"Common knowledge" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... That is to say, they're insulated. The current's there, but it's long-circuited. The only expression it's got is through the intelligence,—so it lights the house. Absence of common knowledge and common interests only adds to the resistance and makes it burn all the brighter. Naturally Darby and Joan fall victims to the very dangerous illusion that they're intellectual companions. They think they're having wonderful talks. All they ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... enough, into the middle of this admirable opening tableau, Shakespeare inserts a formal exposition, introduced in the most conventional way. Marcellus, for some unexplained reason, is ignorant of what is evidently common knowledge as to the affairs of the realm, and asks to be informed; whereupon Horatio, in a speech of some twenty-five lines, sets forth the past relations between Norway and Denmark, and prepares us for the appearance ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... to perfection. My grandfather, as usual, was the life of the occasion, and all went merry as a marriage-bell. Seven months later, Lord Dorrington returned, and a week after that, the loss of the Dorrington jewels from the Devonshire strong-boxes was a matter of common knowledge. When, or by whom, they had been taken was an absolute mystery. As far as anybody could find out, they might have been taken the night before his return, or the night after his departure. The only fact in sight was that they ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... whimsical way he had of speaking, the humorous glance of his eye, and those baffling intonations of voice that made it so difficult for her to be sure whether he were in jest or earnest. That he had confessedly been attracted by her was a matter of common knowledge. Why had she given him no encouragement? Perhaps it was because she had never understood him; because she had never been able to feel any real rapport between them, because their minds moved on different ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... two homely but important facts bearing upon literary production. Homely as they are, they explain much that is at first puzzling. This perplexing question of distinction; the quality of being somehow fresh—individual. Really it is a perfectly simple matter. It is common knowledge that, after a prolonged fast, the brain works in a feeble manner, the current of one's thoughts is pallid and shallow, it is difficult to fix the attention and impossible to mobilise the full forces of the ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... Gudrid's mind, who now had little else to think of. Her father said nothing to her of the reason which had brought her home. He was stately and remote. Nor did he mention his difficulties, which were gathering so close about his house. But they were common knowledge at Bathbrink, and Gudrid heard of little else from morning till night. There was scarcity there, not of provision, but of guests. No young men came about the house, or filled the great table in ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... which no infantry could resist. Then there was the impetus his troops derived from the extraordinary renown of their king, that there was nothing to counterbalance on the other side. This was evident, was matter of common knowledge. But even in his own army, on his own staff, in the royal family, there were two opinions. There was a school which taught that actual fighting must not be resorted to until the use of brains has been exhausted, that the battle comes in when the manoeuvre ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... of the number 15, which had long been common knowledge, was now discussed with intense interest. The 15, it was said, signified the 15th of August, the day of the meeting. That would be the day which had been so ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... scattered units since the last act of the 'whole congregation.' 'The first month' was, then, the first of the fortieth year, and the gathering was either in obedience to the summons of Moses, who knew that the fixed time had now come, or was the result of common knowledge of the fact. In any case, we have here the first act of a new epoch, and the question to be tried is whether the new men are any better than the old. It is this which gives importance to the event, and explains the bitterness of Moses at finding the old spirit living in the children. It was ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... they imagined I killed her!" he exclaimed. "She accuses me. But she never meant what they imagined she meant. Why, that evidence could hang me! ... Allie told them she saw Larry do it. And it's common knowledge now—I've heard it here.... What, then, had Allie to forgive—to forgive with eyes that will ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... to test their wisdom: the one who fails to answer a question is to forfeit his head. In each case the questions deal first with the past. Vafthrudni asks about Day and Night, and the river which divides the Giants from the Gods, matters of common knowledge; and then puts a question as to the future: "What is the plain where Surt and the blessed Gods shall meet in battle?" Odin replies, and proceeds to question in his turn; first about the creation of Earth and ...
— The Edda, Vol. 1 - The Divine Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 12 • Winifred Faraday
... that Mrs. Sydney Bamborough's memory was short. For it was a matter of common knowledge in the diplomatic circles in which she moved that Mr. Paul Howard Alexis of Piccadilly House, London, and Prince Pavlo Alexis of the province of Tver, were one and ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... statement, which is a cardinal thesis of this book, I shall adduce facts of scientific and facts of common knowledge. One might start with the statement that the death of the body brings about the abolition of mind and character, but this, of course, proves nothing, since it might well be that the body was a lever for the expression of mind and character, ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... should be common knowledge: they are (with Du Bellay's) the evident original upon which the author of Shakespeare's Sonnets modelled his work: they are the late and careful effort of Ronsard's ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... of soil fertility; provided, of course, that such knowledge is within his reach; and from what you say I am beginning to believe that such is the case. At any rate this simple test seems to show conclusively that this soil contains no limestone, and it is common knowledge that limestone ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... most concerned, however, the royal orders were not allowed to become common knowledge in the colony. The decree was registered and duly promulgated; then quickly forgotten. Few of the habitants seem to have ever heard of it; newcomers, of course, knew nothing of their rights under its provisions. Seigneurs continued to get special terms for advantageous locations, the applicants ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... once cultivated with profit in the original thirteen states now lie agriculturally abandoned is common knowledge; and that the farm lands of the great Corn Belt and Wheat Belt of the North-Central states are even now undergoing the most rapid soil depletion ever witnessed is known to all who possess the facts. Unless this tendency is checked these lands will ...
— The Farm That Won't Wear Out • Cyril G. Hopkins
... permanency. Of course, we must avoid analogy with the reciprocal interaction of heterogeneous elements in the domain of other natural processes. In strict conformity with the scientific method we take into consideration merely such interactions as the facts of common knowledge and actual experience offer us. Thus will we be able, happily, to formulate a principle of the reciprocal interaction of heterogeneous ethnic, or, if you will, social elements, the mathematical certainty ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... aren't better doctors in the world than at our place, I can tell you. It's common knowledge. Why, Sir Rashleigh Hewitt is there every day—the great Sir Rashleigh Hewitt, ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... untaught, but, and here rumour whispered yet lower, that flashes of shrewdness broke the dull level of the undeveloped intellect when least expected. That he was small for his age he knew, that he was weakly, ill-formed, and awkward. These things were patent to the eye and common knowledge, but into the depths of the lad's nature he had not ventured to probe lest Louis' suspicious jealousy should be aroused. Now that he found himself between a father's twilight and a son's dawn, with "The king is dead, long live the king," an imminent proclamation, ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... do this thing." The historians of another generation will have no depositions before them on which to base a verdict. But if the facts are as stated and the United States knows them to be so, does the lack of common knowledge of them make her responsibility any the less? It remains that the nation has the power to do this, and it ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... close behind Barney prompting him upon the royal duties that had fallen so suddenly upon his shoulders, and none thought it strange that he was unfamiliar with the craft of kingship, for was it not common knowledge that he had been kept a close prisoner in Blentz since boyhood, nor been given any coaching for the duties Peter of Blentz never intended he ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... resonance, nor of any other topic of acoustics. Yet the accepted theories of resonance in its relation to the voice are directly based on a set of empirical observations made by the old masters. The facts which they noted are now a matter of common knowledge. In singing low notes a sensation of trembling or vibration is felt in the upper chest; high notes are accompanied by a similar sensation in the head. How these sensations of vibration came to be made the basis of the theories of vocal resonance, and of registers as well, ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... years slipped by, it crept into common knowledge that not every one could obtain a lease of Mitchell House. Applicants, Vesperian or "foreigners," were kept waiting; almost as if the invisible agent were examining into their eligibility. And it began to be observed that leaseholders were invariably light, frivolous, ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... they stood at the muzzles of the loaded guns which the gunners were forbidden to fire. Officers and rank and file were in a condition of smouldering fury, but no act of reprisal or retribution was permitted. If the present was one continuous misery, the future lowered yet more gloomily. It was of common knowledge as well in the cantonments as in the city, that the engagements made by the chiefs were not worth the paper on which they had been written, and that treachery was being concerted against the force ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... had given the names of his two ships to Cape Naturaliste and Geographe Bay, and was now making his way round the coast. Flinders little guessed at this time that the French were going to claim the south of New South Wales as French territory under the name of Terra Napoleon, though it was common knowledge that this ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... me that the Liberals never permitted the priests to frequent their houses, as they invariably conspired to corrupt the newly married women, unmarried girls being unmolested. In the lower circles of the bourgeoisie it was a matter of common knowledge that the husbands openly made a traffic of the virtue of their wives; and in my personal acquaintance amongst the artists, I knew of a number of cases in which the artist had the wife as a mistress for a ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... See in its relation to the masses of Catholics, and where does its strength lie? It is the organ, the mouth, the head of the Church. Its strength consists in its agreement with the general conviction of the faithful. When it expresses the common knowledge and sense of the age, or of a large majority of Catholics, its position is impregnable. The force it derives from this general support makes direct opposition hopeless, and therefore disedifying, tending only to division ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... of this undertaking is a matter of common knowledge. Congress, in the consideration of the act which authorized it, entertained grave doubts as to whether a plan could be devised which would apply so new a principle of selection for national service without much misunderstanding ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... representative body stands for election on a monarchical or a republican platform, in which case the majority of the body itself will express the decision; or the question of Monarchy or Republic can be decided by a plebiscite. It is matter of common knowledge that I myself have had so serious conflicts with the ex-Kaiser that any co-operation between us is for all time an impossibility. No one can, therefore, suspect me of wishing on personal grounds to revert to the old regime. But I am not one to juggle with the idea of democracy, and ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... The Koch lymph is evidently not a poison to the germs, and probably has no other action on the affected organs than that of an irritant, having a selective affinity by virtue of the kinship with its contents. This theory of its action is supported by our common knowledge of the power of pyogenic agents to awaken old or slumbering inflammations, and the fact that septic fevers, such as small-pox, have been known to leave the consumptives with the last stages free from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... fortune. How he boasted to Hudig of being free from prejudices. The old scoundrel must have been laughing in his sleeve at his fool of a confidential clerk. He took the girl, guessing nothing. How could he? There had been a father of some kind to the common knowledge. Men knew him; spoke about him. A lank man of hopelessly mixed descent, but otherwise—apparently—unobjectionable. The shady relations came out afterward, but—with his freedom from prejudices—he did not mind them, because, with their humble dependence, they completed ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... the maid and her lover in the ice, entrapped," he concluded. "I cut them out and, with a fluid which is of common knowledge in my country, restored them to life. I told this to Shabako, but ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... this picture. The desolate eyes, looking out of the marred and brutal face, met his own with a certain claim of kinship. There existed a tragic freemasonry between himself and this outcasted being, begotten of a common knowledge, a common experience. As a boy Richard hated this picture, studiously avoided the sight of it. It had suggested comparisons which wounded his self-respect too shrewdly and endangered his self-security. He hated it no longer, finding grim solace, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... in themselves, were followed by stories of the concealed birth of a child, who had come mysteriously to swell the numbers of the Princess's proteges of the creche. Even King George, whose sympathy with his heir's ill-used wife was a matter of common knowledge, could not overlook a charge so grave as this. It must be investigated in the interests of the State, as well as of his family's honour; and, by his orders, a Commission of Peers was appointed to examine into the matter ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... he was sometimes "wild," but the wildness being confined to his incursions into the city—which generally took place after dark—it was not sufficiently in evidence to shock the home community. It was a matter of common knowledge that he used, in village phrase, "to go with" Rosie Fay—the breaking of the friendship being attributed by some of the well-informed to his reported wildness, and by others to differences in religion. As Thor had ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... Government itself, are all stained through and through with a Chinese dye, so much so that it is no longer possible to determine what percentage of old native thought may still linger on in fragments here and there. In the face of all this, moral ideals, which were of common knowledge derived from the teaching of the Chinese sages, are now arbitrarily referred to the "Imperial Ancestors." Such, in particular, are loyalty and filial piety—the two virtues on which, in the Far-Eastern world, all the others rest. It is, furthermore, ...
— The Invention of a New Religion • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... harshly, but comfortably, as a man does who is sure of himself. "Yes, there is something there still. I count on that. There is a common knowledge, unshared by any one but you and me. He would have it so. I was ready to tell him everything, but he wouldn't hear me. It was honourable of him. I admired him for it; but it left me sharing something ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... more than necessary vehemence. "What became of all Esteban's money if he did not bury it? He never gave any to me, for he was a miser. You know, as well as I, that he carried on a stupendous business in slaves and sugar, and it was common knowledge that he hid every peso for fear of his enemies. But where? WHERE? That ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... hope," said Puttock earnestly, "that that would not influence his judgment. But, to be frank—well, it's common knowledge that Mr. Norburn and I found we could not ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... enemy would have had to admit in her favor was that, strictly speaking, she was not a gossip, though this virtue was due as much to policy as to principle. It was her custom, however, to retain in her memory such morsels of common knowledge news as she accumulated during the day with which to entertain Mr. Pantin at evening dinner, for she observed that if his thoughts could be diverted from business it aided his digestion and he slept better, so she strove ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... had thereafter come to such a pass with Charlie that he had reached the pages of The Daily Picture, and was reputed to be arousing the jealousy of youthful millionaires in the United States; also the figure which he paid weekly for rent of his offices in the Grand Babylon Hotel was an item of common knowledge in the best clubs and not to know it was to be behind the times in current information. No member of his family now ventured to offer advice to Charlie, who still, however, looked astonishingly like the old ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... common knowledge. That such a subject is not considered a necessary part of education is indeed lamentable, for the crass ignorance that everywhere abounds upon the subject of nutrition and diet is largely the cause of the frightful disease ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... learned little disquisition headed by a remark, in the Macaulay vein, as to matters of common knowledge, and shows from direct authority that the dramatist is quite wrong in mixing up the Du Barri who married the heroine with the Du Barri who took her away from the milliner's shop, and gives a facetious touch of lightness to his remarks by pointing out that neither of the scoundrels was connected ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... not wish to exaggerate; yet I cannot avoid seeming to do so in simply telling the facts. If Stonewall's proceedings had become Matter of common knowledge the world would have been—I must speak plainly—revolutionized. He held in his hands the means of realizing the wildest dreams of power, wealth, and human mastery over the forces of nature, that any enthusiast ever treasured in his prophetic soul. It was a part of his originality that he never ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... alleged that a common knowledge of the facts of the sense-world is possible for mankind, but that in regard to supersensible things it can be merely a question of the individual's personal opinion, and that in these matters there can be no possibility of a certainty universally ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... friends that he had fixed on a preceptor to whom no objections could be made; but when he named as such one of the most distinguished characters in our age or nation, Mr. Johnson fairly gave himself up to an honest burst of laughter; and seeing this youth at such a surprising distance from common knowledge of the world, or of anything in it, desired to see ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... classification is universally recognized, is a matter of common knowledge. That class of truth which has to do with God we call supernatural, or spiritual, truth, and that which relates to His creation we call ...
— The Church, the Schools and Evolution • J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant
... Christ, a sort of encyclopaedia of the scientific knowledge of that day—and a very marvellous collection of, in many respects, accurate and precise knowledge it is. But, so far as regards this particular topic, Aristotle, it must be confessed, has not got very far beyond common knowledge. He knows a little about the structure of the heart. I do not think that his knowledge is so inaccurate as many people fancy, but it does not amount to much. A very few years after his time, however, ...
— William Harvey And The Discovery Of The Circulation Of The Blood • Thomas H. Huxley
... and his words show clearly that before his time there had been a prophecy and belief in the final triumph of love over death, not as an article of faith, but as a common knowledge. ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... thrust at Carmintel, and we could see by the expression of his face that it sank home. For it was common knowledge that Big Alec was as willing to bribe as to fight, and that of late years more than one patrolman had handled the ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... arising after marriage often tend to push couples apart and engender a state of friction or absolute antagonism, a necessary postscript to the questions concerning marriage must be that concerning divorce. It is matter of common knowledge that there is a marked tendency in recent years toward a loosening of the marriage bond; the ease with which divorces are granted in some States has become a national scandal. Among the causes for ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... for it was common knowledge. There is no truth whatever in the claim set up by many of the apologists for the Bolsheviki that they became enraged and resorted to desperate tactics because nothing effective was being done to realize the aims of the Revolution, to translate its ideals into fact. Quite the contrary ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... this book is accordingly to put the accepted facts in such a form that they will the more readily become matters of common knowledge. By an appeal to those who can read the newspapers intelligently and remember a little of their high-school physiology, an immense body of interested citizens can be added to the forces of a modern campaign against the third great plague. For ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... our times has been, that effect which missionary and other philanthropic societies have had, to render familiar to common knowledge, by means of their meetings and publications, a great number of such interesting and important facts, in the state of other countries and our own, as were formerly quite beyond the sphere ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... As stated above (I-II, Q. 100, A. 3; A. 5, ad 1) when we were treating of precepts, the commandments of the decalogue being given to the whole people, are a matter of common knowledge to all, as coming under the purview of natural reason. Now foremost among the things dictated by natural reason are the ends of human life, which are to the practical order what naturally known principles are to the speculative ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... be expected that he should win the hearts of men as he did. He had not the Greek culture of the two Gadarenes. Celsus even found his style of speech rather vulgar. But he has, as a matter of common knowledge—so common as hardly to be noted—won the hearts of men in every race and every land. The fact is familiar, but we have as historians and critics to look for the explanation. What has been his appeal? And what the heart and nature, from which came this incredible ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... of another species by placing her eggs in their nest for them to hatch selects that species the color of whose eggs most closely resembles that of her own, in order to assure herself of the success of the deception. The simulation and malingering practiced by the fox is common knowledge. Malingering, an instinctive function originally, has, in the process of evolution, become an act of reason with certain animals. One is forced to believe, from a survey of mythological writings, ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... language and style. To be fair, the work must be sometimes dull—in the whole book there are many very dull passages. He has desired to select passages of interest for their quaint language, and their views of things, often for their very misrepresentations of matters of common knowledge to-day, and for their bearing upon the literature of the country. The student of literature and science will find in it the materials in which the history of their growth is read. In conclusion, the editor ventures to ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... himself very secure in this vast stronghold, but in a way this very fact contributed, in a great measure, to his undoing; for, it is common knowledge that the more one frequents deep dug-outs the less inclination there is to emerge from them when ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... valuable hint may surely be found in the development of Rugby football. It is common knowledge what immense results have followed the introduction, some twenty years ago, of the Four Three-quarter System. No spectator (and we cannot exist without the spectator) would ever dream now of returning to the old formation. Very well. The same principle ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... such facts as these, which are common knowledge and yet are quite inexplicable by the most profound students of ordinary science, one is inclined to ask, if such things are possible to the ordinary savages, why should not other and still more extraordinary ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... I ought to say 'No'; as a man who has spent the inside of a week there, I'm moved to say 'Yes.' Surroundings can depress or elevate, of course. That's common knowledge. But there's something more than that here. In the village they told me the place was accursed. Nonsense, of course. Yet—— Honestly, Miss French, I don't know how to tell you... There's—there's a dreadful sinister ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... many points of similarity between Mexico and Peru, such as have been discussed elsewhere, and which are the common knowledge of the student, but the City of Mexico possesses a special interest in that it was actually the seat of a prehistoric American civilisation—that of the Aztecs—whilst its position between the great oceans which ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... murder of poor Nancy; the escape and death of the horror-haunted Sikes,—all are painted with a master's hand. And the book, like its predecessor, and like those that were to follow, contains characters that have passed into common knowledge as types,—characters of the keenest individuality, and that yet seem in themselves to sum up a whole class. Such are Bill Sikes, whose ruffianism has an almost epic grandeur; and black-hearted Fagin, the Jew, receiver of stolen goods ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... Not a word as to who I am, or what is common knowledge to us both. It is done. That cannot be undone. Be brave, resolute; admit nothing. Stick to it that you know nothing, heard nothing. Deny that you knew him, or me. Swear you slept soundly the night through, make some excuse, say you were drugged, ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... leave the subject here with a comparison that any reader can make for himself. But American pride recalls the past glory of our short story, and common knowledge indicates the present reality of a few authors—several of them women—who are writing fiction of which any race might be proud. The optimist cannot resist meditating on the way out ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... "sipen" coined. The counterfeit passes throughout the area, but in Tinglayan, just beyond its eastern border, it is not known. Within two days farther east small coins are unknown, the peso being the only money value in common knowledge. ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... have been in debt, for some of his notes-of-hand exist, belonging to the years preceding 1300; while in the course of 1301 he was engaged in superintending the performance of certain public works in the city. Thus it would be matter of common knowledge both that he was short of money and that he had recently been in a position offering good opportunities for peculation, a fact of which his unscrupulous adversaries would naturally avail themselves. We may perhaps see, in the large space which he devotes, in the ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... This, it is true, they could not do if the latter had not forfeited their authority and prestige by allowing their internal differences, hesitations, contradictions, and repentances to become manifest to all. To-day it is common knowledge that the Great Powers are amenable to very primitive incentives and deterrents. If in the beginning they had been united and said to their minor brethren: 'These are your frontiers. These your obligations,' ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Mrs Flint, and lying and mischief-making Mrs Flint talked the matter over at great length with the Rector, who loved all kinds of gossip, especially of the highly-spiced order. It was speedily matter of common knowledge that Lord Blandamer was at the Hand of God (so ridiculous of a lodging-house keeper christening a public-house Bellevue Lodge!) at all hours of the day and night, and that Miss Joliffe was content to ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... mental—the Benjamin Franklin philosophy—if they had ever known it. Without some data the reasoning faculties of man cannot work. As Lord Bacon said, the mind of man must 'work upon stuff.' And in the absence of the common knowledge which trains us in the elements of reason as far as we are trained, they had no 'stuff.' Even, therefore, if their passions were not absolutely stronger than ours, relatively they were stronger, for their reason was weaker than our reason. ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... nothing coarse or loud about her; she had not the exuberance common to the half-caste; and it was almost impossible to believe that she could be the virago that the horrible scenes between husband and wife, which were now common knowledge, indicated. In her pretty pink frock and high-heeled shoes she looked quite European. You could hardly have guessed at that dark background of native life in which she felt herself so much more at home. I did not imagine that she was at all intelligent, ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... introduced the stranger, and Aubrey took but little notice of him, especially as thenceforth he sat in silence. He might have paid more if he could have known that after three hundred years had rolled by, and the names of all then known as eminent men should have faded from common knowledge, the name of that man should be fresh in the memory of every Englishman, and deeply interesting to every English boy. He was in the ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... about Mrs. Noel, already known by Barbara, and diffused by the 'Bucklandbury News', had not become common knowledge at the Court till after Lord Dennis had started out to fish. In combination with the report that Miltoun had arrived and gone out without breakfast, it had been received with mingled feelings. Bertie, Harbinger, and Shropton, in a short conclave, after agreeing that from the point of view ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... artillery of tremendous range, and a flight almost equal to that of sound itself—I won't be too technical, I assure you!—will be mustered against our crazy pieces, only fit for the scrap-heap, or for gate ornaments. Understand, I tell you what is common knowledge among our friends—common jest among our enemies. And another thing I will tell you, ma'am. Those enemies shall never ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... would have pains in his lungs or his heart. One day the doctor who examined him diagnosed pericarditis, or peripneumonia, and the great specialist who was then consulted confirmed his fears. But it came to nothing. It was his nerves that were wrong, and it is common knowledge that disorders of the nerves take the most unaccountable shapes: they are got rid of at the cost of days of anxiety. But such days were terrible for Antoinette, and they gave her sleepless nights. She would lie in a state of terror in her bed, getting up every now and then to ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... habits of those few with whom he especially associates himself. Let us attend a meeting of some propagandist committee comprising a number of expert politicians—Members of Parliament, or others. We shall find there the bond of a common knowledge, a common sympathy, a common approach towards a given subject, a common jargon. We shall be aware of the fact that we have come into a particular, highly-specialised atmosphere, where the familiar language of ordinary life, the familiar ideas, would ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... into sinful pleasure?" And go the full length he did. He had become involved in one criminal scrape after another, and he would have landed in the penitentiary before this time had it not been for Deacon Cramps' financial backing. And by this time it had come to be common knowledge in the community that the son's profligacy was almost certain to involve the Deacon in financial ruin. It was a fact much discussed in inner business circles at Dobbinsville that Mr. Gramps' farm was heavily mortgaged, and that unless some crook or turn unforeseen favored him he ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... you know nothing that is a danger to us. You do not know the coordinates of our world, or even in which galaxy it is located. You do not know where we secure the catalyst your people seek. In fact, you know nothing that is not soon to become common knowledge. In view of that, we have decided not ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... for the rival candidate, an effort must be made to destroy his chance by establishing by dint of affirmation, repetition, and contagion that he is an arrant scoundrel, and that it is a matter of common knowledge that he has been guilty of several crimes. It is, of course, useless to trouble about any semblance of proof. Should the adversary be ill-acquainted with the psychology of crowds he will try to justify himself by arguments instead of confining himself ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... everything looked inside. The hostess, as usual, was radiantly amiable. The host settled back after supper to talk old country. The Channel Islands, the French Coast, Kent and London—those were from common knowledge our most frequently recurring topics. Both host and hostess, that was easy to see, were bent upon beguiling the hours of their rather dark-humored guest. But the howling gale outside was stronger than their good intentions. It was not very long before the conversation ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... not being sure of my way through the ever-changing bypaths of the bog land, I called on Father Dan to guide me. The old priest seemed to know my errand (the matter my darling had communicated as a secret being common knowledge), and at ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... near the Solfatara it is indeed common knowledge that there are times when this lability is so great that the slightest local disturbance of the kind we have described can provoke destructive eruptions of great masses of subterranean mud. (At such times access to the Solfatara ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... it does not become us longer to seek to conceal the thought which all of us have, and which, sooner or later, must be spoken. It is a matter of common knowledge that upon many of the islands of these seas there exists ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... disgrace on us before you die, Berkeley," he said, with a keener inflection of pain and contempt than had ever been in his voice. "Have you no common knowledge ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... and Divorce, of sex variation, of love in the past and in the future all come up for subtle consideration. The items of our common knowledge are regrouped. Here we see clearly revealed the personal conception of life that lay behind Mrs. Havelock Ellis's brilliant novels. We are arrested and spell-bound by the same understanding, the same directness ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... Church has assimilated much in her time. Do you think it wise to leave agnostic science at the side of the plate? I think, you know, that this craving for common knowledge is a new birth in the mind of man; and if your church won't recognise that soon, by so much will she be losing her grip for ever over men's minds. What's the test of godliness, but your power to receive the new idea in whatever form it ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... fanatical enormities perpetrated in the name of religion are only to be put down to the adherents of monotheistic creeds, that is, the Jewish faith and its two branches, Christianity and Islamism. We hear of nothing of the kind in the case of Hindoos and Buddhists. Although it is a matter of common knowledge that about the fifth century of our era Buddhism was driven out by the Brahmans from its ancient home in the southernmost part of the Indian peninsula, and afterwards spread over the whole of the rest of Asia, as far as I know, we have no ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer
... see more clearly what sort of danger they were running into. He came back instantly, and his swarthy face was green with terror. Though he spoke English well enough, he began to jabber wildly in his mother tongue. None paid heed to him. It was common knowledge that the vessel must be lost, and that those who still lived when she struck would have the alternatives of being drowned, or beaten to pieces against the frowning rocks, or shot from the mainland like so many stranded seals, if some alliance of luck and strength ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... it was common knowledge that several score of men had made up light stampeding-packs and cached them in the convenient saloons along Main Street. Wherever Smoke moved, he was the observed of many eyes. And as proof that he was taken seriously, ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... common knowledge in the literary world of Crabbe's day that John Murray did not on this occasion make a very prudent bargain, and that in fact he lost heavily by his venture. No doubt his offer was based upon the remarkable ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... dangers to be feared, for we know one thing in the war, that in the trenches, on the sea, behind the trenches and carrying on at home, the workers have done the greater part—and they, in their turn, know all others have borne their share. Out of such common knowledge and the consciousness that the practical work of democracy is to raise its people more and more, we shall have not revolution, but evolution of the best kind. And the moral regeneration of the world will come if we ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... of what almost everybody knows can know that of which almost everybody is ignorant. We did not open this book with any wish to find blemishes in it. We have made no curious researches. The work itself, and a very common knowledge of literary and political history, have enabled us to detect the mistakes which we have pointed out, and many other mistakes of the same kind. We must say, and we say it with regret, that we do not consider the authority of Mr. Croker, unsupported by other evidence, as sufficient to justify any ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... common knowledge that there was a more or less organized band of shiftless malcontents making its headquarters in and near Perry's Bend, some distance up the river, and the deduction in this case was easy. The Bar-20 cared very little ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... on outside of the writer's own experience. For the most part, no specific references or acknowledgments are made, on the ground that the book aims to present the general features which are now the more or less common knowledge of economic geologists. To make the references really adequate for exhaustive study would not only burden the text, but would require a specificity of treatment which it has ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... hamlet was inhabited by a handful of rough and simple peasants, who knew nothing except how to gain their livelihood. Rough and ignorant as they were, their cure was not less so, for he did not know things of common knowledge, as I will show you by relating an incident that ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... names by omitting the 'oon' and adding an abbreviation point, Jansz., or by using the so called internal abbreviation Janszn without such point. The name was however always pronounced in full and generally still is in the Netherlands where this bit of common knowledge is taught at school. ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... Paul Bunyan's exploits in narrative form. They made their statements more impressive by dropping them casually, in an off hand way, as if in reference. to actual events of common knowledge. To overawe the greenhorn in the bunkshanty, or the paper-collar stiffs and home guards in the saloons, a group of lumberjacks would remember meeting each other in the camps of Paul Bunyan. With painful accuracy ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead
... long been the custom for Bob to spend his Thursday evenings at the Wilson mansion, and, while nothing had as yet been announced, everybody in town was getting his congratulations ready for Bob as soon as that which was understood became a matter of common knowledge. ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... far from being mere theory. It is a matter of common knowledge that recently the most prominent restaurateur in New York found it necessary to lock up, or place a couple of uniformed maids in, every unoccupied room in his establishment whenever a private dance ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... kind o' warm an' nervous, an' bein' he's behind a faro game, most likely he sees more o'casion; at any rate, it's common knowledge that whatever he's ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... been giving merely facts which are almost universally acknowledged by educated men. The conservation laws of matter and of energy, the impassable gulf between the living and the not-living, the laws governing cell multiplication, are matters of common knowledge and will be found in the appropriate college text-books throughout the civilized world. Even the facts which I have presented regarding variation and heredity are admitted in one way or another by practically all biologists. But in following our general subject into the field of ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... which newspaper editors and newspaper readers must have. The world is ever more prompt to believe ill rather than good of a man, and no one, except in Rossmore's immediate circle of friends, entertained the slightest doubt of his guilt. It was common knowledge that the "big interests" were behind the proceedings, and that Judge Rossmore was a scapegoat, sacrificed by the System because he had been blocking their game. If Rossmore had really accepted the bribe, and few now believed him spotless, he deserved all that was coming to him. Senator ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... common knowledge that misanthropy urges those who suffer from it to fall back upon themselves, and from this state to that of active hostility toward others the road is short, and timid people are rarely able to pull up ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... she should have ascertained only what he had judged good to communicate. There were passages it was quite conceivable that even in moments of the tenderest expansion he should have withheld. Of many facts in the career of a man so in the eye of the world there was of course a common knowledge; but this lady lived apart from public affairs, and the only time perfectly clear to her would have been the time following the dawn of her own drama. A man in her place would have "looked up" the past—would even have consulted old newspapers. It remained remarkable indeed that in her long ...
— The Altar of the Dead • Henry James
... try to imagine how a mass of water several perhaps very many, fathoms deep, could be accumulated on a flat surface of land rising well above the sea, and separated from it by no sort of barrier. Most people know Lord's Cricket-ground. Would it not be an absurd contradiction to our common knowledge of the properties of water to imagine that, if all the mains of all the waterworks of London were turned on to it, they could maintain a heap of water twenty feet deep over its level surface? Is it not obvious that the water, whatever momentary accumulation might take place at first, ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... this world," and so on) awakened in me something like fury. What right had they to weep over or to talk about her? Some of them, in referring to ourselves, called us "orphans"—just as though it were not a matter of common knowledge that children who have lost their mother are known as orphans! Probably (I thought) they liked to be the first to give us that name, just as some people find pleasure in being the first to address a newly-married ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... in your lordship's hands. This is the first time it has been suggested to me that the fact of the deceased's having this jewellery was not a matter of common knowledge in the household. I therefore can't say at this stage whether I shall be able to distinctly fix the ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... great eloquence; but business men are frequently as sanguine and imaginative as lovers. They are affected by a personality much oftener than people would suppose; and Charles Gould, in his unshaken assurance, was absolutely convincing. Besides, it was a matter of common knowledge to the men to whom he addressed himself that mining in Costaguana was a game that could be made considerably more than worth the candle. The men of affairs knew that very well. The real difficulty in touching it was elsewhere. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... perhaps inevitably, absorbed the attention of friend and foe, and the one point on which all might agree has been overlooked, namely, the fact that he taught us a great deal which it is desirable and agreeable to know—which has passed into common knowledge through the medium of his poetry. It is true that he wrote his plays and poems at lightning speed, and that if he was at pains to correct some obvious blunders, he expended but little labour on picking his phrases or ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... girls in industry will largely disappear when it becomes a matter of common knowledge that industrial efficiency is dependent upon physical efficiency. The physical efficiency of the worker cannot be maintained at its highest standard when the period allotted to rest is too short to allow the body to rebuild its tissues ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... whether we consider the religion, the politics, or the manners and customs of a people, as affecting the changes in the style of the decoration of their homes. The horrors of the Revolution are matters of common knowledge to every schoolboy, and there is no need to dwell either upon them or their consequences, which are so thoroughly apparent. The confiscation of the property of those who had fled the country was added to the general dislocation of everything connected ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... dark, the crocodile came to life again, and padded noiselessly about the passage on its scaly paws seeking for its prey, with its great cruel jaws snapping, its fierce teeth gleaming, and its horny tail lashing savagely from side to side. It was also a matter of common knowledge that the favourite article of diet of crocodiles was a little boy with bare legs in a white suit. Even should one be fortunate enough to escape the crocodile's jaws, there were countless other terrors awaiting the traveller down this awe-inspiring passage. A ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... Of course I had! He was reputed to be one of the wealthiest of men, but he lived mostly in Paris or at his magnificent villa outside Florence. It was common knowledge that he had, during the war, invested a level million sterling in the War Loan, while he was constantly giving great donations to various charities. Somewhat eccentric, he preferred living abroad to spending his ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... make boldly for the Grande Place before noon, that would only be to make known what their objective was. When the time came, their numbers would be overpowering, and when once the soldiers saw that they were hemmed in, many of them would be fighting with them instead of against them. Was it not common knowledge that among the ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... that it will have been common knowledge for four hours by the time we go on the air for the debate," ...
— Hail to the Chief • Gordon Randall Garrett
... had come into being, and was working astounding results in the enlightened provinces above the Yangtze and those connected with the capital by railway, was common knowledge; but one found it hard to believe that the west and the south-west of the empire were moved by the same spirit of Europeanism, and it will be seen that China in the west moves, if at all, but at a snail's ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle |
