"Underestimate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... According to Admiral Sims, Allied destroyers, about 500 in all, were credited with the certain destruction of 34 enemy submarines; yachts, patrol craft, etc., over 3000 altogether, sank 31; whereas about 100 Allied submarines sank probably 20.[1] Since 202 submarines were destroyed, this may be an underestimate of the results accomplished by each type, but it indicates relative efficiency. Submarines kept the enemy beneath the surface, led him to stay farther away from the coast, and also, owing to the disastrous consequences ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... the doctor made his first slip. It never pays to underestimate your enemy. Hoffman certainly had a good story, and he told it well, but after thirteen years in the Secret Service I shouldn't trust the Archbishop of Canterbury till I'd proved his credentials. I agreed to dine at Parelli's, but I took the precaution of ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... creed which are palpable to every understanding. In their wish to avoid unprofitable disputations, they dwelt but cursorily upon debated subjects of the last importance; and in their dread of a correct theology doing duty for a correct life, they were apt grievously to underestimate the influences of theology upon life. Their moral teaching was deeply religious, pervaded by a sense of the overruling Providence of a God infinite in love and holiness, and was enforced perseveringly and with great earnestness by motives derived from the rewards and punishments of a future ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... no possibility of an accurate chronological chart, the worker may undertake more than he can do, thus delaying work which should have been done by others. On the other hand, he may underestimate his capacity, and be left idle because work he should have done has been assigned to others. Either of these leads to a sense of insecurity, to wavering attention, to "hit or miss" guess work, "rule-of-thumb methods," which are the ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... of the most frequent causes of misfits. Even when parents are sincere and try to be wise, choice of a child's life work is very difficult for them. In the first place, they either underestimate or overestimate their children. What parent, worthy of the high privilege, can be absolutely impartial in judging the talents of his child? Arthur Brisbane says that Nature makes every baby look like a genius in ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... I am vaunting idly," she said. "Perhaps I am. I do not know what I shall do. But, monsieur, for your own sake do not underestimate my capacity for doing you harm. I mean that as ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... The results are never what we expect, possibly because the effort is never what we imagine it to be. We continually underestimate the opposing force of evil, the difficulty of dealing with a humanity which falls so easily under the slightest temptation. It is not that sinners decline to hear the Word of God, but that those who profess themselves to be the servants of God, and who in fact intend to be such, are ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... admit here for the first time that in urging Mrs. Catt's fitness for the office I made the greatest sacrifice of my life. My highest ambition had been to succeed Miss Anthony, for no one who knew her as I did could underestimate the honor of being chosen by her ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... jaw and great, strongly modelled nose, was alive with power—with power of intellect no less than of will. His lack of early education gave him a certain diffidence and a distrust of his own gifts of expression. He was apt to overrate the mere verbal facility of others and to underestimate himself in the comparison—indeed, a certain humility was strongly marked in him, even as regards his art, though he was self-confident also. When he was unconstrained his great powers of observation, his shrewdness of judgment, his bubbling humor, ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... Do not underestimate your strength. There are things you would like to do; very well, sail in and do them. Do not be afraid of making a mistake. Do not be afraid that you will fail. Suppose you do fail. Millions have failed before you. I am repeating this thought ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... an inclination now to underestimate the effect of the Renaissance. The writers of that age were unsparingly contemptuous of their predecessors, and their verdict was for long accepted almost without question. The reaction against ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... unfortunate than he who succeeds too quickly and too easily. His success makes him exaggerate his own importance and ability. It makes him underestimate the strength of those who compete with him, and the difficulty of winning ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... ranged farther. Raimonda! The young Caracunan was handsome, distinguished, manly, with a romantic charm that the American did not underestimate. He, at least, was a gentleman, and the assiduity of his attentions to the Northern beauty had become the joke of the clubs—except when Raimonda was present. By the same token, half of the gilded youth of the capital, and most of the young diplomats, were the sworn slaves of ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... only expressed his purpose in his taking up arms, but his confidence of accomplishing it, based upon the assurance that the Lord would give peace. It was a trophy erected before the fight, and built, not by arrogant presumption or frivolous underestimate of the enemy's strength, but by humble reliance on the power of that Lord who had promised His presence, and had assured triumph. So the hope that named this altar was the hope that war meant victory, and that victory would bring peace. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Robledo. You understand my general ideas on such subjects. Means are of no consequence to a born statesman. Results are the only permanent things in this world. However—I warn you. Don't underestimate your man. He will shoot; I imagine that he can shoot quickly and without ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... sea, is entitled to scant respect from any indications in its favour. The faulty execution of the original plan, which enabled the enemy to concentrate and to accumulate adequate means of resistance, and the subsequent underestimate of the endurance of the garrison, bear the same mark. In issuing their ultimatum, in opening the campaign, in combining against Dundee, and finally in investing Ladysmith, the Boers exceeded decisively that five minutes ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... delight, the fruit of noble deeds." Pedro supported his brother-in-law, Raimon VI. of Toulouse, against the crusaders and Simon de Montfort during the Albigeois crusade and was killed near Toulouse in the battle of Muret. The Chanson de la Croisade does not underestimate the impression made ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... that she would think him impertinent came of an underestimate of her innocence. "I haven't got any," replied she. "I forgot my purse. It ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... beyond question that Thomas made all those elaborate preparations to attack an enemy of less than half his own strength, under the belief that his adversary was at least equal in strength to himself. That Hood then knew his own exact strength is a matter of course, and that he did not underestimate the strength of his adversary is almost equally certain. During the two weeks in which his army lay in front of Nashville, if not before, he must have ascertained very closely the strength of the Union ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... the Founder we are impressed that religious organizations as such which arise within Christianity tend to survive in proportion as they make central the significance of Christ as the revealer of the character of God. We would not for a moment underestimate the importance of those groups of Christians who take Christ merely as a prophet who lived the noblest life and exalted his truth by the noblest death. Many such believers manifest the very purest devotion ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... situation, anger at the man who had caused it, and finally—and this dominated all the others—profound sympathy for the friend he loved. He knew something of the tightening of the grasp of a man like Klutchem and he did not underestimate the gravity of the situation. What Consolidated Smelting represented, or what place it held in the market were unknown quantities to the Colonel. What he really saw was the red flag of the auctioneer floating over the front porch of that friend in Virginia whom the Bank had ruined, ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... error, into which most critics have fallen, to underestimate or to neglect the Austro-Hungarian factor in the enemy's alliance. Without thus nearly doubling her numbers, Germany could not have fought France and Russia at all, and a very striking feature of all the earlier weeks of 1915 was the presence in the Carpathians of increasing Austro-Hungarian ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... his power of speech. The capacity for understanding speech is well advanced, and an appeal to reason is often successful while the child is still powerless to express his own thoughts in words. Because he cannot so express himself there is a tendency to underestimate the acuteness of his reasoning, to talk down to him, and to imagine that he can be imposed upon by any fiction which seems likely to suit the purpose of the moment. A child of eighteen months is not ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... difference in illumination was less than one tenth[1] that of the brighter box. At the beginning of the experiments a difference of one half did not enable her to choose as certainly as did a difference of one tenth after she had chosen several hundred times. Evidently we are prone to underestimate the educability of our ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes |
