" said the Major. "I ask that question because I am now looking at the enormous nests of the grosbeaks. It is a regular town with some hundreds of houses. These birds, as well as those sagacious animals, the beaver, the ant, and the bee, not to mention a variety of others, must have some way of ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... how between them they made otherwise ordinary words seem—well, encouraging. But these words were not quite ordinary; she had not, he feared, sufficiently pondered them. Indeed and indeed she needed an adviser—some sagacious, objective counselor like himself. There she was, standing before Briggs almost holding out her hand to him. Briggs of course ought to be thanked, for they were having a most delightful holiday in his house, but not thanked to excess and not ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... undoubtedly one of the ablest statesmen, as well as the most influential and sagacious of all the Chiefs of the Indian tribes of the southwest; and related many anecdotes illustrative of his character,—incidents that had come under his own observation,—which entertained us until a late hour, and ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... ditch, followed by Walter and one of the two postilions. Guided by the barking of the dog, they soon reached the thicket, and there found the man they were in quest of, pinned to the earth by the sagacious animal. ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... house. La Corne St. Luc would demand to search, and he, bound by his declarations of non-complicity in the abduction of Caroline, could offer no reason for refusal without arousing instant suspicion; and La Corne was too sagacious not to fasten upon the remotest trace of Caroline and follow it ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... of water long enough; but can you keep a seal out of water while there is any within five miles for him to get into? And would the seal respect you for it if you did? A dog shakes himself dry after a swim, and, if he be your own dog, he shakes the water over somebody else, which is sagacious and convenient; but a seal doesn't shake himself, and can't understand that wet will lower the value of any animal's caresses. Otherwise a seal would often be preferable to a dog as a domestic pet. He doesn't howl all night. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... saturated something in the corner, like a heap of crushed over-ripe figs that I have seen in Italy! And this detestable Morgue comes back again at the head of a procession of forgotten ghost stories. This will never do. I must think of something else as I lie awake; or, like that sagacious animal in the United States who recognised the colonel who was such a dead shot, I am a gone 'Coon. What shall I think of? The late brutal assaults. Very good subject. ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... with her usual occupation; she was dipping fresh-cut salad leaves into great bowls of water as quietly as if only her own little family were assembled before her. Once only she lifted her heavily-moulded, sagacious eyebrow at the irate dog-cart driver, as if to measure his pitiful strength. She allowed the fellow, however, to touch the point of abuse before ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... it you are unjust on the merits of my beloved Drosera; it is a wonderful plant, or rather a most sagacious animal. I will stick up for Drosera to the day of my death. Heaven knows whether I shall ever publish my ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... The sagacious bullocks, who knew quite well what they were expected to do, looked blank. Some rubbed their horns into one another's sadly, and some cocked their tails because they felt that they could not be called upon to work. The light of the afternoon sun came glancing along the vast pillar, and lit its ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... and had carried off the body, and also much of gold; wherefore they needs must make diligent research and find out who the man ever might be. They then took counsel and determined that one amongst them, who should be sagacious and deft of wit, must don the dress of some merchant from foreign parts; then, repairing to the city he must go about from quarter to quarter and from street to street, and learn if any townsman had lately died and if so where he wont to dwell, that ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... for tyranny and oppression, with the scorpion-lash for the equivocal, the fraudulent, and the insincere, Mark Twain inspires the growing body of reformers in all countries who would remedy the ills of democratic government with the knife of publicity. The wisdom of human experience and of sagacious tolerance informing his books for the young, provokes the question whether these books are not more apposite to the tastes of experienced age than to the fancies of callow youth. The navvy may rejoice ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... him this permission, wished to ascertain, by observing whether he would really take with him all his possessions, the existence of any secret determination in his mind not to come back to Susa. If this were Darius's plan, it was defeated by the sagacious vigilance and cunning of the physician. He told the king, in reply, that he preferred to leave his effects in Persia, that they might be ready for his use on his return. The king then ordered a variety of ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the last preceding years—that is, from '46 to '52—took a peculiar fancy for them as food, which, we presume, caused their enemies to say that we then had hard times in Ireland. Be this as it may, it enabled the sagacious epicures who lived upon them to retire, in due course, to the delightful retreats of Skull and Skibbereen,* and similar asylums, there to pass the very short remainder of their lives ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... changed, and given me more than I hoped for or could wish for, but for all that I have not ceased to be what I was before, and I still hope to have the aid of your valorous and invincible arm. Therefore, good my lord, restore to my father his honour, and believe him to be both wise and sagacious, for by his magic he has found me a remedy for all my misfortunes. For I believe that had it not been for you, I should never have attained the happiness I now enjoy, and that I speak the truth these good gentlemen will bear witness. All ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... Richard are anticipated here, as quaint, as terse, and as sagacious in the ancient Jew as in the modern American. Our scientific teachers would replace eloquent declamation concerning vices, such as drunkenness and debauchery, by illustrated lectures upon the physiological effects of violations of nature's laws. They would teach men that the laws of health ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... vermine, and yet did it not. I have heard indeed many fine stories told of rats, how they abandon houses and ships, when the first are to be burnt and the second dround. Naturalists say they are very sagacious creatures, and I beleeve they are so; bot I shall never be of the opinion they can forsee future contingencies, which I suppose the divell himselfe can neither forknow nor fortell; these being things which the Almightie hath keepd hidden in the bosome ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... have him beat." I confess that I have never seen an ostrich bury his head in the sand to blind himself to any impending danger, as he is traditionally supposed to do; I fancy that this is a libel on a fairly sagacious bird, and that in reality the practice is entirely ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... in the main I was considered by the events and transactions already rehearsed, a prudent and sagacious man, yet I was not free from the consequences of envy. To be sure, they were not manifested in any very intolerant spirit, and in so far they caused me rather molestation of mind than actual suffering; but still ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... their heads to turn their backs on Lady Jane's cause, and to take up the Princess Mary's. This was chiefly owing to the before-mentioned Earl of Arundel, who represented to the Lord Mayor and aldermen, in a second interview with those sagacious persons, that, as for himself, he did not perceive the Reformed religion to be in much danger—which Lord Pembroke backed by flourishing his sword as another kind of persuasion. The Lord Mayor and aldermen, thus enlightened, said there could be no doubt that the Princess ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... manifest that we could not escape. Our pursuer was hardly a gunshot off, and slowly but surely lessening the space between us. The sagacious Mr. Campbell regarded our capture as inevitable, and, true to his characteristics, repeated the stratagem which had served him so successfully when we were molested by the Patriot privateer. He doffed his old garments, which were not ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... fry 'em," replied the sagacious apprentice-boy. "This scrummage with the Revenge will be no dancin' heel-and-toe. A bigger ship, more guns and men, and a Blackbeard who will fight like a demon when he's cornered. Crazy though he may be, he is ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... Cairo, descended to the coast of the Levant, and took shipping for Jaffa, on the route to Jerusalem. Every point of interest in the holy city is described as minutely as could be desired. Next, there was a visit to the Dead Sea, regarding which there occur some sagacious remarks. The doctor repudiates the ordinary belief, that the waters of this famed lake are carried off by exhalation. Six million tons of water are discharged every day by the Jordan into the Dead Sea; and to suppose that this vast increase is wholly exhaled, seems ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... and on seeing Burton, she exclaimed under her breath: "That is the man!" She describes him as "five feet eleven inches in height, very broad, thin and muscular, with very dark hair, black, clearly defined, sagacious eyebrows, a brown, weather-beaten complexion, straight Arab features, a determined-looking mouth and chin, nearly covered by an enormous moustache; two large, black, flashing eyes, with long lashes," and a "fierce, proud, melancholy expression." [98] In the words of one of ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... than is the existence, say, of the Nile of equal value in point of evidence that it was designed for traffic, as is the existence of the Suez Canal that it was so designed. And the mere fact that the problem of achromatism was solved by "the mind of a sagacious optician inquiring how this matter was managed in the eye," no more proves that "this could not be in the eye without purpose, which suggested to the optician the only effectual means of attaining that purpose," than would the fact, say, of the winnowing of corn having ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... head the least bit. I was surprised to see how near they were—right under me. I could have spat upon their hats. They were looking on the ground, absorbed in thought. The manager was switching his leg with a slender twig: his sagacious relative lifted his head. 'You have been well since you came out this time?' he asked. The other gave a start. 'Who? I? Oh! Like a charm—like a charm. But the rest—oh, my goodness! All sick. They die so quick, too, ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... not one to question the belief of Tayoga, his sagacious friend. If it was not Tododaho who had sent their enemies away then it was some other spirit, known by another name, but in essence the same. His whole being was permeated by a sort of ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... disappearance,—rich clouds of purple and gold, that form the curtains of his bed,—little barks that pass black across his disc, his disc every instant dropping nearer and nearer into the water. "There he goes!" says one sagacious observer. "No, he doesn't," cries another. Now he is gone, and the steward is already threading the deck, asking the passengers, right and left, if they will take a little supper. What a grand object is a sunset, and what a wonder is an appetite at sea! Lo! the horned ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... families, became the favourite wife of the chief warrior of the nation. Great was the love and affection which the White Crane bore his beautiful wife, and it grew yet stronger in his soul, when she had brought him four sons—a gift the more highly prized by the wise and sagacious chief, because, as my brother can see, for he is not a fool, it was the pledge of continued power and importance in the tribe, when his own strength and vigour should have passed away, when the hand of age should no more find joy in bending the bow, and ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... intentionally talking at cross purposes with her pastor; and that while he clung to the old signification of sensible, namely, to be aware of, or sensitive to, a thing, she was using it in the new, now universally accepted, sense of sagacious. The fun, of course, was enhanced by the fact that poor Mr Edmundson was totally unacquainted with the ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... of these precepts designed to guide the electors in their choice of men are sagacious and admirable, they smack strongly of that absolute and abstract spirit which can never become powerful in politics without danger. It is certain that in the spring of '89, Condorcet held hereditary monarchy to be most suitable to 'the wealth, the population, the extent of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... gold in various states of burnishing, and there were fine views—on fine days—of the Scottish coast. But, when it rained at Allonby, Allonby thrown back upon its ragged self, became a kind of place which the donkey seemed to have found out, and to have his highly sagacious reasons for wishing to bolt from. Thomas Idle observed, too, that Mr. Goodchild, with a noble show of disinterestedness, became every day more ready to walk to Maryport and back, for letters; and suspicions began to harbour in the mind of Thomas, that his friend deceived him, and that ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... their national genius but to the poverty of their soil; and as proof of what I have so often advanced, look at the Vineyard (their neighbouring island) which is inhabited by a set of people as keen and as sagacious as themselves. Their soil being in general extremely fertile, they have fewer navigators; though they are equally well situated for the fishing business. As in my way back to Falmouth on the main, I visited this sister island, permit me to give ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... most careful men to discover the precise meaning of the Italian terms used as indications of the time to be taken. Of course, no one can be at a loss to distinguish a Largo from a Presto. If the Presto be two in a bar, a tolerably sagacious conductor, from inspection of the passages and melodic designs contained in the piece, will be able to discern the degree of quickness intended by the author. But if the Largo be four in a bar, of simple melodic structure, and containing but few notes in each bar, ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... a company of licensed thieves, "What else," cried he, "is the majority of the nation? What is your standing army at home, that eat up their fellow-subjects? What are your mercenaries abroad, whom you hire to fight their own quarrels? What is your militia, that wise measure of a sagacious ministry, but a larger gang of petty thieves, who steal sheep and poultry through mere idleness; and were they confronted with an enemy, would steal themselves away? What is your . . . but a knot of thieves, who pillage the nation under colour of law, and enrich themselves with the ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... and our laymen contribute on a small one, alas for its solvency! Such were our views, and such our inferences, on this occasion; and to Thomas Chalmers, at once our wisest and our humblest man—patient to hear, and sagacious to see—we ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... characteristic story. When the Queen became engaged to Prince Albert, she wished him to be made King Consort by Act of Parliament, and urged her wish upon the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. At first that sagacious man simply evaded the point, but when her Majesty insisted on a categorical answer, "I thought it my duty to be very plain with her. I said, 'For G——'s sake, let's hear no more of it, ma'am; for if you once get the English people into the ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... the mountains, and the white population was rapidly increasing. This territory the French government was very unwilling to leave in American hands. The possibility of enormous expansion which it would afford to the new nation was distinctly foreseen by sagacious men. Count Aranda, the representative of Spain in these negotiations, wrote a letter to his king just after the treaty was concluded, in which he uttered this notable prophecy: "This federal republic is born a pygmy. A ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... ad rem.—What would do for a beefsteak does not help his mistake; for it is quite evident that sprote applies to fish-swimming and not to fish-catching; and I presume that "useful and sagacious" auxiliary, Dr. Kitchener himself, would hardly have ventured to deny ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various
... introduced as one of the leading personages of our story. Though often moved with kind and generous impulses, he yet was governed by no settled principles of benevolence; though often shrewd and sagacious, he yet possessed no true wisdom; and, though often bold and resolute in action, he yet lacked the faith and firmness of true courage. In short, he might be regarded as a fair representative of the numerous class we are daily meeting with in life,—men who do ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... moonrise. 'T was, in truth, a study, To mark his spirit, alternating between A decent and professional gravity And an irreverent mirthfulness, which often Laughed in the face of his divinity, Plucked off the sacred ephod, quite unshrined The oracle, and for the pattern priest Left us the man. A shrewd, sagacious merchant, To whom the soiled sheet found in Crawford's inn, Giving the latest news of city stocks And sales of cotton, had a deeper meaning Than the great presence of the awful mountains Glorified by the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... of the rope was secured to the trunk of a tree. Jumbo was then sent to bark along the bank of the river, in order to attract the monster. Its snout before long appeared above the surface, when Jumbo, aware of the rush it would make, scampered off up the steep bank to a safe distance. The sagacious dog knew well the danger of manoeuvring on ground raised only a little above the level of the water; for the alligator could easily land and make its way over it with great speed. The monster, disappointed in ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... Richelieu had risen by his extraordinary ability as a statesman, a short time anterior to this, into supreme authority, and had assumed the office of grand master and chief of the navigation and commerce of France. His sagacious and comprehensive mind saw clearly the intimate and interdependent relations between these two great national interests and the enlargement and prosperity of the French colonies in America. He lost no time in organizing measures ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... had the pleasure of speaking. The dog had not yet been formally introduced to his new cat friend, and from the commanding position he had taken up, with his hind legs on the hearthrug and his fore paws on the seat of the easy chair, he had considerable advantage over pussy, should that sagacious creature think of fleeing to another vantage-ground; although the thought of this, it should be added, never crossed for an instant the mind of old Mouser; he knew well ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... next called. He said to her: "Daughter, you stand in no great need of advice from me, insomuch as you have a mother, whom I have ever found most sagacious, and entirely in conformity with my own opinions and wishes, and whom I have never found faulty; with such a preceptress, you cannot fail to be properly instructed. Do not account it singular that I, with no tie of blood to you, am interested ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... The sagacious Shawanoe suspected the truth; the single Indian had gone to look after a canoe or something which lay close to the river, while the others were about to engage in a hunt of so kind. The discovery pleased Deerfoot; for, beside indicating that there was a boat for him to ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... was in my pocket, and the guineas were between my fingers, when my heart smote me. The landlord's significant 'Take care of yourself young gentleman!' my own sagacious conjectures when he gave me this warning, and their strange phrase of bite the bubble, all rose to my recollection. They shall not make a tool and a jest of me, said ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Kamschatkan dogs; but it has its origin in a fur different motive than that of mere fidelity. Their return to the snug shelter of the balagan is simply an instinct of self-preservation: for the sagacious animals well know, that in winter the lakes and streams will be completely frozen over, and were they to remain abroad, they would absolutely perish either from hunger or cold. Even the wretched winter ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... quick-witted, nimble- witted, needle-witted; sharp as a needle, sharp as a tack; alive to &c (cognizant) 490; clever &c. (apt) 698; arch &c (cunning) 702; pas si bete[Fr]; acute &c 682. wise, sage, sapient, sagacious, reasonable, rational, sound, in one's right mind, sensible, abnormis sapiens[Lat], judicious, strong-minded. unprejudiced, unbiased, unbigoted[obs3], unprepossessed[obs3]; undazzled[obs3], unperplexed[obs3]; unwarped judgment[obs3], impartial, equitable, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Naturhist. Vereins, Bonn, 1853. See 'Origin,' Historical Sketch.), has sent him a pamphlet published some years ago, in which the same view is nearly anticipated; but I have not yet seen this pamphlet. My brother, who is a very sagacious man, always said, "you will find that some one will have been before you." I am at work at my larger work, which I shall publish in a separate volume. But from ill-health and swarms of letters, I get on very very slowly. I hope that ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... Artifice, that what she imagined would be the Basis of her Power, was the very Thing which overthrew it. A crafty Mollak having insinuated himself into her Confidence, made Use of it to gain that of the young King; and being too sagacious a Politician not to foresee what he had to fear from this enraged Woman, if he left her any Degree of Power or Opportunity of hurting him, he compelled her to leave the Kingdom in a disgraceful Manner; and by this successful Boldness, he became Master of the young ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... that the sagacious Captain of the Secret Service would walk into the trap some fine evening, there to meet with certain destruction? Evidently, for the house was guarded night ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... you see here looking quite maternal with her family around her, is the sheep dog, the shepherd's faithful and invaluable friend. It is the most sagacious and intelligent of all dogs, and volumes of anecdotes might be written of ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... fruit in other days On all her branches. Piety has found Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer Has flowed from lips wet with Castalian dews. Such was thy wisdom, Newton, childlike sage! Sagacious reader of the works of God, And in His Word sagacious. Such too thine, Milton, whose genius had angelic wings, And fed on manna. And such thine, in whom Our British Themis gloried with just cause, Immortal Hale! for deep discernment praised, And ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... an individual seems to have been contemptible, was a highly sagacious and excellent historian. He has left a history of Catiline and another of Jugurtha. They are masterpieces of lucidity and of dramatic vivacity. Admirable especially are his maxims, which seem as well thought out as those of La Rochefoucauld: ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... of Miletus, opposed the retreat to Myrcinus, advising his countrymen rather to fortify themselves in the Isle of Leros, and await the occasion to return to Miletus. This early writer seems to have been one of those sagacious men who rarely obtain their proper influence in public affairs, because they address the reason in opposition to the passions of those they desire to lead. Unsuccessful in this proposition, Hecataeus ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mood. If anything, I was quite the reverse; and as I have since learned, I imposed terms with an assurance so sublime that any less degree of audacity might have put an end to the negotiations then and there. But the man with whom I was dealing was not only broad-minded, he was sagacious. He recognized immediately such an ability to take care of my own interests as argued an ability to protect those of his firm. But this alone would not have induced the average business man to employ me under ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... princess in Drollic story. It was indeed composed of that paste which Derdaeus Magnus, an ingenious toy- man, doth at a very moderate price dispense of to the second-rate beaus of the metropolis. For, to open a truth, which we ask our reader's pardon for having concealed from him so long, the sagacious count, wisely fearing lest some accident might prevent Mr. Wild's return at the appointed time, had carefully conveyed the jewels which Mr. Heartfree had brought with him into his own pocket, and in their stead had placed in the casket these artificial stones, which, ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... your fidelity. I know too that a man may be both honest and sagacious, and yet miss the best and nearest way to the salvation of his soul. There are others, Machiavel, men whom I esteem, yet whom ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... a recent editorial discussing affairs in the Transvaal, where Englishmen have been denied certain privileges by the Boers, says: "England is too sagacious not to prefer a gradual reform from within, even should it be less rapid than most of us might wish, to the most sweeping redress of grievances imposed from without. Our object is to obtain fair play for the Outlanders, but the best way to do it is to enable them to help themselves." This policy, ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... gradually complicated the political situation and prepared the necessity for the explanation which the mother country at last peremptorily demanded, Simon Bradstreet being selected as one of the men most capable of suitable reply. So long as Winthrop lived, his even and sagacious course hindered many complications which every circumstance fostered. Even in the fierce dissensions over Anne Hutchinson and her theories, he had still been able to retain the personal friendship of those whom as a magistrate he had most severely judged. Wheelwright and Coddington, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... oferi. Sacrilege malpiajxo. Sad malgxoja. Sadden malgxojigi. Saddle selo. Sadness malgxojeco. Safe (money) monkesto. Safe sendangxera. Safety sendangxereco. Saffron safrano. Sagacious sagaca. Sagacity sagaceco. Sage sagxa. Sage (botany) salvio. Sail (of a ship) velo. Sail surnagxi. Sailing-ship velsxipo. Sailor maristo. Sails velaro. Sainfoin sanfojno. Saint sanktulo. Saintly sankta. Sake of, for the pro. Salad salato. Salamander ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... were made up of two different men, the one all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion, the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker: but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears. He was half maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting whispers ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... conduct, and about the intense delight of the child, and her hearty enjoyment of the feast, which for the time effectually dissipated my fears and my melancholy thoughts. It was the last hour I should spend in my solitary room; my lonely days were past. This little elf, with her large sharp eyes, and sagacious womanly face, was to be my companion for the future. I felt closely drawn to her. Even the hungry appetite with which she ate spoke of the hard times she had gone through. When she had eaten all she could eat, I heard her say ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... prolific mother produced two litters in the year of about ten at a time, and once above twenty at a litter; but, as there were near double the number of pigs to that of teats, many died. From long experience in the world this female was grown very sagacious and artful:-when she found occasion to converse with a boar she used to open all the intervening gates, and march, by herself, up to a distant farm where one was kept; and when her purpose was served would return by the same means. At the age of about fifteen her litters began to ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... conducting a party of pleasure. When a seat is to be surveyed, he has a peculiar talent in selecting some shady bench in the park, where the company may most commodiously refresh themselves with cold tongue, chicken and French rolls; and is very sagacious in discovering what cool temple in the garden will be best adapted for drinking tea, brought for this purpose, in the afternoon, and from which the chaise may be resumed with the greatest convenience. In viewing the house itself, he is principally attracted by the chairs ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... between the two was as striking as the completeness of each of them in his own style of beauty. It was the contrast between the slow-hound and the deer-hound; each alike high bred; but the former, short, sturdy, cheerful, and sagacious; the latter tall, stately, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... of State cast a sagacious glance round the interior of the coach, which greatly affronted both ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... self-interest is a matter of speculation. He had been cruel enough to strike this old man down and to rob him of his money. He had been wary enough to wound himself, and to have feigned a terror which had deluded many into a belief in his innocence. He had been sufficiently sagacious to keep from his attorneys all knowledge of this money, and he had repeatedly denied to Sommers, and to every one else, any participation in the dark ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... he drove in a most leisurely manner from the sea to the mountains, penetrating even to hamlets beside the silent lakes on the Canadian border, and then went back to the sea again. Two chunky grey horses with wide foreheads and sagacious eyes propelled him at the rate of three miles an hour; for these, as their master, had learned the lesson that if life is to be fully savoured it is not to be bolted. Silas cooked and ate, and sometimes ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... things which she thinks exceedingly flattering, but which cause a sagacious husband to make ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... sense in substance. That Robespierre had decent fluency, copiousness, and finish, need hardly be said. The French have an artistic sense; they have never accepted our own whimsical doctrine, that a man's politics must be sagacious, if his speaking is only clumsy enough. Robespierre more than once showed himself ready with a forcible reply on critical occasions: this only makes him an illustration the more of the good oratorical rule, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... of the narrow question of the political and military situation in Kentucky, and the extent of force necessary to redeem the State from rebel thraldom, forecasting in his sagacious intellect the grand and daring operations which, three years afterward, he realized in a campaign, taken in its entirety, without a parallel in modern times, General Sherman expressed the opinion ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the latter the more prudent and sagacious authors who, when writing to individuals, keep one eye on posterity. We know that many who pursue this method have written long, finished, charming, flattering, and tolerably natural letters. Beranger furnishes us with the best example of ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... rights of her son. She would have risked a thousand deaths to defend that child, who represented in her heart the cause of the fatherland. Where he was concerned there was in the attitude of this frail young woman something firm and decided. To a sagacious observer, the amazon was already manifest under the lady of society. She was like those officers who shine equally at the ball and on the field of battle. Recognizing in her more than one imperfection, she cannot be denied ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... Quintus, not much, we gather from the letters, to the happiness of either of them. Cicero could not have had a better confidant. He was full of sympathy, and ready with his help; and he was at the same time sagacious and prudent in no common degree, an excellent man of business, and, thanks to the admirable coolness which enabled him to stand outside the turmoil of politics, an equally excellent adviser ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... recognize the strong understanding and goodness, the wit and invention, and fine pawky humor of the much-loved and warmhearted representative of Viscount Dundee—the terrible Clavers.[33] They will recall that blithe and winning face, sagacious and sincere, that kindly, cheery voice, that rich and quiet laugh, that mingled sense and sensibility, which all met, and still, to our happiness, meet in her, who, with all her gifts and keen perception of the odd, and power of embodying it, never gratified her consciousness ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... Shakspeare. His surpassing greatness was never acknowledged by the learned, until the nation had ascertained and settled it as a foregone and questionless conclusion. Even now, to the most sagacious mind of this time, the real ground and evidence of its own assurance of Shakspeare's supremacy, is the universal, deep, immovable conviction of it in the public feeling. There have been many acute essays upon his minor ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... soon sagacious enough to discover that I was not born to great wealth; and having heard no other name for happiness, was sometimes inclined to repine at my condition. But my mother always relieved me, by saying, that there was money enough in the family, that IT WAS GOOD TO BE OF KIN TO MEANS, that ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... adjacent parish, who had taken his duties, sufficed to reveal it. For so many years he had never stirred out of Ruscino in winter cold or summer heat, that none of his people could satisfactorily account to themselves for his now frequent journeys. The more sagacious supposed that he was trying to get the project for the river undone; but they did not all have so much faith in him. Many had always been vaguely suspicious of him; he was so wholly beyond their comprehension. They asked Adone what he knew, or, if he knew nothing, ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... the subject in the same light. Accordingly, in pushing forward his plots toward their execution, he operated in Media as well as Persia, He ascertained, by diligent and sagacious, but by very covert inquiries, who were discontented and ill at ease under the dominion of Astyages, and by sympathizing with and encouraging them, he increased their discontent and insubmission. Whenever Astyages, ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... wealthy body, keeping its numbers at somewhere near 600. We must not be perpetually assuming that the Caesars were either reckless or unscrupulous, because two or three were of that character. Many of them were remarkably capable and sagacious men. They recognised the need of ability and high character in their Senate. They had themselves enough of the old Roman exclusiveness to keep their honours from being made too cheap, and the probability is that under their rule the Senate was quite as honourable and quite as able a body as it was ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... first day with these great events had taken their virtue, instead of their impulses as the rule of their actions, all these disasters which eventually crushed them, would have been saved to them and to their country. If the king had been firm and sagacious, if the clergy had been free from a longing for things temporal, and if the aristocracy had been good; if the people had been moderate, if Mirabeau had been honest, if La Fayette had been decided, if Robespierre had been humane, the Revolution ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... England, and to hear such good talk that much of it has not lost its flavor even yet. Strawberry Hill, Holland House, or any other famous house of that day, has left but faint memories of itself, compared with those of Streatham. Boswell, the most sagacious of men in the hunt after good company, had the good wit and good fortune to get entrance here. One day, in 1769, Dr. Johnson delivered him "a very polite card" from Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, inviting him to Streatham. "On the 6th of October, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... slough-hounds should be maintained in every district of Cumberland, bordering upon Scotland. They were of great value, being sometimes sold for a hundred crowns. Exposition of Bleau's Atlas, voce Nithsdale. The breed of this sagacious animal, which could trace the human footstep with the most unerring ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... event indeed—been so much irritated as to speak of Portland in coarse and ungentlemanlike terms. With Albemarle, on the other hand, Marlborough had studiously ingratiated himself by all the arts which a mind singularly observant and sagacious could learn from a long experience in courts; and it is possible that Albemarle may have removed some difficulties. It is hardly necessary, however, to resort to that supposition for the purpose of explaining why so wise a man as William forced himself, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... noble spirit was broken at last by the defection of Prussia, and after lingering a while, he died on the 23rd of that month, leaving a name second to none among the greatest statesmen of his country. His sagacious mind grasped the advantage to be gained by freeing trade from unnecessary restrictions, and anticipated catholic emancipation, parliamentary reform, and the abolition of slavery. He gave the nation, in the union with Ireland, the one constructive measure of the first ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick |
