"Preconceived" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the German army trod the Belgian soil and carried out the invasion with the preconceived idea that it would meet with bands of this sort, a reminiscence of the war of 1870. But German imagination will not suffice to create that ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... a Supreme Ruler of the Universe, and that spirits animated all life, and existed even in minerals; he also believed in preconceived purpose. With these views were associated the Dogmatic School of Medicine, and the name of Hippocrates, and this belief ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... admitted, "not unjustified. My paper is prejudiced. So am I. To be prejudiced is the privilege of the thinking human being. After all, we are not animals, to judge everything by its smell and taste as it comes before us, irrespective of preconceived theories. The open mind is the empty mind. The pre-judgment is often the deliberate and considered judgment, based on reason, whereas the post-judgment is a hasty makeshift affair, based on the impressions of ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... government buildings. It was the event of some celebration; I believe the throwing off of the yoke of Spain. The city flocked into the plaza. Strangely enough, those who were disaffected—the soldiers under Urquijo—faced the loyal troops. By a preconceived plan, the artillery was under the command of Urquijo. Suddenly this Captain's murderous and traitorous guns swept the plaza, mangling women and children. There was a flaw, however, in the stroke. Urquijo fled, a reward posted for his head—mind you, his head; they ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... of Aenesidemus as false and sophistical,[7] but as Maccoll has well said, they are remarkable for their judicious and strong criticism, and are directed against the false method of observing facts through the light of preconceived opinion.[8] They have, however, a stronger critical side than sceptical, and show the positive tendency ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... critically expounding his theory of poetry as in making poems. This is as far as it can be from the case of the spontaneous village minstrel dear to elegy, who has no theory whatever, although sometimes he may have fully as much poetry as Whitman. The whole of Whitman's work is deliberate and preconceived. A man born into a society comparatively new, full of conflicting elements and interests, could not fail, if he had any thoughts at all, to reflect upon the tendencies around him. He saw much good and evil on all sides, not yet ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I was surprised and a little irritated to receive from Armour the amount of my loan in full. It was not in accordance with my preconceived idea of him that he should return it at all. I had arranged in my own mind that he should be governed by the most honest impulses and the most approved intentions up to the point of departure, but that he should never find it quite convenient ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the errors of youthful training, the selfishness of sectarianism, the bigotry of orthodoxy, or the indifference of infidelity, but seek the truth, no matter from whence, or what it upsets or overturns of preconceived ideas. The command is, "Prove all things, and hold fast that which is good." To hear some people talk and lament, you would think that the command was, Prove nothing, but hold hard on to what ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... "Experience once recognized as the fountain of all our knowledge of nature, it follows, that in our study of nature and its laws, we ought at once to make up our minds to dismiss, as idle prejudices, or at least suspend as premature, all preconceived notion of what might, or ought to be the order of nature in any proposed case, and content ourselves as a plain matter of fact with what is. To experience we refer as the only ground for all physical enquiry. But before ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... an hour they abandoned the personal note, and discussed the various topics of the hour. They did not always agree, and neither was of the type to be easily swayed from a preconceived opinion, but always they were interested, always they felt a sympathy for the other view, never once was there a fraction of a pause. They had so much to say that they could have talked ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... 8vo.—Barretti's Account of the Manners and Customs of Italy. 1770. 2 vols. 8vo.—These works are noticed principally because they afford a curious and instructive proof of the very different views which may be taken of the same objects, according to the extent and accuracy of the knowledge, and the preconceived opinions and feelings of the observer. Barretti's work is certainly more accurate than that of Sharp, but in opposing him, he has sometimes gone into the opposite extreme: from comparing both, perhaps the reality may often be extracted. ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... as long before was most famous in that profession. I saw both proofs, witnesses, voluntary confessions, and some insensible marks about this miserable old woman; I enquired and talked with her a long time, with the greatest heed and attention I could, and I am not easily carried away by preconceived opinion. In the end and in my conscience I should rather have appointed them hellebore than hemlock. It was rather a ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... few hours, ever since a messenger had met him, half way on the Applegate road, with the news of Jonathan's death, he had laboured philosophically to reconcile such a tragedy with his preconceived belief that he inhabited the best of all possible worlds. Only when suffering obtruded brutally into his immediate surroundings, was it necessary for him to set about resolving the problem of existence—for, like most hereditary optimists, he did not borrow trouble from his neighbours. A ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... have considered or which has touched them seriously, with their minds already made up. They have some sort of a persuasion about it, they have a theory which they have accepted; and, if you bring them a truth with ever such overwhelming credentials which clashes with this preconceived idea or prejudice, the chances are that it would be met with doubt, with denial, not a clear-cut, intelligent, well- balanced doubt, but a doubt that springs out of the unwillingness that a man feels to ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... noble stand, and by the force and eloquence of his appeal, have brought his companions to the same resolution. He was then but a boy, yet he had the independence to attack a cherished custom of his tribe, and the power of argument to convince them, against all their preconceived notions of right and the rules of warfare, that the custom should be abolished. That his effort to put a stop to this cruel and revolting rite, was not prompted by any temporary expediency, but was the result of a humane disposition, and a right sense of justice, is abundantly ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... we stop one moment only, to free ourselves from preconceived and obsolete ideas, and look at motherhood and marriage from the calm and unprejudiced standpoint of historical development and growth, how differently do these in reality appear. Many advanced thinkers have done this, and their views have here and there found adherents. Not so, however, ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... enter into and destroy the structure of my plan. I still believe that there was some sense in it. It may certainly be charged with the appearance of lack of faith and it lays itself open to the throwing of many stones; but my object was practical and I had to consider warily the preconceived notions of the people to whom it was implicitly addressed, and also their unjustifiable hopes. They were unjustifiable, but who was to tell them that? I mean who was wise enough and convincing enough to show them the inanity ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... slightly defiant, was the irreproachable one of a strict attention to duty. All unconsciously she was a true daughter of the twentieth century, and probably a feminist at heart, which is to say that her conduct was determined by no preconceived or handed-down notions of what was proper and lady-like. For feminism, in a sense, is a return to atavism, and sex antagonism and sex attraction are functions of the same thing. There were moments when she ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... their own words, were the handicraft of the tribes found in the country by the whites. Conclusions so derived, it may strike some, are open to criticism, however well suited they may be to meet the necessities of preconceived theories. ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... Emmy," he said once or twice. But he was not rough. He was charming. He did not fit in at all with my preconceived ideas of "Colonials." And it was quickly evident to me that his tender admiration of Aunt Emmy still survived. I was partly reassured. Perhaps, after all, he ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... those ancient writers, let them be worth ever so much, would never find their way to us. And when we have gained those supposed opinions, through the translation, how do we know that the translators were faithful? Who can say they were not warped by system? not misled by preconceived ideas? Who can say they have not wilfully imposed upon us? Under such circumstances, the ability to detect any inaccuracies or imposition, would, in my view, be very desirable. You have, yourself, ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... be readily accepted by the traveller who visits Russia with no preconceived ideas and forms his opinions from his own observations. To him it seems that class distinctions form one of the most prominent characteristics of Russian society. In a few days he learns to distinguish the various classes by their ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... very definite idea of the next step in his adventure. He had swum from the bateau largely under impulse, with no preconceived scheme of action, urged chiefly by the hope that he would find St. Pierre in the cabin and that something might come of it. As for knocking at the door and rousing the chief of the Boulains from sleep—he had at the present moment no very good excuse for that. No ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... own weight,' Mr. Snapper said, whistling his dogs and disappearing into the wood. And so we came out of this controversy rather victoriously; but I began to alter my preconceived ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... design as much as the plan of a house. For to what standard are we referring when we say that two limbs are morphologically the same? Is it not an ideal plan, a mental pattern, a metaphysical conception? Now an ideal implies a mind which preconceived the idea, and in which alone it really exists. It is only as "an order of Divine thought" that the doctrine of animal homologies is at all intelligible; and Homology is, therefore, the science which traces the outward embodiment of a ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... of which so much has been said already, which constitutes the beauty of these poems: and that these characteristics are present, not of course in uniform measure, but certainly in the great majority of the chansons from Roland to the Bastard. Of course if a man sits down with a preconceived idea of an epic poem, it is more likely than not that his preconceived idea will be of something very different from a chanson de geste. And if, refusing to depart from his preconceived idea, and making that idea up of certain things taken from the Iliad, certain from the ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... bold dash, Walt Wilder was not acting without a preconceived plan. He had one. The smoke, with its covering cloud, might be the means of concealment, and ultimate salvation; at all events, it would cover their retreat long enough to give them a start of the pursuers, and then the speed of their horses might possibly ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... has frankly admitted that his views and opinions were erroneous owing to being based on a partial appearance or influenced by pernicious ideas. A notable illustration of his thought being biassed by preconceived ideas is found in the religious opinions put forward in the early edition of parts I and II of "Modern Painters." And in a preface written in 1871 for a revised edition of his works, the philosopher calls attention to his early views, declaring that he was "wholly ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... with an eye open to human depravity; he was learned, too, in his way; many a heavy tome of Scotch controversial divinity had been thumbed by him as carefully as his Bible; but he never dwelt on any thing he found there not sustaining his preconceived notions. He involuntarily slighted those parts even of Scripture that he could not wrest to his purpose. Many an historical and traditionary fact, too, floated loosely on his mind; but his geographical education had been sadly neglected. A topographical knowledge ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... them, and Vance led the way to the armchairs in a corner of the lounge. The meeting, as the talk that followed, he felt, were all part of a preconceived plan. It had happened before. The woman, that is, was familiar to him—to some part of his being that had dropped stitches ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... fortify us considerably. Am I to assume, then, that above all passion and pettiness, you are an impersonal force whose innumerable daily editions reflect nothing but abstract truth, and are in no way the servants of a preconceived and personal ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... decided relations in derivation, what a difference in the two manners of building! The Greek building is comparatively small in scale, symmetrical and balanced in its main design, highly finished in its details in accordance with a preconceived theory. The Gothic building is much more extensive in scale, is not necessarily symmetrical in its main design, and the decorative details appear as if worked according to the individual taste and pleasure of each carver, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... afterwards a great deal of quacking was heard, and a regiment of upwards of forty ducks was seen marching into the yard, headed by two handsome drakes, known by the names of Robin Hood and Friar Tuck. Evidently with a preconceived purpose, they all marched up to the crate and surrounded it. Every neck was thrust beneath the lowest bar of the prison; every effort was made to raise it,—but in vain. At length a parley ensued. Then the noise ceased. Only the deep-toned quacking of Robin Hood was heard, ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... before and after the official demonstration. Making all possible allowance for the intensity of Cantonese local loyalty and the fact that they might be celebrating a Cantonese affair rather than a principle, the scene was sufficiently impressive to revise one's preconceived ideas and to make one try to find out what it is that gives the ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... whole, what I have seen raises my preconceived estimate of the English character. It is full of generous, true, and manly qualities; and I doubt if there ever was so high a standard of morality in an aristocracy which has such means for self-indulgence ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... and never said a word of love; and this relieved Susan, so that the evening passed pleasantly. Susan, listless and indifferent to present events, and never accustomed, like Meadows, to act upon a preconceived plan, did not even observe what Meadows had gained by this sacrifice of his topic for a single night, viz., that after declaring himself her lover he was still admitted to the house. The next visit he was not quite so forbearing, yet still forbearing; and so on by sly gradations. ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... character: his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. It was distinguished for a profoundness of research, for an intensity and minuteness of philological labor, and a singleness of purpose to arrive at the meaning of the apostle, without regard to any preconceived or partisan opinions, which obtained for it a regard as an authority equal to that awarded to its predecessor. In 1845 he published a Commentary on the Apocalypse; a profoundly learned and critical work, in which the interpretation ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... of room; if the place is shown to have been suitable for the transaction which is the subject of the narration; if the whole business, in short, be adapted to the nature of those who plead, and to the reports bruited about among the common people, and to the preconceived opinions of those who hear. And if these principles be observed, the narration will appear like ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... of such brilliant wit, familiar with so many social circles, should have been a charming companion. It must, however, be admitted that the accounts which have come down to us do not confirm such preconceived impressions. Like his great rival, Addison, though for other reasons, he was generally disappointing in society. Pope, as may be guessed from Spence's reports, had a large fund of interesting literary talk, such as youthful aspirants to fame would be delighted to receive with ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... especially of ideas, is often from the complex to the simple. Many evolutionists maintain that movement is now forward, now backward, now diagonal, and now by a "short cut"; but if the evolutionary critic sticks closely to his preconceived formula about progress as always from the simple to the complex, he can lead us astray. Again, almost all great prophetic announcements are ahead of their time. They seem out of place at the date of their first utterance—interruptions, ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... thirdly, impressed me, was no less contrary to all my preconceived opinions. I had fancied that, whether good or bad, the system must be one of great hardship, extremely repugnant and disagreeable. I wondered at myself to find how soon it became so associated with pleasurable and grateful feelings ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... world had been so long accustomed, instead of attempting to regulate ideal division by real, which might have led to the adoption of the true base and a practical system, they committed the one great error of endeavoring to reverse true order, by forcing real division into conformity with a preconceived ideal? This attempt was made at a time supposed by many to be peculiarly suited to the purpose, a time of changes. It was a time of changes, truly; but these were the result of high excitement, not of quiet thought, such as the subject requires,—a time for rushing forward, not for retracing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... out the science of their achievements afterwards, like the mathematical law in the Greek column. The stiffness rather than firmness of mind, the surrender of all spontaneous action in the strait-waistcoat of a preconceived plan, to which we have before alluded, unfitted him for that rapid change of combinations on the great chess-board of battle which enabled General Rosecrans at Murfreesboro to turn defeat into victory, an achievement without parallel in the ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... on the ear of the astonished judge, did not altogether agree with his preconceived notions of being committed to the power of the Evil One; but they tended still farther to confuse him, and he even fancied at times that the vengeance of the populace, which thus rung in his ears, was in the act ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... plane' or totality of things after which, as it seems to me, we are impelled to seek, in connection with the directing of form or determinism, and the action of living beings consciously directed to a definite and preconceived end." ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... in its sense of ordered beauty. It may be that average lives are so planless, so haphazard and without order that an achievement of such magnitude representing years of labour and concentrated thought in steadily following out a preconceived plan cannot fail to be a tremendous contrast to the smallness and pettiness of the majority—a contrast so great that it is mentally and spiritually a glimpse of the world of new possibilities attainable when once the feverish clinging to the ideals of the totem post is abandoned. ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home
... expecting I knew not what; a spire, a pump, a green, a winding street: my preconceived village in the air had immediately to be swept into space, and in its stead, behold the inn with its sign-post, and these half-dozen brick tenements, more or less cut to one square pattern! So this was all! this was 'our village' of which the author had written so ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... originality. I conceive the only way to obtain any thing like a clear conception on this point would be what Lachman has begun, (see above,) patiently to collect and compare the various forms which the traditions have assumed, without any preconceived, either mythical or poetical, theory, and, if possible, to discover the original basis of the whole rich and fantastic legend. One point, which to me is strongly in favor of the antiquity of this poetic cycle, is, that the manners are so clearly anterior to chivalry, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... been relayed through several dressing stations and hospitals until I landed in Number Twelve General Hospital, at the town of St. Pol. It was a B. R. C. (British Red Cross) institution and was altogether different from my preconceived ideas of hospitals. The day when I first "woke up" was the ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... experimented endlessly with verbal and musical effects, such as repetition, and monotone, and the selection of words in which the consonants alliterated and the vowels varied. In his Philosophy of Composition he described how his best known poem, the Raven, was systematically built up on a preconceived plan in which the number of lines was first determined and the word "nevermore" selected as a starting point. No one who knows the mood in which poetry is composed will believe that this ingenious piece of dissection really describes the way in {529} which the Raven was conceived ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... contract and the open publicity of the negotiation, created quite a sensation in the newspaper press, which presented a medley of praise and censure. All varieties of opinion from extravagant flattery to extreme denunciation were visited upon me by the editors of papers according to their preconceived opinions. I made no effort at secrecy, and no answer to either praise or blame, but freely contributed any information in respect to the matter to anyone, whether friendly or otherwise, who applied to me. Perhaps as accurate a statement ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... generally as if it were always unfettered, and neglect to add that it was continually influenced by the conditions under which he wrote, and that it was often his task to discover a route to a successful result through the tortuous angularities of a preconceived foreground. There is every reason to believe that this was the case with the tragedy of Hamlet and, if so, it is certain that no genius but that of Shakespeare could have moulded the inartistic materials of a rude original into that harmonious composition, which, although it has certainly been ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... confession of that amendment is a little like the white sheet and lighted taper of a penitent. Things are, or they are not. If they are, as will be set down, the inference is plain to anyone not hopelessly blinded by preconceived prejudice. If they are not, let them be authoritatively contradicted on the basis of fact, not sentiment—demonstration, not assertion. In any case it is a gain to obtain material for a truer judgment than heretofore, and thus to be rid of certain mental films by ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... in August showed themselves wholly indifferent to the reverses of the German Army. They were sincerely and profoundly convinced that, if the German Army retired, it was in virtue of a preconceived plan, and that our successes would lead to nothing. The events at the end of August were calculated to strengthen this contention in the minds ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... conclusion. He may conclude that the author has a sentimental affection for the criminal and would have all disturbers of the public peace treated with more compassion than the hard-working and honest labourer. But that reader will have jumped to his conclusion from his preconceived prejudices. The reformation of the criminal is no chimera, it has been undertaken for thirty years and every year has seen better results. The results for 1903 (86 per cent. of reforms) ought to convince the most sceptic that the ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... two had for one another, which was like an ideal friendship; and in part too on account of the ancient history of the family they came from. I had met one of them, I told him,—Cyril—a very fine fellow, but in some respects he was not exactly like my preconceived idea of a ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... was very happy indeed; to be candid, it was much better than was usual with Mr. Trollope, whose understanding of American life and manners was not enlarged by extensive travel in this country. An English tourist's preconceived idea of us is a thing he brings over with him on the steamer and carries home again intact; it is as much a part of his indispensable impedimenta as his hatbox. But Fleabody is excellent; it was probably suggested by Peabody, which may have struck Mr. Trollope ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... co-operation with that will, that we have made it ours: because it is the expression of a divine wisdom and love we make it wholly ours. And we have found in the acceptance of it not bondage but liberty. It is wonderful how our preconceived notion of God and religion vanishes before the first gleams of experience. To the unregenerate the service of God is utter bondage; to the regenerate it is perfect freedom. And the difference seems to be accounted for by the reversal of ideals, by a ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... shows that, though 'no difference was found,' many differences existed. Logan had a better chance of acquittal than Mary. The Lords of the Articles, writes Sir Thomas Hamilton to the King (June 21, 1609), 'had preconceived hard opinions of Restalrig's process.' {243b} Yet they were convinced by the evidence of the witnesses, and ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... the case of Mexico, Central America, and Peru. We have so long been accustomed to gorgeous accounts of the civilization of these countries at the time of their discovery by the Spaniards that it may at first shock our preconceived notions to see them set down as in the "middle status of barbarism," one stage higher than Mohawks, and one stage lower than the warriors of the Iliad. This does indeed mark a change since Dr. Draper expressed the opinion that ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... much sense to travel through the country seeking for petty exceptions that may sustain your aristocratical prejudices, or opinions, if you like that better; but will be disposed to judge a nation, not according to preconceived notions, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... true meaning of his answers. I ought to have seen at once—but I did not; so difficult is it for our minds, remembering so much, instructed so much, informed of so much, to get in touch with the real actuality at our elbow. And with my head full of preconceived notions as to how a case of "cannibalism and suffering at sea" should be managed I said—"You were then so lucky in the ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... sleeps extended in space by virtue of her mighty jaws. It takes an animal to think of a thing like that, which upsets all our preconceived ideas of repose. Should the threatening storm burst, should the stalk sway in the wind, the sleeper is not troubled by her swinging hammock; at most, she presses her fore-legs for a moment against the tossed mast. As soon as equilibrium is restored, the favourite posture, that of the horizontal ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... haunts of the buffalo and the Indian, where the very shadow of civilization lies a hundred leagues behind him. The intervening country, the wide and fertile belt that extends for several hundred miles beyond the extreme frontier, will probably answer tolerably well to his preconceived ideas of the prairie; for this it is from which picturesque tourists, painters, poets, and novelists, who have seldom penetrated farther, have derived their conceptions of the whole region. If he has a painter's eye, he may find ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... Chiquita lived in such poor style; the place was not at all impressive. The first floor of the building was given over to a Chinese bazaar, and the upper story seemed neither extremely clean nor at all modern. But, although this clashed a bit with his preconceived ideas, he knew that many of the nicest Panamanian ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... With his preconceived notions the country, in most particulars, tallied interestingly. At first Bennington frequented the little town down the draw. It answered fairly well to the story-book descriptions, but proved a bit lively for him. The first day they lent him a horse. The horse ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... so delighted with reading Johnson's Rambler that he came to London chiefly with a view to obtain an introduction to the author. Boswell gives us an account of his first interview, which took place in the morning. It is not often that the personal appearance of an author agrees with the preconceived ideas of his admirer. Langton, from perusing the writings of Johnson, expected to find him a decent, well dressed, in short a remarkably decorous philosopher. Instead of which, down from his bed chamber about noon, came, as newly ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... terrestrial mountains and forests—and accused Galileo 'of taking a delight in distorting and ruining the fairest works of Nature.' He appealed to the unequal condition of the surface of our globe, but this was of no avail in altering their preconceived notions of ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... appear to have been very solicitous about the truth. Indeed, there are no inconsiderable number of writers, and of readers too, who would be rather mortified than pleased to discover any positive verity which might overthrow, or even oppose, their own preconceived notions, however ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... cases, when obliged to call in the services of hired assistance, she must trust the dearest obligation of her life to one who, from her social sphere, has probably notions of rearing children diametrically opposed to the preconceived ideas of the mother, and at enmity with all her sentiments of right ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... declared the mother of Erasmus was a royal lady, a physician's only daughter, a kitchen-wench, a Mother Superior—all according to the prejudices preconceived. In one sense she was surely a Mother Superior—let ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... desks, to miniature bowls with which to play at dinner, to the immaculate monotony of the mats, to the finely finished simplicity of the white woodwork. I am even losing my Western prejudices; all my preconceived ideas are this evening evaporating and vanishing; crossing the garden I have courteously saluted M. Sucre, who was watering his dwarf shrubs and his deformed flowers; and Madame Prune appears to me a highly respectable old lady, in whose past there ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... considered little else than Utopian became tangible possibilities, while, as suddenly, dangers deemed far off loomed large and near. Not only was such a situation quite unforeseen, nor had any plan of action been preconceived to meet it, but it was in Rumania's case a situation unique from the number of conflicting considerations and influences at work within it. Still under the waning influence of the thirty years quasi-alliance with Austria, Rumania was not yet acclimatized to her ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... God, even on James's own admission, is akin to polytheism. And such polytheism implies a pluralistic view of the universe. The invisible order, in which we hope to realise our larger life, is a world which does not grow integrally in accordance with the preconceived plan of a single architect, 'but piecemeal by the contributions of its several parts.'[21] We make the world to our will, and 'add our fiat to the fiat of the creator.' With regard to the supreme question of human destiny Professor ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... of the State and, for much stronger reasons, of the Church. She, thus, is a militant, conquering, governing Rome, predestined to universal empire, a legitimate sovereign like the other one, but with a better title, for she derives hers from God. It is God who, from the beginning, has preconceived and prepared her, who has bodied her forth in the Old Testament and announced her through the prophets; it is the Son of God who has built her up, who, to all eternity, will never fail to maintain and guide her steps, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... shoulders and a small head glistening with closely brushed yellow hair. He spoke with an extreme Oxford accent, and when he was talking well, his face sometimes wore the rapt expression of a very emotional man listening to music. Mainhall liked Alexander because he was an engineer. He had preconceived ideas about everything, and his idea about Americans was that they should be engineers or mechanics. He hated them when they presumed ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... on, "individual morality consists in adapting one's life to a thought, to a preconceived plan. The man who proposes to be a scientist and puts all his powers into achieving that, is a moral man, even though he steals and is ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... to begin by giving some useful information to those who may contemplate constructing a modern scientific kite. The first thing that should be done by such a person, be he boy or man, is to rid his mind of all his preconceived notions about kites, for it is almost certain that they are incorrect. To begin with, the scientific kite has no tail. A few years ago people would have laughed at any one who attempted to send up a kite without a tail. But the question is now no longer even open with the scientific ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... succeeded; but it was a success obtained at the cost of setting at naught all her aunts' preconceived ideas regarding the correct deportment of marriageable girls. The knockabout was forthcoming shortly after she had demonstrated her amphibious qualities by diving from the rocks and performing water feats which ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... little man in front of him blinked back with no inkling of what lay behind them. It was clear that this was a preconceived, concerted movement. It looked more serious. But Stubbs called ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... scale of being has been gained step by step, by a conscientious study of natural phenomena, and by fearlessly teaching the doctrines to which they point. It is by faithfully weighing evidence without regard to preconceived notions, by earnestly and patiently searching for what is true, not what we wish to be true, that we have attained to that dignity, which we may in vain hope to claim through the rank of an ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... on the proprieties positively stirred Drew to unholy mirth. But it did something else—it made him realize that the girl before him was quite outside the reach of any of his preconceived ideas. He could afford to sit down upon her plane and feel no moral indignation. Perhaps, after all, she had brought his work to him when ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... are presented to him. So he will be able, when he doubts of a new fact, to examine himself whether he doubts it on just grounds; whether his doubt may not proceed from mere self-conceit, because the fact does not suit his preconceived theories; whether it may not proceed from an even lower passion, which he shares (being human) with the most uneducated; namely, from dread of the two great bogies, Novelty and Size—novelty, which makes it hard to convince ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... shadows, stooping for a moment over the surface of the waters, and retreating again in a manner which the severity of the night rendered necessarily quick, raising thereby in the mind the idea of gliding spirits—then the preconceived desolation of the surrounding scenery—the indistinct shadowy chain of dreary mountains which, faintly relieved by the lurid sky, hemmed in the lake—the silence of the forms, contrasted with the tumult of the elements about us—the ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents—he then combines such events—as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the out-bringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one preestablished design. And by such means, ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... the Education of Girls. We may answer it as we will, we may refuse to answer it, but it will not be postponed, and it will be heard; and until it is answered on more rational grounds than that of previous custom, or of preconceived opinion, it may be expected to present itself at every turn, to crop out of every stratum of civilized thought. Nor is woman to blame if the question of her education occupies so much attention. The demands made are not hers—the continual agitation ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... beauty will be a joy forever, whether or not you can pigeonhole it in some ready-made category. After all, the critical pigeonholes are made for the things, not the things for the pigeonholes. The work is there, and if it does not fit your preconceived definition the fault is as likely to be in the definition as in the ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... have all the preconceived notions you want but keep an open mind as well as an open eye. We know of two or three families that are absolutely satisfied with their country homes, yet are perfectly frank in admitting that they are in no way the type of house or setting indicated by ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... approach his difficult and delicate task with an open mind and with no preconceived ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... argument was neither trite and vulgar, nor subtle and abstruse. He hit the House just between wind and water. And not being troubled with too anxious a zeal for any matter in question, he was never more tedious or more earnest than the preconceived opinions and present temper of his hearers required, to whom he was always in perfect unison. He conformed exactly to the temper of the House; and he seemed to guide, because he was always sure ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... when, on another occasion, a piece of the same cake was put in his month, he spit it out without observation. The following instance of the dependance of his perceptions upon, or rather their subordination to, his preconceived ideas is truly wonderful. It is to be observed that he always knew when his pen had ink in it. Likewise, if they adroitly changed his papers, when he was writing, he knew it, if the sheet substituted was of a different ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... thought I saw in the dictator the one hope of saving the remnants of Russian civilisation and culture. Words and names have never frightened me. If circumstances force on me a problem for solution, I never allow preconceived notions and ideas formed in the abstract, without the experience of the actual then existing facts, to warp my judgment in deciding the issue; and I am vain enough to believe that, had the same situation presented itself to Englishmen generally, nine out of ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... certain types to others, it came about, that each man called perfect that which he saw agree with the general idea he had formed of the thing in question, and called imperfect that which he saw agree less with his own preconceived type, even though it had evidently been completed in accordance with the idea of its artificer. This seems to be the only reason for calling natural phenomena, which, indeed, are not made with human hands, perfect or imperfect: ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... disappointment. She fulfilled perfectly all my preconceived notions of what she would look like when properly attired. Spying me the moment I got inside the dining-room door, she immediately pounced upon me and hurried me off to a seat, when a girl in a dirty white apron began to unload off ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... must be recorded, albeit against all preconceived theory, that he did NOT review his past life, was NOT illuminated by a flash of remorseful or sentimental memory, and did NOT commend his soul to his Maker, but that he was simply and keenly alive to the very actual ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... vary, and are sometimes double in two concentral rings. The most usual is that alluded to by your correspondents, and though obviously German, neither old nor obsolete; having been viewed even by native decipherers, through the mist of a preconceived hypothesis, have never yet been by them satisfactorily accounted for. It is always repeated four times, evidently from the same slightly curved die; when, however, the enlarged circumference of the circle required ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 9, Saturday, December 29, 1849 • Various
... is to direct our attention to the reality which he believes we all actually know already, but misinterpret and disregard because we are biassed by preconceived ideas. To do this Bergson has to offer some description of what this reality is, and this description will be intelligible only if we are willing and able to make a profound change in our attitude, to lay aside the old assumptions which underlie ...
— The Misuse of Mind • Karin Stephen
... Negro's home life reveals him as an upright, religious character, and, even under the most adverse circumstances of his unholy environments, he was in many instances so tenacious of his preconceived standard of good morals that he defended his principles even to the extent ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... would be eventually conducted to the barracks, the police office, or the Conservatoire. He was relieved when the omnibus drove into the courtyard of the Bad Hof, and the gold-chained chamberlain, flanked by two green tubs of oleanders, received him with a gravity calculated to check any preconceived idea he might have that traveling was a trifling affair, or that an arrival at the Bad Hof was not of serious moment. His letters had not yet arrived, for he had, in a fit of restlessness, shortened his route, and ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... sir, may it not be rather the outcome of a preconceived idea—of a belief that has been held universally for many ages and generations of men? I do not deny disease—who could? but suffering and disease have been looked upon from the earliest days as punishments wrought out upon a man for his sins. Now, may not the haunting fear ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... appeared the new-comer of whom I had heard so much. I must confess that my preconceived notions (one always has a preconceived notion of the appearance of a person one has heard much spoken of) fell to the ground. I had imagined him dark and audacious, and I saw before me a tall, big, well-built man, with a slight stoop in his shoulders, fair of skin, with a blonde beard and ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... into the realm of wisdom must first divest himself of all intellectual pride. He must become as a little child. Prejudices, preconceived opinions and beliefs always stand in the way of true wisdom. Conceited opinions are always suicidal in their influences. They bar the door to ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... spinning along Piccadilly in his swift hansom, it occurred to him that if Nina were going to join the "Squire's Daughter" company, it might be just as well for her not to have any preconceived antipathy against Miss Burgoyne. For Miss Burgoyne was an important ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... knight, noble baron," said the friar. "He urges not his reason in the shape of a preconceived intent, but in that of a subsequent extenuation. True, he has done the lady Matilda ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... it is. His voice and accent are peculiarly agreeable, but effeminate—clear, harmonious, and so distinct, that though his general tone in speaking is rather low than high, not a word is lost. His manners are as unlike my preconceived notions of them as is his appearance. I had expected to find him a dignified, cold, reserved, and haughty person, resembling those mysterious personages he so loves to paint in his works, and with whom he has been so often identified ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... of Eugene Carriere, for instance his masterly portrait of Paul Verlaine, a song, sometimes an entire role, may be worked out in monochrome; though the gradations of tint are numerous, they are consistently kept within their preconceived colour-scheme. Some few exceptional singers, like Jean-Baptiste Faure or Maurice Renaud, have this gift of many shades of the one colour in their singing of certain roles. The colour is determined by the psychological character of the personage portrayed; a gay, reckless Don Giovanni calls ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... undertaken without due foresight and preparation. It was only to be a preliminary exploration, it is true, only a journey of some three or four miles into the interior; but the country and the climate having already proved so extraordinarily at variance with all their preconceived ideas, who could say what new and strange forms of animal life might not possibly be lurking within those vast forest depths? It therefore behoved them to adopt at least a reasonable amount of precaution, and so to equip themselves that, in the event of their encountering new ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... embarrassment even to those initiated in the world, nothing was more remarkable in the demeanour of Lord Montacute than his self-possession; nor was there in his carriage anything studied, or which had the character of being preconceived. Every movement or gesture was distinguished by what may be called a graceful gravity. With a total absence of that excitement which seemed so natural to his age and situation, there was nothing in his manner which approached to ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... formal conditions of a speculative atheism are as undoubtedly present on the other, there is thus in both cases a logical vacuum supplied wherein the pendulum of thought is free to swing in whichever direction it may be made to swing by the momentum of preconceived ideas. ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... or Surda Echidna of Linnaeus.—Under this head may be classed all that portion of the spectators (for audience they properly are not) who, not finding the first act of a piece answer to their preconceived notions of what a first act should be, like Obstinate in John Bunyan, positively thrust their fingers in their ears, that they may not hear a word of what is coming, though perhaps the very next act may be composed in a style as different ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... them to have sure ground of their own. Nothing has so steadying an influence as working against pressure. Unless when under the temporary sway of passionate excitement, no one will do that which he expects to be greatly blamed for, unless from a preconceived and fixed purpose of his own, which is always evidence of a thoughtful and deliberate character, and, except in radically bad men, generally proceeds from sincere and strong personal convictions. Even the bare fact of having to give an ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... The children had made his acquaintance on Saturday. He had brought them with his own hands, through the rain, a pail of sweet milk, and another of hominy, a circumstance which gave them a high idea of his kindness of heart, but which sadly overturned all their preconceived notions with regard to the dignity of his office. Janet, who looked on the whole thing as a proper tribute of respect to the minister, augured well from it, what he might expect in his new parish, and congratulated ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... their swords, nor to engage the enemy. In vain had arms, in vain had strength, in vain had courage been given them." While they were giving vent to such grievous reflections, the fatal hour of their disgrace arrived, which was to render every circumstance still more shocking in fact, than they had preconceived it in their imaginations. First, they were ordered to go out, beyond the rampart, unarmed, and with single garments; then the hostages were surrendered, and carried into custody. The lictors were next commanded to depart from the consuls, and the ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... belongs to the year 1644, the most fertile year in Milton's life, as in it he "brought out two of his divorce tracts, the Tractate of Education, and the Areopagitica. As Milton's moving principle was not any preconceived system of doctrine but the passion for liberty in general, it was natural that he should plead, when occasion called, for liberty of the press, among others. The occasion was one ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... opportunities. You know that I saw him only on that one occasion I told you of. But may be that a glimpse and no more is the proper way of seeing an individuality; and de Barral was that, in virtue of his very deficiencies for they made of him something quite unlike one's preconceived ideas. There were also very few materials accessible to a man like me to form a judgment from. But in such a case I verily believe that a little is as good as a feast—perhaps better. If one has a taste for that kind of thing the merest starting-point becomes ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... may give such Light and Satisfaction as may incourage the Practice of this Duty. 'Tis very easy to make Cavils and Replies to the strongest Reasonings; but let us have a Care lest we rob our Souls and the Churches of those Divine Comforts of evangelic Psalmody, by a Fondness of our old and preconceived Opinions. He that believeth may eat all Things, and should not be forbidden: He may partake of Flesh {276} and drink Wine; he may tast of the various Pleasure of the Gospel, and sing the New Song: Another ...
— A Short Essay Toward the Improvement of Psalmody • Isaac Watts
... wonderful change. Even within the memory of some twenty-five years, what events have occurred to verify the remark. Civilization changes all the preconceived perfections of the past, and introduces new scenes of life; it reforms without injuring, and leaves us undecided as to the value of the progress made. New customs and new habits leave man where he was; ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... character as not from Heaven. The one who does not see from this case that the cruel, heartless, selfish teaching of salvation by character contradicts the Lord Jesus, will never see anything contrary to his own preferences and preconceived opinions. ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... must pause. Did he think it, at any subsequent time, worth while "To confer with flesh and blood," or, in modern phrase, to re-examine the facts for himself? or was he ready to accept anything that fitted in with his preconceived ideas? Does he mean, when he speaks of all the appearances of Jesus after the crucifixion as if they were of the same kind, that they were all visions, like the manifestation to himself? And, finally, how is this account to be reconciled with ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... a critic? He is a person who enforces rules upon the artist, like a gardener who snips a tree in order to make it grow into a preconceived form, or grafts upon it until it develops into a monstrosity which he considers beautiful. We have made some advance upon the old savage. The man who went about saying, "This will never do," has become a thing of the past. The modern ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... said rather bitterly. "But you are prejudiced. You cling to a preconceived idea. If you love me—it ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... of the last few months had operated a great change in these impressions. She had seen enough to suspect that the world was a more complicated system than she had preconceived. There was not that strong and rude simplicity in its organization she had supposed. The characters were more various, the motives more mixed, the classes more blended, the elements of each more subtle and diversified, than she had ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... upon the road, she had thought of what she should say when she first met him, but she had soon dismissed all ideas of preconceived salutations, or explanations. She would be there, and that would be enough. Her father's letter was in her pocket, and that was too much. All she meant to do was to glide up to that piazza, spring up the steps, and present herself to her uncle's astonished gaze before he had any idea that ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... were four other solos on the piano and on the violin by boys and girls, children of the invited guests, the violinists having brought their instruments with them. Not that the concert was part of a preconceived program, although it might have been taken for granted. The mothers of the performers had simply seized the opportunity to display the talents of their offspring before ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... these establishments, and indeed to all the sparse population of that country-side. He was a very good and competent guide and courier, possessed with a very amusingly exaggerated notion of his own importance, and rather bad to turn aside from his own preconceived and predetermined methods of doing everything that had to be done. George Eliot at once ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... said my friend, Feedingspoon, "to consider the various stages of the process by which knowledge is disseminated. An inscription (we will say) or an important textual variation is discovered: it is then misinterpreted to fit a preconceived theory; then it is introduced into a cheap German edition, for the School-Use explained. Subsequently, an English school-book is copied from the German: the English commentary is imparted (by me) to undergraduates, in the form of lectures; and the undergraduates' ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... is Electra; and it is noticeable that the apparent direction of its displacement favors the hypothesis of leisurely orbital circulation round the leading star. The larger movements, however, ascribed to some of the fainter associated stars are far from harmonizing with this preconceived notion of what ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... evening Margaret Anglin exposed her version of the comedy. As might have been expected, it has met with some unfavourable criticism. Preconceived notions of Rosalind are as prevalent as preconceived notions of Hamlet. And yet if As You Like It had been produced Monday night as a "new fantastic comedy," just as Prunella was, for instance, I am inclined to think that everybody who dissented ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... sentiment, or a faculty of the pure intellect. And in these arrangements of the Principia of human action, the Spurzheimites, whether right or wrong, in part, or upon the whole, have but followed, in principle, the footsteps of their predecessors: deducing and establishing every thing from the preconceived destiny of man, and upon the ground of the objects ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... have seen in the cases examined, afford conclusive proof of women's power in the maternal family. If this is denied, the only conclusion that suggests itself to me is that, those who seek to diminish the power of mother-right have done so in reinforcement of a preconceived idea of the superiority of the man as the natural and unchanging order in the relationships of the sexes. One suspects prejudice here. To approach this question with any fairness, it is absolutely essential to clear ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... laws. They admit variation as a vera causa in one case, they arbitrarily reject it in another, without assigning any distinction in the two cases. The day will come when this will be given as a curious illustration of the blindness of preconceived opinion. These authors seem no more startled at a miraculous act of creation than at an ordinary birth. But do they really believe that at innumerable periods in the earth's history certain elemental ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... be led away by any preconceived opinion. I put the hypothesis that so and so is guilty, and examine all the arguments in support of that theory; then I submit that the crime was committed by somebody else, and proceed in the same way. My method certainly has the objection that it confronts every ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... attaching through preconceived views a wrong significance to signs is illustrated by an anecdote found in several versions and in several languages, but repeated as a veritable Scotch legend by Duncan Anderson, esq., Principal of the Glasgow Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, when ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... prince's part must spring from his pride, from an unwarrantable mistrust, and his naturally savage and untrained character. Joan received her husband's mother with so much proper dignity in her behaviour that, in spite of preconceived notions, Elizabeth could not help admiring the noble seriousness and earnest feeling she saw in her daughter-in-law. To make the visit more pleasant to an honoured guest, fetes and tournaments were given, the barons vying with ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... came the alarm had not been repeated, and many were persuaded that the assault of the previous day was merely the act of a desperate band which had attacked the settlers without any preconceived plan. Nevertheless Daniel Boone declared that it was necessary to maintain a guard ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... few points still which it were well we should consider. We are all too apt when we sit down to study a subject to have already formed our opinion, and to weave all matter to the warp of our preconceived judgment, to fall in with the received idea, and, with biassed minds, unconsciously to follow in the wake of public opinion, while professing to lead it. To the best of my belief half the dogmatism of those we daily meet is in consequence of the unwitting practices ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... had received confirmation by the finding of the scarabaeus, or, perhaps, by Jupiter's obstinacy in maintaining it to be "a bug of real gold." A mind disposed to lunacy would readily be led away by such suggestions, especially if chiming in with favorite preconceived ideas; and then I called to mind the poor fellow's speech about the beetle's being the "index of his fortune." Upon the whole, I was sadly vexed and puzzled, but at length I concluded to make a virtue of necessity—to dig with a good will, and thus the sooner to convince the visionary, by ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... deny that a thesis of this kind is only in reality a hypothesis, that it goes enormously beyond the certain data of current biology, and that it can only be formulated by anticipating future discoveries in a preconceived direction. Let us be candid: it is not really a thesis of positive science, but a metaphysical thesis in the unpleasant meaning of the term. Taking it at its best, its worth today could only be one of intelligibleness. And ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... our women and children, and charity and friendship, and even a little begging on the street corners. They've both got to harmonize equally. And I've got a few things up my commercial sleeve yet,' says I, 'that may jostle your preconceived ...
— Options • O. Henry
... professor's lecture and for the business of life. Nay more, I declare openly that for these uses the philosophy which I bring forward will not be much available. It does not lie in the way. It cannot be caught up in passage. It does not flatter the understanding by conformity with preconceived notions. Nor will it come down to the apprehension of the vulgar except by its utility ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... may not altogether agree with the reader's preconceived idea of an entertainment presented before Elizabeth, in whose reign letters revived with such brilliancy, and whose court, governed by a female whose sense of propriety was equal to her strength of mind, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... traditions, and racial tendencies must all be taken into account in formulating a definition. Before we can gain a right concept of good citizenship as a world affair we must make a thoughtful study of world conditions. In so doing, we may have occasion to modify and correct some of our own preconceived notions and thus extend the horizon of ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... a long silence; and I for one, amazed at what I had heard—for I had made certain that we were to have struck at Canada—was striving to reconcile this astounding news with all my preconceived ideas. Yet, that is ever the way with us in the regiments; we march, not knowing whither; we camp at night not knowing why. Unseen authority moves us, halts us; unseen powers watch us, waking and sleeping, think for us, direct our rising and our lying down, our going forth and our return—nay, ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... the small of my back, and with difficulty refrained from crying. I had never been wretched just in that way before. Two imperative duties had met plump and face to face, with a shock that jarred all preconceived principles of belief and action out of plumb. Cousin Molly Belle had trusted me to keep her secret, and I saw no way of doing it except to lie outright and repeatedly. The sin lashed my conscience until I could have located in my corporeal frame the ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland |
