"Confuse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... song of pain and wrong My spirit doth deep confuse, And I sit all day on the deck, and long— And long ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... he maintained, not, as so often was said, unpopular; a third of the House belonged to them; they were not necessarily opposed to freedom; they were, at least, the truest defenders of the State. Let people not confuse patriotism and Liberalism. Who had done more for the true political independence of the State, that independence without which all freedom was impossible, than the Prussian nobles? At the end of the Seven Years' War boys had stood at the head of the army, the only survivors of their families. ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... give us a clear view of each individual specimen. But not at all: the luminous party is a chaos in which our eyes are unable to distinguish any definite form at a medium distance. The collective lights confuse the light-bearers into ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... make one idea the centre of thought for the week,—not to confuse the minds of the children by too much at once," said the Directress. "This week it is pansies." In the garden children were watering pansies in bloom, and pansies were cut and dug for use in the house, where they were the materials for ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... Aristophanes and Voltaire had remarkably different minds and worked on utterly different backgrounds. Believe me, you will understand Aristophanes only less than you will understand AEschylus himself if you confuse Aristophanes' mockery of Olympus with modern mockery. But, if you will not take my word for it, let me quote what Professor Gilbert Murray said, the other day, speaking before the English Association on Greek poetry, how constantly connected ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... began to recover, I realised the soundness of your doctor's idea that you should be allowed to come back to yourself by re-education from the very beginning, without any too early intrusion of reminiscences from your previous life to confuse and disturb you. But I couldn't go on with my profession, all the same, while I waited. I couldn't attend as I ought to my patients' wants and ailments: I was too concentrated upon you: the strain was too great upon me. So I threw up my practice, came out to Canada, bought a ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... not the point. I may or may not have a gun licence, but our present controversy relates to a certificate to kill game. Do not let us confuse the issue." ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... instant death. As it was, the dagger cut through his clothes, and punctured his side. Seeing his associates thus hard beset, Dr. Grant, who was behind, ran up and brought his riding whip with such force across the villain's eyes, as to confuse him for the moment, and in the confusion the party ran into a house and barred the doors. The priest received a cut in the head, but Mr. Perkins was not seriously wounded. Through the efforts of the British ambassador, ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... having become a sailor—and yet I shouldn't say that, either, for that's the very point round which all the mystery hangs. I did go to sea! I'm rather apt to wander, I find, from my point, and to confuse my own mind, (I trust not the reader's). Perhaps the shortest way to let you understand how it was is to tell ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... oil, vaseline, baking soda (this is the same thing as bicarbonate of soda or saleratus), salt, lime water, alcohol, camphorated oil, spirits of camphor, flaxseed, aromatic spirits of ammonia. Do not confuse this latter remedy with ammonia water used ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... for hearing; rare quality with chapels and halls; architects in planning generally tax ingenuity how to confuse sound. Now these girls don't make a great noise, yet you can distinguish ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... composition of great pictures does not prevent our becoming bewildered by their size and color on first beholding them. The number of canvases and conflict of hues in a gallery confuse the eye and irritate the nerves. One looks down the interminable corridors, the immense halls, the endless suites of rooms, with growing dismay: as one succeeds another, and the inmost chamber seems farther off as we advance, the nightmare sense of something which is impossible, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... been confounded with simple sensation. But, since this confusion is too shocking to good sense, it has more frequently been attenuated or concealed with a phraseology which seems to wish to confuse and to distinguish them at the same time. Thus, it has been asserted that intuition is sensation, but not so much simple sensation as association of sensations. The equivoque arises precisely from the word "association." Association is understood, either as memory, mnemonic ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... God not only led him to confuse possession and ownership. It also robbed him of his gratitude. Crops were abundant. The farmer has prospered wonderfully. But leaving God out of his thinking there is no one for this farmer to thank for his success but himself. He never ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... exception lives in a certain state of limitation, both as regards his ideas and the opinions which he forms. Another man is also limited, though not in the same way; but should he succeed in comprehending the other's limitation he can confuse and abash him, and put him to shame, by making him feel what his limitation is, even though the other be far and away his superior. Shrewd people often employ this circumstance to obtain a false ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... to them prejudicial! Not on such terms will Englishmen be willing to spread civilization across the ocean! I do not pretend to understand Wheaton and Phillimore, or even to have read a single word of any international law. I have refused to read any such, knowing that it would only confuse and mislead me. But I have my common sense to guide me. Two men living in one street, quarrel and shy brickbats at each other, and make the whole street very uncomfortable. Not only is no one to interfere with them, but they are to have the privilege of deciding that their ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... If you are an impatient reader, skip to them at once. In reading aloud, omit, if you please, the sixth and seventh verses. These are parenthetical and digressive, and, unless your audience is of superior intelligence, will confuse them. Many people can ride on horse-back who find it hard to get on and to get off without assistance. One has to dismount from an idea, and get into the saddle again, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... it. Suppose he were to select some one, some weak and irritable and sentimental and disappointed man, some one whose every foible and weakness he knew, suppose he were to place himself near him and so irritate and confuse and madden him that at last one day, in a fury of rage and despair, that man were to do for him what he is too proud to do for himself! Think of the excitement, the interest, the food for his cynicism, the food ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... to have to inform you that some people on board cannot distinguish between falsity and truth," she answered. "But please don't be angry with any of the men on my account. Mr. Hozier tells me they often confuse the False Cross with the real one, and the mistake has been enjoyable. Now I know all about it—what were those stars you were telling me ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... disparage delicate and fragile flowerets, though I am so infatuated by their brilliant sisters. They are lovely to examine, and, as individuals, very precious, but in my opinion useless for decorative purposes. In a body they confuse one another, and you can not ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... readings' in fact is a term which belongs of right to the criticism of the text of profane authors: and, like many other notions which have been imported from the same region into this department of inquiry, it only tends to confuse and perplex ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... it? Aren't you going to make me that brief little sketch of the length plan and cross-section of the Tube? I remember your sketch of it in college, and it tends to confuse me with the real changes that were made necessary when ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen
... was given to be a helpmeet, and as the bride, the Church to her Bridegroom? Look high enough, Gillian, and the popular chatter will not confuse your mind. You own that you ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... direct currents, you're likely to find yourself in trouble because he'll know just enough to see that what you're telling him doesn't jibe with what he already knows. Volts times amperes equal watts, as far as he's concerned, and the term 'power factor' does nothing but confuse him. He knows that copper is a conductor, so he can't see how a current could be cut off by a choke coil. He knows that a current can't pass through an insulator, so a condenser obviously can't be what you say it is. Mentally, he tags you ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... in the domain of fancy was so complete at times as to cause him to confuse it with the outside world. It is related that Jules Sandeau, returning once from a journey, spoke to him of his sister's illness. Balzac listened to him abstractedly for a while, and then interrupted him: "All that, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... some saying 'this is so,' others denying it, and this condition of uncertainty is called the state of darkness. Then there are those who say that outward things are one with soul, who say that the objective is the same as mind, who confuse intelligence with instruments, who say that number is the soul. Thus not distinguishing aright, these are called excessive quibbles, marks of folly, nature changes, and so on. To worship and recite religious books, to slaughter living ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... said to him, "Consul, your son has just died of sickness in the camp." All who heard this were grieved, but Horatius, undisturbed, merely said, "Fling his corpse where you please, for I cannot grieve for him," and completed the dedication service. The story was false, invented by Marcus to confuse Horatius. His conduct is a remarkable instance of presence of mind, whether it be that he at once saw through the trick, or believed the story and was ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... though Im not going to give him the satisfaction in any case God knows hes a change in a way not to be always and ever wearing the same old hat unless I paid some nicelooking boy to do it since I cant do it myself a young boy would like me Id confuse him a little alone with him if we were Id let him see my garters the new ones and make him turn red looking at him seduce him I know what boys feel with that down on their cheek doing that frigging drawing out the thing by the hour question and answer would you do this that ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... bring his machine to a stop so suddenly as to turn it over; or one of rough surface likely to break the under-carriage. Now is perfect eyesight and a cool head indispensable. He sees and decides upon a field and, knowing his job, he sticks to that field with no change of mind to confuse him. It is none too large, and gliding just over the trees and head on to the wind he skilfully "stalls" his machine; that is, the speed having decreased sufficiently to avoid such a manoeuvre resulting in ascent, ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... should not be intimidated by the apparent vastness and complexity of this enterprise of forming the literary taste. It is not so vast nor so complex as it looks. There is no need whatever for the inexperienced enthusiast to confuse and frighten himself with thoughts of "literature in all its branches." Experts and pedagogues (chiefly pedagogues) have, for the purpose of convenience, split literature up into divisions and sub-divisions— such as prose and poetry; or imaginative, philosophic, historical; ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... Don assured her; and as she took out her purse. "No," he added, "you must not pay cash, Flamby. It would confuse Nevin's books. I will write a cheque and charge it to your account together with ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... we must not confuse these kings, as did the mediaeval chroniclers, with those half-divine kings of Almhuin. The chroniclers, perhaps because they loved tradition too well to cast out utterly much that they dreaded as Christians, and perhaps ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... they were twice as many,—the easier the victory, depend on it." The plan upon which he had determined; if ever it should be his fortune to bring a Baltic fleet to action, was, to attack the head of their line and confuse their movements. "Close with a Frenchman," he used to say, "but out manoeuvre a Russian." He offered his services for the attack, requiring ten sail of the line and the whole of the smaller craft. Sir Hyde gave ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... fortune. I am new, like the Empire; there is, therefore, a perfect homogeneity between the Empire and myself."—"However," says Metternich, "I have often thought that Napoleon, by talking in this way, merely sought to study the opinion of others, or to confuse it, and the direct advance which he made to Louis XVIII., in 1804 seemed to confirm this suspicion. Speaking to me one day of this advance he said, 'Monsieur's reply was grand; it was full of fine traditions. There is something in legitimate rights which ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... assaults of the mountaineer; and they were subjected to a new and complicated species of discipline, well adapted, perhaps, to the use of regular troops, who could be rendered completely masters of it, but tending only to confuse the ranks of citizen soldiers, by whom it was rarely practised, and imperfectly understood. So much has been done in our own time in bringing back tactics to their first principles, and in getting rid of the pedantry of war, that ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... As I felt then, I did not believe I should live out one-third of it. After I had gone through the routine of questions, and had been put in the prison uniform, a cap was drawn down over my face, as if I was about to be hung, and I was led, thus blind-folded, around and around, evidently to confuse me, with regard to the interior of the prison—in case I might ever have any idea of breaking out. At last I was brought to a cell door and the cap was taken off. There were, properly no "cells" in this prison—at least I never saw any; but ...
— Seven Wives and Seven Prisons • L.A. Abbott
... addresses, to make sure she did not confuse the letters, she dropped in her home correspondence, then stood there ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... as the eye could reach. He could count a dozen of their tumbled crests following each other on their way to the distant plain. In some vague point of that shimmering horizon of heat and dust was the spot he came from the preceding night. Yet the recollection of it and his feverish past seemed to confuse him, and he turned his ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... taken his ride on horseback; with extraordinary promptness and accuracy, his topographical glance has discerned "the best direction for the projected canal, the best site for the construction of a factory, a harbor, or a dike."[4140] To the difficulties which confuse the best brains in the country, to much debated, seemingly insoluble, questions, he at once presents the sole practical solution; there it is, ready at hand, and the members of the local council had not seen it; he makes them touch it with their fingers. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... pictured in a back view with widely spread legs like the men. Unfortunately the work is so slovenly and so much injured that few exact outlines can be secured, and hence all detail is insecure. There are also superfluous lines in red colour which confuse the picture. The tomb is Ramesside in date (circa 1200 B.C.) The inscription over the seated man is too broken ...
— Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms • H. Ling Roth
... where {sigma} has this special meaning, and (ii) that we have excluded from membership of moments abstractive sets of durations which all have one common boundary, either the initial boundary or the final boundary. We thus exclude special cases which are apt to confuse general reasoning. The new definition of a moment, which supersedes our previous definition, is (by the aid of the notion of antiprimes) the more precisely drawn of the ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead
... pace! Then Puss, who knew A thing or two, Prepared to follow the noisy crew, And never before or since, I ween, Was ever beheld such a hunting scene! The Hare was swift; and the papers went This way and that, to confuse the scent; But Tony, keeping his nose in air, In a very few moments betrayed the Hare, Which the children told him was ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... advertised before its one and only performance in the Covent Garden Theatre on April 8, 1752. The advertisement printed in The London Stage, Pt. 4, I, 305, is taken from the General Advertiser and warns the public not to confuse this farce with Charles Woodward's A Lick at the Town of 1751. The fact that the sub-title PASQUIN TURN'D DRAWCANSIR carried an obvious allusion to Fielding's pseudonym Alexander Drawcansir in his Covent Garden Journal, and the fact that the Covent Garden Journal carried ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... anybody but the men. I don't tease father or mother or you,—but men are fair game; they are such thumby, blundering creatures, and we can confuse ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... granted that exile is, as many say and sing, a grievous thing. So some food is bitter, and sharp, and biting to the taste, yet by an admixture with it of sweet and agreeable food we take away its unpleasantness. There are also some colours unpleasant to look at, that quite confuse and dazzle us by their intensity and excessive force. If then we can relieve this by a mixture of shadow, or by diverting the eye to green or some agreeable colour, so too can we deal with misfortunes, mixing up with them the advantages and pleasant things we still enjoy, as ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... Samkhyan line, which speaks of Matter everywhere but always implies that the Spirit is looking on, and that this presence makes the work of Matter possible. You will not, when reading the constant statement in Indian philosophies that "mind is material," confuse this with the opposite view of the materialist which says that "mind is the product of matter"—a very different thing. Although the Samkhyan may use materialistic terms, he always posits the vivifying influence of Spirit, while the materialist makes Spirit the product of Matter. Really ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... subjects which partisanship should not disturb or confuse. Let us survey the ground calmly and moderately; and having put aside other means of settlement, if we enter upon the policy of retaliation let us pursue it firmly, with a determination only to subserve the interests of our people and maintain the high standard ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... prejudice, and a just prejudice. So you think on the whole that to do a young lady—for I suppose the second is in your own class—a real, an unspeakable injury would be better than to shock her prejudices? If that is how you of the new generation confuse what's right ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... incidents and the intricacies of its plot make it difficult to follow. The rapidity of its action, the necessity of gathering the meaning from a single hearing, and the intensity of feeling aroused would all unite to confuse the hearer were it not for the skill of the actor and the appropriateness of the stage settings. By the aid of these, understanding is in most cases not difficult. The changing scenery, the dress of the actors, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... lakes. At times we found ourselves in a dense forest where the trees were ancient monarchs, whose solitudes had never been disturbed by stroke of ax, or grate of saw. Clumps of dogwood and chaparral of a dozen kinds confuse the tyro, and he loses all sense of direction. Only the instinct that makes a real mountain and forest guide could enable one successfully to navigate these overgrown wilds, for we were now wandering up a region where trails had been abandoned for years. Here and there, when ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... most immediately answerable for the making or marring of texture is the disposition and nature of the final tool marks. These should be so managed that they help the eye to understand the forms. They should explain rather than confuse the contours of the surface. Just as in a good chalk drawing the strokes and cross-hatchings are put in with method, and if well done produce the effect of something solid, so in carving, the tool marks ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... so. It is a very natural thing for him to do. In good society they talk of literature and art. Why isn't it natural for Trimalchio to turn the conversation into the same channels, even if he does make Hannibal take Troy and does confuse the epic heroes and some late champions of ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... confuse us," decided Tom. "Fire at the main body!" And with that he opened up with his electric rifle, an example followed by Mr. Damon ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... a very few of the microscopic inhabitants of my pond, but, as you will confuse them if I show you too many, we will conclude with two rather larger specimens, and examine them carefully. The first, called the Cydippe, is a lovely, transparent living ball, which I want to explain to you because it is so wondrously beautiful. The second, the Sea-mat ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... disconnected and formidable facts are revealed as an essential part of a tense struggle in which move and counter-move followed swiftly one upon the other, its appeal becomes much wider. Therefore, in order not to confuse the main issue in the following chapters by entering upon tiresome definitions, it is proposed to conclude the present chapter by explaining, simply, a number of chemical warfare conceptions with which the ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... man had evidently been drinking; and the suddenness of this encounter seemed for a moment to confuse him; but as he caught sight of the injured doctor, the policeman peering at him with a sternly inquiring look, and the tall, handsome girl, with wild eyes and parted lips, pointing towards the consulting-room door, he threw back his ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... Do not confuse a stage makeup with the customary society makeup that milady applies in her boudoir. They are ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... could pass an examination on its flowers, their appearance and their order. To-day I can affirm confidently that the buttercup has five petals. (Or is it six? I knew for certain last week.) But next year I shall probably have forgotten my arithmetic, and may have to learn once more not to confuse the buttercup with the celandine. Once more I shall see the world as a garden through the eyes of a stranger, my breath taken away with surprise by the painted fields. I shall find myself wondering whether it is science or ignorance which affirms that the swift (that black exaggeration of ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... stern sense of virtue doing a service to Alice; and when the quick answer came, 'He didn't say that, I'm sure it was Wilmet,' she asseverated, 'Indeed he did. I don't confuse in that way. It is a very good warning not to dwell on what gentlemen may ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... taste is often better than the taste he later develops under artificial culture. The second is a matter of common-sense. How could the imagination create new worlds, save out of the material of the old? To offer strange images is to confuse the mind and dull the interest; to offer familiar ones "with a difference" is to pique the ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... nor listen to it if told. Every effort had been made by Hugh to avoid Elizabeth since he had found out the true situation, but nothing would convince John of that. Had John Hunter the right then, being the kind of man he was, to a confession from her that would confuse the whole issue and do vital wrong to everybody concerned, including the baby, who must suffer with the mother who would be made to seem much worse than she was. This Elizabeth Hunter asked herself daily, and with the fear that her conscience ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... confuse them, divided his followers into three bands, appointing them a place of meeting; but the hound was not to be thus baffled, and followed up his master's footsteps. Again the royal party broke up, the King keeping with him only his foster-brother; ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... head straight towards her, Peters," Captain Martin said. "They will think we mean to run her down, and it will flurry and confuse them." ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... only, and I thought That to your word I might entrust my life And one more dear than mine; but now it seems That in some coward and unreasoning panic This worthy Senator has moved his colleagues— Since cruelty is close akin to fear— To break your faith to me, and to confuse The innocent and guilty, those who led And those who followed, in one dreadful death! I pray you pardon me if, being a woman, Too rashly taking part in things of State, I have known nought of State-craft or the wisdom Which breaks a ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... place around them, the two chums devoted their attention to the task of baffling the designs of their two foes. Wonderfully well did Tom manage his aerial steed. They swung this way and that, dipped, rose, and cut corners in a dizzying fashion in the endeavor to confuse the aim of ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... the wise resolve to break their bond of union. Omniscience had herein a view to ulterior consequences benevolent to man, and He knew that it would be a wise thing for the future world, as well as a discriminative check upon the race then living, to confuse the universal language into many discordant dialects. Was this in any sense an improbable or improper method of making "the devices of the wicked to be of none effect, and of laughing to scorn the counsels of the mighty?" Was it not to have been expected that a ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the town. There will be a great meeting held to-morrow, where all the wise men will assemble, to attempt to discover the whereabouts of the intruder; but by God's help, I will guide them wrong, and confuse their counsels. Go to our neighbour the fisherman," added she to her daughter, "and see what he has caught." She went, and brought news that he had taken a large fish, of the size of a man. "Take ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... went into the welter of religious wars which gradually merge into dynastic wars and confuse the record of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century. At the end of the last of these divisions of time ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... dull, conceited hashes, Confuse their brains in college classes! They gang in stirks and come out asses, Plain truth to speak; An' syne they think to climb ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... come to think of it, how some fool terms get into current use. There is the phrase "heavyweight" as applied to a man's mental apparatus! What does it mean? No one wants to be fat and heavy of body—then why of head? For some clumsy reason we have come to confuse strength with weight. The crude methods of early building undoubtedly had much to do with this. The old ox-cart weighed a ton—and it had so much weight that it was weak! To carry a few tons of humanity from New York to Chicago, the railroad ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... beginning of a new function of secretion. The newborn baby has only enough saliva to furnish moisture for the mouth, and not until the age of four or five months does saliva really flow, and since the teeth appear a bit later we often confuse the institution of a new secretion with ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... the chronological tables of the 14th century and the later mentions of clocks in E. Zinner, Aus der Fruehzeit der Raederuhr, Munich, 1954, p. 29 ff. Unfortunately this very complete treatment tends to confuse the factual and legendary sources prior to the clock of de Dondi; it also accepts the very doubtful evidence of the "escapement" drawn by Villard of Honnecourt (see p. 107). An excellent and fully illustrated account of monumental astronomical ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... edict of death that he had issued against the wise men of Egypt, and he sent and called Joseph. He impressed care upon his messengers, they were not to excite and confuse Joseph, and render him unfit to interpret the king's dream correctly.[168] They brought him hastily out of the dungeon, but first Joseph, out of respect for the king, shaved himself, and put on fresh raiment, which ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... Dictionary helps an intelligent study of color by its clear definitions and cross-references to HUE, VALUE, and CHROMA,—leaving no excuse for those who would confuse these three qualities or treat a degree of any quality as ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... letters are all connected with each other and with the capitals. Select a style of capital letters and always use them; study out a plain combination of them; practice writing until it can be written easily and rapidly and stick to it. Don't confuse your banker by changing the form of a letter or adding flourishes. Countless repetitions will give a facility in writing it that will lend a grace and charm and will stamp it with your peculiar characteristics ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... mammal, the word animal has been used throughout as having a better defined meaning to the average child. A conscientious effort to avoid technical terms and descriptions has been made that there may be nothing to confuse the young mind. Clarity and simplicity have been the ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... of it or me? or remember her pitying sister Helen for not having an admirer too? How very pretty is the perfect image of her in my memory—her brown, dark hair, and hazel eyes; her very dress! I should be quite grieved to see her now; the reality, however beautiful, would destroy, or at least confuse, the features of the lovely Peri which then existed in her, and still lives in my imagination, at the distance of more than sixteen years. I am ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... stand simply and decidedly against telepathy itself; and wisely so, for if telepathy be once admitted, there is, as seems to me, no logical halting-place until we reach a far-off point which I will not confuse my present argument ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... for the second time since midnight let herself stealthily out into the darkened corridor; but now with the difference that she did what she did in full command of all her wits and faculties, with no subjective war of wills to hinder and confuse her, and with a definite object clearly visioned—a goal no less distant than the ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... artist and the lover of beauty, in their particular problems of selecting and arranging elements of aesthetic value. It is no more a practical science than logic. The supposition that it is so is probably favoured by the idea that aesthetic theory has art for its special subject. But this is to confuse a general aesthetic theory—what the Germans call "General Aesthetics''—-with a theory of art (Kunstwissenschaft). The former, with which we are here concerned, has to examine aesthetic experience as a whole; which, as we shall presently see, includes more than ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... happen I did my best not to confuse with a disinterested opinion. But indeed Mrs. Ricker and Kitton was seldom in need of an opinion, as was proved that night by the appearance of this ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... gentle voice:— 'And O! my child, should ever a flatterer Tap with his wares, and promise of all joys And vain sweet pleasures that on earth may be; Seal up your ears, sing some old happy song, Confuse his magic who is all mockery: His sweets are death.' Yet, still, how she doth long But just to taste, then shut the lattice tight, And hide her eyes ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... much of this only tends to confuse rather than to solve an already too-complicated question, it also shows how increased activity of thought and thoroughness of purpose bring us face to face with difficulties of whose existence we had scarcely a suspicion. The more we accomplish, ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... could make nothing of the enclosure upon which they were partial trespassers, except that the green and crooked branches of a big apple-tree came crawling at them out of the mist, like the tentacles of some green cuttlefish. Anything would serve, however, that was likely to confuse their trail, so they both decided without need of words to use this tree also as a ladder—a ladder of descent. When they dropped from the lowest branch to the ground their stockinged feet felt hard ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... up than the children of sentimental people who are always anxious and miserable about their duty to their children, and who end by neither making their children happy nor having a tolerable life for themselves. A selfish tyrant you know where to have, and he (or she) at least does not confuse your affections; but a conscientious and kindly meddler may literally worry you out of your senses. It is fortunate that only very few parents are capable of doing what they conceive their duty continuously or even at all, and that still ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... self-conscious. If she could only forget that she was some day to be William's wife, the old delightful comradeship would return, and she would be at ease again with him. In time, after she had become accustomed to the idea of marriage, it would not so confuse her, of course. She loved him dearly, and she wanted to make him happy; but for the present—just while she was "getting used to things"—she would try to forget, sometimes, that she was ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... accent may confuse her. Of course she means Francesca's and mine, for she has none; although we have tempered ours so much for the sake of the natives, that we can scarcely understand each other any more. As for Susanna's own accent, ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... her force, but secretly, she was trying to destroy in him the spiritual aspiration which was essential in his nature, through which she had won him as her husband, but which now could only irritate and confuse her, and stand in the way of her desires, ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... every official assurance which could be made the following day did not entirely counteract the idea. The explanation was given by Rich himself, in the presence of his friend Bencraft, the contriver, and perhaps the actor of the scheme, which he designed only as an innocent affair, to confuse the dancers, without adverting to the serious ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... subdivide the birds into a great many orders, families, genera, species etc., which, at first sight, are apt to confuse and discourage the reader. But any interested person can acquaint himself with most of our song-birds by keeping in mind a few general divisions, and observing the characteristics of each. By far the greater number of our land-birds are either warblers, vireos, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... extraordinary behaviour and the veiled but significant statements of Nicol Brinn, his theory that Sir Charles Abingdon had not died from natural causes rested upon data of the most flimsy description. From Phil Abingdon he had learned nothing whatever. Her evidence merely tended to confuse the case more hopelessly. ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... opportunity to negotiate with the foreign Powers. It is our view that the opportunity has come because foreign Powers are now on very friendly terms with China. It is distinctly a separate thing from the declaration of war. Let no one try to confuse the two. ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... said. 'Now we'll let her rip.' So he stamped on the accelerator. Only it turned out to be the foot-brake after all, and we stopped dead, and skidded into a ditch. The advice I give to every young man starting life is: 'Never confuse the unusual and the impossible.' Take the present case. If you had only realised the possibility of somebody some day collaring your study, you might have thought out dozens of sound schemes for dealing with the matter. As it is, you are unprepared. The thing comes on you as a ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... of drama told him it was a good exit line, and he returned to the group of officers. I now saw what had happened. At Enghien I had taken the wrong road. I remembered that, to confuse the Germans, the names on the sign-post at the edge of the town had been painted out, and that instead of taking the road to Soignes I was on the road to Ath. What I had seen, therefore, was an army corps making a turning movement intended ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... is severing his connection with T. P.'s Weekly the name of the paper will not be changed. This sort of thing is well calculated to confuse and unsettle the public. "T. P. or not T. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... wagon gets stuck on a hill, as will occasionally happen, so that all the oxen are discouraged at once, we would see one of the Kikuyus leading the team back and forth, back and forth, on the side hill just ahead of the wagon. This is to confuse their minds, cause them to forget their failure, and thus ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... not interrupt me, you will quite confuse me. I do not know how to get through with it. I maintain, besides, that the thanks are due from us, not from you. We arrived here two strangers. We have been fortunate enough immediately to find friends. Yes, friends. You have taken us by the hand, you have led us to our farmers, to our keepers; ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and critical situation of public affairs may expose their places, their apprehensions from the hazards to which the discontents of a few popular men at elections may expose their seats in Parliament,—all these causes trouble and confuse the representations which they make to ministers of the real temper of the nation. If ministers, instead of following the great indications of the Constitution, proceed on such reports, they will take the whispers of a cabal for the voice of the people, and the counsels ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... those persons whom I mentioned a short time ago. Farewell now, my dear Prince of—oh, dear me, now my son has forgotten to write me whether it is Ansbach or Baireuth that you inherit. It is so easy to confuse these little principalities. Ansbach—Baireuth—Ansbach—yes, that was it. Very well, my dear Prince of Ansbach, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... the emergency. No doubt, errors have been made, but they are errors inconceivably less in their results than would be the unpardonable sin of the people, should they, because differing in opinion, weaken the hands and confuse the purposes of the powers that be. With secret and treacherous foes in our very midst, hidden behind the masks of a painted loyalty, the President, after deep and earnest consultation and reflection, deemed it his duty to authorize arrests under circumstances which he solemnly ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... mislead that in a recent national survey of religious conditions, the term was abandoned and "town and country" substituted. The simpler plan is to arrive at a definition of the word "rural" which will include what the latter term connotes. To confuse "rural" with "agricultural" is to ignore both the past and the present in movements of population and in organization of interests. To an increasing degree the interests of the open country are centering in the village, or even larger centers. So that in discussing the problems of ...
— Church Cooperation in Community Life • Paul L. Vogt
... who it was that dared to champion Sam-Chaong with such bold and haughty front, than with hideous yells and screams they rushed tumultuously upon him, hoping by a combined attack to confuse him and to make him ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... known to what was unknown, from man to the universe, and back again from the universe to man. While he was arranging the world, he was arranging the forms of thought in his own mind; and the light from within and the light from without often crossed and helped to confuse one another. He might be compared to a builder engaged in some great design, who could only dig with his hands because he was unprovided with common tools; or to some poet or musician, like Tynnichus (Ion), obliged to ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... doctor, you were only trying to plague me so as to confuse me," she said, smiling. "But you can't do it. I shall remember presently. It began with 'H'—I am almost sure of that. Let's ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... with 'that form of respect which, being devoid of the element of fear, is closely akin to contempt.' Then arose Parnell. He held that the Irishmen must make themselves the terror of the nation. They must embarrass and confuse the English leaders, and throw the whole political machinery of both parties hopelessly out of gear. And in a few months Mr. Parnell made the Irish question the supreme question in the mind of the nation, and became for years the ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... sympathetic, appeared cold and absolutely opposed to any sort of outburst. He was too prudent, too wise, too thoughtful, it seemed, acting only when sure of his ground, turning aside from all obstacles liable to irritate or confuse him. ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... in their occupation, singing songs and telling stories and having so much to do that there was no time to indulge in the morbid analysis of life and the things of life which in our present shiftless day perplex and confuse idle ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... lacerated by the acutest pains, and with a mind distracted by a thousand avocations and obliged for immediate supply to produce almost extempore a farce, a pamphlet, or a newspaper." Murphy's careless pen seems here to confuse the student years with those of assiduous effort at the Bar; and the extempore farces are, judging by the dates of Fielding's collected plays, no more than a rhetorical flourish: but there seems no reason to doubt the essential truth of this picture ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... better, the famous Greek musician Timotheus had said four centuries earlier, and the decay of Greek music was dated from that period. But to make any artist, however eminent, responsible for the decadence of art, is to confuse cause with effect; and the note of ignominy affixed by Augustus to the Art of Love was as futile as the action of the Spartan ephor when he cut the strings away from the cithara of Timotheus. The actual achievement of Ovid was to perfect and popularise a poetical form of unusual scope and flexibility; ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... and went forward. I had been too little attentive to the situation and direction of these vaults and passages, to go forward with undeviating accuracy. My fears likewise tended to confuse my perceptions and bewilder my steps. Notwithstanding the danger of encountering obstructions, I rushed ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... got the ship which could have reported our action off Meriden. I'm sure we've sent four shiploads of food back to the fleet, besides the passenger-ship we'd rather have missed. But there's still something to be done. To confuse Mekin and keep it busy, and therefore off Kandar's neck, we have to start trouble elsewhere. From now on we are pirates pure ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... absolutely none, they are two different and distinct planes of existence, and to translate one into the other is worse than foolish, it is a darkening of all counsel, a making confusion everywhere. Do you see, you MUST NOT confuse the relative work of action, with the absolute world of art. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... condemn yourself! You have not been round the world at all, and yet you have no leg at all." So spake Mr. Mordacks, wishing to confuse ideas; for the speech of ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... could not affect you, Miss Hawkins," said the chairman gallantly. "Fame does not place you in the list of ladies who rank below perfection." This happy speech delighted Mr. Buckstone as much as it seemed to delight Laura. But it did not confuse him as much as it apparently ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... part of an ingenuous young man; after they had come before the judges, he was not able to say what he had intended, so much did his modesty confuse him there ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence |
