"Wise Men" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to be patient and contented—to accept myself; but now that she has gone, only God and I know the miserable failure I make of it day after day. I want to do so much; I want to amount to something in the world, to have advantages for study and improvement, and to fit myself to mix with wise men by and by,—clever men and scholars,—and to hold my own among them. I could do it, I feel I could, if only I had the opportunity for study, and the health to improve it; this isn't conceit,—she knew that,—but a cool, calm gauging of the sort of ability ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... estimation of the common people, but in that of men of advanced culture, you are deemed wise in a sense in which there is reason to suppose that in Greece—where those who look into these things most discriminatingly do not reckon the seven who bear the name as on the list of wise men—no one was so regarded except the man in Athens whom the oracle of Apollo designated as the wisest of men.[Footnote: Socrates.] In fine, you are thought to be wise in this sense, that you regard all that appertains to your happiness as ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... had found a producer after all. His hopes, considerably dashed by the Supreme Court of the United States of America, were at a low ebb when a practically unknown manager from the Far West concluded that there was more to his play than the wise men of the East were able to discern at a glance. With more sense than intelligence, the Westerner leaped into the heart of New York with a new play by a new author and scored a success from the opening night. Amy Colgate, an unknown actress, became famous in a night, so to speak. ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... clamourous throng of children, holding up for his acceptance great bunches of irises and scarlet poppies and sweet white narcissus from the mountain slopes. His passion for wild flowers was affectionately tolerated by the people, as one of the little follies which sit gracefully on very wise men. If anyone less universally beloved had filled his house with weeds and grasses they would have laughed at him; but the "blessed Cardinal" could afford a few ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... was held to be inseparable from leanness and consumption. These views still obtain—so it is said—in Boston, and especially in Bostonian literary circles; but elsewhere the American woman is growing plump and healthy, and is actually proud of it. While wise men are heartily glad of this change in female sentiment and tissue, it must be admitted that there is one form of feminine fragility which has its value. There is a rare condition of the bony system in which the bones are so fragile that the slightest blow is sufficient to break ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... laws, involving their wholesale hanging, had steadily increased. During the reign of James the First, in a pamphlet entitled Grievous Groans of the Poor, published 1622, we hear the complaint that "the number of the poor do daily increase." The only remedy the then wise men of England could devise was to make the laws against them still more severe. Consequently it was ordered that the first time such people were apprehended they should be branded with the letter R, and if subsequently again found begging or wandering ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... men of virtuous conduct. The actions and conduct of such men of great power, are very difficult of attainment. They are sanctified by the purification of their own actions, and consequently sin in them dies out of itself. This virtue of good conduct is wonderful, ancient, immutable and eternal; and wise men observing this virtue with holiness, attain to heaven. These men who believe in the existence of the Deity, who are free from false pride, and versed in holy writ, and who respect regenerate (twice-born) men, go to heaven. Among holy men, virtue is ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... man's mistress; of pure and simple girls saying they cannot see why they should have a marriage by law; of a lady saying that if she were in love she would not have any legal tie; of its being necessary—or thought so by good and wise men—to keep one sex in bitter and often fatal ignorance. These things (and how many more) show some deep unsoundness in the marriage relations. This must be probed and searched to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... him the story of her life. "When I was born," she said, "my father summoned all the wise men to him, and asked them how long I should live; and they told my parents that until my fifteenth year I should live happily, but that then some evil should befall me, upon hearing which my father ordered this house to be built, and when ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... the Mediterranean and Red seas was considered long before the birth of Christ, and many wise men and potentates toyed with the project in the hoary ages. The Persian king, Necho, was dissuaded sixteen hundred years before the dawn of Christianity from embarking in the enterprise, through the warning of his favorite oracle, who insisted ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... signify to the world? The inward turmoils of most men are stifled by the outward ones; life does not give them time to question themselves. Have they time to know what they are, and what they should be, whose whole thoughts are in the next lease or the last price of stock? Heaven is very high, and wise men look ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... faithful servant or monachal abstinence, wisest of wise men, how would thy sides ache with laughter, how wouldst thou chuckle, if thou couldst come again for a little while to Chinon, and read the idiotic mouthings, and the maniacal babble of the fools who have interpreted, commentated, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... of fools will go on as they have ever done; but to the wise few, to whom I address myself, I would say, Shake off at once and forever the fancies and feelings, the creeds and customs that shackle you, and be true. We have come to a time when wise men will not be led blindfold in the footsteps of their predecessors, but will tear away the bandage, and see for themselves. I have torn away mine, and looked. There is no Faith—it is shaken to its rotten foundation; there is no Hope—it is ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... city of Persia a powerful and wealthy king, named Younan, who had guards and troops and auxiliaries of every kind: but he was afflicted with a leprosy, which defied the efforts of his physicians and wise men. He took potions and powders and used ointments, but all to no avail, and not one of the doctors could cure him. At last, there came to the King's capital city a great physician, stricken in years, whose name was Douban: and he had studied many books, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... among the Seignory, Has wealth at will, and will to use his wealth, And wit to increase it. Marry, his worst folly Lies in a thriftless sort of charity, That goes a-gadding sometimes after objects, Which wise men will not see when thrust upon them. The ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... a time, that there was a great city, and that city, being devoid of a sensation, yearned for a great man. Then the wise men of the city began to look around, when lo! there entered through the gates of the city a certain peddler from a foreign country, which is called Yankee Land, and behold! the great man was found. He dealt in shekels and stocks, and bloomed ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various
... with great attention. He is full of zeal and animation, but so totally without method and arrangement that he is hardly intelligible. The conclusion, which was an attack on Cobbett, was well done and even eloquent. There were a good many women, and several wise men, such as Dr. Birkbeck, M'Culloch, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... Uriel for guidance to the new created earth and its inhabitants, on the same plea that Herod presented to the wise men." ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... Indian hunters, and all the lore the wise men of his tribe could teach him, Hiawatha grew from childhood into manhood, and by much questioning learned from old Nokomis the story of his mother's cruel desertion. Full of wrath, he determined to be revenged on his father, Mudjekeewis, and in spite of his grandmother's warnings, the youth set ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... ceaseless prayers and sacrifices. In this manner he only tortures our poor sick child, for she has not lost her love of life. Perhaps I have still too much of the Greek left in me for a queen of Egypt; but really, death is so long and life so short, that I cannot help calling even wise men foolish, when they devote the half of even this short term to a perpetual meditation on the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the triumphs of Christianity. It was nothing new or strange, that Jehovah had concealed his glory "from the wise and prudent, and had revealed it unto babes," or that "the common people heard him gladly," while "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... of a divinity. He thrusts his mother's beliefs aside rudely, as a beast does the flags that stand along its way in making journey to the stream to slake its thirst. He is grossly self-sufficient. He is boor and fool conjoined. Where wise men and angels would move with reverent tread and forehead bent to earth, he walks erect, unhumbled; nay, without a sense of worship. How could he or another find God so? The mood of prayer is the mood of finding God. ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... studied the stars and read lives from the palms of men's hands. His grandfather did the same. He came from a race of wise men. The first seers of his family sat in the shade of the early sphinxes and told Egyptian maidens to beware of young men who came up from the Red sea with ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... them from the ocean of Tupperian wisdom—or whether I have just found them in my head (laid there by that solemn fowl, Experience, who, according to my observation, cackles oftener than she drops real, live eggs), I can not say. Wise men have said more foolish things—and foolish men, I don't doubt, have said as wise things. Anyhow, the schoolmistress and I had pleasant walks and long talks, all of which I do not ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... Cephalonia; the latter returned his very best thanks, but declared himself perfectly happy and unwilling to tempt fortune by change of condition to England. Greece, it is evident, has not ceased to breed 'wise men.' ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... for conciliation, and it is not hard to imagine a group of wise men chosen from both sides, men British in blood and outlook, sitting round a table and reaching an agreement to result in a real independence for America and a real unity with Great Britain. A century ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... propitiate him. There is a vague idea that the "soul'' will go somewhere after death, but there is no heaven nor hell, nor idea of a corporeal resurrection. There is much faith in dreams, and in the utterances of certain "wise men,'' who practise an embryonic magic and witchcraft. The great amusement of the Andamanese is a formal night dance, but they are also fond of simple games. The bows differ altogether with each group, but the same ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... in the company of a sort of committee of the chief amautas or "wise men", who represented the concentrated essence—so to speak—of all Peruvian wisdom and learning, and who had been embodied for the express purpose of instructing the young Inca in the intricacies—such as they were—of the code of Tavantinsuyu—or "four quarters of the ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... said the little man, gravely, "it is that when two great, good and wise men differ so widely, it is more than likely the truth lies somewhere between them. In my judgment, therefore, the ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... To such results have wise men been led by a system of penal justice, which is a denial of all elementary common sense. They have forgotten the personality of the criminal and occupied themselves exclusively with crime as an abstract juristic phenomenon. In the same manner, the ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... thirty years of age at his baptism (Luke iii. 23); he was born during a census conducted in Judea in accordance with the decree of Augustus at a time when Quirinius was in authority in Syria (Luke ii. 1, 2); after his birth wise men from the East were led to visit him by observing "his star" (Matt. ii. 1, 2). From these facts it follows that the birth of Jesus cannot be placed later than B.C. 4, since Herod died about the first of April in that year (Jos. Ant. xvii. 6. 4; 8. 1, 4). The awkwardness ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... a large calm which a travelled man may find on coming to his home, or a learner in the communion of wise men. Repose, certitude, and, as it were, a premonition of glory occupied my spirit. Before it was yet quite dark I had made a bed out of the dry bracken, covered myself with the sacks and cloths, and very soon I fell asleep, still thinking of the shapes of clouds and of ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... down at the boots he had blacked and polished. She had outlived him. Lost her husband. More dead for her than for me. One must outlive the other. Wise men say. There are more women than men in the world. Condole with her. Your terrible loss. I hope you'll soon follow him. For Hindu widows only. She would marry another. Him? No. Yet who knows after. Widowhood not the thing since the old queen died. Drawn ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... military. The Folk-moot was in fact the war-host, the gathering of every freeman of the tribe in arms. The head of the Folk, a head who existed only so long as war went on, was the leader whom the host chose to command it. Its Witenagemot or meeting of wise men was the host's council of war, the gathering of those ealdormen who had brought the men of their villages to the field. The host was formed by levies from the various districts of the tribe; the larger of which ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... examine and analyse and put together what he says, in order that I may understand; but if the speaker appears to me to be a poor hand, I do not interrogate him, or trouble myself about him, and you may know by this who they are whom I deem to be wise men, for you will see that when I am talking with a wise man, I am very attentive to what he says; and I ask questions of him, in order that I may learn, and be improved by him. And I could not help remarking while you were speaking, that when ...
— Lesser Hippias • Plato
... little information from you, and if you do not yourself know, please to enquire of some of the wise men ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... Yet wise men doubted, and good men wept, As that storm of passion above them swept, And, comet-like, adding flame to flame, The priests of the new Evangel came,— Davenport, flashing upon the crowd, Charged like summer's electric cloud, Now ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... and swallow everything as inspired?" says another friend of the Rationalistic school. "God has given us reason to discern between good and evil, and commanded us to use it. Prove the spirits, whether they be of God. I spake as to wise men. Judge ye what I say, is the language of Scripture. The right of private judgment is the inalienable inheritance of Protestants. I am for examining the Bible according to the principles of reason and truth. 'That only is to be regarded as true and valid which is matter of personal conviction.' ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... Show it to me! He-he! Let's read how wise men write. Where are my spectacles? Mm! 'Dear ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... wise men of the day laughed at his idea," said Mr. Pedagog, surveying the Idiot after the fashion of a man who has dealt an adversary a ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... "O Earth who dost provide wise men with potent herbs, O Earth help me now. I am she who can drive the clouds; I am she who can dispel the winds; I am she who can break the jaws of serpents with my incantations; I am she who can uproot living trees and rocks; who can make the mountains ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... elapsed from the first invasion of the Saxons till the Norman conquest [a]. But most of these differences and changes, with their causes and effects, are unknown to us. It only appears, that at all times, and in all the kingdoms, there was a national council, called a Wittenagemot, or assembly of the wise men, (for that is the import of the term,) whose consent was requisite for enacting laws, and for ratifying the chief acts of public administration. The preambles to all the laws of Ethelbert, Ina, Alfred, Edward the Elder, Athelstan, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... demurred the Philosopher, "possibly there were a few other wise men in that company besides ourselves. Who would have known from your appearance as you sat there gorging with the rest, that you were inwardly protesting, and greatly preferred the simple life? Don't flatter yourself that you had the aspect of an ascetic. There were moments during that meal when ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... Sky. Some Shepherds from Judea. Three Wise Men from the East. Some Frankincense and Myrrh. ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... made another of those conscienceless speeches of his, all dripping with hypocrisy and guile. He told Joan that among her answers had been some which had seemed to endanger religion; and as she was ignorant and without knowledge of the Scriptures, he had brought some good and wise men to instruct her, if she desired it. Said he, "We are churchmen, and disposed by our good will as well as by our vocation to procure for you the salvation of your soul and your body, in every way in our power, just ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ten souls Should move house for the sake of a few pines! Now that I have come to them, what have they given me? They have only loosened the buckles of my care. Yet even so, they are "profitable friends,"[1] And fill my need of "converse with wise men." Yet when I consider how, still a man of the world, In belt and cap I scurry through dirt and dust, From time to time my heart twinges with shame That I am not fit to be master of ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... become. But who shall say how much of irony and how much of genuine feeling there is in the fine description of the philosophic State given in the Hermotimus (with its suggestions of Christian in The Pilgrim's Progress, and of the 'not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble'), or in the whimsical extravagance (as it strikes a modern) of the Pantomime, or in the triumph permitted to the Cynic (against 'Lycinus' too) in the dialogue called after him? In one of his own introductory lectures he compares his pieces ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... day at the shop. There was something sweet and wistful and charming in his boyishness; and she was surprised, as Harwood had been from the first, by the intelligence he evinced in political and social questions. He demanded absolute answers to problems that were perplexing wise men all over the world. ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... is, "The Salutation of the Virgin," in the collection of the Marquis of Westminster. This picture, though of small dimensions, yet exemplifies the peculiarity of Rembrandt's mode of treatment. Being less decided in the chiaro-scuro and tone of colour than the Wise Men's Offering, it is more difficult to describe; this also arises from the exquisite weaving in of the hot and cold colours. Having had it under my eye for a couple of months, I can easily recall it on the least effort of the memory; but to bring it before the spectator who has not seen it, and ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... and the star Gilded their silent midnight fold— Light to the Wise Men from afar, Bearing their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... of the seven lean kine that ate up the seven fat kine did not appear strange to him. But the ears of corn that swallowed up other ears of corn troubled his spirit.[161] He therefore called for all the wise men of his land, and they endeavored in vain to find a satisfactory interpretation. They explained that the seven fat kine meant seven daughters to be born unto Pharaoh, and the seven lean kine, that he would bury seven daughters; the rank ears of corn meant that Pharaoh ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... the serious nature of the conflict in which the country was about to engage. Americans were to be pitted against Americans and he knew what that meant. Wise men, both North and South, were prophesying that the war would not last more than ninety days, and foolish ones were bragging of their own powers and questioning the courage of their opponents, quite oblivious of the adage that when Greek meets ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... good success brings neither comfort, nor tranquillity, nor so much as a stool to sit upon, but comes as a tread-mill which must be trodden without any getting to the top of it. Not so did these wise men take their luck. If ever they came from the fickle wave-bosom to the firm breast of land on a Saturday, with a fine catch of fish, and sold it well—and such was their sagacity that sooner would they keep it for cannibal temptation than sell it badly—did they rush ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... that the irregularities of a body of men devoted to the offices of religion should be veiled from the common eye; so that ecclesiastics were sometimes protected when they should be punished. But if the ecclesiastical courts had abuses, they were generally presided over by good and wise men,—more learned than the officers of the civil courts, and very popular in the Middle Ages; and justice in them was generally administered. So much were they valued in a dark age, when the clergy were ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... application may. I will proceed to give it. I have written down the above tirade nearly, as far as I can guess, a printed pageful (may be a little more, looking at it again), in order to call down the wrath of all wise men, if any such have done me the honour of getting so far in these volumes, on the most trashy and false proverb of the whole: "Coming events cast ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... paradise. The five sisters, all good old maids, have lived together these fifty years. Hannah More is a good deal broken, but possesses fully her powers of conversation, and her vivacity. We exchanged riddles like the wise men of old; I was given to understand she ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... troubled only by religion and sex; the whole college was disturbing his peace of mind: all of his illusions were being ruthlessly shattered. He had supposed that all professors were wise men, that their knowledge was almost limitless, and he was finding that many of the undergraduates were frankly contemptuous of the majority of their teachers and that he himself was finding inspiration from only a few of them. He went ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... man, in answer to himself, and smiled at the foolishness of his own answer. Is nature then so knowable? Are all her laws revealed; all her secrets known; all her ways understood; all her mysteries made clear? Do the wise men, after all, know more of nature than they do of God? Do they know more of earth than of heaven? Do they know more of a man's mind than they do of his soul? And yet—and yet—does one refuse to live because he cannot understand the mystery of life? Does one deny the earth ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... nought, As nought abides to swear by, folly seen So plain and heard so loud might well nigh make Wise men believe in even the devil and God. What ails you? Whence comes lightning in your eyes, With hissing hints of thunder on your lips? Fools! and the fools I thought to make for men Gods. Is it love or hate divides you—turns Tooth, fang, or claw, when time provides ...
— The Duke of Gandia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... pictures of Giotto's must have been, then, to those poor folk! They looked at the little Baby Jesus sitting on His mother's knee, wrapped in swaddling bands, just like one of their own little ones, and it made Him seem a very real baby. The wise men who talked together and pointed to the shining star overhead looked just like any of the great nobles of Florence. And there at the back were the two horses looking on with wise interested eyes, just as any of their ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... Thou hast made nothing in vain, but, Lord, why hast Thou made these black, grisly rocks? No man nor beast is helped by them in all the world. Rocks have destroyed a hundred thousand men, and which of all Thy works is so fair as man? No doubt wise men will say, 'All is for the best.' But, oh Thou God, who makest the winds to blow, keep Thou my lord! And—would to God that these black rocks were sunk in the deep for his sake! They slay my heart ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... here are aware of your recent departure, except my very old personal friend Hilarion, who, with myself, saw your body while in its state of temporary death. But he is one of those remarkably rare wise men who know when it is best to be silent; then again, he is ignorant as to the results of your soul- transmigration, and will, as far as I am concerned, remain in ignorance. Your confidence I assure you is perfectly safe with me —as safe as though it had been received ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... ridiculous than an author who goes about begging for praise, who, preying on the ears of the first comers, often makes them the martyrs of his night watches. I have never been guilty of such foolish conceit, and I am in that respect of the opinion of a Greek, who by an express law forbade all his wise men any unbecoming anxiety to read their works.—Here are some little verses for young lovers upon which I should like to have ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... joker! Without thee by, a lie's a lie— The truth is nought but truthful. But by me stay, and night is day— And even you are youthful When thou art near, love,— Not, love, unless,— Thick soup is clear, love, Football is chess. IRVINGS are TOOLES, love, Tadpoles are deer, Wise men are fools, love, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... prophets, and the Supreme Teacher Himself, did not surrender this stronghold of the soul to the evil one from a shrinking which, if a man cannot conquer, he is no preacher, and still less to a mental indolence that will not seek out acceptable words through which to convey a warning. I speak as unto wise men, and submit it to your judgment whether the preacher who has to any extent the ear of young men can afford this eternal silence concerning a subject that so vitally affects character, society, and the race ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... to the moon on our list we introduce for the sake of its sacred lesson. Pure religion is an Attic salt, which wise men use in all of their entertainments: a condiment which seasons what is otherwise insipid, and assists healthy digestion in the compound organism of man's mental and moral constitution. About seventy years since, a little tract was published, in which the writer imagined himself on luna firma. ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... the ceremonies of the Hsia dynasty, but Chi cannot sufficiently attest my words. I could describe the ceremonies of the Yin dynasty, but Sung cannot sufficiently attest my words. (They cannot do so) because of the insufficiency of their records and wise men. If those were sufficient, I could adduce them in support of my words.' CHAP. X. The Master said, 'At the great sacrifice, after the pouring out of the libation, I have no wish to look on.' CHAP. XI. Some one asked the meaning of the great sacrifice. The ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... confess it proper: and what can be more than that Folly be her own trumpet? For who can set me out better than myself, unless perhaps I could be better known to another than to myself? Though yet I think it somewhat more modest than the general practice of our nobles and wise men who, throwing away all shame, hire some flattering orator or lying poet from whose mouth they may hear their praises, that is to say, mere lies; and yet, composing themselves with a seeming modesty, spread out their peacock's plumes and erect their crests, while this impudent ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... in effect, ye wise men, that only the wicked have suffered; but it is not so, for aforetime I have seen the honest poor man despised and ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... prudential sentences in daily use shall, in clerical phrase, meantime form "the subject-matter of our discourse." Nor must the reader think that the subject is in any wise infra dignitate, unworthy, that is, or undignified. Of the world-renowned Seven Wise Men of Greece, five at least attained to all their eminence and fame no otherwise than because they were the cunning framers of maxims and proverbs that rightly interpreted were calculated to advance and ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... after the autumn had passed, I told the story to an artist friend, an ultraradical, how I stood at my window with a loaded rifle by my side, and the Emperor twenty feet below, and he shouted with fury, "And you didn't kill him?" Time and fate have punished him more fitly than I should have done, and wise men leave these things to time ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... known abuses. In spite of the apathy of Parliament and the sullen opposition of the privileged classes to all projects of the kind, whether great or small, sweeping or partial, the question was slowly ripening in the public mind. Sydney Smith in 1819 declared, 'I think all wise men should begin to turn their minds Reformwards. We shall do it better than Mr. Hunt or Mr. Cobbett. Done it must and will be.' In the following year Lord John Russell, at the age of twenty-eight, became identified with the question of Parliamentary Reform ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... hygiene, the care of the health. From ancient times psychology and physiology have been considered as equally associated and of prime importance. "A sound mind in a sound body" is an old Latin proverb. The need of every one to "know himself," both in mind and body, was taught by the earliest "Wise Men" of Greece. The Roman emperor Tiberius said that any one who had reached the age of thirty in ignorance of his physical constitution was a fool, a thought that has been modernized, with an unnecessary extension of the age, into the proverb, "At forty a man is ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... was the best piece of news I had heard in the country: he was evidently pleased with my approbation, and, turning to his people, asked if they heard what I said. He repeated my remark, and said, "You silly fellows think me wrong in returning the captives, but all wise men will approve of it," and he ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... jest that, no more. He 'ain't had any children; nobody but himself an' his wife, an' she contented with next to nothin'. Jest a roof an' bread for them—jest that; an' he an able-bodied man, that's worked like a dog—jest that; an' he's got to give it up. Look at him, he's a sight for wise men ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and to be conscious of little or no separate existence or personal individuality, offered a remark of his own in this place. It involved the only idea of which he did not stand seized and possessed in equal moieties with Snitchey; but, he had some partners in it among the wise men ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... Long ago wise men found out that the great earth on which we live is not flat, but round like a ball. It is so very large, and we see so small a part of it at one time, that it looks flat to us. Take a piece of paper and ...
— Where We Live - A Home Geography • Emilie Van Beil Jacobs
... But most wise men believe that in the end of the war there is not likely to be much slavery to need constitutional protection. And since our nation at its very birth solemnly proclaimed the doctrine that of right 'all men are born free and equal' as before the law, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Joseph and Mary went away to another place and took the child Jesus with them, and many others came to worship Him. Among them were three Wise Men who had come from separate places and all from a ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... pity if any of your young men should give heed to these silly tales. None of your wise men have done so. In the Sioux country there is frequent war between the soldiers and the Indians because bad men wish to wrong the Indians and the Indians grow angry and fight, but in this country white men are punished who do wrong to Indians. ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... Odin and his queen Frigg, and from this the realm afterward took its name and was called Frigia where the burg stood. And whether Odin said this of himself out of pride, or that it was wrought by the changing of tongues; nevertheless many wise men have regarded it a true saying, and for a long time after every man who was a great ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... of life regulated absolutely by law; every contingency was provided for. And Plato's plan was founded on the hypothesis that it is the duty of wise men to do the thinking and regulate the conduct of those who are supposed not to be wise enough to think and to act for themselves. But Plato's idea lacked the "Thus saith the Lord," with which Moses and Aaron enforced their edicts. So Plato's Republic is still on paper, for no set ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... thought prudent I stood out from the shore for about a mile so as to have a good peep in amongst the mangrove bushes in the morning for the other boat, and having dropped our anchor we laid down as we best could for the night; and, speculating upon what explanation the native wise men would give to their fellows of the unknown and novel sounds they had this night heard upon the coast, I ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... five hundred years, Wendelin XV. was carried to his grave. No Greylock had ever possessed a more luxuriant grey curl than his, and yet he had died young. The wise men of the land said that even to the most favoured only a fixed measure of happiness and good luck was granted, and that Wendelin XV. had enjoyed his full share in the space ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... maps and charts to keep from starving; he had lost his wife; his friends had called him crazy, and forsaken him. The council of wise men called by Ferdinand and Isabella ridiculed his theory of reaching the ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... his poor mangled trunk; but as sure as there's a sun in heaven, I'll have his head!—before another sun has risen, too. If wise men won't speed me, I'll e'en content me ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... great sage, and so is Herhor," thought Ramses. "If they consider war harmful, if the high priest Mefres and other priests judge in the same way, then perhaps war is in fact dangerous. It must be dangerous, if so many holy and wise men ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... and ween to sea—why did you not stay at home and take your two-pounders and three-pounders out of the quiet chalk brook which never sank an inch through all that drought, so deep in the caverns of the hills are hidden its mysterious wells? Truly, wise men bide at home, with George Riddler, while 'a fool's eyes are in the ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... whether he thought that he should succeed in this second appeal to the Senate; to which Cato answered with a smile, that he was imitating Ulysses, when he returned again into the cave of the Cyclops to fetch the hat and girdle which he had left behind and forgotten. He said that wise men gained more advantage from fools, than fools from wise men; for the wise men avoid the errors of fools, but fools cannot imitate the example of wise men. He said that he loved young men to have red cheeks rather ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... Encyclopedia. Lycurgus, a celebrated legislator of Sparta, who was born 926 years before Christ, gave an agrarian law that finds its prototype, without its defects, in the agrarian law of the Hebrews. Solon, one of the seven wise men of Greece, who died 558 years before Christ, transcribed, from the laws of Moses, the laws prohibiting certain degrees in marriage. The laws of descent, among the Grecians, are almost identical with the laws of descent among the Jews. The Grecians borrowed many laws from the Hebrews. ...
— The Christian Foundation, March, 1880
... greater ones, he required every landholder in England to take an oath of fidelity directly to him. We read in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (1086): "After that he went about so that he came, on the first day of August, to Salisbury, and there came to him his wise men [i.e., counselors], and all the landowning men of property there were over all England, whosesoever men they were; and all bowed down to him and became his men, and swore oaths of fealty to him that they would be faithful to him against ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... an opinion, overstated perhaps, but not without its frequent illustrations since he wrote it. "It seems ... that the largest heads grow narrow when they are assembled, and that where there are, most wise men, there is least wisdom. Large bodies are always deeply attached to details, to vain customs; and essential matters are always postponed. I have heard that a king of Aragon, having assembled the Estates ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... the mind in one direction; it renders us sceptical of virtue in others, and we lose the power of pure perception. So —reading the glorious tale of Griselda and looking about you, you say there never was such a woman; your wise men say she was a fool; are there no such fools round about you? pray look close:—so the result of this is, you see no lesson in such things, or at least cannot apply it, and therefore the powers of the author are thrown ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... pavilion of the Via Alfieri had become difficult and dangerous. Professor Arrighi, whom the Prince often met, had seen her one night as she was walking through the deserted streets leaning on Dechartre. Professor Arrighi, author of a treatise on agriculture, was the most amiable of wise men. He had turned his beautiful, heroic face, and said, only the next day, to the young woman "Formerly, I could discern from a long distance the coming of a beautiful woman. Now that I have gone beyond the age to be viewed favorably by women, heaven has ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... in my own family which impels me towards writing history. My uncle, who was also my father by adoption, was a historian of the most scrupulous type, and I find all wise men agree that one can do nothing better than follow in the footsteps of one's ancestors, provided that they have gone in the right path themselves. Why, then, do I hesitate? For this reason, that I have delivered a number of pleadings of serious importance, and it is my intention to revise them ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... his youth behind when he was invited from Florence to Arezzo by the Lord Bishop of that city, who wished the halls of his Palace decorated with paintings. Buffalmacco undertook the commission, and directly the walls were duly laid with stucco, started on a picture of the Adoration of the Wise Men. ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... says Clarendon, "who had greatest experience, and were in truth wise men," adhered to the latter view." Others, equally grave, of great learning and unblemished reputation, "pressed for alterations and additions. [Footnote: Life, ii. 119.] He desired to hold the balance even between these opposite opinions. But his own ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... sleep although I never was one to approve of any man's sleepin', but before he woke something worse than a bat come down on me, an' that was Mrs. Sweet's cousin, Jerusha Dodd. You know Jerusha Dodd, Mrs. Lathrop, an' so do I, an' so does everybody an' as far as my observation 's extended bats is wise men bringin' their gifts from afar to visit you compared to Jerusha Dodd when she arrives in the early mornin'. I would n't never have gone to the door only she stepped up on the drain-pipe first an' looked in an' saw me there in the rockin'-chair ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... tongue, English authors to despise, Or those books which you so prize; Though from them awhile I stray, By new studies call'd away, Them when next I take in hand, I shall better understand. For I've heard wise men declare Many words in English are From the Latin tongue deriv'd, Of whose sense girls are depriv'd 'Cause they do not Latin know.— But if all this anger grow From this cause, that you suspect By proceedings indirect, I would keep (as misers ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... for wise men to laughe att or honest men to take pleasure at. Yet I know, when Gods Bible was banished the Court, and Morte Arthure receiued into the Princes chamber. What toyes, the dayly readyng of such a booke, may worke ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... declares, that nature, and not reason, had made them a moral people: for[38] "it seems surprising, says he, that nature should have given to them what the Greeks have never been able to attain either in consequence of the long succession of doctrines of their wise men, or of the precepts of their philosophers; and that the manners of a barbarous, should be preferable to those of ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... have an opportunity to hear from a group of what we might call authorities in their various fields. We have quite an assortment. The only way I know of to express it is to say we have the wise men out of the east and the wild men out of the west. I think we first might hear from Mr. Kyhl of Sabula, Iowa. Mr. Kyhl, you come up and give us your version of ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... thou seest on the cross, Myrrhina. He is the Son of God and was born of a virgin. Three wise men who were kings brought Him offerings, and the shepherds who were lying on the hills were ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... general rules, and implies the condemnation of the former. Sometimes the one, sometimes the other prevails, according to the disposition and character of the person. The vulgar are commonly guided by the first, and wise men by the second. Mean while the sceptics may here have the pleasure of observing a new and signal contradiction in our reason, and of seeing all philosophy ready to be subverted by a principle of human ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... indignities on the senseless relics, or that the bones might be used for spear-points and fish-hooks, such implements having magic power when they were whittled from the shins of kings. To prevent such a possibility, so soon as the spirit tenant had gone the wise men took charge of the body and prepared it for the grave. This they did by first cutting off the flesh, which, being transitory and corruptible, they said was not worthy to be kept, so was therefore burned; then cleaning the skeleton, ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... one of these long, lonely nights that this story came to me. I had studied and loved the curious tales of the Three Wise Men of the East as they are told in the "Golden Legend" of Jacobus de Voragine and other mediaeval books. But of the Fourth Wise Man I had never heard until that night. Then I saw him distinctly, moving through the shadows ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke
... Phillips," said Mr. Donovan. "According to the prophets and other wise men it's a good thing to be young. I'm getting on for sixty, but there are compensations. I don't feel called on to see after things. I don't ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... buffalo-horns upon the head, and a large bushy tail projecting from behind. Some were frightfully painted, some had the skin of an owl drawn over their heads, and some had snakes wreathed around their bodies. To them, and to the chiefs and wise men of the nation, the women and children, and the men of inferior note, were looking up for advice and protection. And now, filling their gourds with water from the stump of a fallen cypress, they began their work of ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... Though wise men saw the design of this carefully-worded declaration, yet indolent, or quiet men, who were willing to hope, caught at its designing moderation, believed that Parliament only meant to reform abuses, and that its designs were ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... quarrel: Here ends the fable, and the moral. This tale may be applied in few words, To treasurers, comptrollers, stewards; And others, who, in solemn sort, Appear with slender wands at court; Not firmly join'd to keep their ground, But lashing one another round: While wise men think they ought to fight With quarterstaffs instead of white; Or constable, with staff of peace, Should come and make the clatt'ring cease; Which now disturbs the queen and court, And gives the Whigs and rabble sport. In history we never found The ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... on work a race of proud rationalists, for they are wiser than to class themselves amongst those poor fools, those base things, those nothings, to whom Christ is made all things, to whom Christ is made wisdom that he may be righteousness, sanctification, and redemption to them; nay, they must be wise men after the flesh, wise above what is written. A crucified Christ is really unto them foolishness and weakness, though the power of God and the wisdom of God: they will needs go to work another way; they will needs glory in his presence, and have a heaven of ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... satisfied and said, "We will try no more. Many of our goods are still with the Navajo; but we have done well to rescue what we have." One of the wise men among them said, "Yes, you have done well, for had you lost the second race you would have lost with it the rain and the sunshine and all that makes life glad." It is because the Navajo won so much wealth on this occasion ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... opposed, laughingly, "if all that wise men and philosophers[2] tell us is correct, there are ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... will mock her dead, passing by on the other side, wagging their heads and thrusting their tongues in their cheeks at her, saying, 'Behold her now, how she that was fair among the nations is fallen! is fallen!'— and only the few wise men who loved her out of every nation will shed tears over her desolation as they pass, and cast handfuls of earth on her body to quiet her manes, while we, her children, stumble about our ruined habitations to find dishonorable graves wherein to hide our shame. Dissolution? How shall it be? Who ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... Yes, I remember, something that somebody said before me. Nowadays every one marries except a few stupid women and a few very wise men. Yet, then, as I told you, I have no ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... otherwise than substitute for truth and simplicity, deception and affectation? What else can we do but fail to recognise one another in the characters we are forced to assume? Is it surprising that good and wise men from their corners of seclusion call the world degenerate, and wonder at the persistent wrong-doing of those who are the work of such merciful hands? Strange to say, most of us know, or pretend to know, that life is all deception; that ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... The wise men of both sections saw danger ahead. The North was warned that the South would fight, the South, that if it did it went against incredible odds. Neither would take the warning. Party spirit ran wild. Extremism had its fling. Thus a long, bloody and costly War of ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... again, and saw that seven very poor ears of corn devoured seven that were full and good. In the morning he was greatly troubled. What could the dreams mean? He called for the magicians and the wise men, but they could not tell. At last it was told him how Joseph had interpreted the dreams in the prison; so he sent for Joseph, who came from the prison, and stood ...
— Mother Stories from the Old Testament • Anonymous
... mourners. The prisoners bemoaned his loss, and missed him; for though his means were not large, his charity was great, and in bestowing alms among them he considered the necessities of all alike, and knew no distinction of sect or creed. There are wise men in the highways of the world who may learn something, even from this poor crazy lord who died ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... without, that he was not to be confined to earth forever, but that beyond the deep blue sky, into which he so much longed to peer, there dwelt the Creator of all things, and there the home of the good! Like the "wise men of the East,"—knowing no other God but the God of nature,—his primitive ideas of religion were naturally based upon nature. In that wild and barren territory nature was impressive, desolate, and awful. The earth, air, and sky incited him to thought and stimulated his imagination. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... prince; the captive spoke abusively and insolently, and you have not interpreted his words truly". The prince frowned and said, "His false interpretation pleases me more than thy true one, because his was given for a good, and thine for a malignant, purpose; and wise men have said that 'a peace-making lie is better than a factious or ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... are these fellows who set themselves up for wise men? Do they always do right? Are they not often themselves cheated by the unlearned? Common sense is far better than all this learning; instinct and feeling will guide us in the right way; even an infant without teaching finds ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... little heroes held his hand tightly closed; the tiny, mottled palm of the other was wide open as it lay upon his snowy breast. 'He will be a liberal and bold knight,' said one of the Bearnais, 'and will best suit us as a head.' This infant was accordingly chosen, given up by his parents to the wise men, and carried off in triumph to be educated among his future subjects. The event proved their sagacity, and the object of their choice lived to give ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... seizing the child, and shrieking most pitifully, she rapidly crossed the creek, and escaped to the opposite ridges. What could she think; but that we were some of those imaginary beings, with legends of which the wise men of her people frighten the children into obedience, and whose strange forms and stranger doings are the favourite topics of conversation amongst the natives at night when seated round ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... serious; there are jests at the mysteries which precede the enthronement, and he is being initiated into the mysteries of the sophistical ritual. This is all a sort of horse-play, which is now ended. The exhortation to virtue will follow, and Socrates himself (if the wise men will not laugh at him) is desirous of showing the way in which such an exhortation should be carried on, according to his own poor notion. He proceeds to question Cleinias. The result of the investigation may be summed ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... the luxury of wise men and the necessity of fools—which indicates how few men are wise. It is usually the man who does not know what to say, or who has nothing worth saying to impart, that does the talking. It is a ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... which we see is laboured and in some part reduced. Of this wisdom it seemeth some of the ancient Romans in the saddest and wisest times were professors; for Cicero reporteth, that it was then in use for senators that had name and opinion for general wise men, as Coruncanius, Curius, Laelius, and many others, to walk at certain hours in the Place, and to give audience to those that would use their advice; and that the particular citizens would resort unto them, ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon |
