"Sagacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chance he was opposite a huge image from the Orient, a hideous, twisted thing with a countenance of sardonic sagacity. As he looked he began to see perverse, insidious resemblances to the physician himself. When Schulze reappeared and busied himself writing, he looked from the stone face to the face of flesh with fascinated ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... select types is a test of a novelist's talent and experience. It implies energy to rise above the blind walls of one's private circle of acquaintance; the power to perceive what phases of thought and existence are to be represented as well as who represents them; the sagacity to analyze the age or the moment and reproduce its dominant features. The feat is difficult, and, when done, by no means blows its own trumpet. On the contrary, the reader must open his eyes to be aware of it. He finds the story clear and easy of ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... anecdotes are always amusing, and are sure to meet with a grateful public, but for our purpose they have long been ruled out of court. If Mr. Darwin, Jr., should ever pass through Oxford, Ipromise to show him in my own dog, Waldmann, far more startling instances of sagacity than any he has mentioned, though I am afraid he will be confirmed all the more in his ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... as pleasantly as it began?" asked Elizabeth, who, though she was over-merciful in her judgments, was not without a good deal of sagacity and shrewdness. Something lay beyond the margin of Mattie's words, she could see that plainly; and then her father ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... piercing wert thou in thy search and pompous descriptions of the works of nature; whether in proper and emphatic terms thou didst paint the blazing comet's fiery tail, the stupendous force of dreadful thunder and earthquakes, and the unrelenting inundations. Sometimes, with Machiavelian sagacity, thou unravelledst intrigues of state, and the traitorous conspiracies of rebels, giving wise counsel to monarchs. How didst thou move our terror and our pity with thy passionate scenes between Jack ...
— English Satires • Various
... His sagacity, the delicacy of his sense of smell, filled me with admiration; I ordered my coachman to go wherever the other wished. The horses walked heavily through the deep snow. The kibitka advanced but slowly, now raised on a hillock, now descending into a hollow, ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... selling of soap for a premium. They had sold enough to their immediate neighbors during the earlier autumn to secure a child's handcart, which, though very weak on its pins, could be trundled over the country roads. With large business sagacity and an executive capacity which must have been inherited from their father, they now proposed to extend their operations to a larger area and distribute soap to contiguous villages, if these villages could be induced to buy. The Excelsior Soap Company paid a very small ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of affairs John Quincy Adams returned. Fortunately he had been compelled to bear no part in the embroilments of the past, and his sagacity must have led him, while listening with filial sympathy to the interpretations placed upon events by his incensed parent, yet to make liberal allowance for the distorting effects (p. 028) of the old gentleman's rage. Still it was in the main only natural for him to regard himself as ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... finance required rather more worldly agents than the single-hearted and devoted ministers of religion, and he found a fitting instrument in the young and ardent Robert de la Salle, a Frenchman of enterprise and sagacity, worldly enough in his motives, but of indomitable energy and perseverance. He was very successful in establishing commerce in furs and other productions of the country, but lost his life somewhere near the mouth of the Mississippi, which he first explored, after escaping ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... that the one able leader of the repeal cause realized the impasse into which he had brought his beloved province, Macdonald saw that it was the time for him 'from the nettle danger to pluck the flower safety.' He entered into negotiations with Howe, employing all his art and all his sagacity. Clearly he put the choice. Nova Scotia was in the Dominion, and the only way out led direct to Washington. Was not the only possible course for the greatest Nova Scotian to sink his personal feelings, and to join in giving to Nova Scotia her due part in a nation ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... market-place, Lorne Murchison's having been selected to accompany what was known as the Cruickshank deputation to England. The general spirit of congratulation was corrected by a tendency to assert it another proof of sagacity on the chairman's part; Elgin wouldn't be too flattered; Lawyer Cruickshank couldn't have done better. You may be sure the Express was well ahead with it. "Honour to Our Young Fellow Townsman. A Well-Merited Compliment," and Rawlins was round promptly next morning ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... disputed, from points admitted"[54]) "by a process of reasoning, let him hear that first principles are incapable of demonstration, for they are neither by art" ({techne}), which is "practical solely, and not theoretical," "nor by sagacity" ({phronesis} practical wisdom), which is "conversant about objects which are susceptible of change,"[55] but are "primary," "self-evident," and "indemonstrable."[56] Thus this "demonstration by a process of reasoning," apart from Sensation ...
— The Basis of Early Christian Theism • Lawrence Thomas Cole
... according to his partial biographer, recommended the Cardinal of Geneva, were rather those of a successor to John Hawkwood or to a duke of Milan, than of the apostles. Extraordinary activity of body and endurance of fatigue, courage which would hazard his life to put down the intrusive pope, sagacity and experience in the temporal affairs of the Church; high birth, through which he was allied with most of the royal and princely houses of Europe; of austerity, devotion, learning, holiness, charity, not a word. He took the name of Clement VII; the Italians bitterly taunted the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... taking in all my providences, in this letter, thou wilt admire my sagacity and contrivance almost as much as I do myself. Thou seest, that Miss Lardner, Mrs. Sinclair, Tomlinson, Mrs. Fretchville, Mennell, are all mentioned in it. My first liberties with her person also. [Modesty, modesty, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... singularly just-minded man, and having succeeded at an early age to his estate, he had lived many years in that intellectual retirement which, by withdrawing him from the strifes of the world, had left a cultivated sagacity to act freely on a natural disposition. At the period when the entire republic was, in substance, exhibiting the disgraceful picture of a nation torn by adverse factions, that had their origin in interests alien to its own; when most were either Englishmen ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... moved into the embrasure of a window and talked in a low voice with Madame Mongenod, the mother, who was sitting there, and to whom all the affairs of the bank were confided. For over thirty years this woman had given, to her husband first and then to her sons, such proofs of business sagacity that she had long been a managing partner in the ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... Combativeness, Secretiveness, Acquisitiveness, Constructiveness, Cautiousness, Approbativeness, Self-Esteem, Firmness, Religion, Benevolence, Hope, Marvellousness, Poetry, Ideality, Imitation, Wit or Mirthfulness, Eventuality, Individuality, Perceptive Organs, Time, Comparative Sagacity, Causality, Tune, Constructiveness, Language—Comments on the Organology ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... was wise. She had the sagacity which comes from great tenderness and loyalty, combined with a passionate nature. In such a woman's soul there is sometimes an almost supernatural instinct. She will detect danger and devise safety with a rapidity and ingenuity which are incredible. ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... And while he saw from the first, far more clearly than they, the embattled strength of the forces with which they all had to contend, the unbending will of this man rejected all idea of concession or compromise, evasion or escape. And his native sagacity (made keener as well as more comprehensive now that it looked down from that remote and stormless anchorage), revealed to him that there was at least the possibility of the mightiest earthly fabric breaking up before ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... that body forcibly and assume the Dictatorship, he yet found serious defects in some of the Articles, and want of precision on this point and that. His criticisms of this kind were masterly examples of his breadth of thought, his foresight, and his practical sagacity, and made an immediate impression. For, at this stage of the proceedings, the belief being that he would ultimately accept the Kingship, the House, whose sittings had been little more than nominal during the great Whitehall Conferences, applied itself ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... of this disaster, the British generals in Northern Afghanistan formed a decision commendable alike for its boldness and its sagacity. They decided to despatch at once all available troops from Cabul to the relief of the beleaguered garrison at Candahar. General Sir Frederick Roberts had handed over the command at Cabul to Sir Donald Stewart, and was about to operate among the tribes on the Afghan ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... Zashue. He was yet unmarried; but, notwithstanding, a marked predilection for the fair sex formed one of his characteristics. He was held in high esteem by the leading men of the tribe, Tyope and his adherents excepted, for his sagacity, good ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... is in the hands of editors of enterprise and sagacity. They daily bring wars, statecraft, business plans, political situations, trade openings, scientific discoveries, forms of church-work and philanthropy, accidents, murders, and marriages, to our ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... with his usual foresight and sagacity, had chosen a peculiarly desirable moment for his visit to the borough. Never was such a contest known. The Honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall, was the Blue candidate; and Horatio Fizkin, Esq., of Fizkin Lodge, near Eatanswill, had been prevailed upon by his ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... of severity and cruelty, too, under Draco, who established her first laws. But the people rebelled, and in 594 B.C. Solon, a man of great sagacity, prepared a constitution, which was a model of wisdom, justice, and even of gentleness. The government established by Solon was an aristocratic Republic, in which the common people had no part. The Chief, or Archon, as he was called, was ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 25, April 29, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... opportune offence Saved him, or the unrelenting seer had died. He sees that human equity is slack To interfere, though in so just a cause, And makes the task His own; inspiring dumb And helpless victims with a sense so keen Of injury, with such knowledge of their strength, And such sagacity to take revenge, That oft the beast has seemed to judge the man. An ancient, not a legendary tale, By one of sound intelligence rehearsed, (If such, who plead for Providence may seem In modern eyes) shall make the ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... is no doubt the reason why nations whose morals are pure are generally superior in sense and courage to those whose morals are bad. The latter shine only through I know not what small and trifling qualities, which they call wit, sagacity, cunning; but those great and noble features of goodness and reason, by which a man is distinguished and honoured through good deeds, virtues, really useful efforts, are scarcely to be found except among the ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... conversation ensued concerning the wonderful performances of the trained animals. The Old Dear said that some of them had as much sense as human beings, and the manner with which he made this statement implied that he thought it was a testimonial to the sagacity of the brutes. He further said that he had heard—a little earlier in the evening—a rumour that one of the wild animals, a bear or something, had broken loose and was at present at large. This was what he had heard—he didn't ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Lapparent, by Lenoir-Laroche; and Lenoir-Laroche, who had too little decision, by Sotin. Talleyrand, likewise, formed part of this ministry. He had been struck off the list of emigrants, from the close of the conventional session, as a revolutionist of 1791; and his great sagacity, which always placed him with the party having the greatest hope of victory, made him, at this period, a directorial republican. He held the portfolio of Delacroix, and he contributed very much, by his counsels and his daring, to ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... mind Is deaf and blind; Impervious to sense of taste and smell And touch as well. Thought from without may vainly seek to press Thy consciousness; Man's hard-won knowledge which the ages pile But makes thee smile; Thy vast sagacity and blatant din Come from within; Thy voice doth fill the world from year to ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... but the people marshalled into hosts, would be ultimately the deciders of the victory; and that on whichever side the popular feeling was more serious, persevering, and intense, there the triumph would be gained. I must still confess, however, in disparagement to my military sagacity, that I was totally unprepared for the gallant resistance of the French recruits. What can they do without officers?—ten thousand of whom had been noblesse, and were now emigrants? What can they do without a commissariat, what ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... farewell address is full of truths important at all times, and particularly deserving consideration at the present. With a sagacity which brought the future before him, and made it like the present, he saw and pointed out the dangers that even at this moment most imminently threaten us. I hardly know how a greater service of that kind could now be ...
— Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study • Compiled by Grenville Kleiser
... their part; they well knew themselves now to be, what on other occasions they loudly enough boasted, foreigners in every sense of the word. They were satisfied, however, at the same time, that the mother-country had not always been renowned for the highest degree of national sagacity; they felt, that they had themselves acquired, by force, the independence which they enjoyed; and they trusted that the British administration, through apprehensions of renewing an unpopular and disastrous war, would be induced ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... exercise of our best wit and ingenuity, and although a knowledge of mathematics and a certain familiarity with the methods of logic are often of great service in the solution of these things, yet it sometimes happens that a kind of natural cunning and sagacity is of considerable value. For many of the best problems cannot be solved by any familiar scholastic methods, but must be attacked on entirely original lines. This is why, after a long and wide experience, one finds that particular puzzles will ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... favourite Tom cat owned by a family in Callander, in Scotland, and it had on several occasions shown more than ordinary sagacity. One day Tom made off with a piece of beef, and the servant followed him cautiously, with the intention of catching him and administering a little wholesome correction. To her amazement, she saw the cat go into a corner of the yard, in which she knew a rat-hole existed, and lay the beef down by the ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... conversation with Oliver Wolcott, the successor of Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury under Washington, who had been subsequently Governor of Connecticut, Mr. Adams remarked: "Mr. Wolcott views the prospects of the Union with great sagacity, and with hopes more sanguine than mine. He thinks the continuance of the Union will depend upon the heavy population of Pennsylvania, and that its gravitation will preserve the Union. He holds the South Carolina turbulence ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... is ever true that they who live in amity and communion with God thereby acquire insight into His purposes. Even in regard to public or so-called 'political' events, a man who believes in God and His moral government will often be endowed with a 'terrible sagacity,' which forecasts consequences more surely than do godless politicians. In regard to one's own history, it is still more evidently true that the one way to apprehend God's purposes in it is to keep in close friendship with Him. Then we shall see the meaning of the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... children, or with girlish assiduity performing little kind offices for Idris, one wondered in what fair lineament of her pure loveliness, in what soft tone of her thrilling voice, so much of heroism, sagacity and ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... struggle with the king, betook himself to the Hebrides, where a number of other Norse chieftains had sought a refuge from similar persecutions. His great strength and sagacity, no less than his distinguished birth, secured him a favorable reception and much influence. He was so tall that no Norwegian horse could carry him, for which reason he was compelled always to walk, and was surnamed Rollo the Ganger, or Walker. Though not formally ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... the first place, the word "pretended" is not in my journal. In the second, although of course it does not follow, if one takes another person for a man of sagacity or a gentleman - it does not follow that he is either ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... thousand disturbing causes which the practical politician knows must be found on any path that may be selected. Of all the men whose conduct brought about the Civil War, he was the most virtuous, and he had the sagacity to oppose a resort to arms; though how he succeeded in reconciling his aversion to war with his support of a policy that led directly to its existence is one of the mysteries of those days. The Pompeians found him a bore, and, had they been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... that they will be different, and presumably loftier ones. The new conditions of existence in which man will find himself in consequence of the introduction of economic freedom, will bring to maturity new properties, notions, and ideas, which no sagacity, no gift of mental construction possessed by anyone now living, is able to prefigure with accuracy. If, nevertheless, I venture to indicate some of the features of the future, I ask you not to attach to them any greater importance than you would ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... His intuitive sagacity counselled him to strive for pathos to move her. It was a task; for while he perceived her to be not ignorant of his plight, he doubted her knowing the extent of it, and as his desire was merely to move her without an exposure of himself, he had to compass being ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... could have told you so!' cried Margaret, triumphant in her sagacity, but astonished, as her brother started up and stood looking at her, as if he could hardly resolve to give credit to ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Belchree. There was a fourth near them just as bad, called Nowneer; but the Thakoors of that place are all well disposed towards the Jbansee chief, and are obedient. All are in the Jhansee state. If the marauders are pressed with energy and sagacity, they will be soon put down; and you may rely upon the native chiefs not supporting them, though, from their marriage connection, they may afford them an asylum ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... and made him governor of a province; but, by his rapacity in this station, he afterwards incurred the emperor's displeasure. The true character of this person had escaped the keen discernment of Horace, as well as the sagacity of the emperor; for in two epistles addressed to Lollius, he mentions him as great and accomplished in the superlative degree; maxime Lolli, liberrime Lolli; so imposing had been the manners and address of this ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... Wolf's eye ranged over the ground on either side, as well as ahead. As I thought of the distance we had come since we left our horses, I began to repent somewhat of the task I had undertaken; however, I trusted to the sagacity of my companion, that we should not be detected, and that we should be able to retreat as we had advanced. Yellow Wolf led, and his brave followed, I bringing up the rear. My companions frequently stopped, and, bending their ears to the ground, listened for any sounds which ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... last words audibly, and looked hard at the Intendant. Bigot cursed him twenty times over between his teeth, for he knew La Corne's indomitable energy and sagacity, that was never at fault in finding or forcing a way to whatever he was in search of. It would not be long before he would discover the presence of a strange lady at Beaumanoir, thought Bigot, and just as certain would he be to find out that she was ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... annals afford. And in that triumph the historian of the Anti-Slavery Measures may justly claim to have had a distinguished part. Honest, able, industrious, intelligent, indefatigable, zealous for his cause, yet flexible to events, gifted at once with practical sagacity and strong convictions, and with his whole heart and mind absorbed in the business of politics and legislation, he has proved himself an excellent workman in that difficult task by which facts are made to take the impress of ideas, and the principles of equity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... it is easy to discover great sagacity and great extravagance, an ability to do much defeated by the desire of doing more than enough. ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... sometimes twice the length of the body, and curled upward at the extremity, so that it can neither fly nor run; and though its plumage is exquisitely beautiful, the creature itself is simply ludicrous. It bears the same popular repute for sagacity as the goose of European farmyards. The angasto has hair or wool so long that its limbs are almost hidden, just before shearing-time, in the tresses that hang from the body half way to the ground. The calperze, a bird no larger than a Norfolk turkey, has the hinder part developed to an ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... of Frederic III. This motto, which Charles V was destined almost to render true, was at last discovered, to the great joy of the old emperor, who, judging that he had nothing more to do on earth after he had given this last proof of sagacity, died on the 19th of August, 1493; leaving the empire to his ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... unhappy war against my friend to the end under my own guidance, and appearing myself in Egypt, had I not been urged by the longing to see once more the woman who had dazzled my boyish eyes. Now, in my mature manhood, I desired to comprehend those marvellous gifts of mind, that matchless sagacity—" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the genius and manners, not only of a single person before he was born, but of a whole race of people, from the first founder of the race to the present time? It was somewhat wonderful, and not to be foreseen by human sagacity or prudence, that a man's whole posterity should so nearly resemble him, and retain the same inclinations, the same habits, the same customs throughout all ages. The waters of the purest spring or fountain are soon changed ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... didn't stop to smell weather," admitted the master, bracing himself to meet a fresh list of the heeling Polly. He evidently felt that he ought to defend his own sagacity and absolve ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... others did (the hand, I saw at a glance, was a disguised one), not one tittle of evidence had he been able to procure for love or money. As a last resource, he had consigned the case to me, and the vulpine sagacity of a ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... had perceived the scattering, would grow at once into an enormous crop of blunders, difficulties, and complications; but, for a while, the Ministry were saved from these dangers either by the energy of the Prime Minister, or the popularity of his wife, or perhaps by the sagacity of the elder Duke;—so that there grew up an idea that the Coalition was really the proper thing. In one respect it certainly was successful. The Home Rulers, or Irish party generally, were left without an inch of standing ground. Their ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... inches wide and ten inches long. The bear that had made it had come down this very morning from over the ridge east of Bear Canyon. I trailed him up this ridge, over the steepest and roughest and wildest part of it, marveling at the enormous steps and jumps he made, and at the sagacity which caused him to choose this route instead of the saddle trail where I had waited so long. His track led up nearly to the rim and proved how he had climbed over the most rugged break in the ridge. Indeed he was one of ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... years before, they at last made up their minds to refine for their own needs and thus to save the profits paid to "the Havemeyers". It is generally conceded that John Arbuckle's shrewdness and business sagacity in having previously acquired the Smyser patents on a weighing and packing machine, and his control of it, really led to the coffee-sugar war. "This packing machine", said the Spice Mill, when Henry E. Smyser died in 1899, "puts him [Smyser] ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... superstitious if you will (for his religion had its root rather in fear than in hope), he was peculiarly adapted for such a crisis both by his good and evil qualities. For the sake of increasing his treasures and his power, he would have promoted the Reformation; but his cautious temper, his sagacity, and his fear of Divine justice would have taught him ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... for a thorough good time, and yet too rich and too befriended—an intuitive cunning within her managing this last—for a thorough bad one. The compatriots, in short, by what she made out, approved her friends for their expert wisdom with her; in spite of which judicial sagacity it was the compatriots who recorded themselves as the innocent parties. She saw things in these days that she had never seen before, and she couldn't have said why save on a principle too terrible to name; ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... individuals, the remarkable degree of self-sufficiency they possess gives them an air of independence rather apt to repel a stranger. I use this expression "self-sufficiency" in the largest sense. Conscious of the strong sagacity and the dogged power of will which seem almost the birthright of the natives of the West Riding, each man relies upon himself, and seeks no help at the hands of his neighbour. From rarely requiring the assistance of others, he comes to doubt the power ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... preservation. Epimetheus undertook to do this, and Prometheus was to overlook his work, when it was done. Epimetheus accordingly proceeded to bestow upon the different animals the various gifts of courage, strength, swiftness, sagacity; wings to one, claws to another, a shelly covering to a third, etc. But when man came to be provided for, who was to be superior to all other animals, Epimetheus had been so prodigal of his resources that he had nothing ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... his life he encountered the greatest cataclysm unloosed upon Europe since the Reformation, and it is not too much to say that at every point he missed the essence of its meaning. Yet even upon France and the English Constitution he was full of practical sagacity. Had his warning been uttered without the fury of hate that accompanied it, he might well have guided the forces of the Revolution into channels that would have left no space for the military dictatorship he so marvellously foresaw. Had he perceived the real ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... itself rather in the outlining of matters relating to organization and broad policy with a sagacity arising from a shrewd perception and appreciation of general business requirements and conditions, to which should be added his intensely comprehensive grasp of manufacturing possibilities and details, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... we introduce the fallacy of right and wrong. Spontaneous distaste should take the place of right and wrong. And least of all must there be a cry: "You see, dear, you don't understand. When you are older—" A child's sagacity is better than an adult ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... is just midway between the large wolf and fox. With much of the appearance of the former, it combines all the sagacity of the latter. It is usually of a greyish colour, lighter or darker, according to circumstances, and often with a ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... ties which bind a partisan to his leader. Their relative strength or weakness are the tests of the personal excellence of the latter—of the regard which his talents inspire—of the veneration which his sagacity commands. Strong indeed must be the necessity which on any occasion can unloose them; nor can it, in the ordinary case, arise except from the fault of the leader. For the leader and the follower, if we consider the matter rightly, are alike bound ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... time, and when they took care of him he was a dead man. His death occurred on that same day of the most holy sacrament, at nine o'clock at night. He died as an apostle, after having done his whole duty as religious and bishop. Great was the concourse of people, for his great sagacity and prudence made him not only liked but loved by all. He was buried in our convent, at the foot of the high altar, among the religious. Beyond doubt our Lord chose to snatch him from this life on that day which ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... English writers has enabled him to make some useful observations. What he undertook he has well enough performed, but as he neither attempts judicial nor emendatory criticism, he employs rather his memory than his sagacity. It were to be wished that all would endeavour to imitate his modesty who have not been able to surpass ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... seconded the efforts of their trainers. The ordinary hawking of the heron we had at a later period of this expedition; but the use now made of the animal was altogether different, and displayed infinitely more sagacity than one would suppose likely to be possessed by such an animal. These were trained especially for the purpose for which they were now employed. A flight of ducks—thousands of birds—were enticed upon the water as before by scattering corn over it. The ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... trust, has formed somewhat approaching to a distinct idea of the principal characters who have appeared before him during our narrative; but in case our good opinion of his sagacity has been exaggerated, and in order to satisfy such as are addicted to the laudable practice of SKIPPING (with whom we have at times a strong fellow-feeling), the following particulars ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... roundabout way quite out of the ordinary path. It appeared that part of the footpath which led past a stream had been entirely washed away by a flood, so that, had the gentleman continued upon the old path, he must have met with a most serious accident. What made the sagacity of the dog more conspicuous on this occasion was the fact that it had not been with its master for eighteen months—he having been laid up for the whole of that period, and the dog living with ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... and the closest observers of what passes in their own minds. From their profession they in general mix more with the world than authors; and if they have not the same fund of acquired knowledge, are obliged to rely more on individual sagacity. I might mention the names of Opie, Fuseli, Northcote, as persons distinguished for striking description and acquaintance with the subtle traits of character.(3) Painters in ordinary society, or in obscure situations ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... the city on the road to Aix, where all carriages undergo examination; and if any thing contraband is found, the vehicle, baggage, and even the horses are confiscated. We escaped this disagreeable ceremony by the sagacity of our driver. Of his own accord, he declared at the bureau, that we had bought a pound of coffee and some sugar at Marseilles, and were ready to pay the duty, which amounted to about ten sols. They took the money, gave him a receipt, and let the carriage ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... placed in the hands of the commander-in-chief on the day when they were circulated, and with consummate sagacity and profound political wisdom, he resolved to guide and control the proceedings in a friendly manner at the meeting of officers, rather than to check them by authority. In general orders the next morning, he referred to the anonymous ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... of military sagacity exhibited on both sides, during the progress of hostilities, it scarcely becomes me to speak. Perhaps our leader delayed something too long in making, up his mind as to the ultimate end to be pursued, after the troop had penetrated so far into the interior as Marlborough. Had he pushed on at once, ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... Sun in elliptical or oval orbits, and not in circular paths, as was believed by Copernicus. In his investigation of the laws which govern the motions of the planets he formulated those famous theorems known as 'Kepler's Laws,' which will endure for all time as a proof of his sagacity and surpassing genius. Prior to the discovery of those laws the Sun, though acknowledged to be the centre of the system, did not appear to occupy a central position as regards the motions of the planets; but Kepler, by demonstrating ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... be that as it may,' said Horry, 'he was an able man of sagacity, this sea-captain, and, like many another, had a penchant for being a gentleman. But he was more of an oddity than Hertford's beast of Gevaudan, and was dressed like Salvinio, the monkey my Lord Holland brought back ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... more strongly fibred, courageous, high of head than the Hayti women. There was among them one to whom the others gave deference, a chieftainess, strong and warlike in mien, not smoothly young nor after their notions beautiful, but with an air of sagacity and pride. A ship boy stood with us. "That is Catalina," ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... might, in some way or other, make his advantage. If any more precise meaning existed in his mind, we must be content to pass it over as one of those obscure points of history, upon which neither the sagacity of historians, nor the many documents since made public, nor the great discoverer, Time, has yet thrown any ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... button-hole, he presented it to her with a manner so graceful, and a smile so benignant, as to show that under the dingy blue uniform there beat the heart of a gentleman. He kept a keen eye on current events, and sometimes expressed his views with great sagacity. One day he stopped me on the ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... was Mr. Vernor. Fortunately he never looked towards the window at which I was standing, or he must have seen me. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed, when old Peter arrived, breathless from the speed at which he had come; his grotesque but expressive features gleaming with delight and sagacity, while his merry little eyes danced and twinkled as if they would jump out of their sockets. Reassured, in spite of myself, by his manner, I exclaimed, as I closed the parlour 412 door behind him, "Well, Peter; speak out, man—what ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... encroachments, there seemed to be some ground for the belief that the pope might take the lead in the regeneration of Italy. But he soon grew suspicious of the liberals, and the outcome furnished one more proof of the sagacity of Machiavelli, who had pointed out over three centuries earlier that the temporal possessions of the pope constituted the chief ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... not to let the poor beasts make use of the strength and sagacity nature has given them to save their lives," answered Guert, straining his eyes after Moses, the horse that was behind, so long as his dark form could be distinguished, and leaning forward to listen to the blows of their hoofs, while the noises around us permitted them to be heard. ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... greater indefiniteness of the Historical compared with the Physical Method, both in its inductions and in its deductions, makes it even more difficult to work with. It wants much sagacity and more impartiality; for the demon of Party is too much with us. Our first care should be to make the empirical law as nearly true as possible, collecting as many as we can of the facts which the law is supposed to generalise, and examining them according to ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... series, prepared for the purpose of interesting the young in the study of natural history. The exciting adventures of celebrated travellers, anecdotes of sagacity in birds, beasts, &c., have been interwoven in a pleasant manner. This series is not only very interesting but is decidedly ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... single vote which he has with an income of a hundred a year, he should have ten with an income of a thousand, (provided you first see to it that wealth is, as nature intended it to be, the reward of sagacity and industry—not of good luck in a scramble or a lottery). For every single vote which he had as subordinate in any business, he should have two when he became a master; and every office and authority nationally bestowed, implying trustworthiness ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... still vigorously maintained. On the other hand, actual hostilities between the Pacific States and Spain have been more than a year suspended. I shall, on any proper occasion that may occur, renew the conciliatory recommendations which have been already made. Brazil, with enlightened sagacity and comprehensive statesmanship, has opened the great channels of the Amazon and its tributaries to universal commerce. One thing more seems needful to assure a rapid and cheering progress in South America. I refer to those peaceful habits ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... know anything about it. You've beheld with your own eyes the marvelous, world-wide porcine wonder of the four-footed kingdom eating with preternatural sagacity his matutinal meal, unstrayed ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... the brother and sister in their rambles was a very frolicsome and handsome dog, which was so remarkable for sagacity and intelligence, that he was known through all the countryside; he was devoted to his young mistress, and, though he was not a very large animal; he had enough of the Shepherd's breed in him to make him ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... firma. Third, he thought Amundsen was going to the Pole by the old route over the Beardmore. The truth was that Amundsen was an explorer of the markedly intellectual type, rather Jewish than Scandinavian, who had proved his sagacity by discovering solid footing for the winter by pure judgment. For the moment, let it be confessed, we all underrated Amundsen, and could not shake off the feeling that he had stolen a ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... Elephants.] I will first relate the manner of taking them, and afterwards their Sagacity, with other things that occur to my memory concerning them. This Beast, tho he be so big and wise, yet he is easily catched. When the King commands to catch Elephants, after they have found them they like, that is such as have Teeth, for tho there be many in the ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... with the party grew mere skeletons, Captain continued in good case, having fared very well on the rats, mice, bandicoots, etc. which he, under the direction of The Doctor, who shared the prey, had the sagacity to scrape out of the earth. Captain was also a formidable enemy to lizards, et hoc genus omne; but this morning his owner found him engaged with that venomous reptile known in the colony by the name of deaf-adder, and although compelled instantly ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... his twenty eighth year, but he was already a Chamberlain, and he had arrived at a highly respectable rank in the service. He had thorough confidence in himself, in his intellect, and in his sagacity. He went onwards under full sail, boldly and cheerfully; the stream of his life flowed smoothly along. He was accustomed to please every one, old and young alike; and he imagined that he thoroughly understood his fellow-creatures, ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... renown to thy grandson for ever, that all the people shall say when they have heard what [my] Majesty hath done for thee, "Was there ever anything like this that hath been done for the smer uat Herkhuf when he came back from Amam because of the sagacity (or attention) which he displayed in doing what his Lord commanded, and wished for, and praised?" Come down the river at once to the Capital. Bring with thee this pygmy whom thou hast brought from the Land of the Spirits, alive, strong, and healthy, ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... rambled so much about the mountains, should have fallen into this mistake, and I record it as a warning for others who, with far less opportunity than my dear friend had of knowing what things are, and far less sagacity, give way to presumptuous criticism, from which he was free, though in this matter mistaken. In describing a tarn under ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... tell; mind much dark;" and the Indian seemed mortified that his sagacity was for once at fault. "No white settlers in cabin; Charlie and Bub in cabin; much gun fire; hurt two, tree ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... to incur rude jests at her expense, was equally unwilling to betray a feeling which was rendered the more delicious by secrecy. We imagined ourselves secure; but neither of us could have had much worldly sagacity or we must have known that all our caution was fruitless. Basilisks' eyes were around us, and we trod a path beset with serpents. Fortunately we were both looked up to as persons who could not be approached with familiarity; and that preserved us from the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... the mortification of present disappointment. There is, besides, this alleviating circumstance. Every discovery he makes, every acquisition of knowledge he attains, seems to proceed from his own sagacity; and thus he acquires a confidence in himself sufficient to keep up the resolution ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... negotiator in the act of putting his feather to the ear of the directory, to make it unclinch the fist; and, by his tickling, to charm that rich prize out of the iron gripe of robbery and ambition! It does not require much sagacity to discern that no power wholly baffled and defeated in Europe can flatter itself with conquests in the West Indies. In that state of things it can neither keep nor hold. No! It cannot even long make war if the grand bank and deposit ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... of complaint which brings out in relief the logical endowment and legislative sagacity ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... attaching to ignorance and the want of instruction. This correlative and equally cogent statement is suppressed on certain occasions, and by persons that would not demur to the praises of knowledge: as, when we are told of the native good sense, the untaught sagacity, the admirable instincts of the people,—that is, of the ignorant or the uneducated. Hence the great value of the expository device of following up every principle with its, counter-statement, the matter denied when the principle is affirmed. If knowledge is a thing superlatively good, ignorance—the ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... were extremely fertile, but it was thought that the cost and uncertainty of reclaiming them were too great to warrant the enterprise. Of late, however, they have been rapidly bought up by capitalists, and their sagacity has been justified by the results on those ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... which could be amalgamated with Christianity without, as they trusted, destroying its essence, but in the matter of sexuality there could be no compromise, and the condemnation of sexuality involved the condemnation of the bath. It required very little insight and sagacity for the Christians to see—though we are now apt to slur over the fact—that the cult of the bath was in very truth the cult of the flesh.[22] However profound their ignorance of anatomy, physiology, and psychology might ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... eccentric and thoughtless youth succeeded a calm maturity in which her conservative sagacity was steadily developed. She now worked for her living, subject, however, to a nice discrimination by which she limited herself to a certain amount of work, beyond which neither threats, beatings, nor cajoleries would ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... natives and white trappers, confirm the opinion that certain varieties of the fox belong to the same species,—such as the black, silver, cross, and red; all of which have been found in the same nest, but never any of the white or blue. The former, too, are distinguished for their cunning and sagacity; while the latter are very stupid, and fall an easy prey to the trapper; a circumstance of itself sufficient to prove a ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... displayed all the sagacity, perseverance, and swiftness for which they have been celebrated by travellers in northern regions, and he had frequent opportunities of observing the instinct or skill with which they pursued their way in the midst of the most violent storms, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... have been a race—a sort of variety of the human species—possessed of a very refined and superior organization, which, in its development, gave rise to a character of firmness, energy, and force, both of body and mind, which has justly excited the admiration of mankind. The Carthaginians had sagacity—the Romans called it cunning—and activity, enterprise and wealth. Their rivals, on the other hand, were characterized by genius, courage, and strength, giving rise to a certain calm and indomitable resolution and energy, which has since, in every age, ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... said that women, in spite of much ability, of much sagacity, and of a power of reasoning carried to a degree equalling that of subtle dialecticians, yet are never governed ...
— The First Essay on the Political Rights of Women • Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat Condorcet
... make bridges across the water," answered Mr. Maynard. "It shows a wonderful sagacity, for they gnaw the trunk of the tree, at first such a place, and in just such a way, that the tree will fall exactly in the direction ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... stopped. None of Faull's friends had ever seen him before. He was a thick, shortish man, with surprising muscular development and a head far too large in proportion to his body. His beardless yellow face indicated, as a first impression, a mixture of sagacity, brutality, and humour. ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... long stride away from the Democracy of the last ten years, and toward wholesome Republican ideas. If a Democratic victory could be gained by adopting Republican principles, the framer of the Dayton platform was not lacking in political sagacity. Unfortunately for the success of the scheme, no Ohio Democrat of conspicuous position, except Mr. Chase, is known to have approved Mr. Vallandigham's resolutions as a whole. The chief justice wrote to Mr. Vallandigham the well-known letter of May 20, in which he warmly congratulated him on ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... subsistence, their thorough applicability to the great society of the organic world in general is now undeniable. And to Mr. Darwin belongs the credit of making this extended application, and of working out the immensely diversified results with rare sagacity and untiring patience. He has brought to view real causes which have been largely operative in the establishment of the actual association and geographical distribution of plants and animals. In this he must be allowed to have made a very important ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... tracking out of the claim to its complete establishment, Mr Pancks had shown a sagacity that nothing could baffle, and a patience and secrecy that nothing could tire. 'I little thought, sir,' said Pancks, 'when you and I crossed Smithfield that night, and I told you what sort of a Collector I was, that this would come of it. I little thought, sir, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... architects perceived the irrationality of all this, cut away both crosses and angels, and substituted heads of satyrs, which were the proper presiding deities of Venice in the Renaissance periods, and which in our own domestic institutions, we have ever since, with much piety and sagacity, retained." ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... they had been arrested on the way he should have been sure to hear of it; and he had such confidence in the sagacity of Monsieur du Tillet that he had looked upon it as almost certain he would be able to lead his two charges through any difficulty and danger which might beset them. And now he knew that his hopes had been ill founded—that his friends had been arrested when almost within ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... of savage satisfaction in the thought that Raffles had been obliged to turn to me in the end. And, but for the dreadful thud which I had heard over the telephone, I might have extracted some genuine comfort from the unerring sagacity with which he had ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... all round it. And when the Tartars saw them thus arrive, and the whole force landed, without any guard having been left on board the ships (the act of men very little acquainted with such work), they had the sagacity to feign flight. [Now the Island was very high in the middle, and whilst the enemy were hastening after them by one road they fetched a compass by another and] in this way managed to reach the enemy's ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of the letter to Trevanion, he could not conceal his satisfaction at his sagacity in unravelling the mystery, while this new intelligence confirmed the justness and accuracy of all ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... not that George said to his father, "Yes, father, I cut down the cheery-tree; I can't tell a lie," but that the little boy—only seven years old—should have his sagacity developed under such circumstances. He was a boy wise beyond his years. His conduct then was a prophecy of later years. Yes, I think he was the most remarkable man the country ever produced-up to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain |
