Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Confuse   Listen
adjective
Confuse  adj.  Mixed; confounded. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Confuse" Quotes from Famous Books



... a primitive or original language which it is time to leave behind us. We no longer divide languages into synthetical and analytical, or suppose similarity of structure to be the safe or only guide to the affinities of them. We do not confuse the parts of speech with the categories of Logic. Nor do we conceive languages any more than civilisations to be in a state of dissolution; they do not easily pass away, but are far more tenacious of ...
— Cratylus • Plato

... denunciation of a Christian ceremony, even what may be deemed a perverted Christian ceremony, as sheer "idolatry," equivalent to the worship of serpents, bulls, or of a foreign Baal in ancient Israel—was a step calculated to confuse the real issues and to provoke a religious war of massacre. Knox, we know, regarded extermination of idolaters as a counsel of perfection, though in the Christian scriptures not one word could be found to justify his position. He relied on texts about massacring Amalekites and about Elijah's slaughter ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... quietly there till the signal was given to start. Then each cavalier essayed to reach the ball first. The sudden urging of the steeds to instant action seemed to confuse them. They did not spring, as they should have done like arrows from bows. One rider wildly kicked with his heels and shook his reins. The horse turned round, as if in contempt, from the ball. Another applied his whip with vehemence, but his ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne

... all three of the strings of the unison before he could tune another interval by it, and it would not be so safe to tune by as a single string, as there might be a slight discrepancy in the unison giving rise to waves which would confuse the ear. The tuner should hear but two strings at once while setting a temperament; the one he is tuning by and the one he is tuning. A continuous mute is a strip of muting felt of the proper thickness to be pushed ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer

... the music seemed to confuse him as much as the game, which grew every moment more and more intricate; the players, brandishing their brushes, flew round, and the balls flashed about, and at last all that Felix could see was a mass of dazzling rainbow ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various

... word mammal, the word animal has been used throughout as having a better defined meaning to the average child. A conscientious effort to avoid technical terms and descriptions has been made that there may be nothing to confuse the young mind. Clarity and simplicity have been the ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess

... not the greatest puzzle which helped to confuse Mark Eden, for there was his father's conduct, so directly opposed to everything which had gone before; but at last, after fighting with his confusion for some time, his head grew clearer, and he ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

... therefore, a perfect homogeneity between the Empire and myself."—"However," says Metternich, "I have often thought that Napoleon, by talking in this way, merely sought to study the opinion of others, or to confuse it, and the direct advance which he made to Louis XVIII., in 1804 seemed to confirm this suspicion. Speaking to me one day of this advance he said, 'Monsieur's reply was grand; it was full of fine traditions. There is something ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... mean, my dear,' said her aunt, stretching out her hand, kindly; 'but I do not think you can do any good. If she is in a scrape, you have nothing to do with the High School management, and for you to burst in would only annoy Miss Leverett and confuse the affair. Oh, I know your impulse of defence, dear Gillian; but the time has not come yet, and you can't have any reasonable doubt that Jane will be just, nor that your mother would wish that you should be quiet ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... line trenches in the war of competition. The folly of recommending that every one-pound coffee carton, for instance, should be of exactly the same size and shape is immediately apparent; but let us not confuse such unification with standardization. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... we got the ship which could have reported our action off Meriden. I'm sure we've sent four shiploads of food back to the fleet, besides the passenger-ship we'd rather have missed. But there's still something to be done. To confuse Mekin and keep it busy, and therefore off Kandar's neck, we have to start trouble elsewhere. From now on we are pirates ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... I said. 'How do you dare to confuse labour and prayer? Learn from me, my friend, that work is work, and prayer is prayer. It is written in the old wisdom—"Six parts of thy time shalt thou work for thy bread, and on the seventh thou shalt pray." Orare est ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... however, all are mere inventions as the book is supposed to be kept in the Prophet's family, nor will it be fully explained until the Mahdi or Forerunner of Doomsday shall interpret its difficulties. The vulgar Moslems of India are apt to confuse Al-Jafr with Ja'afar bin Tayyar, the Jinni who is often quoted in talismans (see Herklots, pp. 109-257). D'Herbelot gives the sum of what is generally known about the "Jafr" (wa Jami'a) under the articles "Ali" ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... be so rude as to call him an old boy, yet, being always clad in a middle-aged habit, an elderly coat, and adult pantaloons, one would as little fancy him a young man. Perhaps the fact of his wearing his father's wardrobe in all its unaltered amplitude might help to confuse one's ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... distinctly remembered cashing over the counter for him a cheque for no less a sum than six thousand pounds to "self or bearer." Had the brothers, then, been deliberately and nefariously engaged in a deep-laid scheme—the cashier asked himself, much puzzled—to confuse one another's identity with great care beforehand, with a distinct view to the projected murder? For as yet, of course, nobody on earth except Guy Waring himself on the waters of Biscay knew or suspected anything ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... saints, Count Corti, thou dost confuse me the more! With such odds against thee, what preparations were at ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... ran blindly on, resorting at intervals to his old trick of doubling back, to confuse his pursuers. He did this so well that before long he had lost his sense of direction, and the sun having gone from the sight of man behind a mass of dark ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... quality and powers with the nature of man and of the feminine animals, and would perhaps do more wisely if they stopped dumb before what lies beyond and above these levels. For beyond, man reads but to misread—studies but to vex and confuse himself, and—shall I say it?—learns to sneer at rather than to reverence what baffles his inquiries. Does this statement seem harsh? Is it doubted? See its truth. The only science (so called) which ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... attempt to reconstruct no matter what period of the past, to distinguish the difference in the aspect of a world perhaps bossed with castles and ridged with ramparts, to two individualities encased within chain-armour! Flaubert chose his antiquity wisely: a period of which we know too little to confuse us, a city of which no stone is left on another, the minds of Barbarians who have left us no psychological documents. 'Be sure I have made no fantastic Carthage,' he says proudly, pointing to his documents; ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... "I do not confuse them, my dear sir. My apparent indifference is simply scorn for the sarcasms, the cruelty of the people of society who are always ready to rejoice when anyone attacks the honour or ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... names of Detachment and Mortification. By Detachment they mean the eviction of the limpet from its crevice; the refusal to anchor yourself to material things, to regard existence from the personal standpoint, or confuse custom with necessity. By Mortification, they mean the resolving of the turbulent whirlpools and currents of your own conflicting passions, interests, desires; the killing out of all those tendencies ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill

... everything. Umballa had some definite plan in releasing Colonel Hare. It would confuse the public, who had been given to understand that the hunter was dead; but they would claim that it was an affair of state, in nowise concerning the populace. So Colonel Hare was brought up. Ramabai instantly signaled him to smother his joy. But it was not necessary for the colonel to pretend ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath

... carry out our plan. Though Mac had good nerve, it was already somewhat shaken, and surely the situation would have unnerved most men. Therefore, fearing that the certain knowledge of imminent danger might still further confuse him and cause some false move, we determined to ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... to shave his head. He did so, and the communication appeared. We must suppose that the operations on the part of Aristagoras for the purpose of completing the cure consisted, probably, in pricking in more ink, so as to confuse and ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... understand a foreign country; but it gives them the fatal illusion that they do understand it. Dollars stood for America as frogs stood for France; because it was necessary to connect particular foreigners with something, or it would be so easy to confuse a Moor with a Montenegrin or a Russian with a Red Indian. The only cure for this sort of satisfied familiarity is the shock of something really unfamiliar. When people can see nothing at all in American democracy except a Yankee running after a dollar, then the only thing ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... maintained, not, as so often was said, unpopular; a third of the House belonged to them; they were not necessarily opposed to freedom; they were, at least, the truest defenders of the State. Let people not confuse patriotism and Liberalism. Who had done more for the true political independence of the State, that independence without which all freedom was impossible, than the Prussian nobles? At the end of the Seven Years' War boys had stood at the ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam

... caveatted, raising his hand. "I do not acquit you nor exonerate you. But I do make allowances. And we must distinguish. We must not confuse the causes of my disapprobation of what you did with my reasons for believing that no harm resulted. Nor, for that matter, must we confound with either of them those qualities in yourself and those circumstances of the case which make me feel, illogically ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... silence either, and perhaps now and then a hasty turning away of the head, or drooping of the eyes towards the ground, all these minor circumstances, with a disinclination to have candles introduced and a tendency to confuse hours with minutes, are doubtless mere influences of the time, as many lovely lips can clearly testify. Neither is there the slightest reason why Mrs Nickleby should have expressed surprise when, candles being at ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... this parallel in the discussion of the Homeric house. All Icelandic chiefs' houses in the tenth and eleventh centuries were not precisely uniform in structure and accommodation, and saga writers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, living more comfortably than their forefathers, sometimes confuse matters by introducing the arrangements of their own into the tale of past times. But, in any case, one Icelandic house of the tenth or eleventh century might differ from another in certain details. It is not safe, therefore, to argue that difference ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... the last four weeks. Suddenly you are called upon to play in company. You choose this Nocturne because you have played it nearly every day for four weeks. But alas! the piano fiends have come to confuse you! You strike a false bass note, and at the modulation the weak little finger touches too feebly: bah! the fundamental tone is wanting. You are frightened, and grow still more so; your musical aunt is frightened also; the blood rushes to your teacher's face, ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck

... Art of Thinking: Language is evidently, and by the admission of all philosophers, one of the principal instruments or helps of thought; and any imperfection in the instrument, or in the mode of employing it, is confessedly liable, still more than in almost any other art, to confuse and impede the process, and destroy all ground of confidence in the result. For a mind not previously versed in the meaning and right use of the various kinds of words, to attempt the study of methods of philosophizing, would be as if some one should attempt to become an astronomical ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... waited, listening to the buzz of voices, till I wondered in my impatience what they could be discussing, and longed to ask our guide, but feared lest I should confuse him, now that perhaps he was about to do us good service ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn

... sarcastically, "that you would hardly approve any social reform which threatened to interfere with your own business methods. But no matter how you disapprove of socialism on general principles, as a leader of the capitalist class you should understand what socialism is, and not confuse one of the most important movements in modern world-history with the crazy theories of irresponsible cranks. The anarchists are the natural enemies of the entire human family, and would destroy it were their dangerous doctrines permitted ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein

... Do not confuse me with speaking. (Continues reading) "Bear me to Argos, my brother, before I die, remove me from this barbarian land and the sacrifices of the Goddess, in which I have the office ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... that's what we shall do; but don't be in such a hurry. You only confuse a fellow," answered Darby, trying to speak lightly, although his lips were quivering. He had sought up and down, backwards, forwards, and roundabout, but still could see neither track nor footmark—just trees, tall trees everywhere, one seeming the exact ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur

... about race, which many people wrongly confuse with nationality. So far as elementary rights are concerned there can be no question as to the attitude of Liberalism. When the political power which should guarantee such rights is brought into view, ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse

... nowhere more himself than when he declares that every one would leave philosophy to take care of herself at the first summons of duty. [65] This subordination of the theoretical to the practical led him to confuse in a rhetorical presentation the several parts of philosophy, and it seeks and finds its justification to a great extent in the endless disputes in which in every department of thought the three chief schools were involved. Physics (as the term was understood in his day) ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... words: "They have invented a kind of accumulated or constructive evidence; by which many actions, either totally innocent in themselves, or criminal in a much inferior degree, shall, when united, amount to treason." The conclusion is, that Mr. B. is a Cambridge man; the Oxford men do not confuse the elementary terms of logic. O dear old Cambridge! when the New Zealander comes let him find among the relics of your later sons some proof of attention to the elementary laws of thought. A ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... God but as an incensed judge, and prescribe certain methods of appeasing him—a certain price—in consideration of which He is willing to sell forgiveness; men who accurately draw the distinction between the different kinds of faith—faith historical and faith saving; who bewilder and confuse all natural feeling; who treat the natural love of relations as if it were an idolatry as great as bowing down to mammon; who make intelligible distinction between the work that may and the work that may not be done on the Sabbath-day; who send you into a perilous consideration of the workings ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... remains which tends to confuse the student as to what really constituted opera. This is owing to the fact that there existed the very important element of improvisation, of ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell

... ardent, and a little morbid, are led by the noblest motives to do what is unwise and scarcely right. Mara is not an ordinary girl, and cannot be judged by common standards. Be assured, she would die rather than deceive you to your harm, but a purpose to do you good might confuse both her judgment and conscience, especially if it involved self-sacrifice on her part. You must not blame me if I wish to be more thoroughly convinced. Yes, you can ask Cousin ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... call to New Scotland Yard in London took a little more time, and several arguments with bored overseas operators who, apparently, had nothing better to do than to confuse the customers. But Malone finally managed to get Assistant Commissioner C. E. Teal, who promised to check on Malone's inquiry ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett

... that effect at the end of these notes. If you are an impatient reader, skip to them at once. In reading aloud, omit, if you please, the sixth and seventh verses. These are parenthetical and digressive, and, unless your audience is of superior intelligence, will confuse them. Many people can ride on horseback who find it hard to get on and to get off without assistance. One has to dismount from an idea, and get into the saddle again, at ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... door, a massive thing of solid brassy metal, such as interested the doctor immensely but only served to confuse the explorer. A little farther on, and the corridor became pretty dark. She passed another brass door, and approached the end of the pavement. There was one more door there; and she noted with excitement that it ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint

... I have often asked you not to confuse the English people with their cursed Puritans. There have always been in this country a large number of men who have done their best to destroy the strength and reputation of our Empire. Up to the time of good Queen Bess, these scoundrels were kept ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois

... accused of the assistance of an advocate in examining witnesses and defending himself. All depended, as they knew and told Sir Edmund Nutley, on the judge and jury. Now Mr. Baron Hatsel had shown himself a well- meaning but weak and vacillating judge, whose summing up was apt rather to confuse than to elucidate the evidence; and as to the jury, Mr. Lee scanned their stolid countenances somewhat ruefully when they were marshalled before the prisoner, to be challenged if desirable. A few words passed, into which ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Carlingford. The deep border of fur round the velvet, the warm waddings and paddings, the close fit up to the throat, were excellencies which warranted Janey's tour of inspection. Phoebe perceived it very well, but did not confuse the girl by taking any notice, and in her heart she was herself slightly pre-occupied, wondering (as Ursula had done) what the man had come here for, and what he would say when he saw her. Both of these ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... equal, be not scornful toward him because he is lowly. Let him alone; then shall he confound himself. Question him not to please thine heart, neither pour out thy wrath upon him that is before thee; it is shameful to confuse a mean mind. If thou be about to do that which is in thine heart, overcome it as a ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn

... asked him; she pressed her questions, she hinted about Zosia, and began to jest with him. Thaddeus was unmoved; leaning on his elbow, he kept silent, frowned, and puckered his lips: so much the more did he confuse and amaze Telimena. Suddenly she changed her countenance and the tone of her discourse; she arose in wrath, and with sharp words began to shower on him sarcasms and reproaches. Thaddeus, too, started up, as ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... should not prize you, you elude me in a thousand ways. Lest I should confuse you with the crowd, you stand aside. I know, I know your art, You never walk the ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore

... financial emergency nearly every country has, at one time or another, been tempted to confuse the monetary with the fiscal functions of the Treasury. To borrow by the issue of money seems to have a seductive charm hard to resist. Lloyd George established a new precedent for Great Britain by issuing nearly $200,000,000 ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... stage-carpenter, has the face and bearing of a day-laborer. His blue woollen shirt does not confuse him, as he is used to it. He has an oldish face, wrinkled by fearful anticipations, and his hair is thin. He is awkwardly built, and watches the trial earnestly, as if striving to catch between the links ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... of shame, do unwisely undertake to possess themselves of the cities, and by fraud to draw thereunto their adherents; then they make show of keeping peace, but in the meantime they contrive how to separate and confuse the whole body, and of the members to make a massacre; they secretly fall upon Hamburg, upon Minden, and Frankfort. They might more wisely go to work, if by open wars they assailed us. At Augsburg they ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther

... or less obscure ways, call up reserves of energy in the service of the activity in connection with which the emotion has been aroused. While very violent emotions, as in the case of extreme anger or fear or pity, confuse, disorganize, and even paralyze action, in more moderate form they rather serve to stimulate and reinforce it. Emotions are, in many cases, merely the inner or subjective awareness of one of these great driving forces, or a complex of them. Anger, pity, and fear, in their less extreme forms, ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... this characteristic among the Chinese, Sir John Bowring (late Governor of Hong-Kong) affirms that the Chinese respect their writings and traditions, whilst they do not believe a lie to be a fault, and in some of their classical works it is especially recommended, in order to cheat and confuse foreign intruders (vide "A Visit to the Philippine Islands," by Sir John Bowring, LL.D., F.R.S. Manila, 1876 ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... the precise language necessary in addressing the king at the first audience, which he had signified his readiness, to grant on the morning of the fourth day. The general insisted that it be interpersed with so much latin as to confuse both the king and the interpreter, though both were profound scholars. "I have rare skill in mixing latin, as your excellency knows but you grind it up so in the delivery that neither the king nor the devil ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... years in India had served to confuse his perception of the conduct of affairs at home. He did not in the least appreciate the men with whom he had to deal. If he gauged pretty closely the malignity of Francis, he may have fancied that the malignity was not very ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... African growth known locally, from its catching qualities, as the Wait-a-bit-thorn, and as rapidly as they could go Dickenson led his men to that, finding, as he expected, just enough cover in the midst of a perfectly bare plain, if not to shelter lying-down men, at least to blur and confuse the enemy's marksmen. Here he gave the order, "Dismount!" Lennox was laid flat upon his back, to lie without motion, and each man took the best shelter he could; while the ponies, not being trained like the modern ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn

... associated with Trennahan,—not once, but many times. She had made up her mind with the right instinct that the thing to do was to blunt her sensibilities. By the third day she had ordered the earlier associations on duty, and managed to confuse them somewhat with those which had held possession for so brief a time. She was determined to succeed. She had no right to love the husband of another woman, and suffering was something so much more terrible than anything her imagination had ever hinted ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... of Taurus, Aldebaran (alpha), is celebrated for its reddish color. The precise hue is rather uncertain, but Aldebaran is not orange as Betelgeuse in Orion is, and no correct eye can for an instant confuse the colors of these two stars, although many persons seem to be unable to detect the very plain difference between them in this respect. Aldebaran has been called "rose-red," and it would be an interesting occupation for an amateur to determine, with the aid of some proper ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss

... placed had belonged to papa's Sunday-school, and they were all very kind to me, and told the others who I was; so from the outset I felt myself among friends. In two weeks I had grown used to the work; the noise of the looms did not frighten or confuse me, and it did not tire me to stand so many hours. I found that I should soon be able to do most of my work mechanically, and think about what I pleased in the mean time. So I hoped to be able to study at home and recite my lessons to myself in the mill. The only thing that troubled me ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson

... otherwise motionless. The newcomer continued to prance alarmingly and to wield his arms as if against an invisible opponent. Secretly he had no mind to combat. His real purpose became presently clear. It was to intimidate and confuse until he should be near enough the desired delicacy to snatch it and run. He was an excellent runner. His opponent perceived this—the evil glance of desire and intention under all the flourish of arms. Something had to be done. Without warning ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... their most valuable discoveries. But why should a work planned so sanely have met with so fantastic a fate? By what freak of destiny should it have proved the cause of the monstrous aberration of my mind? But let me not anticipate events nor confuse dates. My dissertation was intended to be read at a public sitting of the five academies, a distinction all the more precious, as it rarely falls to the lot of works of this character. These academic gatherings have for some ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France

... of tactics, these competitive leaders, have endeavored to confuse the question, and to mystify the people, by raising the cry of over-production! The inexorable law of supply and demand! The impossibility of our manufacturers longer competing in the markets of the world, against the cheap products of the pauper labor ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... to light the way for us, as we wandered around, nor did the silence of midnight give promise of our meeting any wayfarer with a light; in addition to this, we were drunk and unfamiliar with the district, which would confuse one, even in daylight, so for the best part of a mortal hour we dragged our bleeding feet over all the flints and pieces of broken tile, till we were extricated, at last, by Giton's cleverness. This prudent youngster had been afraid of ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... themselves, their ignorant folly is only equalled by their arrogance. It is as though a handful of schoolboys were to dictate to their masters alterations in the traditional time-table, or to insist on a modified curriculum.... These worthy people [officials] confuse manly independence with disloyalty; they cannot conceive of natives except either as rebels or ...
— The Case For India • Annie Besant

... that the Elector was the really important and serious candidate. Henry knew full well that Neuburg was depending on the Austrians and the Catholics, and that the claims of Saxony were only put forward by the Emperor in order to confuse the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... is a proud and vaulting ambition. Philadelphia lawyers are exceedingly astute, and are able to confuse the simplest propositions, thus hopelessly befogging judge and jury. On the banks of the Schuylkill all jurors are provided with dice so as to decide the cases with perfect justice—small dice for ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... us the class of the person whom we are addressing, unless indeed he belongs to the higher sections of the nobility. There the difficulty is much greater. Even a Master of Arts in our University of Wentbridge has been known to confuse a ten-sided with a twelve-sided Polygon; and there is hardly a Doctor of Science in or out of that famous University who could pretend to decide promptly and unhesitatingly between a twenty-sided and a twenty-four sided member of ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott

... from purely mercenary motives, and that the mixed moods of hope and despair may disquiet or delight men and women who know love only as a carnal appetite. We now take up our sixth ingredient—Hyperbole—which has done more than any other to confuse the minds of scholars as regards the antiquity of romantic love, for the reason that it presents the passion of the ancients in its most poetic and ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... were made of. Wherfore thou scholdest thenke and impresse it in thi mynde, that nothing is immortalle, but only God, that made alle thing. Be the whiche answere, Alisandre was gretly astoneyed and abayst; and alle confuse departe from hem. And alle be it that theyse folk han not the articles of oure feythe, as wee han, natheles for hire gode feythe naturelle, and for hire gode entent, I trowe fulle, that God lovethe hem, and that God take hire servyse to gree, right as he did of Job, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt

... amount to much; and what bad qualities, you may be sure they are not very important! Do not make too much fuss about either. Do you see? The thing is that you, you yourself, are not ANY of your qualities—you are the being that perceives them. The thing to see to is that they should not confuse you, bamboozle you, and hide you from the knowledge of yourself—that they should not be erected into a screen, to hide you from others, or the others from you. If you cease from running after qualities, then after a little time your soul will become purified, and you will KNOW that your self ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... easily see that the party they were attacking must be something of an athlete, from the way in which he fought. It is not easy to resist the assault of three enemies at once, since they may attack from as many directions, and confuse his defense; still the way this man struck out, dodged, tore himself free from their clinging hands, and conducted himself in general surprised Max ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie

... we translate this into more general terms we shall find that its meaning is that the State has an ethical or moral purpose or function; the State exists to secure and to maintain justice. You must not, indeed, confuse this great conception with that foolish perversion of it which was suggested, I think, by some characteristically reckless phrases of St. Augustine, stated in set terms by St. Gregory the Great, ...
— Progress and History • Various

... the keys only to snatch them away again as if they were white-hot metal, and Serviss fancied her cheek grew pale. The third time she clashed out a few jarring chords intermixed with quite astonishing roulade on the treble—an unaccountable interruption, as if a third hand had been thrust in to confuse her. She stopped, and he began to ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... many cases in which the induction of abortion is not only justifiable, but imperative; but that is a different question, and the two issues must not be confused. And we would and should resent any attempt on the part of either enemy or friend to so confuse them. ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson

... esprit la preoccupation que fait naitre l'idee de magnetisme ... je lui dis "Regardez-moi bien et ne songez qu'a dormir. Vous allez sentir une lourdeur dans les paupieres, une fatigue dans vos yeux: ils clignotent, ils vont se mouiller; la vue devient confuse: ils se ferment." Quelques sujets ferment les yeux et dorment immediatement.... C'est le sommeil par la suggestion, c'est l'image du sommeil que je suggere, que j'insinue dans le cerveau. Les passes, la fixation des yeux ou des doigts de l'operateur, propres seulement a concentrer l'attention, ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... make due allowance for our instinctive tendency as a white group to disparage outsiders, and, on the other hand, for our tendency to confuse progress in culture and general intelligence with biological modification of the brain, we shall have to reduce very much our usual estimate of the difference in mental capacity between ourselves and the lower races, if we do not eliminate it altogether; and we shall perhaps have to abandon ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... first plan was to confuse Wellington, who held the right of the allied line, then fall upon him before he had time to concentrate, and beat him or contain him with a detachment under Ney, while the Emperor in person thereafter put Bluecher to rout—and all of these things he came very near accomplishing completely. ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... confuse this work with that of the Intuition, which is a very different mental phase or plane. This sub-conscious working, just mentioned, plays an entirely different part. It is a good servant, and does not try to be more. The Intuition, on the contrary, is more like a higher friend—a friend at ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... rip.' So he stamped on the accelerator. Only it turned out to be the foot-brake after all, and we stopped dead, and skidded into a ditch. The advice I give to every young man starting life is: 'Never confuse the unusual and the impossible.' Take the present case. If you had only realised the possibility of somebody some day collaring your study, you might have thought out dozens of sound schemes for dealing with the matter. As it is, you are unprepared. The thing comes on you as a surprise. ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... courage it takes to defend Christian virtues when they are sneered at under the guise of "jokes." Let us exercise charity by not quoting instances, but let us be watchful of our laughter and our fellowship, which are both gifts of God, and see that we do not confuse pagan pleasure with Christian joy, the evil sneer with the tender recognition of the absurd in ourselves and in others. It is Mr. Chesterton again who points out the fact that the pagan virtues of justice and the like ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... in the full morning sunlight, was like to gladden the eyes of all mankind. She was beautiful, and all adjectives applicable would but serve to confuse rather than to embellish her physical excellence. She was as beautiful as a garden rose is, needing no defense, no ramparts of cloying phrases. The day of poets is gone, otherwise she would have been sung in cantos. ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... blood in the body of the giant were being opened up; iron fields were being discovered; the roar and clatter of the breathing of the terrible new thing, half hideous, half beautiful in its possibilities, that was for so long to drown the voices and confuse the thinking of men, was heard not only in the towns but even in lonely farm houses, where its willing servants, the newspapers and magazines, had begun to circulate in ever increasing numbers. At the town of Gibsonville, near Bidwell, Ohio, and ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... As it was, the dagger cut through his clothes, and punctured his side. Seeing his associates thus hard beset, Dr. Grant, who was behind, ran up and brought his riding whip with such force across the villain's eyes, as to confuse him for the moment, and in the confusion the party ran into a house and barred the doors. The priest received a cut in the head, but Mr. Perkins was not seriously wounded. Through the efforts of the British ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson

... down its net of crime;—Devouring insects, who weary and confuse men's minds, Ignorant, oppressive, negligent, Breeders of confusion, utterly perverse:—These are the ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... place, we must be careful never to confuse the terms vocation and avocation, for ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... question: Had the unlucky rider received help or not? How had he left the place—on his own feet, or with assistance? The scouts settled that in a minute's close search. They had taken care not to potter about and confuse the spoor with their own markings. They soon came to the conclusion that such marks as they could find were made by the rider when he had dragged ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... require of me:—I cannot think, cried she, of rendering unhappy a person who so much deserves to be blessed:—and what but misery would attend a match so unequal as yours would be with me!—How would your kindred brook it!—How would the world confuse and ridicule the fondness of an affection so ill placed!—What would they say when they should hear the nobly born, the rich, and the accomplished monsieur du Plessis, had taken for his wife a maid obscurely defended, and with no other dowry than her virtue!—My very affection for you would, ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... feeling, lay beneath. CE QUE C'EST QUE DE NOUS! poor human nature; that at past forty I must adjust this hateful mask for the first time, and rejoice to find it effective; that the effort of maintaining an external smile should confuse ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Sometimes people confuse elasticity with action and reaction. But the differences between them are very clear. Action and reaction happen at the same time; your body goes up at the same time that you pull down on a bar to chin yourself; while in elasticity a thing moves first one way, then the other; you ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... General Sherman declined to assume command because, he said, it would confuse the records; but he let all the orders be made in my name, and was glad to render any assistance he could. No orders were issued by my staff, certainly no important orders, except upon consultation with and ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... to a sentinel's challenge intended to confuse or mislead him are prohibited, but the use of such an answer as "Friends with the countersign," is not to be understood as misleading, but as the usual answer made by officers, patrol, etc., when the purpose of their visit makes it desirable that ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... all over—you will discover no more agreeable institution of its kind than the Venables Free Library, Merchester; which, by the way, you are on no account to confuse with the Free Public Library attached to the Shire Hall. In the latter you may study the newspapers with all the latest financial, police and betting news, or borrow all the newest novels—even this novel which I am writing, should the Library Sub-Committee of the Town Council (an austerely ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... leaping to his feet and pacing back and forth before Jason, clasping and unclasping his hands with agitation. "You seek to confuse me with your semantics and so-called ethics that are simply opportunism and greed. There is a Higher ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey

... (ta'arraba); hence called Muta'arribah or Arabised Arabs. (Pilgrimage iii. 190.) He died at Meccah and was buried with his mother in the space North of the Ka'abah called Al-Hijr which our writers continue to confuse with the city ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... (Histoire de la Litterature Grecque, vol. ii, ch. v), "to discuss the exact quality of this friendship or this love, or to seek to determine with precision the frontiers, which language itself often seems to seek to confuse, of a friendship more or less esthetic and sensual, of a love more or less Platonic." (See also J.M. Edmonds, Sappho in the Added Light of the New Fragments, 1912). Iwan Bloch similarly concludes (Ursprung der Syphilis, vol. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... now he could not realize all that was meant by that quiet confession. The iron discipline of years would not relax instantly; in spite of the boldness of his utterance, he was still the soldier, feeling the chasm of rank. Her very confession, so simply spoken, tended to confuse, to mystify him. ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish

... tendency to expansion. The "will to power" is the essence of the State. "The State is power" (Der Staat ist Macht) must ever be the first axiom of political science. Muddled political thinkers, who confuse the spiritual with the temporal activities of man, may hold that the end of the State is social justice, or the diffusion of light, or the propagation of religion, or the advancement of humanity. But the cause of justice, the spread of education, will ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... started us promptly for the range, surely the oddest sight that we have presented so far. In front went a huddle of men with benches, chairs, and tables, lamps for blacking the sights (lest they glitter and confuse the eye), the captain's megaphone, and the ammunition. We followed at route step in our greatcoats, some of us carrying ponchos, and except for our rifles and belts, no other equipment. Discipline was relaxed today, for the captain, hopeful of good ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... country as indisputable proof that he was an habitual drunkard, though the most remarkable characteristic of his speeches is their temperance,—their "total abstinence" from all the intoxicating moral and mental "drinks" which confuse the understanding and mislead the conscience. He could not borrow money on his note of hand, like any other citizen, without the circumstance being trumpeted abroad as incontrovertible evidence that Nick Biddle had paid ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... got to the second? What was the use of bringing out half a hundred separate principles or views for the refutation of the separate counts in the Indictment, when rejoinders of this sort would but confuse and torment the reader by their number and their diversity? What hope was there of condensing into a pamphlet of a readable length, matter which ought freely to expand itself into half a dozen volumes? What ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... face, but her tears ceased as abruptly as they had commenced, and, noting the slowly growing radiance of her expression, Campbell was stricken dumb with fright at the possible consequences of temerity. The knowledge of his shortcomings robbed him of confidence and helped to confuse him. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... of the geological formation of mountains and their various methods of origin in language so clear and untechnical that it will not confuse even the most ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... distinguish it from tourmaline (which it may resemble in color). Its double refraction is very large also, so that the doubling of the edges of the rear facets may easily be seen through the table with a lens. The dichroism is feeble too, whereas that of tourmaline is strong. No one would be likely to confuse the stone with true emerald after studying ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade

... addition to lowering the lights at night, the authorities intend, in order to confuse the enemy, to alter the names of some of our thoroughfares, and a start is to be made with Park Lane, which is to ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various

... ideas so intimately as has happened splendidly between Picasso and Braque, which is in the nature of professional dignity among artists, there is bound to be more or less confusion even to the highly perceptive artist and this must therefore confuse the casual observer and layman. So it is, or was at that time with the painting of Robert Delaunay and Mme. Delaunay Terck; what you learned in this instance was that the more vigorous of the pictures were hers. She showed the same strength ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... closely the quality of the feeling for her which had leaped up so unexpectedly. He was afraid to dig too deep. He had got a glimpse of depths and eddies that night which if they did not wholly frighten him, at least served to confuse him. They were like flint and steel, himself and Betty Gower. They could not come together without striking sparks. And a man may long to warm himself by fire, MacRae reflected gloomily, but ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair



Words linked to "Confuse" :   bother, bedevil, put off, muddle, embarrass, fluster, perplex, disorient, obscure, modify, throw, demoralize, tack, disconcert, alter, fox, addle, befuddle, confusion, gravel, flurry, muddy, abash, piece, disorientate, assemble, distract, set up, jumble, puddle, bewilder, discombobulate, vex, mistake, deflect, baffle, nonplus, obnubilate, blur, amaze, get, stick, beat, be



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com