"Underrate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... admiration for Turgot, thought him too simple-hearted for a practical statesman, too prone, as noble natures often are, to underrate the selfishness, stupidity, and prejudice that prevail in the world and resist the course of just and rational reform. He described Turgot to Samuel Rogers as an excellent person, very honest and well-meaning, but so unacquainted with the world and human nature that it was a maxim with him, ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... manliness run toward the types of maturity. The mind in its reaches toward strength and completeness creates a heart-sympathy—which in its turn craves fulness. There is a vanity too about the first steps of manly education, which is disposed to underrate the innocence and unripened judgment of the other sex. Men see the mistake as they grow older; for the judgment of a woman, in all matters of the affections, ripens by ten ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... at length on Hamlet's melancholy because, from the psychological point of view, it is the centre of the tragedy, and to omit it from consideration or to underrate its intensity is to make Shakespeare's story unintelligible. But the psychological point of view is not equivalent to the tragic; and, having once given its due weight to the fact of Hamlet's melancholy, we may freely admit, or rather may be anxious ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... statements and reasons from diverse sources, different minds come to different statistical conclusions. Dean Milman ("Hist. of Christianity," vol. ii. p. 341) when deliberately weighing opposite opinions, says cautiously, that "Gibbon is perhaps inclined to underrate" the number of the Christians. He adds: "M. Beugnot agrees much with Gibbon, and I should conceive, with regard to the West, is ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... human consciousness. It surveys the streams of belief, and may trace up these streams to their highest springs; but it does not, it cannot, create a new truth, or give birth to a higher certitude. We have no disposition, assuredly, to underrate the value of philosophical reflection, or to disparage the science of Psychology; the former may collect the materials and the latter may attempt the construction, of a goodly and solid fabric: but we cannot admit that the certainty of all our knowledge ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... calfdom and whelpage that you smile at I would have you throb with. You underrate the firstlings of the heart, the rose and white blossoming, the call upon the senses and the readiness to respond and to fulfil, to give and to take, to be and make happy—the great pride and utter abandon which ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... imaginative courage which made Nelson our starry admiral. Would he be given the ghost of a chance now of putting that gift at his country's disposal? I do not think he would, and I do not think he would because we underrate gifts and exceptional qualities, because there is no quickening appreciation for the exceptional best in a man, and because we overvalue the good behaviour, the sound physique, the commonplace ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... of de Spain's condition unsettled her resolution. Tales enough of his bloodthirstiness, his merciless efficiency, his ever-ready craft and consummate duplicity were familiar to her—most of them made so within the last three days—for no one in her circle any longer professed to underrate the demonstrated ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... that service has to pursue the minor and slightly mechanical routine of Whitehall. You will not misunderstand me, because nobody knows better than a Minister how tremendous is the debt that he owes to the permanent officials of his department. Certainly I have every reason to be the last man to underrate that. Well, any of you may be rapidly placed in a position of real command with inexorable responsibilities. I am speaking in the presence of men who know better than I do, all the details, but it is true that one of you in a few years may be placed in command of ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... Olivia, the impression they had made on him grew stronger. He was too good a judge of men not to perceive that the budding dramatist had the intelligent imagination which makes for real shrewdness, and he was not disposed to underrate the value of the imagination in forming judgments of men and women. Probably Colonel Grey was a man of less intensity of emotion than Mr. Manley had declared, and Lady Loudwater less subtile and intelligent. But, after making these reductions, he had here possible ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... she still works (half by touch, indeed) at her pillow-lace, was glad to hear me read the letter aloud more than once. It recounts—how modestly, and almost as a matter of course!—his late successes. And yet!—does he, in writing to these old people, purposely underrate his great good fortune and seeming happiness, not to shock them too much by the contrast between the delicate enjoyments of the life he now leads among the wealthy and refined, and that bald existence of theirs in his old home? A life, agitated, exigent, unsatisfying! That is what this letter ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... stripped of all our romantic notions in regard to the "king of beasts"! We suspect that the Doctor, disgusted with the "twaddle" that has undoubtedly been talked in all ages about the "magnanimity" of the "noble" lion and his "terrific aspect," has been led unintentionally to underrate him. In this land we have opportunities of seeing and hearing the lion in his captive state; and we think that most readers will sympathise with us when we say that even in a cage he has at least a very grand and noble aspect; and that, when about to be fed, ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... don't for a moment imagine I underrate the function of the preacher. There's nothing better than a good sermon,—one that puts new life into you. But what of a sermon that takes life out of you? instead of a spiritual fountain, a spiritual sponge that absorbs your powers of body and soul, so that the longer you listen the ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... crossing with important papers, agreements, and chemicals, they will be on the lookout for us and we will have a good chase if we manage to escape. I don't say this to scare you boys; but you are here, and I don't want you to underrate the present danger. I will be good and glad to get across myself. Not a word of ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... will and purpose to live it out. And this is because the thought of truth and goodness excites no such strength of feeling as that of some lower gratification. We cannot perhaps overrate the value of intellect; we certainly underrate the value of emotion and feeling. "Knowledge puffeth up, love buildeth." It does not require great intellect, it does require intense feeling to be a hero. We slander the emotions by calling people emotional ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... importance. I do not underrate the value of kindness and love in any system of government, whether in the household, the school, the stable, the menagerie, or in civil society. But love is not the basis of government. Obedience is yielded to ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... expected that, after a short period of restlessness, all the potentates of Christendom would acquiesce in the arrangements made by the late Emperor. But the selfish rapacity of the King of Prussia gave the signal to his neighbors. His example quieted their sense of shame. His success led them to underrate the difficulty of dismembering the Austrian monarchy. The whole world sprang to arms. On the head of Frederic is all the blood which was shed in a war which raged during many years and in every quarter of the globe,—the blood of the column of Fontenoy, the blood ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... certainly be the last to underrate the part which the self-assertion of the individual has played in the evolution of mankind. However, this subject requires, I believe, a much deeper treatment than the one it has hitherto received. ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... only really delightful when transfused into some form of art. I have no desire to underrate the services of laborious scholars, but I feel that the use Keats made of Lempriere's Dictionary is of far more value to us than Professor Max Muller's treatment of the same mythology as a disease of language. Better ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... response; "but as I say, she is a stupid woman. Vanity in crime is fatal; it leads the criminal to underrate the intelligence of others. Lady ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... equipped and provisioned;" and he stated, as the result of personal observation, that England could not be too energetic in, its measures of resistance. He had done something with his little fleet, but he was no braggart, and had no disposition to underrate the enemy's power. "God make us all thankful again and again," he observed, "that we have, although it be little, made a beginning upon the coast of Spain." And modestly as he spoke of what he had accomplished, so with quiet self-reliance did he allude to the probable consequences. It was certain, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... is a command, and Elizabeth would have felt bound to obey this summons, but she was sick when it came. At least she was not well, and she was not much disposed to underrate her sickness for the sake of being able to travel on this occasion. The officers of her household made out a formal certificate to the effect that Elizabeth was not able ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Christ's teaching about God and its essential harmony with the highest philosophic teaching about duty, about the divine nature, about the soul and its eternal destiny. The Ritschlian is too much disposed to underrate the value of all previous religious and ethical teaching, even of Judaism at its highest: he is not content with making Christ the supreme Revealer: he wants to make him the only Revealer. And when we turn to post-Christian religious history, he is apt to treat all the great developments ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... of modest scruples! You underrate yourself, Everett. You are the very man for a clergyman, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... a teacher should not underrate the value of reviews. By this means fix facts on the minds of your pupils, especially the meanings of roots and prefixes. Since these meanings are given in a single word, ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins
... emergency finds a hero calm and strong, and strong because calm and clear-sighted; he sees what can be done, and does it. This is often a thing of great simplicity, so that we marvel others did not see it. Now it has been done, and proved successful, many underrate its value, thinking that they also would have done precisely the same thing. The world is more just. It refuses to men unassailed by the difficulties of a situation the glory they have not earned. The world knows how easy most things appear when they have once been ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... and coarse, carried down annually by rivers from the higher regions to the lower, and deposited in successive strata in the basins of seas and lakes, must be of enormous volume. We are always liable to underrate their magnitude, because the accumulation of strata is going on out ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... corrupted all who came to her; she has been the paralysis of Islam. But the Islam of the Turk is a different thing from the Islam of the Arab. That was one of the great progressive impulses in the world of men. It is our custom to underrate the Arab's contribution to civilisation quite absurdly in comparison with our debt to the Hebrew and Greek. It is to the initiatives of Islamic culture, for example, that we owe our numerals, the bulk of modern mathematics, ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... completely executed the worthiest design. But no worthy design can need a false apology; and it is worse than idle to prevaricate. That is but a spurious modesty, which prompts a man to disclaim in one way what he assumes in an other—or to underrate the duties of his office, that he may boast of having "done all that could reasonably be expected." Whoever professes to have improved the science of English grammar, must claim to know more of the matter than the generality ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... describe; but, considering amongst themselves that should the king take this bewitching girl to wife, he would become so entangled in the meshes of love as totally to neglect the affairs of the state, they underrate her beauty to the king, who then gives up all thought of her. But it chanced one day that the king himself beheld the damsel on the terrace of her house, and, perceiving that his vazirs had deceived him, he sternly reprimanded them, at the same time expressing his fixed resolution of marrying the ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... the advantage which the elections and the temperate instructions gave them; and in the hope that the elect would be at least as reasonable as the electors, they threw away their greatest opportunity. There was a disposition to underrate dangers that were not on the surface. Even Mirabeau, who, if not a deep thinker, was a keen observer, imagined that the entire mission of the States-General might have been accomplished in a week. Few men saw the ambiguity hidden in the term Privilege, and the ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... which from the nature of things is unattainable by any Englishman or Irishman. His utterances will moreover command the more respect from the consideration that De Beaumont, belonging as he did to the school of his intimate friend De Tocqueville, was inclined rather to overrate than to underrate the virtues of self-government; whilst as a Frenchman he possessed a knowledge which cannot fall to any Englishman of the benefits conferred upon the people by a good administration of the French type. The following extracts from a chapter too long for complete citation, which ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... that girl, in the kindest, gentlest way, that I could not consent to deliver judgment upon any one's manuscript, because an individual's verdict was worthless. It might underrate a work of high merit and lose it to the world, or it might overrate a trashy production and so open the way for its infliction upon the world: I said that the great public was the only tribunal competent to sit in judgment upon a literary ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... very generally concerning the great inferiority of the ancients in naval skill, requires also to be confined strictly to nautical knowledge, and should not lead us to underrate their mechanical powers, or their means of transporting objects of as great bulk as ourselves by sea. The parade which was made at Paris about transporting the obelisk from Egypt, and erecting it in the Place de ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... complaints poured into the Fukuhara mansion. Meanwhile the Minamoto rose. In August of 1180, their white flag was hoisted, and though it looked very insignificant on the wide horizon of Taira power, Kiyomori did not underrate its meaning. At the close of the year, he decided to abandon the Fukuhara scheme and carry the Court back to Kyoto. On the eve of his return he found an opportunity of dealing a heavy blow to the monasteries of Miidera and Nara. For, it having been discovered that they were in collusion ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... do. Should she go on at once to San Francisco, or telegraph to her father and await him at San Jose? In either case a new fear of the precipitancy of her action and the inadequacy of her reasons had sprung up in her mind. Would her father understand her? Would he underrate the cause and be mortified at the insult she had given the family of his old friend, or, more dreadful still, would he exaggerate her wrongs and seek a personal quarrel with the major. He was a man of quick temper, ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... defective intelligence, or from that caste feeling which makes it hard for the professional soldier to recognise (in spite of deplorable past experiences) a serious adversary in the mounted farmer, it is certain that even while our papers were proclaiming that this time, at least, we would not underrate our enemy, we were most seriously underrating him. The northern third of Natal is as vulnerable a military position as a player of kriegspiel could wish to have submitted to him. It runs up into a thin angle, culminating at the apex in a difficult pass, the ill-omened Laing's Nek, dominated ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... young once, and almost as popular a preacher as Mark, and he did not underrate the difficulties. But it was his firm persuasion that, with tact and common-sense they were by no means insurmountable. What really distressed the old man was that perhaps Mark had been right in thinking that he personally could not surmount them. And it was Canon Nicholls's doing ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... happily accorded with his intellectual impotence and with the nullity of his legislative conceptions." Once he has rattled his revolutionary pedantry off, he no longer knows what to say.—As to financial matters and military art, he knows nothing and risks nothing, except to underrate or calumniate Carnot and Cambon who did know and who took risks.[3184]—In relation to a foreign policy his speech on the state of Europe is the amplification of a schoolboy; on exposing the plans of the English minister he reaches the pinnacle of chimerical nonsense;[3185] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... race-hatred; and he contrives to preserve all the characteristics of an ideal type amid surroundings of intensely prosaic realism, with which he himself, moreover, considered as an individual character in a specific story, is in complete, accord. If any one be disposed to underrate the creative and dramatic power to which this testifies, let him consider how it has commonly fared with those writers of prose fiction who have attempted to personify a virtue in a man. Take the work of another famous English humourist and sentimentalist, and compare Uncle Toby's manly ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... are by no means the least beautiful. It is too much the fashion to underrate the artistic value of the less pretentious forms of needlework, and especially of flat ornament, which has, nevertheless, its own very important place in decoration. As for geometric pattern, that is quite beneath ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... very few of them left. He feared that the Turk would bring some such punishment upon them, and he prayed God to avert it. Finally, he bade them remember not to buckle on their armour too loosely, and underrate their enemies, as Germans were too prone to do. He warned them not to tempt God by inadequate preparation, and sacrifice the poor Germans at the shambles, nor as soon as the victory was won to 'sit down again and carouse until the ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... illustrative narration of police management in Naples, the arrangement for which they had especially come, and which had been apparently denied, was already in active operation. The reasons which had induced the Superintendent to underrate to Harding and Leslie the importance of the intelligence he had just received, or which had led to so sudden a change of mind, will probably remain a mystery even after the profounder mysteries of governmental ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... favourable analysis of the sister, and it was quite reasonable, therefore, to believe that Talbot was a man not likely to be easily duped. The principals in this crime were evidently well aware of the trust reposed in the Assistant Under-Secretary, and they, again, would not underrate his intelligence. Hence there was a good cause for Talbot to accept the explanations, whatever they were, given him during the conclave in the dining-room; the effect of which, in Inspector Sharpe's words, had been to ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... the struggles of the present for a better future; and that she is resolved to join. It is the part of the men to aid her in ridding herself of all superstitions, and to step forward in their ranks. Let none underrate his own powers, and imagine that the issue does not depend upon him. None, be he the weakest, can be spared in the struggle for the progress of the human race. The unremitting dropping of little drops hollows in the end the hardest stone. Many drops make a brook, brooks make rivers, ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... been predicted by a less sagacious observer of human affairs. For it is to be chiefly ascribed to a law as certain as the laws which regulate the succession of the seasons and the course of the trade winds. It is the nature of man to overrate present evil, and to underrate present good; to long for what he has not, and to be dissatisfied with what he has. This propensity, as it appears in individuals, has often been noticed both by laughing and by weeping philosophers. It was a favourite theme of Horace and of Pascal, of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... she intrusted all the management of affairs, is not the least important personage in this drama, nor did he underrate his own consequence. "Heaven," said he, "is a hundred years in forming a great mind for the restoration of an empire, and it then rests another hundred years; on this account I tremble for the fate which awaits this ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... impression that he is more a thinker than a poet: that his poems not only are each inspired by some leading idea, but have grown up in subservience to it; and those who hold this view both do him injustice as a poet, and underrate, however unconsciously, the intellectual value of what his work conveys. For in a poet's imagination, the thought and the thing—the idea and its image—grow up at the same time; each being a different ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... they are not strained, and they are twice blest. There must always be two to a kiss, and there may be a score in a jest; but wherever there is an element of sacrifice, the favour is conferred with pain, and, among generous people, received with confusion. There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy, we sow anonymous benefits upon the world, which remain unknown even to ourselves, or, when they are disclosed, surprise nobody so much as the benefactor. The other day, a ragged, barefoot boy ran down the street after a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... myself to consider," says one, "how gladly would I sacrifice myself to attack this wrong or that iniquity." We need offer no opinion about the moral quality of such a position; enough to say that it is idle to ignore, or even to underrate, the force ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... mysteries whereof the Captain was not also versed. When Columbus wanted to keep his sailors quiet on that wondrous voyage over an unknown ocean to the Western world, the diplomatic admiral made so bold as to underrate the length of each day's sail in an unveracious log, which he kept for the inspection of his crew; but no doctoring of the social log-book could ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... given schools to develop brain power, and I do not underrate their value. He has nearly entered into his domain as far as the material forces are concerned, but there is a moral and spiritual element in humanity which eludes his grasp in practically everything he undertakes. This lack of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... re-origination is the method of Nature, I do not overlook the element nor underrate the importance of Imitation. This it is that secures continuity, connection, and structural unity. By vital imitation the embryonic man assumes the features and traits of his progenitors. After birth the infant remains in the matrix of the household; after infancy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... really in the Indies. Now, isn't it much better to supply a French product to the Indians than to send them back what they are supposed to send to us? Make the venture. Begin the fight in India, in foreign countries, in the departments. Macassar Oil has been thoroughly advertised; we must not underrate its power, it has been pushed everywhere, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... come now to a subject which, perhaps, ought to have been my first. How glad I was to get your letter from Britain! I was afraid of the ocean, afraid of the coast of the island. The other parts of the enterprise I do not underrate; but yet they inspire more hope than fear, and it is the suspense rather than any positive alarm that renders me uneasy. You, however, I can see, have a splendid subject for description, topography, natural features ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... difficulty, impediment and labour, in the handling of material do not constitute higher nobility, then painting and sculpture form one art. This being granted, it follows that no painter should underrate sculpture, and no sculptor should make light of painting. By sculpture I understand an art which operates by taking away superfluous material; by painting, one that attains its result by laying on. It is enough that both emanate from the same human intelligence, and consequently ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... not the part of prudence to be inattentive to the tendencies of measures. Where there is any ground to fear that these will be pernicious, wisdom and duty forbid that we should underrate them. If we reject the treaty, will our peace be as safe as if we executed it with good faith? I do honor to the intrepid spirit of those who say it will. It was formerly understood to constitute the excellence of a man's faith to believe ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... a delicate instinct that made him underrate the feat he had performed, for he would have been so glad to have her feel under the slightest obligation to him; but as far as her perceptions were concerned, the beauty of his sentiment was lost, for when he said that the thing that he had done ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... me. Do not think I am decrying a classical education; and, as the daughter of a great mathematician, it is not likely that I should underrate mathematics as a mental discipline. I am only urging that they should be subordinated to ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... of struggle, fired at in front, sniped at from behind—and no one who saw what he had to do after he came home from Europe in meeting the great new problems which grew out of the war—will for a moment belittle the immensity of his task, or underrate his extraordinary endurance, energy, ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... the uses to which the common man's patriotic devotion may be turned, there is no intention to underrate its intrinsic value as a genial and generous trait of human nature. Doubtless it is best and chiefly to be appreciated as a spiritual quality that beautifies and ennobles its bearer, and that endows him with the full ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... last bond of the nation is cancelled at Washington amid public rejoicings! A republic's part is to give less advanced nations, still under the influence of feudal institutions, such lessons as this will be. Do not let us, however, underrate England's part in. such a work. She has reduced her public debt wonderfully, and the next twenty years is to see seventy millions sterling more extinguished, unless legislation now existing for this end ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... interposed George quickly, "you underrate Professor Keredec's shrewdness. His plans are not so simple as you think. He knows that my cousin Louise never obtained ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... very pretty and touching. Her action has, in truth, its springs in a most commendable sentiment that I should be the last to underrate. Shady Dell Farm is interesting, too, for once, if one can swallow one's wrath and dudgeon at being taken there against one's will; and one feels that Jane's parents and Jane's early surroundings must be worth a single visit, if they could produce a donkey ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... seance, which was considerably irksome, being protracted by endless psalm singing. What I want to do—with Miss Cook's permission—is to calculate the chances of her being sufficiently athletic to perform the tricks herself, without the aid of spirits. Does she not underrate her unaided powers in assigning a supernatural cause for the ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... then, not by reason of her dress, as most of your sex are, but in spite of it. You women always underrate physical ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... themselves to her sovereignty. Had such terms been proposed, they would have rejected them with disdain, and trusted for better to the moderation of their enemies, or to a vigorous exertion of their own force. We do not, however, mean to underrate those aids, which, to us, were doubtless valuable, on whatever principles granted: but we would show that they cannot give a title to that authority which the British Parliament would arrogate over us; and that they may amply be repaid, by our giving to ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... great, whose greatness makes the smallness of all the other things. And so Hermione said, "the little that I have," and there was truth in it. And there was as vital a truth in the fact of her whole nature recognizing that little's enormous value to her. Not for a moment did she underrate her possession. Indeed, she had to fight against the tendency to exaggeration. Her intellect said to her that, in being so deeply moved by such a thing as the concealment from her by Vere of something innocent of which Emile knew, she was making a water drop into ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... Mingo's conscience. No, no; off hands, or we shall see which can make the stoutest battle; you and your men of the 55th, or the Sarpent here, and Killdeer, with Jasper and his crew. You overrate your force, Lieutenant Muir, as much as you underrate Eau-douce's truth." ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... the cant of the day to underrate the House of Commons, and the work which it performs; don't you suffer yourself to join in the chorus of the simpletons. Your time cannot be better employed than in endeavouring to ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... of the bearing and whole scope of even Scripture declarations concerning the profounder aspects of Christ's person and work, and yet be holding fast to Him by living confidence. I do not wish to underrate for one moment the absolute necessity of clear and true conceptions of revealed truth, in order to a vigorous and fully developed faith; but, while there can be no faith worth calling so, which is not based upon the intellectual reception of truth, there may be faith based upon the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... successful must be one which is established by the people themselves from a realization of their needs, and progressively developed as they appreciate its worth. As Dean A. R. Mann recently said, "In dealing with rural affairs it has long been a common mistake to underrate the validity of the farmer's own judgment as to what is good for him." "Superimposed organizations are usually doomed to failure because they express the judgments of those without the community rather than those within whom they are intended to serve." "Ordinarily the most serviceable rural organizations ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... population of Olympus. For Leo, prodigal of his money, and disliking to be surrounded by any but cheerful faces, displayed a generosity in his gifts which was fabulously exaggerated in the hard times that followed. His reorganization of the Sapienza has been already spoken of. In order not to underrate Leo's influence on hu- manism we must guard against being misled by the toy-work that was mixed up with it, and must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the apparent irony with which he himself sometimes treated ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... that from Canada would be determined the attitude of the savages dwelling in the wild spaces of the interior; he saw, too, that Quebec as a military base in British hands would be a source of grave danger. The easy capture of Fort Ticonderoga led him to underrate difficulties. If Ticonderoga why not Quebec? Nova Scotia might be occupied later, the Acadians helping. Thus it happened that, soon after taking over the command, Washington was busy with a plan for ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... direction he might turn he would find a trail of blood and fire over the fair face of his dominions in the Mediterranean. Although it might gall his pride to admit that his enemy was formidable, Charles was too wise a man, too experienced a warrior to underrate his foe. He repaired the fortifications of Naples and Sicily at great cost: he wrote letters to the Pope, to Andrea Doria, to the Viceroys of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, to the Marquis de Vasto, and Antonio de Leyva to collect all the arms and munitions ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... island mines didst slumber long; But now thou art come forth to move the earth, And put to shame the men that mean thee wrong: Thou shalt be coals of fire to those that hate thee, And warm the shins of all that underrate thee. ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... would underrate Cooper's abilities If I thought you'd do that, I should feel very ill at ease; The men who have given to one character life And objective existence, are not very rife, You may number them all, both prose-writers and singers, Without overrunning the bounds of your fingers, And Natty won't ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... found in documents inscribed on parchment, and beginning, "This indenture made," etc., or "Noverint universi per presentes." It is with no disrespect for the enthusiasm of Mr. Knight, and as little disposition to underrate the laborious researches of Mr. Collier and Mr. Halliwell, that we thus reiterate the assertion of the world's ignorance of Shakespeare's life: nay, it is with a mingled thankfulness and sorrowful sympathy that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... friends, I think, underrate this speech. It has produced a greater effect here than any other single speech. It is the real platform in the Eastern States, and must carry the conservative element in New York, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... some other contribution from each individual, besides the particular duties of his profession. And, if no such liberal intercourse be established, it is the common failing of human nature, to be engrossed with petty views and interests, to underrate the importance of all in which we are not concerned, and to carry our partial notions into cases where they are inapplicable, to act, in short, as so many unconnected units, displacing ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... inferior importance to the music; the composer quite eclipses the author. A musician has been known to call a libretto the "verbiage" of his opera. The term was not perhaps altogether inappropriate. Even actors are apt to underrate the importance of the speeches they are called upon to deliver, laying the greater stress upon the "business" they propose to originate, or the scenic effects that are to be introduced into the play. They sometimes describe the words of their parts ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... Vane," the note of bitterness had vanished; her voice was now earnest, almost grave, "you weren't despondent when you were facing an angry mob after doing me a service I shall never forget. You underrate yourself." ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... affected by any calamity as to neglect his duty. It is, indeed, friendly in you, Fannius, to tell me that better things are said of me than I feel worthy of or desire to have said; but it seems to me that you underrate Cato. For either there never was a wise man (and so I am inclined to think), or if there has been such a man, Cato deserves the name. To omit other things, how nobly did he bear his son's death! I remembered Paulus, [Footnote: Paulus Aemilius, who lost two sons, one a few days before, the other ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... pursued Godwin, with the modulated, moving voice which always expressed his genuine feeling, 'I seem anything but lovable. I don't underrate my powers—rather the opposite, no doubt; but what I always seem to lack is the gift of pleasing—moral grace. My strongest emotions seem to be absorbed in revolt; for once that I feel tenderly, I have a hundred fierce, resentful, tempestuous moods. To be suave and smiling ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... is danger that the Southern whites will, as a rule, misinterpret the meaning of the exodus. Many are inclined to underrate its importance, and those who appreciate its significance are apt to look for temporary and superficial remedies. The vague promises made at the Vicksburg convention, which was controlled by the whites, and called to consider ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... dispositions; and one of the principal causes of their being so predominant, or even of their existence, is their inordinate lust for power. When they possess this, it is accompanied by a haughty, consequential, and ostentatious bravery. No greater affront can be offered to a Sulu, than to underrate his dignity and official consequence. Such an insult is seldom forgiven, and never forgotten. From one who has made numerous voyages to these islands, I have obtained many of the above facts, and my own observation assures me that this view of their ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... but I say, Maurice, you must not underrate Lilias. She has gone through a good deal with Dolores, and I believe she has been the making of her. You've had to leave the poor child a good deal to herself and Fraulein, and, as you see by this affair, she had some ways that made it hard for ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... down, and not to argue down an opponent. Mr Walter Long will be vindicating the cause of law and order in one sentence, and inciting "Ulster" to bloodshed in the next. This is not hypocrisy, it is genius. It is also, by the way, the genesis of the Irish Question. If anyone is disposed to underrate the mad passions of which race hatred can slip the leash, let him recall the crucial examples which we have had in our own time. We have in our own time seen Great Britain inflamed by two frenzies—against France, and against the Boer Republics. In the history of public opinion there are no two ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... call him intellectual, and more artistic than inspired, I have no wish to underrate the intrinsic poetry in such lines as these, on ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... still think you rather underrate the importance of isolation. I have come to think it very important from various grounds; the anomalous and quasi-extinct forms on islands, etc., ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... "No, I am not afraid of him, but I don't underrate him. The men look up to Torrini as a sort of leader; he's an effective speaker, and knows very well how to fan a dissatisfaction. Either he or some other disturbing element has recently been at work among the men. There's considerable grumbling in ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the present, made up, as it too generally is, of shreds and patches—bits of gold and bits of tinsel—things written in a hurry to be read in a hurry, and never thought of afterward—suggestive rather than reflective, at the best; and we must plead guilty to a too great proneness to underrate what our ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... your little ones," Mrs. Hare resumed. "That is grief—great grief; I would not underrate it; but, believe me, it is as nothing compared to the awful fate, should it ever fall upon you, of finding your children grow up and become that which makes you wish they had died in their infancy. ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Grace pitching into the Serpentine, unless it were his Grace dragged out again. Mr. Carvel's advent has been a Godsend to us narrow ignoramuses of this island, gentlemen. To the Englishmen of our colonies, sirs, and that we may never underrate ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... do not deceive yourself. You perhaps underrate your own industry. It is very difficult matter to decide how much we can do and how much we ought to do, in the way of study. No mere thinking can determine this matter for us. It can only be decided by being able to see what others do and ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... be careful not to underrate the real value of the Peruvian system; nor to suppose that the quipus were as awkward an instrument, in the hand of a practised native, as they would be in ours. We know the effect of habit in all mechanical operations, and the Spaniards bear constant testimony to the adroitness and accuracy ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... remarkable production, "The Mysterious Mother." (40) In speaking of the latter effort of his genius, (for it undoubtedly deserves that appellation,) an admirable judge of literary excellence has made the following remarks; "It is the fashion to underrate Horace Walpole firstly, because he was a nobleman, and secondly, because he was a gentleman: but, to say nothing of the composition of his incomparable letters, and of "The Castle of Otranto," he is the Ultimus Romanorum, the author of the 'Mysterious Mother,' a tragedy of the highest order, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... Peiraeus, he urged the necessity of taking prompt measures for placing the city in a thorough state of defence. He had no fear, he said, of the ultimate triumph of Syracuse in the approaching struggle: only let them be on their guard, and not underrate the power of the enemy whom they would have to face. The words of Hermocrates, who enjoyed a high reputation for valour, patriotism, and sagacity, were not without their effect, and it was resolved that the generals ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... constantly lapsing into fierceness, and if we forget this lurking bellicosity and admiration for hard blows in our own nature then we shall set about the task of making an end to it under hopelessly disabling misconceptions. We shall underrate and misunderstand altogether the very powerful forces ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... me caution you—do not temporize with him. He stands in the North for oppression; gain at any cost; for debauchery—everything that you do not. Between you and Brute MacNair there can be no truce. He is powerful. Do not for a moment underrate either his strength or his sagacity. He is a man of wealth, and his hold upon the Indians is absolute. I cannot remain with you, but through my Indians I shall keep in touch with you, work with you; and together we will accomplish the downfall of ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... swerve by one hair's breadth from the path which I have laid down for myself. It is well that I have seen all this"—and she pointed to the newspaper—"for it has given me a new view of the man. I shall not be so likely to underrate him now; and being forewarned I ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... is docile and eager to learn. His interest embraces everything, and most of all what is foreign. He is disposed to admire everything foreign and to underrate what is his own. With foreigners it is just the other way. We Germans know about them, but they know absolutely nothing about us.—PROF. A. LASSON, D.R.S.Z., ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... not underrate his strength and cunning, but if he is engaged in plotting, in actual treason, or what is very near it, your coming may help us to prove it and thus strengthen the hand of Bernardo Galvez, ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the Marquis is an able general, wily and brave. He showed his quality at Fort William Henry and we mustn't underrate him, though I am afraid that's what we'll do; besides the forest ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... attempt by the conditions laid down for this Chair. I gather—and my own perusal of the poem and of much writing about it confirms the belief—that it has been largely over-praised by some critics, who have thus naturally provoked others to underrate it. Such things happen. I note, but without subscribing to it, the opinion of Vigfusson and York Powell, the learned editors of the "Corpus Poeticum Boreale," that in the "Beowulf" we have 'an epic completely metamorphosed in form, blown out with long-winded empty repetitions and ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... by no means intended to underrate technical proficiency. No one can be a satisfactory exponent of music whose technique is deficient, however profound may be his musicianly understanding and feeling. At the same time, with every tone, every measure, mechanically ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... be supposed, however, because I speak of these differences as not fundamental, that I wish to underrate their value. They are important enough in their way, the structure of the foot being in strict correlation with that of the rest of the organism in each case. Nor can it be doubted that the greater division of physiological ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley
... was very gradual and marked by many relapses. In her treatment as in our ideas as to the causation of the disorder, we put the accent on the psychic rather than on the physical factors. We did not however underrate the latter but constantly sought to improve her bodily health and condition. When at her worst in 1911 her weight, taken monthly, was round about one hundred and sixty pounds. In 1912 it went up from ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... to underrate the services which, by sound precept and invaluable example, Mr. Lang has rendered to all of us who use the English tongue. Conservatism and liberalism are as inevitable, nay, indispensable, in the world of words as in the world of deeds; and I trust Mr. Lang will not ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... must never forget that. But what true man of letters ever can forget it? It is no such common matter for a gifted nature to come into possession of a current of true and living ideas, and to produce amidst the inspiration of them, that we are likely to underrate it. The epochs of AEschylus and Shakespeare make us feel their preeminence. In an epoch like those is, no doubt, the true life of literature; there is the promised land, towards which criticism can only beckon. That promised land it will not be ours to enter, and we shall die in the wilderness: ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... We must not underrate the enemy. He is powerful and cunning—and cruel and ruthless. He will stop at nothing that gives him a chance to kill and to destroy. He has trained his people to believe that their highest perfection is achieved by waging war. For many years he has ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... with good reason. An officer belonging to a British man-of-war would call you out for questioning his claim to the epithet. But I think you underrate your skill with the small-sword. I've seen you doing very well ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... And for the 'psychological' side of the question, do observe that I have not reputation enough to suggest a curiosity about my legends. Instead of your 'legendary lore,' it would be just a legendary bore. Now you understand what I mean. I do not underrate Pope nor his school, but I do disesteem everything which, bearing the shape of a book, is not the true expression of a mind, and I know and feel (and so do you) that a girl's exercise written ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... though less valuable, is of the same purport, that "it is vain to underrate either the man or his conspiracy.... He is the farthest possible removed from the ordinary ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... something could be done by an energetic business man like yourself. As for poor me I feel that I am a child in business matters. I can invent and perfect the invention, and demonstrate its uses and practicability, but 'further the deponent saith not.' Perhaps I underrate myself in this case, but that is not a ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... been selected for publication in these volumes possess a value, as examples of the art of public speaking, which no person will be likely to underrate. Those who may differ from Mr. Bright's theory of the public good will have no difficulty in acknowledging the clearness of his diction, the skill with which he arranges his arguments, the vigour of his style, the persuasiveness of his reasoning, and above all, the perfect candour and sincerity ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... the background of darkness we cannot admire the light as a single and created thing. As soon as we have seen that darkness, all light is lightening, sudden, blinding, and divine. Until we picture nonentity we underrate the victory of God, and can realize none of the trophies of His ancient war. It is one of the million wild jests of truth that we know ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... the seven deadly virtues, Gladys. You, as a good Tory, must not underrate them. Beer, the Bible, and the seven deadly virtues have made our England ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... however, probable that these as much underrate the vigor and effect of the attack, as Sickles may overstate it. It is not impossible that some portion of the Eleventh Corps position was actually reached by these columns. The road down which the movement was made strikes the plank road ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... and could be guilty of no sin, as only exercising their rights of liberty. Madame de Bourignon was an excellent woman, but Leslie and Lavington[632] showed that some of her writings seem dangerously to underrate good works. Moravian principles, lightly understood, made Herrnhut a model Christian community; misunderstood, they became pretexts for the most dangerous Antinomianism.[633] An example may even be quoted from the last ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... world, and which lasted six months, when, thinking he could do better, he cut me, as he had done others before. I am not a fair judge of him, because the pique which his conduct to me naturally gave me would induce me to underrate him, but I take vanity and self-sufficiency to be the prominent features of his character, though of the extent of his capacity I will give no opinion. Let time show; I think he will fail. [Time did show ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... we are not so aisy schooled, By slanders bought wid Saxon goold; They'll find, who think us so aisy fooled, How much they underrate us. Then up, mavrone! and take your stand, The layder of the Faynian band, And King you'll soon be of the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various
... thing of the past in so far as it can never win the war for the enemy or enable the enemy to prevent us from winning the war, provided we do not underrate the danger but take adequate steps against it, I affirm now as the opinion of the British Admiralty; but it is a menace ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... which the numbers and strength of our fleet would be reduced to such a point that they would be able to steel their hearts and come out and fight. [Cheers.] We have been at war for five or six weeks, and so far—though I would certainly not underrate the risks and hazards attending upon warlike operations and the vanity of all overconfidence—but so far the attrition has been on their side and not on ours, [cheers,] while the losses which they have suffered greatly exceed any that ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... wonderfully yielded; the danger now is, not that people should obstinately refuse to allow anything but their old routine to pass for reason and the will of God, but either that they should allow some novelty or other to pass for these too easily, or else that they should underrate the importance of them altogether, and think it enough to follow action for its own sake, without troubling themselves to make reason and the will of God prevail therein. Now, then, is the moment for culture to be of service, culture which believes ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... of women must be that which rightly provides the whole environment. The simpler our conception of woman, the more we underrate her complexity and the manifoldness of her needs, the more certainly shall we repeat in one form or another the errors ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... enterprising officer's annoyance. The situation was temporarily relieved, but the assistance thus afforded was no better than a plaster on a large wound. Here again we find Flinders accurately and fully informed: Decaen did not underrate his "dangerous" potentialities. "The ordinary sources of revenue and emolument were nearly dried up, and to have recourse to the merchants for a loan was impossible, the former bills upon the French treasury, ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... provocation for her treatment of Ireland. Once convinced that his cause was righteous, he never flinched. He believed that false views of the Irish question prevailed in America, and that he could set them right. He did not altogether underrate the magnitude of the enterprise. "I go like an Arab of the desert," he wrote to Skelton a little later: "my hand will be against every man, and therefore every man's hand will be against me."* A belief in Ireland's wrongs was part of the American creed, like the faithlessness ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... therefore, if there are any real and peculiar sources of trial and difficulty in this pursuit, that they should be distinctly known and acknowledged at the outset. Count the cost before going to war. It is even better policy to overrate than to underrate it. Let us see, then, what the ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... In antiquity Europe excels; but in natural picturesque scenery the majestic grandeur of our West is so far ahead of anything to be seen in Europe, even in beautiful Switzerland, that the alien beholder cannot but express wonder and admiration. Baedeker has made a mistake in his attempt to underrate America and Americans, its institutions and their customs. True, our nation is in a crude state as compared with the old monarchies of Europe, but in enterprise, business qualifications, politeness, literary and scientific attainments, and in fact all the essential qualities ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... self-sacrifice, its ethical purity and nobility, which apostles have pictured, in which armies of martyrs have placed their unshakable faith, and whence obscure men and women, like Catherine of Sienna and John Knox, have derived the courage to rebuke popes and kings—is not likely to underrate the importance of the Christian faith as a factor in human history, or to doubt that if that faith should prove to be incompatible with our knowledge, or necessary want of knowledge, some other hypostasis ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... ramparts of sin and idolatry in Africa? Surely we cannot concede that the light of the Crescent is greater than the glory of the Cross, that there is less constraining power in the Christ of Calvary than in the Prophet of Arabia? I do not think that I underrate the difficulties in your way when I say that you young men are holding in your hands golden opportunities which it would be madness and folly to throw away. It is your grand opportunity to help build up a new South, not on the shifting sands ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... not in the middle. This is knowing not only that the earth is round, but knowing exactly where it is flat. Christian doctrine detected the oddities of life. It not only discovered the law, but it foresaw the exceptions. Those underrate Christianity who say that it discovered mercy; any one might discover mercy. In fact every one did. But to discover a plan for being merciful and also severe— THAT was to anticipate a strange need of ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... at ease in a conversation with her father; she could not follow him, and did not like to show it. She answered aside from the mark, "You would not have Blanche underrate ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... fashion of the present age to underrate the influence of individual character. For myself, I have ever rejected this consolation of mediocrity. I believe that everything that is great has been accomplished by great men. It is not what witnessed at Munich, or know of its sovereign, that should make me doubt the truth of my conviction. ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... against the government of Rome. The veteran leader professed a great contempt for his young adversary, "I should whip the boy," he said, "if I were not afraid of the old woman" (meaning Pompey's colleague). But he took good care not to underrate him in practice, and put forth all his skill in dealing with him. Pompey's first campaign against him was disastrous; the successes of the second were checkered by some serious defeats. For five years the struggle continued, and seemed little likely to come to an ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... to Lady Susan Condit that they owed this inestimable benefit; an advantage ranking in Miss Pinsent's opinion above even the lawn tennis courts and the resident chaplain. It was the fact of Lady Susan's annual visit that made the hotel what it was. Miss Pinsent was certainly the last to underrate such a privilege:—"It's so important, my dear, forming as we do a little family, that there should be some one to give the tone; and no one could do it better than Lady Susan—an earl's daughter and a person of such determination. Dear Mrs. Ainger ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... case, my friend; but do not imagine that I underrate my little niece. My remark was to the effect that I do not see that she does more, though I have no manner of doubt that her pretty little head thinks a great deal more. Now we will get up here, as the road is more level for a bit. D'you see the group of alders down in the hollow yonder, ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... their guard, and inspire them to plan something very subtle and dangerous. Or if, then, their hate did not take so serious a form, the Dictator reasoned that they were not particularly dangerous. So he insisted on lying low, and quietly seeing what would come of it. He was not now disposed to underrate the danger, but he felt convinced that the worst possible course for him would be to proclaim the danger ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... 104. Gentleman's Magazine, 1758, p. 498. Malartic, Journal du Regiment de Bearn. Levis, Journal de la Guerre en Canada. The French notices of the affair are few and brief. They admit a defeat, but exaggerate the force and the losses of the English, and underrate their own. Malartic, however, says that Marin set out with four hundred men, and was soon after joined by an additional number of Indians; which nearly answers ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... the foot.] You wouldn't underrate your power if you had seen him, heard him, about an hour ago—[mockingly] after he had ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... proper station in society, to make him wise and happy, an honest man, a virtuous citizen, and a good patriot, by furnishing him with a comfortable school-house, suitable class-books, competent teachers, and, if he is poor, paying his quarter bills, while they greatly underrate, if they do not entirely overlook, that high moral training, without which knowledge is the power of doing evil rather than good. It may possibly nurture up a race of intellectual giants, but, like the sons of Anak, they will be far readier to trample down the Lord's heritage than to ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... literary ideas, and do the best I can, very gladly," said Van Berg. "But you greatly underrate yourself and overrate my ability. I am still but on the edge of this wilderness of knowledge myself, and in crossing a wilderness ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... on the subject of the New England poets a word about the present misunderstanding and tendency to underrate them may not be out of place. Because it is growing to be the consensus of opinion that the two greatest poets America has produced are Whitman and Poe, it does not follow that the New-Englanders must ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... exposed to great dangers from within and without; the reins must be held very firmly in order to conduct the ship of state safely through the breakers, and I believe I am the man to do it. You see, count, I do not underrate my own importance. I know only too well that Austria needs me. Still, the plots and conspiracies that are merely directed against myself, make me laugh. For let me tell you, my dear little count, I really fancy that my person has nothing to fear either from daggers, or ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... err. Possibly I underrate my strength of mind and the influence of habit, which makes easy to us every path; but I will not ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... heart-knowledge of pure womanhood could have come otherwise than by the impression on the child's soul of a mother's purity. I seem to have a vision of one of those women whom the world knows not of, silent, deep-hearted, loving, whom the coarser and more practically efficient jostle aside and underrate for their want of interest in the noisy chitchat and commonplace of the day; but who yet have a sacred power, like that of the spirit of peace, to brood with dovelike wings over the childish heart, and quicken into life the struggling, slumbering ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... have hinted, in the main paragraph above, that it is a common error of our prosodists, to underrate, by one foot, the measure of all trochaic lines, when they terminate with single rhyme; an error into which they are led by an other as gross, that of taking for hypermeter, or mere surplus, the whole rhyme itself, the sound or syllable ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... we mount the pyramids. Be bold—be resolute when the clouds gather, difficulties are surmounted by opposition. Self-confidence, self-reliance is your capital. Your conscience the best monitor. Never be over-sanguine, but do not underrate your own abilities. Don't be discouraged. [Transcriber's Note: The original text reads 'Nintynine'] Ninety-nine may say no, the [Transcriber's Note: The original text reads 'hundreth'] hundredth, yes: take ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs |
