"Criticise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sweet self, dear lady guest, we find Juliet's dark face, Viola's gentle mien, The dignity of Scotland's martyr'd queen— The beauty and the wit of Rosalind. What wonder, then, that we who mop our eyes And sob and gush when we should criticise— ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... inopportune, may even die inopportunely, and this was the revenge that Mr. Aubyn, some two years after her return to Hillbridge, took upon his injured wife. He died precisely at the moment when Glennard was beginning to criticise her. It was not that she bored him; she did what was infinitely worse—she made him feel his inferiority. The sense of mental equality had been gratifying to his raw ambition; but as his self-knowledge defined itself, his understanding of her also increased; and if man ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... She was not going to criticise anything about Patty if she could help it. "I think I ought to get something for poor Miss Almira," she went on. "It is because she is so ill and couldn't make my coat that I could come to-day. What do you think would be nice for ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard
... to lift the politics-ridden waterway out of politics altogether. Before he gave his final revision to the printers, he submitted a proof to the Boss, who returned it with the comment that his intellect was of an order quite too everyday to criticise a project obviously framed for the millennium. From the man reputed to own the Legislature, whose committees, certainly, were cut and dried in his office weeks before it met, this sarcasm was gloomily prophetic; but since his Tuscarora speech, Shelby ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... are the poor in spirit; the many little men hold the power, and the great only serve the little men. I've never met such proud people as the humble; I've never met an uneducated man who didn't believe himself in a position to criticise learning and to do without it. I've found the unpleasantest of deadly sins amongst the Saints: I mean self-complacency. In my youth I was a saint myself; but I've never been so worthless as I was then. The better I thought myself, ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... I'm about," continued the detective, pointedly, "as those who are unwise enough to criticise my actions find out, sooner ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... was present at a final sitting which my master, Carolus Duran, gave to one of my fair compatriots. He knew that the lady was leaving Paris on the morrow, and that in an hour, her husband and his friends were coming to see and criticise the portrait—always a terrible ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... Orme and Mill have repelled. The materials placed at the disposal of Sir John Malcolm by the late Lord Powis were indeed of great value. But we cannot say that they have been very skilfully worked up. It would, however, be unjust to criticise with severity a work which, if the author had lived to complete and revise it, would probably have been improved by condensation and by a better arrangement. We are more disposed to perform the pleasing duty of expressing ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... existence. When the Government shall succeed (if it shall succeed) in conquering a peace, in subjugating the South, and shall undertake to carry out the Constitution as of old, with all its pro-slavery compromises, then will be my time to criticise, reprove, and condemn; then will be the time for me to open all the guns that I can bring to bear upon it. But blessed be God that 'covenant with death' has been annulled, and that 'agreement with hell' no longer stands. I joyfully ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... he smiled; but at moments a cloud, as it were, passed over his face, for the Roman rabble was satirical and keen in reckoning, and let itself criticise even great triumphators, even men whom it loved and respected. It was known that on a time they shouted during the entrance to Rome of Julius Caesar: "Citizens, hide your wives; the old libertine is coming!" But Nero's monstrous vanity could not endure the least blame or criticism; meanwhile ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... not to criticise his birthplace, I presume, and yet, if I were to do it all over again, I do not know whether I would select that particular spot or not. Sometimes I think I would not. And yet, what memories cluster about that old house! ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... drew up ninety-five theses, or articles, wherein he fearlessly stated his views respecting indulgences. These theses, written in Latin, he nailed to the door of the church at Wittenberg, and invited all scholars to examine and criticise them, and to point out if in any respect they were opposed to the teachings of the Word of God, or of the early Fathers of the Church (1517). By means of the press the theses were scattered with incredible rapidity throughout every ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... let me say something to you about Lady C—— L——'s criticism of my performance. In the first place, nothing is easier than to criticise by comparison, and hardly anything much more difficult than to form a correct judgment of any work of art (be it what it may) upon the foundation of abstract principles and fundamental rules of taste and ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... he was, in a fatigue jacket, that warned him not to imagine his back view, and held him constantly a little to the rear of Lady Camper, lest she should be troubled by it;—and he knew the habit of the second rank to criticise the front—how consent to face the outer world in such style side by side with the lady ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sketching, the time being kept by the player who has not selected a "Position." All the illustrated papers are then passed in order round the table, so that each may view the others' pictures; but no one is supposed to criticise them aloud. Lastly they are handed to the "Guesser" (who, up to this point, has taken no active part in the game, except to time the five minutes), and he ranges them in order before him according to the order in which the players are ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... angel of our church,' answered the man in the white linen coat; 'and it is dangerous to criticise upon his productions, especially as he considers every one to be in the wrong, who does not precisely fall in with his own opinions in matters ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... that I am going to criticise you. I am no judge of sewing,—never set a stitch in my life. It must be a dull way of spending time. Can't you put ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... equal, or something like it. Needless to say that Dyce at heart deemed all women his natural inferiors, and only by conscious effort could entertain the possibility that one or other of their sex might view and criticise him with level eyes. Six years ago Connie Bride had looked up to him; he, with his University culture, held undoubted superiority over the country girl striving hard to educate herself and to find a place in the world. ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... ever and ever so far off, where there are palms and coral reefs, and the people don't believe in wrapping themselves up much.) And so she's given the dance at a great many War Fund matinees. That little Mrs. Jimmy Sharpe, daring to criticise it, said there was too much Ollyoola and not enough dance; but everybody who counts simply raves about it. And then, when some manager person offered Sybil big terms to do it at the "Incandescent," he was "officially informed" that, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... experiences. Then it was that the truth of a very ancient adage struck upon my mind, namely, that money is power. Had I sufficient money I could laugh at unjust critics for example; indeed they or their papers would scarcely dare to criticise me for fear lest it should be in my power to do them a bad turn. Again I could follow my own ideas in life and perhaps work good in the world, and live in such surroundings as commended themselves to me. It was as clear as daylight, but—how to ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... not rash for us, in our profound ignorance, to criticise the workings of a boundless Wisdom? He who takes only a few steps along the pathway of Knowledge, or enters, however slightly, into the secret of the works of God, obtains the proof that Providence leaves no part of the Cosmos, no being anywhere, deprived of its fatherly ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... what had happened on Jubilee night, he made it appear that his estimate of Miss. Lord was undergoing modification. 'She has lost him, all through her flightiness,' said the sisters to each other. They were not sorry, and felt free again to criticise Nancy's ideas of ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... distinctive of the nineteenth century that in its passion for criticising everything in heaven and earth it by no means spared to criticise itself. Alike in Carlyle's fulminations against its insincerity, in Arnold's nice ridicule of Philistinism, and in Ruskin's repudiation of everything modern, we detect that fine dissatisfaction with the age which is perhaps ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... Dr. Johnson's school,' wrote Reynolds to some friend. 'For my own part, I acknowledge the highest obligations to him. He may be said to have formed my mind, and to have brushed from it a great deal of rubbish. Those very persons whom he has brought to think rightly will occasionally criticise the opinions of their master when he nods. But we should always recollect that it is he himself who taught us and enabled us to do it.' Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 461. Burke, writing to Malone, said:—'You state ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... be prepared to face the reproach which attaches to those who criticise a gift, if I venture to observe that I do not think that the Bishop of Manchester need have been so much alarmed, as he evidently has been, by the objections which have often been raised to prayer, on the ground that a belief in the efficacy ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... it is no business of mine to criticise your conduct; you can do as you please with your wife, but may I count upon your keeping your word with me? Well, then, promise me to tell her that her father has not twenty-four hours to live; that he looks in vain for her, and has cursed ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... all this, Chaucer is far indeed from founding the art of criticism. His business was to create, and not to criticise. And, had he set himself to do so, there is no warrant that his success would have been great. In many ways he was still in bondage to the mediaval, and wholly uncritical, tradition. One classic, we may almost say, was as good to ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... do not remember me? Sarelli. Pardon! You looked like a ghost standing there. How badly those fellows marched! We hang, you see, on the skirts of our profession and criticise; it is all we are fit for." His black eyes, restless and malevolent like a swan's, seemed to stab her face. "A fine evening! Too hot. The storm is wanted; you feel that? It is weary waiting for the storm; but after the storm, my dear young lady, comes peace." He smiled, gently, this time, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to criticise this state of things, I will mention one point on which I am glad to be able to bestow on the Royal Society the highest praise. I refer to the extreme regularity with which the volumes of the Transactions are published. The appearance of the half-volumes at intervals of six ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... want us?" she said. "Next Tuesday night? Well, we could go, I suppose, but I don't believe we shall. Mrs. Lake said something about coming around that evening to help me read my paper and criticise it." ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... observe to you,' he drawled at last; 'all you young people criticise and form judgments on everything at random; you have little knowledge of your own country; Russia, young gentlemen, is an unknown land to you; that's where it is!... You are for ever reading German. For instance, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... branch of political science. So long as our domestic administration was confined merely to the raising of a revenue, they levied taxes with gross facility from the industry of a country too busy to criticise or complain. But when the excitement and distraction of war had ceased, and they were forced to survey the social elements that surrounded them, they seemed, for the first time, to have become conscious of ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... this essay, announced that it is intended to be partly controversial, I can scarcely begin better than by furnishing the reader with the means of judging whether I myself correctly apprehend the doctrine which I am about to criticise. If, then, I were myself an Utilitarian, and, for the sake either of vindicating my own belief, or of making converts of other people, had undertaken to explain what Utilitarianism is, I should set about the task somewhat ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... alleged, if he will admit that a grammarian's fame should be thought safe enough in his own keeping. Are authors apt to undervalue their own performances? Or because proprietors and publishers may profit by the credit of a book, shall it be thought illiberal to criticise it? Is the author himself to be disbelieved, that the extravagant praises bestowed upon him may be justified? "Superlative commendation," says Dillwyn, "is near akin to detraction." (See his Reflections, p. 22.) Let him, therefore, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... excuses, Hester, which deceive no one; and you, Minna, don't criticise Hester's clothes. It is the Bishop's own fault for not writing his notes himself. He might have known that Miss West would have written to Hester instead of to me. I can't say I think Hester behaved ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... her special gift for organisation she seems almost unequalled. Her picnics are models for all future and past picnics; her combinations of feelings, of conversation, of gentlemen and ladies, are so natural and lifelike that reading to criticise is impossible to some of us—the scene carries us away, and we forget to look for the art by which it is recorded. Her machinery is simple but complete; events group themselves so vividly and naturally in her mind that, in describing imaginary scenes, we ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... to criticise my conduct now. It would have been difficult to act otherwise at the time. I am speaking of the evening after my walk with Mrs. Lascelles, of the next day when it rained, and now of my third night at the hotel. The ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... for learning never diminished. On the contrary, his zeal for philosophic studies grew, and with it his reputation in the learned world of Berlin. The Jewish thinker finally attracted the notice of Frederick the Great, whose poems he had had the temerity to criticise adversely in the "Letters on Literature" (Litteraturbriefe). He says in that famous criticism:[80] "What a loss it has been for our mother-tongue that this prince has given more time and effort to the French language. We ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... different ways of going to a concert. You can be one of a party of fashionable people to whom music is a diversion, a pastime, an agreeable change from the assembly or the theatre. They applaud, they condemn, they criticise. They know all about it. Into such company as this, even I, whose poor old head is always getting itself wedged in where it has no business to be, have chanced to be thrown. This is torture. My cue is to turn into the Irishman's echo, which always returned ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... I am not. Even in the divinest music of all, I am not blind to defects, if there are defects. The Moonlight Sonata, for instance. You have often heard me say that the two last movements do not approach the first in perfection of form. And if I am permitted to criticise Beethoven, I hope I may be allowed to suggest that Mr Cortese has not produced an opera which will render Fidelio ridiculous. But really I am chiefly sorry for Miss Bracely. I should have thought it worth her while to render ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... and at all times, proceed from the hand of a man who has both thorough knowledge of his subject, and thorough acquaintance with all the means and principles of art. We never criticise them, because we feel, the moment we look carefully at the drawing of any single wave, that the knowledge possessed by the master is much greater than our own, and therefore believe that if anything offends us in any part of the work, it is ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... treat Sir John Bowring; and I would treat Sir John Bowring as I would treat Lord Canning. Do not let us have in the service of the State low-caste men who may be trampled upon at pleasure, and high-caste men whom nobody dare criticise. ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... then proceeded to criticise a statement commonly found in text books, that chemical combination suppresses altogether the properties of the combining bodies. The reverse of this statement is probably true. To take the case commonly given of the combination of copper and sulphur when heated; this is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... to criticise that promise, but checked her lips. He was a child, and she would do no violence to the ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... was quickly told. A couple of hours ago the acting-manager of Mr. van Tuiver's office had telephoned to ask if he might call upon a matter of importance. He had come. Naturally, he had the most extreme reluctance to say anything which might seem to criticise the activities of Mr. van Tuiver's wife, but there was something in the account in the newspapers which should be brought to her husband's attention. The articles gave the names and locations of a number of firms in whose factories it ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... question that heads this chapter, with the addition, as a rule, of facetious allusions to torture and the knout! My ignorance, however, of Finland as she really is was probably unsurpassed before my eyes were opened by a personal inspection, so I cannot afford to criticise. ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... a drastic course of training, I fear, to open the eyes of the public to the fact that even generosity can be overdone, and I must disclaim any desire to superintend the process of securing their awakening, for it is an ungrateful task to criticise even a mistakenly generous person; and man being by nature prone to thoughtless judgments, the critic of a philanthropist who spends a million of dollars to provide tortoise-shell combs for bald beggars would shortly find himself in ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... decisive and too peremptory; it is not, however, my intention that it should be so; I entreat you to correct, and even publicly to punish me whenever I am guilty. Do not treat me with the least indulgence, but criticise to the utmost. So clear-sighted a judge as you has a right to be severe; and I promise you that the criminal will endeavor to correct himself. Yesterday I had two of your acquaintances to dine with ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... the chief grounds on which socialists criticise the eugenics movement. All of these criticisms should be stimulating, should lead eugenists to avoid mistakes in program or procedure. But none of them, we believe, is a serious objection to anything which the great body of eugenists proposes ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... we blame the belligerents or criticise the powers, or sit in sackcloth and ashes ourselves is absolutely of no consequence at ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... rendered me great services. The boy saved me from being robbed. The mother, in all probability, saved me from falling a victim to smallpox. But that has nothing to do with your affairs. It is scarcely proper for a boy like you to criticise his father's way ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... criticise," one woman cried. "Hand it to her! She can't be beat. She's the one that comes once in a century to show the rest of us ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... Olivia's letters—I am sorry I sent them to you; for I see that they have lowered, instead of raising her in your opinion. But if you criticise letters, written in openness and confidence of heart to a private friend, as if they were set before the tribunal of the public, you are—may I say it?—not only severe, but unjust; for you try and condemn the subjects of one country by ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... had held the fat baby, and by and by the fat little girl, up admiringly for less fortunate neighbors to criticise. ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... summer-time, and should set in wet at five or six o'clock. When it is dark early, he knows that it won't pay to resume the broom; commercial gentlemen are not particular about the condition of their Wellingtons, when nobody can see to criticise their polish, and all they want is to exchange them for slippers as soon as possible. If we were to follow the career of this industrious fellow up to manhood, we should in all probability find him occupying worthily a hard-working but decent and comfortable ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... works should be thought below criticism: or meet with a critic, who, perhaps, will not look on them with so candid and favourable an eye, I am determined to criticise them myself. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... was consulted on every imaginable subject.... Government chiefs and rebels consulted him with regard to policy; political letters were brought to him to read and criticise.... Parties would come to hear the latest news of the proposed disarming of the country, or to arrange a private audience with one of the officials; and poor war-worn chieftains, whose only anxiety was to join the winning side and who ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... here. The administration is using, as I see it, the privilege of having a correspondent at the front as a club. It says until war is declared it won't issue any more. So those syndicates who have no correspondent and the papers forming them, are afraid to attack or to criticise the administration for fear they will be blacklisted. And those who have a correspondent with his three thousand dollar signed and sealed pass in his pocket aren't taking any chance on losing him. So, I see before me an ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... skepticism of the Revolution. The reaction had taken place, the Goddess of Reason was dethroned, and the burning words and vivid eloquence of Chateaubriand appealed at once to the heart and the imagination of his countrymen. They did not criticise, they only admired. Politically he was also a rising man. The world, or at least the French world, expected great things from the writer of the pamphlet, "De Buonaparte et des Bourbons." His manners were courtly and distinguished, and women ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Function of an Opposition Is To Oppose." Criticise this statement from the point of view of the Party in Power, and trace carefully the modification in its view produced by ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... till he recovered breath. Caird begins quietly, but frequently works himself up to a frantic excitement, in which his gestulation is of the wildest, and his voice an absolute howl. One feels afraid that he may burst a bloodvessel. Were his hearers cool enough to criticise him, the impression would be at an end; but he has wound them up to such a pitch that criticism is impossible. They must sit absolutely passive, with nerves tingling and blood pausing: frequently many ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... away from her face; but there was no sort of coiffure that could make Miss Nancy's cheek and neck look otherwise than pretty; and when at last she stood complete in her silvery twilled silk, her lace tucker, her coral necklace, and coral ear-drops, the Miss Gunns could see nothing to criticise except her hands, which bore the traces of butter-making, cheese-crushing, and even still coarser work. But Miss Nancy was not ashamed of that, for even while she was dressing she narrated to her aunt how she and Priscilla had packed their boxes yesterday, because this ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... wish to mention any names. It is always a mistake to mention names. One cannot guard against it too carefully. But having done what she did ten years ago dear Adela Sellingworth should really—but it is not for me to criticise her. Only there is nothing people—women—are more sensitive about than the question of age. No one likes to be laid on the shelf. Adela Sellingworth has chosen to—well—one might feel such a very ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... to criticise what I have now written, and to review all that I have seen, read, and heard on the subject, I would conscientiously declare that the importation of Cholera Morbus into England or anywhere else, had been clearly negatived, and ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... was a second cupboard. In this, upon a shelf, I found what looked like pressed beef, several round cakes of what tasted like rye bread, and some thin, sour wine, in a straw-covered flask. But I was in no mood to criticise; I crammed myself, I believe, like some famished wolf, he watching me, in silence, all the time. When I had done, which was when I had eaten and drunk as much as I could hold, there returned to his face that ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... like a French perruquier to some absurd fool of a foreigner; and we have seen him, a minute after, holding up his head and cocking his chin in defiance, if an English voice approached. When any of us ventured to criticise any thing foreign, he was up in arms, and cock-a-hoop for the climate, the customs, the constitution! He sneered awfully at a simple gaucherie, but, to make amends, had ever an approving wink ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... to London. Such an oracle might have been consulted and obeyed with rational devotion; but I was soon disgusted with the modest practice of reading the manuscript to my friends. Of such friends some will praise from politeness, and some will criticise from vanity. The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; no one has so deeply meditated on the subject; no one is so ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... found some quiet bits of dell with water, and planted his easel regularly every day. Sometimes he sat dreaming or reading, but he felt an unaccustomed responsibility if, when his mentor appeared with the children late in the afternoon, he hadn't something to show for his day. She never attempted to criticise except as to the amount performed, and she soon learned enough not to measure this by the area of canvas. Although Clayton had abandoned the Magdalen in utter disgust, Miss Marston persisted in the early morning sittings. She made herself useful in preparing his coffee and in getting his ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... serene and somewhat dull Epoch, that awkward corner turned for days More quiet, when our moon's no more at full, We may presume to criticise or praise; Because Indifference begins to lull Our passions, and we walk in Wisdom's ways; Also because the figure and the face Hint, that 't is time to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... are disposed, at present, to criticise yourself too mercilessly," he said in a tone that had drawn forth many a confidence. It was not to ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... called "the beaux"—young men at once of fashion and of letters—who adorned Scotch society between the Rebellions, and continued to adorn many an after-dinner table in Edinburgh down till the present century. Hamilton owns that it was Kames who first taught him "verse to criticise," and wrote to him the poem "To H.H. at the Assembly"; while Kames for his part used in his old age, as his neighbour Ramsay of Ochtertyre informs us, to have no greater enjoyment than recounting the scenes ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... of this, I like to think that we shall have a finer type of expression, a richer kind of personal quality. Every artist is his own maker, his own liberator; he it is that should be the first to criticise, destroy and reconstruct himself, he should find no mood convenient, no attitude comfortable. What the lay-writer says of him in praise or blame will not matter so much in the future; he will respect ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... said to me early in the offensive that he wanted me to have freedom of observation and to criticise as I chose, and he trusted me not to give military information to the enemy. When I went to take my leave and thank him for his courtesies the army that he had drilled had received the schooling of battle and tasted victory. How great ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... Venus, the Commodus, the Zingara, and the Apollo. [1] These, of a truth, are by far the finest things in Rome. He told the King that when his Majesty had once set eyes upon those marvellous works, he would then, and not till then, be able to criticise the arts of design, since everything which he had seen by us moderns was far removed from the perfection of the ancients. The King accepted his proposal, and gave him the introductions he required. Accordingly that beast went off, and took his bad luck with him. Not having the force and courage ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... much in love with thy own dear productions to admire those of one of thy trade. However, I know three or four who have not such a mighty opinion of themselves; but I'll not name them, lest I should be obliged to place myself among them. If thou art one of those who, though they never write, criticise everyone that does; avaunt!—Thou art a professed enemy of mankind and of thyself, who wilt never be pleased nor let anybody be so, and knowest no better way to fame than by striving to lessen that of others; though wouldst thou write thou mightst be soon known, even by the butterwomen, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... went on in the little cabin across the arroyo, a reproduction of an old, old drama. Should we, after all, criticise these two descendants of the first sweet human woman of the world? Consider; to their young and inexperienced eyes appealed all the fascinations of this august but tempting object, new, strange, appealing. For a time their hearts were strong, upon their souls rested the ancient mandate ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... of Darwin's mental equipment, seems to us incomplete, though we do not pretend to mend it. We do not think it is possible to dissect and label the complex qualities which go to make up that which we all recognise as genius. But, if we may venture to criticise, we would say that Mr. Huxley's words do not seem to cover that supreme power of seeing and thinking what the rest of the world had overlooked, which was one of Darwin's most striking characteristics. As throwing light on the quality of their friendship, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... which a number of worshipers were kneeling and supplicating "Allah," their supreme being. There was an earnestness that bespoke sincerity, and an all-abiding faith. I could but think how few of us who would criticise are true to the ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... safeguards are so expressed as to carry out the intention of their authors, or, even in words, adequately to protect either the authority of the Imperial Parliament or the rights of individuals. But it is not my purpose to criticise the Restrictions, or the Bill itself, in detail. The drafting of the Government of Ireland Bill needs much amendment, but at the present juncture it is waste of time to criticise defects removable by better draftmanship or by slight changes ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... the proverb hath it that there is no remedy for the bite of a sycophant. If perchance there shall be idle talkers, who, though they are ignorant of all mathematical sciences, nevertheless assume the right to pass judgment on these things, and if they should dare to criticise and attack this theory of mine because of some passage of scripture which they have falsely distorted for their own purpose, I care not at all; I will even despise their judgment as foolish. For it is not unknown that Lactantius, otherwise a famous writer but a poor mathematician, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... or other the squire was dull. His newspaper was there, but there was no one to cut it, no one to read it aloud to him. The flowers were making a wonderful bloom, but there was no special person to talk them over with. He had no one to tell his thoughts to, no one to criticise, no one to praise, and—saddest want of all to a nature like his—not a soul in the ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... 'Casa Guidi Windows' has received less appreciation than it deserves, both at the time of its publication and since, is that it stands rather apart from all the recognised species of poetry, and is hard to classify and criticise. Its political and contemporary character cut it off from the imaginative and historical subjects which form in general the matter of poetry, while its genuinely poetic emotion and language separate it from the political pamphlet or the occasional verse. It is a poetic treatment of a political ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... a great difference to the people here if you interest yourself in them," he rejoined. "I tried to explain to Mr. Tredegar that I had no wish to criticise the business management of the mills—even if there had been any excuse for my doing so—but that I was sure the condition of the operatives could be very much improved, without permanent harm to the business, by any one who felt a personal sympathy for ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... and Princess of Wales, I did not go to fashionable balls, but after that Ascot I was asked everywhere. I was quite unconscious of it at the time, but was told afterwards that people were beginning to criticise me; one or two incidents might have enlightened me had I been more aware ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... desires of the petitioners. The most important changes in the law of the land were not made, but grew, through the accumulated effect of judicial decisions. The chief function of Parliaments, after the voting of supplies, was to criticise and to complain; to indicate the shortcomings of a policy which they had not helped to make. Except as the guardians of individual liberty they cannot be said to have made medieval government more scientific or efficient. In the fifteenth ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... Pinkerton the justice to say that none of them were bad, and some had remarkable merit. They went off slowly but for handsome figures; and their places were progressively supplied with the work of local artists. These last it was one of my first duties to review and criticise. Some of them were villainous, yet all were saleable. I said so; and the next moment saw myself, the figure of a miserable renegade, bearing arms in the wrong camp. I was to look at pictures thenceforward, not with the eye of the artist, but the dealer; and I saw the stream widen ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... proudly descended from fifteen different tribes, an' they shorely makes a motley mass meetin'. Still, they're good, zealous dogs; an' as they're going to go for'ard an' take most of the resks of that panther, it seems invidious to criticise 'em. ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... confidence in a young actor and author—to criticise the play of acknowledged dramatists who had been the talk of ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... whether this was a good sign in him or no. He set himself now and then to find fault with the sermon, but the preacher was so humble, so respectful, and above all, so earnest, that Donald Ross could not bring himself to criticise. ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... heart that he would still make himself a great painter. He placed his picture on the easel, and went to one of his former masters, a man of immense talent,—to Schinner, a kind and patient artist, whose triumph at that year's Salon was complete. Fougeres asked him to come and criticise the rejected work. The great painter left everything and went at once. When poor Fougeres had placed the work before him Schinner, after a glance, ...
— Pierre Grassou • Honore de Balzac
... these exceptions, provided she leaves me the general thesis. I will even admit, if you so desire, that there are certain souls usually styled "privileged," for I have never heard anybody deny the virtues of temperament. So, I have nothing to say about women of that species. I do not criticise them, nor have I any reproaches to make them; neither do I believe it my duty to praise them, it is sufficient to congratulate them. However, if you investigate them you will discover the truth of what I have been saying since the commencement of our correspondence: the heart ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... to criticise Germany for not having "entrusted the security of her western frontier to the public opinion of Western Europe and to America and fought Russia, if attacked, with her rear not otherwise defended," Mr. Shaw burkes the fact that Germany's object is to seize Belgium and to make it part of ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... too much," he confessed, "and much that he says is disloyal to our government and calculated to do much harm, especially if widely circulated. This is no time to criticise the men who are working hard to win the war; we should render them faithful support. The task before us is difficult and it will require a united country to defeat our enemies. I must talk ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... to criticise the powers that be. They are the powers, therefore they may decree whatever they please; so I make bold only to criticise the ridiculousness of their decrees. All night long they make the homeless ones walk up and down. They drive them out of doors and passages, and ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... she was flattered. Of all flattery praise is the coarsest and least efficacious. When you would flatter a man, talk to him about himself, and criticise him, pulling him to pieces by comparison of some small present fault with his past conduct;—and the rule holds the same with a woman. To tell her that she looks well is feeble work; but complain to her wofully that there ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... feel no anxiety whatever about it. It was also left a matter of uncertainty whether Ben Bolt and his Esquimau bride returned to live happily during the remainder of their lives in England, or took up their permanent abode with Blunderbore. But it is not our province to criticise; we merely chronicle events ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... that he raised, carved, and caressed with the chisels, smoothed down with his file, and fashioned in a manner that would make their use intelligible to the mind of a greenhorn, and stain his verdure in a single day. The ladies would criticise these beauties, and all of them were smitten with the youthful Cappara. And the youthful Cappara would eye them up and down, swearing that the day one of them gave him her little finger to kiss, he would have ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... on the search-light of her own greater glory. She had made the effort which had resulted so disastrously to obtain a lesser one, and he had condemned her. He knew that women always used circuitous ways toward their results, just as men used sledge-hammer ones. Why should a man criticise a woman's method any more than a woman criticise a man's? Wilbur, blushing like a girl with pride and delight, listened to his wife and fairly lashed himself. He was wholly unworthy of such ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... virtue of their "Triple Science," and they constantly emphasise this claim. It is difficult for us to realise that these are the same men who have created the Brahmanic culture of India, which, however we may criticise it from the Western point of view, is essentially a gentle life, a field in which moral feeling and intellectual effort have born abundance of goodly fruit. Yet if we look more closely we shall see that even these ritualists, ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett
... humanity. We shall go on building our bridge between life and death, each one for himself. When we see that it is not strong enough, we shall break it down and build another. We shall watch other people building their bridges. We shall imitate, or criticise, or condemn. But as time goes on, we shall learn not to interfere, we shall know that one bridge is probably as good as the other; and that the greatest value of them all has been in the building of them. It does not matter what we ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... and had worked his way up from the ranks. Perhaps his long fight against the practise of flogging unruly sailors helped to add to the number of his enemies, for those in authority were outraged that this Jewish upstart should criticise a custom so deeply rooted in the traditions of the navy. Another man of quieter temper might have tried to combat the prejudice and hatred which met him at every turn; but Levy's nature was not a patient one. When raised to the rank of captain, he felt that he could ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... at this, and exclaimed, "It is easier to criticise than to execute; do you take a piece of wood and make a better crucifix!" Brunelleschi determined to do this, and when his work was finished he invited Donatello to sup with him. He placed the crucifix in a ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... told of him turn upon this point in his character; and though they may not be strictly true, they illustrate the stern virtues for which he was celebrated among the Corsicans, and show what kind of men this harsh and gloomy nation loved to celebrate as heroes. This is not the place either to criticise these legends or to recount them at full length. The most famous and the most characteristic may, however, be briefly told. On one occasion, after a victory over the Genoese, he sent a message that the captives in his hands ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... justifiable. But my case is not whether they can be justified by these tests but that it is not by these tests that they are judged even to-day, by the professors of the chief religions of the world. It is the temper and not the conclusions of the religious bodies that I would criticise. These sexual questions are guarded by a holy irascibility, and the most violent efforts are made—with a sense of complete righteousness—to prohibit their discussion. That fury about sexual things is only to be explained on the hypothesis that the Christian God remains a sex God in the minds of ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... three horsemen overtook Cooper, pausing a little, after the custom of the country, to gossip with him as they passed. According to another custom of the country, Thompson, Willoughby and I began to criticise them. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... reconnoitring, but at Ladysmith everything was equally mysterious and perplexing. It was perhaps that my knowledge of military matters was too limited to understand the subtle manoeuvres of those days. But I have made up my mind not to criticise our leader's military strategy, though I must say at this juncture that the whole siege of Ladysmith and the manner in which the besieged garrison was ineffectually pounded at with our big guns for ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... is really impossible to criticise Rudyard Kipling as part of Victorian literature, because he is the end of such literature. He has many other powerful elements; an Indian element, which makes him exquisitely sympathetic with the Indian; a vague Jingo influence which makes him sympathetic with the man that crushes the ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... may say that Lovelace, if too obviously constructed to work the plot, certainly works it well. When we coolly dissect him and ask whether he could ever have existed, we may be forced to reply in the negative. But whilst we read we forget to criticise; he seems to possess more vitality than most living men; he is so full of eloquent brag, and audacious sophistry, and unblushing impudence, that he fascinates us as he is supposed to have bewildered Clarissa. The dragon who is to devour the maiden comes with all the flash and ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... tough band of veterans, weather beaten, scarred in numerous fights or by the backwoods scourge of small-pox, compact, muscular, fearless, loyal, cynically aloof from those not of their cult, out-spoken and free to criticise—in short, men to do great things under the strong leader, and to mutiny at the end of three days under the weak. They piled off the train at Sawyer's, stamped their feet on the board platform of the station, shouldered their "turkeys," and straggled off down the tote-road. It was an eighteen-mile ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... need to labour a distinction which arises from the nature and the activities of the two forces. British Liberalism is both a mental habit and a method of politics. Through both these characteristics it is bound to criticise a State so long as in any degree it rests on the principles of "Penguin Island"—"respect for the rich and contempt for the poor," and to modify or repeal the rights of property where they clearly conflict with ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... best to satisfy this longing for rest and quiet. The Holy Alliance, the main result of the Congress, made the policeman the most important dignitary of the State and held out the most terrible punishment to those who dared criticise a ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... obliged to take into account the mental limitations and tastes of the readers of the 4900 books, and so it fixes its standard of popular exposition and elucidation at a little above the average taste, and does its best to explain according to the author's own lights what to criticise ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... are the prime authors of this vein of piercing regret and passion,—of this Titanism in poetry. A famous book, Macpherson's Ossian, carried in the last century this vein like a flood of lava through Europe. I am not going to criticise Macpherson's Ossian here. Make the part of what is forged, modern, tawdry, spurious, in the book, as large as you please; strip Scotland, if you like, of every feather of borrowed plumes which on the strength of Macpherson's Ossian she may have stolen from that vetus et major Scotia, the true ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... transmuted all he touched into his own forms of thought and language, and there was no branch of speculative literature which he had not mastered. By adopting the form of dialogue, in which all his extant works have come down to us, he was enabled to criticise the various systems of philosophy then current in Greece, and also to gratify his own dramatic genius, and his almost unrivaled power of keeping up an assumed character. The works of Plato have been divided into three classes: first, the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... people next door. If Madame Carre didn't think she could work, she might have heard, could she have listened at the door, something that would show her. But she didn't think her even good enough to criticise—since that wasn't criticism, telling her her head was good. Of course her head was good—she needn't travel up to the quartiers excentriques to find that out. It was her mother, the way she talked, who gave the idea that she wanted to be elegant and moral and a femme du monde and all that ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... of them all Could criticise, and quote tradition How depths of blue sublimed some pall —To get which, pricked a king's ambition; Worth sceptre, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... all have the right to criticise; and my answer to the critics is, that they do not know the facts; or, knowing them, they are interested in preventing a knowledge of these facts coming to the public. Vivisection should be controlled by law. No animal should be allowed to be tortured. ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... President, instead of General Grant, I would have recognized Packard and sustained him with the full power of the general government. My intense feeling, caused by the atrocities in Louisiana, may have unduly influenced me. But General Grant did not think this was his duty. I do not criticise his action, but only state the facts, He would only maintain the peace. He would not recognize Packard as governor, but I know, what is now an open secret, the strong bent of his mind, and at one time his decision was to withdraw ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... You may criticise Chatham's style as too consciously Ciceronian. But has ever a Parliamentary style been invented which conveys a nobler gravity of emotion? 'Buskined'?—yes: but the style of a man. 'Mannered'?—yes, but in the grand manner. 'Conscious'?— ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... easy enough for the writers of the nineteenth century to criticise the actors of the fifteenth; and learned scholars, sitting in luxurious easy-chairs in great libraries, can pass swift and severe judgment upon the acts and motives of Columbus. But let them go back four hundred years, and divest themselves of the bias ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... marched before him clearly. From this present view point he was enabled to look upon them in spectator fashion and to criticise them with some correctness, for his new condition had ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... architecture or sculpture of modern England. You may urge that I ought rather to describe the qualities of the refined sculpture which is executed in large quantities for private persons belonging to the upper classes, and for sepulchral and memorial purposes. But I could not now criticise that sculpture with any power of conviction to you, because I have not yet stated to you the principles of good sculpture in general. I will, however, in some points, tell ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... of the people to control the government leads naturally to denial of their right to criticise those who shape its policy; since if free and unrestricted discussion and even condemnation of official conduct were allowed, no system of minority rule could long survive. This was well understood in the Federal Convention. The members of that body saw that the constitutional ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... was established by Mr. Wentworth and Dr. Wardell. A second of the same kind soon followed, and was called the Monitor. These papers found it to their advantage, during the unpopularity of Darling, to criticise severely the acts of that Governor, who was defended by the Gazette with intemperate zeal. This altercation had lasted for some time, when, in the third year of Darling's administration, a very small event was sufficient to set the whole colony ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... that in a book like the present—the whole space of which might very well be occupied, without any of the undue dilation which has been more than once rebuked, in dealing with Shakespere alone—any attempt should be made to criticise single plays, passages, and characters. It is the less of a loss that in reality, as the wisest commentators have always either begun or ended by acknowledging, Shakespere is your only commentator on Shakespere. ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... from anyone who can give you a hint, and don't set yourself up (or down) in some obscure country town and fancy you are great. Come out into the world, measure yourself against the best, criticise your own work as if it were a stranger's. Be honest, and say, "That man's work knocks mine into a cocked hat," and then go home miserable, but determined to beat that man's work or perish in the ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... no one has ever seen the bird doing the work, or that the task is too great for any conceivable bird, is to the simple, uncultivated man no objection to this view. It is long, indeed, before education brings men to the point where they can criticise their ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... have allowed yourself to criticise in the office our last operations in the Tunis market. Useless to defend yourself. Your remarks have been reported to me word for word. And as I am unable to admit them from the mouth of one in my service, I give you ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... Susannah could not criticise keenly, so much she marvelled at the man. His activities before starting on this journey were almost incredible. Every hour he had made decisions, for the most part successful, concerning the adaptability of men whom he had only seen, for labours ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... authors of this vein of piercing regret and passion, of this Titanism in poetry. A famous book, MacPherson's 'Ossian,' carried, in the last century, this vein like a flood of lava through Europe. I am not going to criticise MacPherson's 'Ossian' here. Make the part of what is forged, modern, tawdry, spurious in the book as large as you please; strip Scotland, if you like, of every feather of borrowed plumes which, on the strength of MacPherson's ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... free himself from the fetters, his writings, and he himself with them, were burnt; as happened to Bruno and Vanini. But how absolutely paralysed the ordinary mind is by that early metaphysical preparation may be seen most strikingly, and from its most ridiculous side, when it undertakes to criticise the doctrines of a foreign belief. One finds the ordinary man, as a rule, merely trying to carefully prove that the dogmas of the foreign belief do not agree with those of his own; he labours to explain that not only do they not say the same, but certainly do not mean the ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... The guests at these parties used to assemble at about eight o'clock, and after taking off their wraps in an upper room they descended to the parlor, where the host and hostess received them. The older men then went to the punch-bowl to criticise the "brew" which it contained, while the young people found their way to the dining-room, almost invariably devoted to dancing. The music was a piano and two violins, and one of the musicians called the ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... all our faults; scimus, et hanc, veniaim, &c.; [106]thou censurest me, so have I done others, and may do thee, Cedimus inque vicem, &c., 'tis lex talionis, quid pro quo. Go now, censure, criticise, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... cynical smile, "hysteric, as I told you. Well, will you come to-morrow about eleven, and then afterwards we can come back here to criticise 'Hyacinthus'?" ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... he will not attempt to do so by latitude and longitude, for that is a system of which the Latins have learned nothing. He himself, whilst still somewhat burdened by the authoritative dicta of "saints and sages" of past times, ventures at least to criticise some of the latter, such as Pliny and Ptolemy, and declares his intention to have recourse to the information of those who have travelled most extensively over the Earth's surface. And judging from the good use he makes, in his description of the northern ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... did not criticise Uncle Jabez's course. She never did. But she gave Ruth in her sorrow all the sympathy of which her great nature was capable. She seemed to understand just how the girl felt, without a spoken word on her part. She did not seek to explain the miller's reason for acting as he ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... that I am laying down the law," he said. "I have been out so little, the last few years, that I ought not, perhaps, to criticise. Lady Cynthia, however, seems to me to belong to the extreme section of the younger generation, the section who have a sort of craze for the unusual, whose taste in art and living is distorted and bizarre. You know ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... We may contemplate the characters of the great to arouse emulation, of the moderately endowed to suggest improvement, and of the weak to guard against their failures. Phrenology enables us to form correct estimates in each case, to praise without flattery and to criticise without injustice. There is value in the perpetuation of the physical forms of the illustrious dead upon 'storied urn and animated bust,' as well as in polished granite and enduring marble. For while ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... in wrath. You know well that hastiness of temper is an heirloom of the Brandenburg princes, and Frederick William can not deny that he has the family failing. Yes, he has dismissed me; but then, you know, it was perfectly natural, for he loves the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine, and I ventured to criticise her." ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... of dismay took possession of her, for she knew that the world would criticise her severely ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... They are so anxious because of a dim consciousness of the fact, which they do not distinctly face, that at least a million of the free inhabitants of the United States would have rejoiced if it had succeeded. They at most only criticise the tactics. Though we wear no crape, the thought of that man's position and probable fate is spoiling many a man's day here at the North for other thinking. If any one who has seen him here can pursue ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... defence, if I may so term it, my article would have been as ephemeral as the mood which induced its composition. I make full admission of Rossetti's claims to the purest kind of literary renown, and if I were to criticise his poems now, I should write very differently. But nothing will shake my conviction that the cruelty, the unfairness, the pusillanimity has been on the other side, not on mine. The amende of my Dedication in God and the ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... &c. ; connoisseur, judge, critic, conoscente, virtuoso, amateur, dilettante, Aristarchus[obs3], Corinthian, arbiter elegantiarum[Lat], stagirite[obs3], euphemist. "caviare to the general" [Hamlet]. V. appreciate, judge, criticise, discriminate &c. 465 Adj. in good taste, cute, tasteful, tasty; unaffected, pure, chaste, classical, attic; cultivated, refined; dainty; esthetic, aesthetic, artistic; elegant &c 578; euphemistic. to one's taste, to one's mind; after one's fancy; comme il faut[Fr]; tire a quatre epingles[Fr]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... too lenient with them. We won't stand them any longer." I told him that as the Times had said that he was too violent, I had no doubt the Queen would say so also, to which he replied: "Probably, and if she does I shall most likely ... deny her right to criticise my speeches, although she may, if she likes, dismiss me, in which case I will lead an agitation against the Lords in the country." I answered: "Yes, but you cannot go alone in such a case, and therefore should not ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... I hadn't said it." She was obviously worried by his admission. "It was horrid of me—perfectly horrid. I ought to have been ashamed of myself. I had no right to criticise you, and you have been ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... wealth and privileges of Cluny made its failure all the more conspicuous. A few years after the expulsion of Pontius, St. Bernard wrote to the Abbot of the Cluniac house of St. Thierry a so-called apology, which, while professing a great regard for the Cluniacs Order and pretending to criticise the deficiencies of his own Cistercians, is in reality a scathing attack upon the lapse of the former from the Benedictine rule. He attacks their neglect of manual work and of the rule of silence; their elaborate cookery and nice taste ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... are some of the theologians who in their own organs of the press venture to criticise science. These may hold their ground when they confine themselves to the geology of long past periods and to general cosmogony: for it is the tug of Greek against Greek; and both sides deal much in what is grand when called hypothesis, petty ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... with them. But all was done gravely and decently. There was no pressing of excited and ignorant young people to the "anxious seats," no singing of "revival hymns." They sang the Psalms from first to last—the old, rough version, which people nowadays criticise and smile at, wondering how ever the cramped lines and rude metre could find so sure and permanent a place in the hearts and memories of their fathers. It is said now that these old psalms are quite insufficient for ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... would have been saved at a time when the island was sadly in want of money; the natural surface of the firm soil would have been preferred by all vehicles except during rain, when they would have adopted the metalled parallel way. It is easy to criticise after the event, and there can be no doubt that upon our first occupation of the island a much greater traffic was expected, and the road between the two capitals was arranged accordingly. We halted for ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... criticise mother like that, Aunt Anne, and, of course, she knows a great deal more about bringing up children than you do. If you had not interfered, Dick would have given the proper reason, and, certainly, if we do what we shouldn't it's our fault, ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... with a mocking smile. You are mistaken if you fancy you can harm any of my moods. Won't you stay and criticise my picture for me?" ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... it a little presumptuous of me to criticise one of the operations of a great captain, but I cannot refrain from commenting that the sending of Mortier to the left bank was a move which had not been sufficiently considered, and was an error which could have had very serious consequences. The Danube, Europe's largest river, is, after Passau, ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... known Captain Marryat many years, and liked him from the first; but this circumstance, far from rendering me more indulgent to his novel, makes me more fastidious; for I find myself at all times more disposed to criticise the writings of persons whom I know and like than those of strangers: perhaps because I expect more from them, if, as in the present case, I know them ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... the man and partly on the spark. A man may not be impressed by a pill-box full of dynamite and a spark creeping toward it, the first time he sees it, but the second time he sees it, if he has time, he is impressed enough. He does not stand and criticise the lack of expression in pill-boxes, nor wait to remember the day when he all but lost his ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... and sympathy, sincere as they may be, do not suffice to win the respect and affection of a people. The reign of Louis XV. had used up the remnants of traditional veneration, the new right of the public to criticise sovereigns was being exercised malignantly upon the youthful ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... enough. She loved and admired her beautiful friend, but she did not understand her, and there was much that she could not approve. It seemed absurd, she often said to herself, for a girl of her age to criticise, to venture to disapprove, of a woman old enough to be her mother, one who had travelled the world over, and knew plenty of human nature, if little of books. Yet, the thought would come again, there was no age to right and wrong; and there were things that it could not be ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... shall not believe him," said Beverley. "I have not misunderstood you. There has been nothing. You have treated me kindly and with beautiful friendliness. You have not done or said a thing that Father Beret or anybody else could criticise. And if I have said or done the least thing to trouble you I repudiate it—I did not mean it. Now you believe me, don't ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... ninepins of mankind year after year like this. Fortunately for France, the love of her sons has never been forced; it has grown like grass and simple wild herbs in the heart, alongside the liberty to criticise and blame. The poilu cares for nothing, no, not he! But he is himself a little, unconscious bit of France, and, for oneself, one always cares. State-forced patriotism made this war—a fever-germ which swells the head and causes blindness. A State which teaches patriotism ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... that he did not criticise her. He was only afraid that she might do herself harm by receiving a Bohemian who was ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... Judgment, not Church Authority. But private judgment generates authority; authority, first legitimate, that of knowledge, grows into the illegitimate authority of prescription, calling itself Orthodoxy. Then Private Judgment comes forth again to criticise and reform. It thus becomes the duty of each individual to judge the Church; and out of innumerable individual judgments the insight of the Church is kept living and progressive. We contribute one such private judgment; not, we trust, in conceit, but ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke |
