"Discredit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the soul and bodies of the Hydriots was divided between the two, and they seemed to work in concert, although George showed no symptom of change of opinions, never saying anything openly to discredit his brother's principles, nay, viewing them as wholesome restraints for those who were not too scientific to accept them, and even going to church when he had nothing else to do, but by preference looking up his patients ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... so sorry. It seems almost undignified to mention it, but—I fear I should not look smart enough for London. My wardrobe is so very limited. I mustn't," she added with a sweet effort at humor, "do the new Mr. Temple Barholm discredit ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... been delicate in the British colonies, and in Newfoundland friction soon arose. The Legislative Council, under Chief Justice Boulton—who improperly called himself the Speaker instead of the President—set itself to thwart and discredit the popular Chamber. On both sides the controversies were petty, and were conducted in a petty spirit. The popular assembly described itself as "the Commons House of Assembly in Parliament assembled"; whereupon ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... a financial measure so quickly proved its efficacy as the fiscal convention between the United States and Santo Domingo. In the beginning of the year 1905 Santo Domingo had fallen to the lowest depths of bankruptcy and financial discredit. After decades of civil disturbance, misrule and reckless debt contraction, the deluge had come. The substance of the country had been wasted in military expenditures; agriculture and commerce were stagnant; a debt of over $30,000,000 had ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... relating the experiences of certain infants of phenomenal courage and coolness in the Arctic regions. They killed bears and tamed walruses all through the book; but for the first time, perhaps, since their appearance in print their exploits fell flat. Not, however, that this reflected any discredit upon the author's powers, which are justly admired by all healthy-minded boys; but it was beyond the power of literature just then to charm Mr. Bultitude's thoughts from the recollection of ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... but Mr. Wrench was not going to truckle to anybody on a professional matter. He reflected, with much probability on his side, that Lydgate would by-and-by be caught tripping too, and that his ungentlemanly attempts to discredit the sale of drugs by his professional brethren, would by-and-by recoil on himself. He threw out biting remarks on Lydgate's tricks, worthy only of a quack, to get himself a factitious reputation ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... localities, etc.; for all early theorising will, in all probability, end only in error. It is surely better frankly to own that we know not what these markings mean (and possibly may never know it), rather than wander off into that vague mystification and conjecture which in former days often brought discredit on the whole study ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... were hampered with all the self-consciousness and skepticism of grown-ups, which would make them quite unwilling to own up to anything strange or out of the conventional path, not in a hundred years. Therefore I am forced to leave their part of the telling to Fancy, and you may believe or discredit as much or as little as you choose; only I am hoping that by this time you have acquired at least a sprinkling of fern-seed in your eyes. You may have forgotten that fern-seed is the most subtle of eye-openers known to Fancy; and ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... revolution of 1830. Similarly, a party of Orleanists was insistent upon a restoration of the house of Orleans, overthrown in 1848, in the person of the Count of Paris, a grandson of the citizen-king Louis Philippe. A smaller group of those who, despite the discredit which the house of Bonaparte had suffered in the war, remained loyal to the Napoleonic tradition, was committed to a revival of the prostrate empire of the captive Napoleon III. Finally, in Paris and some portions of the ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... wit, with the purpose of throwing discredit on the achievement of Columbus, intimated that it was not so great an exploit after all; all that was necessary was to sail west a certain number of days; the lands lay there waiting to be discovered. Were there not other men in Spain, he ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... but no one engaged in this infamy has ever been touched by the wrathful hand of God. All kinds of criminals, except infidels, meet death with reasonable serenity. As a rule there is nothing in the death of a pirate to cast any discredit on his profession. The murderer upon the scaffold, with a priest on either side, smilingly exhorts the multitude to meet him in heaven. The man who has succeeded in making his home a hell meets death without a quiver, provided ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... this point opinions varied. All were agreed, however, that the object he aimed at was not the books of chivalry. He said emphatically in the preface to the First Part and in the last sentence of the Second, that he had no other object in view than to discredit these books, and this, to advanced criticism, made it clear that his object ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... are peculiar. The powers of the House of Lords to impede, and by impeding to discredit, the House of Commons are strangely bestowed, strangely limited, and still more strangely exercised. There are little things which they can maul; there are big things they cannot touch; there are Bills which they pass, although they believe them to be wrong; ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... ever after, on that fatal day That Friar Pedro rode abroad lassoing, A ghostly couple came and went away With savage whoop and heathenish hallooing, Which brought discredit on San Luis Rey, And proved the Mission's ruin and undoing; For ere ten years had passed, the squaw and Friar Performed to empty walls and ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... because they were inspired by some well-known historical persons. Whereas, if you announce the name of a spirit, your hearers may consider that the address does not come up to the standard of the ability displayed by that individual before he dies, and may discredit and discard the good that they might otherwise have found in ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... contagion of society itself, an esteem for what is honourable and praiseworthy. They derive, from their union and joint opposition to foreign enemies, a zeal for their own community, and courage to maintain its rights. If the frequent neglect of virtue, as a political object, tend to discredit the understandings of men, its lustre, and its frequency, as a spontaneous offspring of the heart, will restore the honours of ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... recent attempt of General Don Bartolome Mitre, of Buenos Ayres, to discredit the antiquity of the Ollanta drama (in the Nueva Revista de Buenos Ayres, 1881), has been most thoroughly and conclusively refuted by Mr. Clements R. Markham, in the volume of the Hackluyt ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton
... of the Parsonstown reflector, the supposition of a "shining fluid" filling vast regions of space was brought into (as it has since proved) undeserved discredit. Although Lord Rosse himself rejected the inference, that because many nebulae had been resolved, all were resolvable, very few imitated his truly scientific caution; and the results of Bond's investigations[333] with the Harvard College refractor ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... person and a youth of parts (though I have seen verses of his which I could never rightly understand); and if he be such, he, I am certain, as well as I, would be free from any proclivity to appropriate to himself whatever of credit (or discredit) may honestly belong to another. I am confident, that, in penning these few lines, I am only forestalling a disclaimer from that young gentleman, whose silence hitherto, when rumor pointed to himward, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... discredit is that ore bodies may usually be assumed to become richer in depth. As applied to gold lodes the teaching of experience does ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... of Bentham's way of thinking, or so qualified by position for carrying on the propaganda. Now, however, Bentham showed that he had taken umbrage at some part of Mill's behaviour. An open quarrel would bring discredit upon both sides, and upon their common beliefs. The great dangers to friendship are pecuniary obligation and too close intimacy. Mill has made it a great purpose of his life to avoid pecuniary obligation, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... OF THE NEW SCIENCE. Effect of the discovery of Sanskrit on the old theory Attempts to discredit the new learning General acceptance of the new theory Destruction of the belief that all created things were first named by Adam Of the belief in the divine origin of letters Attempts in England to support ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... nominating convention held at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (March 4, 1824), Jackson was almost unanimously nominated by that state for president, and Calhoun was named for the vice-presidency. In vain the managers of Crawford sought to throw discredit upon Jackson by the publication of his correspondence with Monroe, in which he had pleaded for recognition of the Federalists; [Footnote: Parton, Jackson, II., 357, III., 20; Monroe, Writings.] the letters added to his strength, ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... lasting disgrace of France if she stirs up aggressive war, and so throws back indefinitely all the remarkable progress made by the Malagasy during the past few years; and it will be hardly less to our own discredit if we, an insular nation, jealous of the inviolability of our own island, show no practical sympathy with another insular people, and do not use every means that can be employed to preserve to Madagascar its independence ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... because he thinks it would discredit us to let such a scoundrel get away," differed her father. "However, he'll leave you alone, Mr. Ashton, if you stay with us as a guest, and will only haze you a bit, if you insist ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... coarse you are, cousin Damas!—quite the manners of a barrack—you don't deserve to be one of our family; really we must drop your acquaintance when Pauline marries. I cannot patronize any relations that would discredit my future son-in-law, the Prince ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... on her sympathies; and when she is not studying, she and her school friends are running in and out of each other's houses, so that her mother might as well have no daughter at all." I do beg that none of you will bring this discredit on school life, for the system gets blamed when it is really your individual shortcoming which is in fault; you ought to be big enough to hold both school and home interests! But, setting aside this form of term-time selfishness, which we shall all agree to condemn, ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... thing for the world at large. [Footnote: This aspect of New Republican possibilities comes in again at another stage, and at that stage its treatment will be resumed. The method and possibility of binding up discredit and failure with mean and undesirable qualities, and of setting a premium upon the nobler attributes, is a matter that touches not only upon the quality of births, but upon the general educational quality ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... must be a clear understanding of the ideals of these parties, as they are understood by themselves, and not as they are presented in party controversy by special pleaders whose object too often is to pervert or discredit the principles and actions of opponents, a thing which is easy to do because all parties, even the noblest, have followers who do them disservice by ignorant advocacy or excited action. If we are to unite Ireland we can only do so by recognizing what truly ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... happiness in his alteration, and declares, that, in his opinion, "the tragedy has lost half its beauty." Dennis has remarked, whether justly or not, that, to secure the favourable reception of Cato, "the town was poisoned with much false and abominable criticism," and that endeavours had been used to discredit and decry poetical justice. A play in which the wicked prosper, and the virtuous miscarry, may doubtless be good, because it is a just representation of the common events of human life: but since all reasonable ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good military discipline. All conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the military service. All crimes and offences not capital shall be taken cognizance of by (1) General, (2) Special, (3) Summary court-martials according to the nature and degree of the offense and punished.... Article ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... armed men dashed alongside the Nouvelle Bretagne, and in another five minutes Captain Henry was a prisoner, handcuffed, and on his way to the warship. What he had done at Manila was a daring deed enough, and is a story in itself, and nothing much to his discredit. His ship had been prevented from putting to sea by the Spanish authorities, and Henry, who had many sick on board, and was greatly harassed in mind, suddenly slipped his cable and steamed off, although there was a Spanish guard on board. ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... terribly stern with her now. She considered it an act of the very basest ingratitude and the most double-dyed deceit, and was the more particularly angry because the episode had brought the school into discredit. She had always prided herself upon the immaculate behaviour of her boarders, and it was extremely galling to have such an occurrence talked about in the neighbourhood. The reputation of Briarcroft, hitherto above reproach, ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... strolled on toward the sloo, though she would not acknowledge that she actually wished to meet him. The man was something of an enigma and therefore roused in her an interest which was stronger because of some of the things she had heard to his discredit. Following the rows of wheelmarks, she brushed through the wild barley, whose spiky heads whipped her dress, passed a chain of glistening ponds, a bluff wrapped in blue shadow, and finally descended a long slope to the basin at its foot where the melting snow had run in spring. Now it had dried ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... own acceptance is that wedge-shaped stone objects, formed by means similar to human workmanship, have often fallen from the sky. Maybe there are messages upon them. My acceptance is that they have been called "axes" to discredit them: or the more familiar a term, the higher the incongruity with vague concepts of ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... the small landing party as they assembled near the main airlock thirty-five minutes later, "we have an obligation to our civilization which I hope all of you understand. While here on this unknown world we must do nothing to bring discredit to the name of Earth and the ...
— A World Called Crimson • Darius John Granger
... 'Your position, my dear Frederick, is now a fine one. Your position, as my brother, is a very fine one. And I know that it belongs to your conscientious nature to try to become worthy of it, my dear Frederick, and to try to adorn it. To be no discredit to ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... for life). So many people who were supposed to be honest, and bore a respectable name in the different States, were found to be among the list of the Grand Council as published by Stewart, that every attempt was made to throw discredit upon his assertions—his character was vilified, and more than one attempt was made to assassinate him. He was obliged to quit the Southern States in consequence. It is, however, now well ascertained to have ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... college in the American sense, but a private school of a high grade.] of Sant' Anastasia, in Verona, according to the Italian system, now fallen into disuse, of fitting a boy for the world by giving him the training of a cloister. It is not greatly to Aleardi's discredit that he seemed to learn nothing there, and that he drove his reverend preceptors to the desperate course of advising his removal. They told his father he would make a good farmer, but a scholar, never. ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... discouraging me—it proves to me rather a source of joy and comfort. True, it is a position not to be sought—not to be looked for—it is one which, for many, very many reasons there is no occasion for me now to explain, maybe thought to involve disgrace or discredit. But, so far from viewing it in that light, I do not shrink from it, but accept it readily, feeling proud and glad that it affords me an opportunity of proving the sincerity of those soul-elevating principles of freedom which a good old patriotic father instilled ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... and neatness have already been mentioned. He must have been a first-rate companion, friend and master. His successive Princes loved him, his band adored him. He was generous; there is not a mean action to his discredit. His will was a wonder of good-feeling and discretion; and when old he was still glad to make money, that he might leave more to his poor relatives. He seems always to have been in love with one lady or another, and it was more by luck than anything else that he got into no serious ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman
... come in the course of nature as events develop themselves. At the present moment there appears to be set up an idea of difference about matters which lie in the past, and for which we are all plenarily responsible. The position is settled in all its elements, and cannot be altered. The frightful discredit with which the new Government has covered itself by its treatment of Spencer has drawn attention away from the signs of at least passive discord among us, signs which might otherwise have drawn upon us pretty sharp criticism. It appears to me that hesitation on the part of any of us as to ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... to debate him on ninety-five propositions. That priests in their zeal should overstep their authority, and that people should read into the preaching much more than the preacher intended, is not to the discredit of the Church. The Church can not be blamed for either the mistakes of Moses, or for ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... comparison of conditions here with conditions in Europe—when I came back from my first European trip I remarked that "Europe would live on what America wastes"—but a comparison of conditions in America with those in the Orient is even more to our discredit. In Lafcadio Hearn's books on Japan we find a glorification of the Japanese character that is unquestionably overdone on the whole, but in his contrast between the wasteful display of fashion's fevered followers in America and the ideals of simple living that ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... the safety of the capital? Why, in case our territory be invaded and Paris besieged, cannot the legislative, executive, and military powers act outside of Paris? Why this localization of all the vital forces of France?... Do not cry out upon decentralization. This hackneyed reproach would discredit only your own intelligence and sincerity. It is not a question of decentralization; it is your political fetichism which I attack. Why should the national unity be attached to a certain place, to certain functionaries, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... be said that your father had permitted you to marry the son of this rich old extortioner for the sake of his money. Your action would throw discredit on all your father's life and devotion to ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... openly turn his hand to the problem of making himself absolutely supreme, de jure as well as de facto. But there was one remaining thing to be done. To drive the last nail into the coffin of the Republic it was necessary to discredit and virtually imprison the ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... ask That thou thy cherish'd anger shouldst discard, And aid the Greeks, how great so-e'er their need. But now large off'rings hath he giv'n, and more Hath promis'd; and, of all the Greeks, hath sent To pray thine aid, the men thou lov'st the best. Discredit not their mission, nor their words. Till now, I grant thee, none could blame thy wrath. In praise of men in ancient days renown'd, This have we heard, that how-so-e'er might rage Their hostile feuds, their ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... finest of these specimens are now lying on the table before us, their mottled sides thickly crusted with arsenical pyrites and streaked through and through with veins and splashes of twenty-two-carat gold. Incredulity, when raised to its highest pitch, might perhaps discredit all written testimony, whether official or scientific; but we have as yet seen no case so confirmed that the sight of these extraordinary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... butter has been among the earliest industries. Away back in the history of the world, we find Adam and Eve conveying their milk from the garden of Eden, in a one-horse wagon to the cool spring cheese factory, to be weighed in the balance. Whatever may be said of Adam and Eve to their discredit in the marketing of the products of their orchard, it has never been charged that they stopped at the pump and put water in their milk cans. Doubtless you all remember how Cain killed his brother Abel because Abel would not let him do the churning. We can picture Cain and Abel driving mooly cows ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... by close attention to duty, and by being always prepared," said the Scout-Master, while the Scouts of the three Patrols cheered the reward. "We are all proud of you, Danby, and we know that you will never do anything to bring discredit upon your badge, nor do anything that is not strictly in accordance with the Scout oath that you took when you were first enrolled ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... "Your own papers discredit that supposition," replied Cathewe. "A stunning yarn, and rather hard to believe in these skeptical times. What is it?" he asked softly, noting the dead white on ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... introduced into the groups of the Nativity and the Worship of the Magi. Previous to the Nestorian controversy, these maternal effigies, as objects of devotion, were, I still believe, unknown, but I cannot understand why there should exist among Protestants, so strong a disposition to discredit every representation of Mary the Mother of our Lord to which a high antiquity had been assigned by the Roman Catholics. We know that as early as the second century, not only symbolical figures of our Lord, but figures of certain personages ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... his greatest enimie. Where (by the waie) would be noted the conscience which Girth a yoonger brother made of an oth, not concerning himselfe directlie, but his elder brother Harold, who had sworne the same; meaning nothing lesse than the performance therof, as the sequele of his dooings to his discredit and vndooing euidentlie declared, which euents might seeme countable to him as due punishments and deserued plagues inflicted vpon him and others, for his sake; sith he made no reckoning of violating a ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (8 of 8) - The Eight Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... had better attend to his own before he corrects other people's children, and as he permits his to stoop it is hard he will not allow them. You and Agnes [Footnote: His third daughter.] must not, therefore, bring me into discredit with my young friends, or give them reason to think that I require more of them than of my own. I presume your mother has told all about us, our neighbours and our affairs. And indeed she may have ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... readily believe it," returned Eve, steadily. "These gentlemen, having become familiar with better things, in the way of the tastes, and of the purely agreeable, cannot discredit their own knowledge so much as to extol that which their own experience tells them is faulty, or condemn that which their own experience tells them is relatively good. Now, Grace, if you will reflect ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... by those who discredit werwolves, is that belief in the existence of such an anomaly originates in the impression made on man in early times by the great elemental powers of nature. It was, they say, man's contemplation of the changes of ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... to live as brethren, kindly together. It was not a bad school this for the young to grow up in. The rector's family had here been trained; and when they grew to rise beyond it, and then passed out upon the wider world, those of them that were again heard of in their birthplace, did no discredit to its name: and all passed out, all but two—our two sisters. It is said adversity must at some time reach us all: it had been late in visiting them, for they had passed a happy youth in that quiet parsonage. At last, sorrow came, and they were left alone, the two extremes of the chain ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... dilating and inclining those orbits, that the system may go on for many thousand years before any extraordinary interference becomes necessary in order to correct it." And Dr. Burnett adds, that "those small irregularities cast no discredit on the good contrivance of the whole." Nothing, however, could cast greater discredit if it were as he supposed, and as all men previous to the late discoveries supposed; it was only, they rather think, a "small irregularity," which was ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... had fixed for the greater part of his life. What led him to change his mind was partly, as I suppose, his growing fanaticism; partly his ambition to take a different route from Spenser; but chiefly, perhaps, the discredit into which the stories of chivalry had now fallen by the immortal satire of Cervantes. Yet we see through all his poetry, where his enthusiasm flames out most, a certain predilection for the legends of chivalry ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... migratory settlements of Iberville on the shores of the gulf as a "terrestrial paradise," a "Pomona," or "The Fortunate Island." And the reality which confronts the home seeker is usually more nearly true to the idealistic details than that which Governor Cadillac, wishing no doubt to discredit his predecessor, reported when he went to succeed Bienville for a time as governor: "I have seen the garden on Dauphin Island, which had been described to me as a terrestrial paradise. I saw there three seedling pear-trees, three seedling apple- trees, a little plum-tree about three ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... like," he answered, and then conquering any fear he might have felt, he added—"But gentlemen, assertions are not proofs. This latter tale is too clumsy an imitation of the first we have just heard not to make a man of sense discredit it. Let us hear what the ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... one more effort to discover Speridionides. Might I ask the favour of an answer by telegraph? So many documents and archives were stolen here at the time of the fire of the Embassy, that, by a timely measure of discredit, we can impair the value of all papers whatever, and I have already a mass of false despatches, notes, and telegrams ready for publication, and subsequent denial, if you advise it. In one of these I have imitated ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... contain the names of all those who were qualified to conduct schools, and admission to the Register was controlled by the College itself in order to provide a means of excluding all who were likely to bring discredit upon the calling of a teacher by reason of their inefficiency or misconduct. The scheme thus launched was, however, not comprehensive, since it concerned chiefly the teachers who conducted private schools and did not contemplate the inclusion of those who ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... press on? The American editor or writer who fails to strike the optimistic note is set upon with a ferocity which becomes clear if we bear in mind that hope is the pioneer's preserving arm. I do not mean to discredit the validity of hope and optimism. I can honestly lay claim to both. America was builded on a dream of fair lands: a dream that has come true. In the infinitely harder problems of social and psychic health, the dream persists. We believe in our Star. And ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... reproach in this remark, indicating that Mrs. Marsh did not approve of his absence from social functions, caused Mr. Seabright to feel slightly better, as she evidently did not think that the secret reasons governing his course were to his discredit personally, else she would not ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... exaggerate the importance of this point. Modern critical methods were undreamed of in the days of our hagiographer, who wrote, moreover, for edification only in a credulous age. Most of the historical documents of the period are in a greater or less degree uncritical but that does not discredit their testimony however much it may confuse their editors. It can be urged moreover that two mutually incompatible genealogies of the saint are given. The genealogy given by MacFirbisigh seems in fact to disagree in almost ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... to join in the war against Austria; disinterested counsel, as in taking it lay his only hope, but it was opposed by England, Russia and France. In July two of the Swiss regiments at Naples mutinied. The Swiss Government, becoming alive to the discredit cast on the country by mercenary service, had decided that Swiss subjects serving abroad should lose their rights as citizens of the Confederation whilst so employed, and that they should no longer introduce the arms of their respective cantons into their regimental ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... some other genteel employment, he might soon put young Mr Andrews on the foot of a gentleman; and, that being once done, his accomplishments might quickly gain him an alliance which would not be to their discredit." ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... and burnings and a long succession of murders. The "Boys of Wexford" funder great difficulties had given a great account of themselves. Dark as was that page of history, it has been a glowing lamp to Irish disaffection ever since. It is the soul of the effort that counts, and the disasters do not discredit ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... though it may cast some discredit on the sketch I have given of the youthful loyalty practised by our heroine toward this accomplished woman, that Isabel had said nothing whatever to her about Lord Warburton and had been equally reticent ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... I gave him a few glasses of punch. He thereupon grew jolly and told me of a great plot that Senden and the editor of the Coriolanus have hatched between them. These two gentlemen, so he assures me, had planned to discredit Professor Oldendorf in the Colonel's eyes and so drove the Colonel into writing articles for ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... confidence to his troops. The Court found against him on the first and second counts, and for him on the third and fourth. This finding was unsatisfactory to General Warren, for he hoped to obtain such an unequivocal recognition of his services as to cast discredit on my motives for relieving him. These were prompted by the conditions alone—by the conduct of General Warren as described, and my consequent lack of confidence ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... Biggs," the spirit said ('twas through the medium's lips he said it; But the voice that spoke, the accent, too, were Biggs's very own, Be it, therefore, not set down to our unmerited discredit, That collectively we sickened as we ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... doing it.' I renounce such leaders and teachers and all their words and works, so that I will not follow or be led by them." It may be urged that the recantation might not be sincere, but it would discredit the authority of those who attempt to ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... this note. I take the opportunity of saying that Mr. Ney Elias, a most competent judge, who has travelled across the region in question whilst admitting, as every one must, Atkinson's vagueness and sometimes very careless statements, is not at all disposed to discredit ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... recumbent attitude, while the turn of the head, and the graceful flow of lines in the right hand and arm, with the natural heavy fall of the chain armour at the side, exhibit a feeling of art that would not do discredit to a very advanced school." The figure is clad in mail armour, which covers the mouth in a peculiar fashion, and wears a surcoat falling in simple folds, almost Greek in feeling, that are somewhat curious in connection with the rich mediaeval luxuriance of the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... hero; and it is all true." He wore so earnest a face, and looked so directly and intelligently at me, that I forebore to smile. "I have travelled in strange countries," he said; "Nature has been bountiful in her revelations to me, indeed; my experiences have been so individual, that I sometimes discredit them myself. I do not ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... that was a fault on the right side, and cannot discredit you. I thought him the most perfect ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... speak out; and the relatives of the deceased openly expressed their belief that their kinsman had been murdered. But Rochester was still all powerful at court, and no one dared to utter a word to his discredit. Shortly afterwards, his marriage with the Countess of Essex was celebrated with the utmost splendour, the king himself being ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... brought themselves into more than one inextricable dilemma; but it is very funny, where a response or a matter of fact has not been thus certified, how invariably Mary Runnel is made to assume the discredit of it, on its turning out to be false. It is the most ingenious arrangement that could possibly have been contrived; and somehow or other, the pranks of this lying spirit give a reality to the conversations which the more respectable ghosts ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Administration must be protected against writings which are likely to bring it into contempt, as tending to opposition, will apply with more force to truth than falsehood. It cannot be denied that the discovery of maladministration will bring more lasting discredit on the government of a country than the same charges would if untrue. This is not an alarm founded merely on construction, for the governments which have exercised control over the press have carried it the whole length. This ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... Cosmos; possessed, in fact, of loyalties to Cosmos, that is to say, of authentic virtues in the savage state, such as have been needed in all societies at their incipience in this world; a kind of "virtues" hugely in discredit at present, but not unlikely to be needed again, to the astonishment of careless persons, before ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... have to remember that general statements have to be interpreted widely, and without punctilious adherence to the words; and we have also to remember that great mischief has been done, and great discredit cast, on the whole conception of ancient revelation by the well-meaning, but altogether mistaken, attempts of good people to read the fully developed doctrine of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice into every corner of the ancient ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... country also the boast of which was its open-handed hospitality, it was necessary to take care that hospitality was not brought to discredit by abuse; and when every door was freely opened to a request for a meal or a night's lodging, there was an imperative duty to keep a strict eye on whatever persons were on the move. We shall therefore be prepared to find "sturdy and valiant beggars" treated ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... entertained great hopes of this proposal to turn the proprietary colonies into royal provinces. Under such a change, while the Quakers might still have an influence in the Legislature, the Crown would probably give the executive offices to Churchmen. They therefore labored hard to discredit the Quakers. They kept harping on the absurdity of a set of fanatics attempting to govern a colony without a militia and without administering oaths of office or using oaths in judicial proceedings. How could any one's life be safe from foreign ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... come to that third sort of discredit or diminution of credit that groweth unto learning from learned men themselves, which commonly cleaveth fastest: it is either from their fortune, or from their manners, or from the nature of their studies. For the first, it is ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... scientific acquirements, or with none at all, to injure the reputation of a man whom they dislike. We may then fairly ask, with Lichtenberger, on which side the degeneration is more likely to be. These are the men who bring science into discredit. ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... by this new and unsuspected force the other seemed to be able to bring to his command, fought back. "It will be simple to discredit you, to let it be known that you are no more than an ambitious American out to seize ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... assertion, and occasional and even conspicuous moral failure, may be brought against some of the greatest figures in history. But because David sinned with Bathsheba, and even murdered her husband, we need not discredit the sincerity of the Psalms. The man was inconsistent, it is true, inconsistent exactly because there was so much in him that was great, for which let us be thankful. Let us take notice too, of what lies side ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... discredit what is told of the Aztec civilization and the empire of Montezuma have never failed to admit fully the significance of Copan, Palenque, and Mitla. One or two writers, pursuing the assumption that the barbarous tribes at the north and the old Mexicans were of the ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... that has taken place. When I first knew Solon Talbot I was a young lady in society with a high position, and he was a clerk in my father's store. He was of humble parentage, though that, of course, is not to his discredit. His father used to go about sawing wood for those ...
— Mark Mason's Victory • Horatio Alger
... am satisfied; but it seems she either knows or suspects something, and we must be more than ever on our guard. What I wish to say to you now, is, that this lady, either for willfulness or out of disbelief, affects to discredit my statement concerning Hadley's death, and I wish you to accompany me to the cave to-morrow, and confirm my statements. You need not implicate yourselves, but give the facts as ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... social theory, then all those whose professional capital was their reputation as teachers in that branch questioned first how the new idea agreed with the doctrines and traditions constituting their stock in trade. Now, as any new idea, almost as a matter of course, must operate to discredit previous ideas in the same field, it followed that the economic self-interest of the learned classes would instinctively and almost invariably be opposed to reform or advance of thought ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... dealt with birds and lightning, had the effect of discrediting, if not excluding, an immense amount of private practice of this kind. I mean that if the State strongly sanctions some forms of divination, working them by its own officials, it casts a shadow of discredit over the rest. As the ius divinum tended to exclude magic and the barbarous in ritual, so did the ius augurale, which was a part of it, exclude the quack in divination. And in this particular ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... to Rome, Whately, perhaps alone among his contemporaries, steadily predicted that their teachings would be followed by a great period of religious scepticism. This, he said, would be the result of the discredit they were throwing on the evidential school, of their habit of coupling ecclesiastical with Scripture miracles, and of their doctrine that it is the function of faith to supply the missing links of imperfect evidence and to impart the character of certainty to propositions ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... long in Baden after the payment of Burgo's bill. Perhaps I shall not throw any undeserved discredit on his courage if I say that he was afraid to do so. What would he have said,—what would he have been able to say, if that young man had come to him demanding an explanation? So he hurried away to Strasbourg the same day, much ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... the Boers in the field are the most generous in estimating their character. That the white flag was hoisted by the Boers as a cold-blooded device for luring our men into the open, is an absolute calumny. To discredit their valour is to discredit our victory.' My own opinion would have been worthless, but this was, as I say, the result of considerable inquiry. General Porter said: 'On a few occasions the white flag was abused, but in what large community would you ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... as in the case of Trailanga and his would be murderer, assuage our hasty indignance at human injustice. "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." {FN31-5} What need for man's brief resources? the universe duly conspires for retribution. Dull minds discredit the possibility of divine justice, love, omniscience, immortality. "Airy scriptural conjectures!" This insensitive viewpoint, aweless before the cosmic spectacle, arouses a train of events which brings its ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... satisfaction at being dressed to the full as well as Judy; a feeling that was not lessened by a certain sense that the satisfaction was on her part alone. Of the two, that is. Mrs. Laval openly expressed hers. Mrs. Lloyd nodded her dignified head and remarked, "That child will do you no discredit, Zara." Mrs. Bartholomew looked at her, which was much; and Norton declared that from a pink she had bloomed out into a carnation. All these things Matilda felt; and unconsciously in all that concerned dress ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... Imperial despotism—Messrs. Raynouard, Gallois, and Flaugergues—were the declared adversaries of the bill; and in consequence of not having been boldly presented, from the opening, under its real and legitimate aspect, the measure entailed more discredit on the Government than it ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... over the proposition; indeed West felt his response almost discourteous, yet this very suspicion aroused his own desire to make one of the party. The fellow evidently disliked him instinctively, and would exert every influence possible to discredit him in the eyes of Natalie. The suggestion even came that this sudden call to charity might prove only an effort on Coolidge's part to get the girl alone where she could be plainly talked to. The man was not pleased with this new proposal, that was ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... abandon his interest, sister, out of regard to yours. I know he is under the sway of another fair one; it will be a discredit to your charms if you call him back, and ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... Pope and she afterward (about 1722) quarreled bitterly. Leslie Stephen, discussing the matter, says "the extreme bitterness with which Pope ever afterward assailed her can be explained most plausibly, and least to his discredit, upon the assumption that his extravagant expressions of gallantry covered some real passion." If this be a true inference, his passion "was probably converted into antipathy by the contempt with which she ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... side by side for some time in silence, the big fellow turning now and then to look with disapproval at the smiling face of the boy. Indeed, if the proof against him was no stronger than this, the boy could well afford to smile, for lies in evidence discredit any truth there may be on the ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... thirteenth century, visited, and, for some time, resided in the flowery land of China. This statement, on the part of the writer to whom we refer, is altogether untenable. Moreover, it is an error so glaring as to cast, in the estimation of all careful readers of his work, no ordinary degree of discredit upon many of his most positive assertions. The person, whose idol is so rashly described as being that of Marco Polo, was named Shien-Tchu. He was a native of one of the northern provinces of India, and, for his zeal as an apostle in the service of Buddha, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... endeavour to assume when they are captured and taken to the stake and the torture, there to prove their title to the name of brave by enduring the most inconceivable agonies with stoical indifference, or there to bring discredit on their tribe, infamy on their name, and joy to their enemies, by breaking down under the infliction of tortures at the bare mention ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... true, in the old tower calculated to flatter the tradition, for it contained only two habitable rooms, communicating with each other, and by no means remarkable for size or splendour; and every one of our household, save myself, was wont to discredit the idle rumour which would assign to so distinguished a guest so unseemly a lodgment. But, as I looked from the narrow lattices of the chambers, over the wide expanse of ocean and of land which they commanded; as I noted, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the interview. His face grew purple; and he struck the table with his fist more furiously than he had ever done in his life. He, usually so guarded, so decorous on all occasions, uttered a volley of oaths that would not have done discredit to an ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... sorry substitute for the brilliant figures he had superseded. The militia generals had surrounded themselves with a numerous staff, and on fine afternoons, it was said, the official display in Harper's Ferry would have done no discredit to the Champs-Elysees. Jackson had but two assistants, who, like himself, still wore the plain blue uniform of the Military Institute. To eyes accustomed to the splendid trappings and prancing steeds of his predecessors there seemed an almost ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... It is no discredit to Dr. Wade or to Mr. Perry, of the Local Council, that Roscoe caught the audience with his first words. He was so young and fresh, so boyishly off-hand—so different from the others who had spoken. And then his straight young figure and ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... attempts to discredit the name of Mr. Lincoln and nominate some one else in his place caused hardly a ripple on the great current of public opinion. Death alone could have prevented his choice by the Union convention. So absolute and universal was the tendency ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... that not a jot of the curriculum had been altered for fifty years; and its speedy downfall was the sole result to be expected and hoped for. The fact that, at this time, some seven hundred odd students were enrolled on its books went far to discredit this pious hope; but, nevertheless, Schrievers harped always on the same string; and just as perpetual dropping wears a stone, so his continued diatribes ate into emotional and sensitive natures. He began to attract a following, and, simultaneously, to make ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... outside, watched him from a distance with silent respect. In these days the fact of a gentleman drinking more liquor than was good for him was certes not to his discredit. ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... the —th Horse,—here on the broad parade of the cantonment, at high noon and in plain sight and hearing even of three or four enlisted men, orderlies, horse-holders, etc., had the post commander spoken words that meant nothing short of discredit, if not disgrace, to the subaltern who was at that very instant riding away on a perilous as well as thankless mission. Deep, embarrassed silence fell on one and all of the major's hearers for a single instant. Cranston reddened with indignation, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... rule, comprise some lesser forms, which often cannot easily be distinguished when grown in different regions, or by comparing dried material. This fact was, of course, most distasteful to the systematists of his time and even for a long period afterwards [38] they attempted to discredit it. Milde and many others have opposed these new ideas with some temporary success. Only of late has the school of Jordan received due recognition, after Thuret, de Bary, Rosen and others tested its practices and openly pronounced for them. Of late Wittrock of Sweden has joined them, making ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... are manifold; and some of them are peculiar to our country. Our territory is very extensive; our population very heterogeneous; the economy and close calculation which recommend a man in Massachusetts may discredit him in Louisiana. The very countenance is often a sure indication of character and of capacity, when it is one of a class and a region whose peculiarities we thoroughly understand; but coming to us from other classes and regions, we are often at fault,—more especially in these latter days, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... regard to you, William, I am satisfied; but for our unhappy country I cannot cease to mourn. Alas! what fearful profligacy do we see in high places: vice and immorality rampant among all classes; the disrepute into which the monarchy and all connected with it have justly fallen; and the discredit into which our national ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... went up from our decks could have been heard two miles away. If there were tears in the eyes of some of the members of our party as they saw the old flag gleaming in the sunlight and thought of God's country at that time so far away, the display of emotion did them no discredit. ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... for which they have no need in speaking. Everybody must be able to understand the masterpieces of the past with their archaic (old-fashioned) words like eftsoons or halidom, but no one need use such expressions now. So there is no discredit in the fact that one's speaking vocabulary is more restricted ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... none of the presents except such as were pledges of friendship and good will, he returned, to the great discredit of the other ambassadors. The Athenians condemned and executed Timagoras, and if it was for the amount of presents which he received, rightly enough; for he not only took silver and gold, but a costly bed and slaves ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... were at Kyoto with retinues of officers and attendants, and with guards of troops. The southern and western daimyos were present in imposing numbers, and although they did not always agree among themselves, they were in harmony in the general purpose to discredit the government at Yedo and ...
— Japan • David Murray
... "Why, how, Daddy?" while Jake would bend down his head and whimper,—"Somethin' 's got into my eye." Yet the boys were very good- hearted fellows, at bottom, and we are sorry that we must chronicle so many things to their discredit. ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... discredit, but to his disadvantage. I've noticed that what they call a man's man is generally something ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... one of those ignorant people who do so much discredit to our Public Schools. You fondly think that the whitebait is a special kind of fish, that there are father whitebaits and mother whitebaits and baby whitebaits. You are wrong. There are only baby whitebaits. At least ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... firmer, he stooped less in the shoulders, he looked less on the ground and more bravely on his fellow travellers on the road of life. He did not flinch from the consequences of his confession, but seemed to find some inward peace, which more than recompensed him for the discredit which he had brought upon himself. From this time forward a great change was observable in him, a change for which we can find no better name than conversion. It is an old-fashioned word, all but tabooed in modern polite society, but where will be found another which so well expresses the complete ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... Heylin's elaborate impugnment of its accuracy appears to have had great weight, as with Fuller's contemporaries, so with the generation which immediately followed, and onward almost to our own time. To Heylin succeeded Bishop Nicolson in exerting himself to discredit that valuable work, and it is only within a few years that its character has been substantially rehabilitated. Together with the reputation of Fuller as an historian, his reputation in other respects for a long while underwent eclipse; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... was ended in tragedy. But already the second was in full blast. Bothwell had recently married; he was disliked by the Scottish nobles, and the queen's constant association with him had already brought discredit upon her. There had been a good political excuse for her union with Darnley, but Bothwell could bring no support to her cause; for his creed was doubtful, and he had no friends. Nothing, indeed, but the infatuation of an amorous woman for a brutally strong ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... army was landed near Cadiz; but the Spaniards showed no signs of rising in favor of Charles, and, after bringing great discredit on themselves and exciting the animosity of the Spaniards by gross misconduct, the English army embarked again. Some treasure ships were captured, and others sunk in the harbor of Vigo, but the fleet was no more effective than the army. Admiral Sir John ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... have a name, Men of Athens! and liability to reproach from those who desire to malign the city of Athens—that ye put Socrates to death, a wise man. For in very truth they will declare me to have been wise—those who wish to discredit you— even though I be not. Now had you waited a little while this thing would have happened for you in the course of nature. For ye see my estate: that it is now far onward on the road of life, hard by death. ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater |
