"Discernment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... occupation kept him away from home much of the time during my boyhood, and as a consequence I grew up under the sole guidance and training of my mother, whose excellent common sense and clear discernment in every way fitted her for such maternal duties. When old enough I was sent to the village school, which was taught by an old-time Irish "master"—one of those itinerant dominies of the early frontier—who, holding that to spare the rod was to spoil the child, if unable to detect the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... or requests to Mr. Jones next door, this is the kind of answer Jones would give you. You get truth habitually from equals only; so my good Mr. Holyshade, don't talk to me about the habitual candor of the young Etonian of high birth, or I have my own opinion of YOUR candor or discernment when you do. No. Tom Bowling is the soul of honor and has been true to Black-eyed Syousan since the last time they parted at Wapping Old Stairs; but do you suppose Tom is perfectly frank, familiar, and aboveboard in his conversation ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... opportunities of coming into personal contact with persons of distinction from all countries, who must have been well acquainted with the traditions of their respective Churches; and that he was a man of rare prudence, intelligence, and discernment. He was certainly not a philosophical historian, and in his great work he has omitted to notice many things of much moment; but it must be conceded that, generally speaking, he is an accurate recorder of facts; and, in the case before us, he was under no temptation ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... water, but I not unfrequently wandered by the banks of the pleasant rivulet. It seems singular to me, on reflection, that I never availed myself of his kind invitation. I say singular, for the extraordinary, under whatever form, had long had no slight interest for me; and I had discernment enough to perceive that yon was no common man. Yet I went not near him, certainly not from bashfulness, or timidity, feelings to which I had long been an entire stranger. Am I to regret this? perhaps, for I might have learned both wisdom and righteousness from those ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Assembly of Experts, a popularly elected body of 86 religious scholars constitutionally charged with determining the succession of the Supreme Leader, reviewing his performance, and deposing him if deemed necessary; 2) Expediency Council or Council for the Discernment of Expediency is a policy advisory and implementation board consisting of permanent and temporary members representing all major government factions, some of whom are appointed by the Supreme Leader; the Council exerts supervisory authority over the executive, judicial, and legislative branches ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... Our success was not very satisfactory. We met with various accidents, and among others we lost our first mate, who was killed by a blow from a white whale's tail in a flurry, and as the captain had the discernment to perceive that there was not a man on board equal to me, he appointed me to the vacant berth. I little thought how soon I should get a step higher. The captain, poor fellow, was enormously fat, and as he was one day looking ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... contribution to the History of Art, his work is unquestionably the most valuable which has yet appeared in England. His research has been unwearied; he has availed himself of the best results of German investigation—his own acuteness of discernment in cases of approximating or derivative style is considerable—and he has set before the English reader an outline of the relations of the primitive schools of Sacred art which we think so thoroughly verified in all its more important ramifications, that, with whatever richness of detail the labor ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Peter in a small voice, "will I credit myself with any deep discernment, any keen penetration. How I could have read that matter and looked at those pictures and not seen you in and through and over them is a thing I can't imagine. It's great, Linda, absolutely great! Of course I will help you any way in the world I can. And what else was it ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... Anthony hesitated—then, with sudden discernment, opened the closet door. His suspicions were verified. On the hook provided hung the blue bag furnished by the hotel. This was full of his clothes—he had put them there himself. The floor beneath it was littered with an astonishing mass of finery—lingerie, ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... eye and engineer's discernment bitterly condemned the divagations of the wight who wandered first along that trail and imposed his lazy dodgings on all who might come after him. The young man amused himself by reflecting that ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... first revealed the peculiar traits of his military genius, clear discernment of possibilities, comprehension of the requirements of the situation, strategical instinct, accurate estimate of the enemy's motive and plan, sagacious promptness of action in exigencies, staunch resolution, inspiring energy, invincible poise. For his achievement ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... preacher has no power to impart this clear spiritual discernment. He cannot arm the eye of the natural man with that magnifying and microscopic power, by which hatred shall be seen to be murder, and lust, adultery, and the least swelling of pride, the sin of Lucifer. He is compelled, ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... that some moral truth, at least, is revealed to the individual by direct inspection (intueor), and that we must be content with such evidence and must not seek for proof. It may be maintained that our moral judgments—or some of them—are the result of "an immediate discernment of the natures of things by the understanding." and appeal may be made to the analogy furnished by mathematical truths. [Footnote: This appeal has been made by famous intuitionists from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth— ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... Seeing the old lady coming down the walk towards them, they endeavored to adjust their looks, and to meet her with the wonted smile. But in vain. The tumult in their bosoms was still too visible in their looks to escape her discernment. She eagerly asked the cause. Their changing countenances served but to increase her fears and the vehemence of her curiosity. The bishop's letter was put into her hands. Its effects on the good ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... His quick discernment had caught the play between Henry and Mrs. Witherspoon. "Of course I don't expect you to take my place. I want you merely to show that the ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... never more clearly demonstrated than when he said: "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it." It is a piece of world philosophy which has reigned unquestioned throughout the ages—a policy upon which human discernment, in Church and State, has relied with unfailing effect; "for the thoughts of a child are long, long thoughts"—those well-remembered words, how true; for those "long thoughts"—the mental environment of the formative period of child-life—do inevitably determine ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... wonderful," said the colonel, not unwilling to lighten a situation that bordered on intensity. "You should have married and had children. The South needs such mothers as you would have made. Unless the men of Clarendon have lost their discernment, unless chivalry has vanished and the fire died out of the Southern blood, it has not been for lack of opportunity that ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Your self this way, and every Science has raised it self under Your Auspicious Bounty. So true a Notion of Merit, and so nice a Discernment of what is Curious, is but rarely found among Persons of an advanced Age; but You my Lord, by an uncommon Felicity of Genius, do even in the Bloom of Youth make Your Entrance in the World with the most refin'd Taste ...
— Amadigi di Gaula - Amadis of Gaul • Nicola Francesco Haym
... sufficient discernment to read the truth of this assertion in Maude's crimson cheeks, but Mrs. Kelsey had, and very sarcastically she said: "Miss Remington, I think, might be better employed than in trying ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... is something wrong. You have treated her so that she expects no kindness from you, and so, from diffidence and restraint of tenderness, her face has set hard into coldness. But that is only a mask. How you treat each other, you women! And you are as wanting in discernment, too, as you are in kindness and sympathy. She has had to put on that mask of coldness to hide what you make her suffer, and it will take long loving to melt it now, and make her look human again. You misinterpret her silence too. How ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... awful influences of these fatalities, for they can receive no lighter name, he possessed an imagination of unbounded capacity—was inflamed with those indescribable feelings which constitute, in the opinion of many, the very elements of genius—fearfully quick in the discernment of the darker qualities of character—and surrounded by temptation—his career ceases to surprise. It would have been more wonderful had he proved an amiable and well-conducted man, than the questionable and extraordinary being who has alike provoked the malice ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... boasts of the fact that God bestows such great blessings. It is that Christians may discern them and thank him; and that such discernment may lead them to serve one another in humility, with mutual faith and love, each one learning to praise God fervently wherever he beholds God's gifts and offices operative in the Church, and to esteem them as he would esteem God himself. For, unquestionably, ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... with him, all the essential benefits of education. There were certain accomplishments, from which I was excluded, from the belief that they were unsuitable to my rank and station. I was permitted to acquire others, which, had she been actuated by true discernment, she would, perhaps, have discovered to be far more incompatible with a servile station. In proportion as my views were refined and enlarged by history and science, I was likely to contract a thirst of independence, and an impatience of ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... horse when touched by the whip, be ye active and lively, and by faith, by virtue, by energy, by meditation, by discernment of the law you will overcome this great pain (of reproof), perfect in knowledge and in behaviour, and ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... service was one of those extraordinary tasks, out of the ordinary course of army hospital discipline, that none but a woman could execute. It required more than a man's power of endurance, for men fainted and fell under the burden. It required a woman's discernment, a woman's tenderness, a woman's delicacy and tact; it required such nerve and moral force, and such executive power, as are rarely united in any woman's character. The simple grace with which she ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... bounce will carry a man neither far nor high; while bounce without tact will elevate him occasionally to his own perdition. Conversationally he was furnished with tentacles sensitive to the lightest touch of an idea; he had the very subtlest discernment of shades within shades. He grasped with airy impact; he moved by a delicate contact and recoil, a process he was pleased to describe as ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... need not go till Saturday-[Exit LA VAROLE] as I am in no particular haste to view my intended sposa. I shall sacrifice a day or two more to the pursuit of my friend Loveless's wife. Amanda is a charming creature—strike me ugly! and, if I have any discernment in the world, she thinks no less of my Lord Foppington. Re-enter LA VAROLE. La Var. Milor, de shoemaker, de tailor, de hosier, de sempstress, de peru, be all ready, if your lordship please to dress. Lord Fop. 'Tis well, admit them. La Var. Hey, messieurs, entrez! Enter TAILOR, SHOEMAKER, ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... which appear trifling, something may be alleged in their defence. It is certainly safer for some writers to give us all they know, than to try their discernment for rejection. Let us sometimes recollect, that the page over which we toil will probably furnish materials for authors of happier talents. I would rather have a Birch, or a Hawkins, appear heavy, cold, and prolix, than that anything material which concerns a Tillotson, or a Johnson, should ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... previously known him, and my first impressions were not agreeable. I hesitated to do my errand. After all it was rather performed than done, more after a Roman than a Saxon fashion. But it turned out better for his character and the public good, than for my own discernment. So of another commission not only from the Trustees, but the venerable Professor Adams, to assure him that he would, after a while, be wanted to take the chair of that noble old man, one of the princes of the earth. They who knew him best had marked him, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... practical. There was, amid all her kindness towards himself, amid all the wonder and admiration with which she contemplated the marvellous work of his hands and incarnation of his idea, a secret scorn—too secret, perhaps, for her own consciousness, and perceptible only to such intuitive discernment as that of the artist. But Owen, in the latter stages of his pursuit, had risen out of the region in which such a discovery might have been torture. He knew that the world, and Annie as the representative of the world, whatever praise might ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a gentleman in his way to allow such a sordid calculation to enter his mind at the time. I may mention here, a woman observed when I visited the Maraboutess, (addressing me), "You must send the medicine, for a Christian mou yakidtheb (never lies)." It is a pity that these people, who have discernment enough to see at times the moral superiority of Christians, should not look a little below the surface and inquire into its cause. Not, however, that all Europeans, (or myself,) deserve these high compliments of gratitude and love of truth, although, compared to Moors and ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... to. A series of manuals followed the work of Muenscher, but did not materially advance the study.[30] The compendium of Baumgarten Crusius,[31] and that of F.K. Meier,[32] stand out prominently among them. The work of the former is distinguished by its independent learning as well as by the discernment of the author that the centre of gravity of the subject lies in the so-called general history of dogma.[33] The work of Meier goes still further, and accurately perceives that the division into a general and special history ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... other travellers, whatever their quality or curiosity may have been, cannot obtain; and a genius capable of making the best improvement of every opportunity. But if the reader, after perusing one letter only has not discernment to distinguish that natural elegance, that delicacy of sentiment and observation, that easy gracefulness, and lovely simplicity, (which is the perfection of writing) and in which these Letters exceed all that has appeared ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... not—seek to know What finite vision, to the end, Through years of strictest search below, Must ever fail to comprehend! God! whose intents so far transcend Our poor discernment, let me see Some portion of the truths that tend By slow ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... Words as Foreign Trades, tho' our Tongue may be enrich'd by the one, as much as our Traffick by the other. [Sidenote: Page 28.] He would have it corrected, enlarg'd and ascertain'd and who must do it? He tells you with great Modesty and Discernment in the 27th Page, The Choice of Hands should be left to him, and he would then assign it over to the Women, because they are softer mouth'd, and are more for Liquids than the Men, as he try'd himself in a very notable Experiment. I wonder a grave, serious Divine, who is so well vers'd ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon
... a body which occasionally fell into splendid poses; there was no suggestion of the trim, stereotyped fashion-plate about it. A casual and indiscriminating observer, in passing, might not cast a second glance upon the figure. But with more feeling and discernment he would have recognized the noble beauty of its modeling, and the graceful severity of poise and movement, which made Edna Pontellier ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... the discernment and nobleness of Washington. Appreciating at a glance the perplexed position of Mr. Adams, and wisely discriminating between the bringing forward of his son for the first time into public service, and the continuing ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... Loadstar is—the Loadstar! The summit of Ron's ambition. It's the magazine of all others which he likes and admires, and the editor is known to be a man of great power and discernment. It is said that if he has the will, he can do more than any man in London to help on young writers. It is useless sending manuscripts, for he refuses to consider unsolicited poetical contributions. He shuts himself up in a fastness in Fleet ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... natural strength of intellect, habit of reasoning, moral, and even physical temperament? We receive the books ascribed to John and Paul as their books on the judgment of men, for whom no miraculous discernment is pretended; nay, whom, in their admission and rejection of other books, we believe to have erred. Shall we give less credence to John and Paul themselves? Surely the heart and soul of every Christian give him sufficient assurance that, in all things ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... bear testimony to the catholic breadth of A. E.'s sympathetic appreciation, for they are as different as may be imagined from the spirit of mysticism. It must also be confessed that their absolute merit as poetry is not particularly remarkable; all the more credit to the discernment of A. E., who described behind them an original ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... in the movement of trees an endeavour to keep warm is not less sharp in its discernment of human beings. I will give one other passage, a conversation between Patricia Quin, the ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... observation and inquiry as a country village affords, respecting her disappointed attachment—that the Greys were very angry, and praised Margaret to every person they met—that Mr Walcot eulogised Mrs Rowland's discernment to all Mrs Rowland's party—that Mrs Howell and Miss Miskin lifted up their eyes in thankfulness at Mr Enderby's escape from such a connection—that Mr Hope was reported to be rather flat in spirits—and that Margaret was certainly looking thin: she knew of all this success, and yet she was not ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... such a school, it would be desirable to secure a man or woman of more than usual ability and discernment who, above all else, could sense the business and routine of each contributing store from the standpoint of the employee and of store organization. It would be the business of this person to become familiar with the available sources of knowledge in the different ...
— Wage Earning and Education • R. R. Lutz
... unduly fixed on the mammon of the world, they allow many little inconsistencies in their children to escape their reproof. But, besides this, as the religion and the love of the mammon of the world are at variance, they have a less spiritual discernment than before. Hence they do not see the same irregularities in the same light. From this omission to check these irregularities on the one hand, and from this decay of their spiritual vision on the other, their children ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... looked upon as dry and unentertaining, our author has, in this group of faces, ridiculed the want of capacity among some of our judges, or dispensers of the law, whose shallow discernment, natural disposition, or wilful inattention, is here perfectly described in their faces. One is amusing himself in the course of trial, with other business; another, in all the pride of self-importance, is examining a former ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... curiously to the side to meet his stare, and more than one remark was dropped anent the old Siwash with so strange a look upon his face. No end of men remembered afterward that they had been struck by his extraordinary figure, and forever afterward prided themselves upon their swift discernment of the unusual. ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... by entire neglect. But slowly all things right themselves. All merit, which is founded in truth, and is strong enough, reaches by sweet exhalations in the end a higher sensory; reaches higher organs of discernment, lodged in a selecter audience. But the original obtuseness or vulgarity of feeling that thwarted Lamb's just estimation in life, will continue to thwart its popular diffusion. There are even some that continue to regard him with the old hostility. And we, therefore, standing by the side of Lamb's ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... He liked those ladies he escorted to festivities to do him credit. He was as much addicted to a liking for feminine loveliness as was ever Mr. Harrison. For Mr. Bennet had looked in the mirror often, and being a person of discernment, had liked what he had seen there; and he had a deep and abiding sense of the fitness of things. Had the gods been less kind to Arethusa in the matter of looks, undoubtedly her adoration of Mr. Bennet must have remained of a distance. ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... is one of them. Hitherto we have never, in a single instance of our discovery, found the slightest resemblance between mesmerism and metaphysics. No especial idiosyncrasy is requisite to acquire a knowledge of metaphysical healing; spiritual sense is more important to its discernment than the intellect; and those who would learn this science without a high moral standard of thought and action, will fail to understand it until they go up higher. Owing to our explanations constantly vibrating between the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... by Mr. Rossetti two by Folgore remain, which may be classified with the not least considerable contributions to Italian gnomic poetry in an age when literature easily assumed a didactic tone. The first has for its subject the importance of discernment and discrimination. It is written on the wisdom of what the ancient Greeks called [Greek: Kairos], or the right occasion in all ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... departed without haste or interruption. If Pleyel marked him as he left the house, (and it is not impossible that he did,) inferences injurious to my character might suggest themselves to him. In admitting them, he gave proofs of less discernment and less candor than I once ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... advancing years, thus proving that the stamp of time is upon them as on things belonging to a temporary economy; whereas such tastes as those that enjoy the beautiful in nature or in art, for example, abide in old age with a youthful freshness, and more than a youthful niceness of discernment; and so afford a presumption that they are destined for immortality. To the aged saint "the trees clap their hands, the little hills rejoice, and the mountains break forth into singing;" and when the earth is empty of every other sentient pleasure, it is in the beauty ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... every degree of these absolute qualities visible in living creatures; and that the divinity of the Mind of man is in its essential discernment of what is [Greek: kalon] from what is [Greek: aischron], and in his preference of the kind of creatures which are decent, to those which are indecent; and of the kinds of thoughts, in himself, which are noble, to those which ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... you so?' exclaimed he; 'did I not say that you were a man of ingenuity? Acknowledge, then, that I am not without penetration; own, that it requires a sharp discernment to discover at once where abilities lie; and that had it not been for me, we should never have discovered this katib, who is to tell us everything, and thus fulfil the instructions of the Asylum of ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... this would be also very hard to bear, as reflecting, in some degree, on the discernment of Mr Chuzzlewit. Still he had a modest confidence that he could sustain the calumny, with the help of a good ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... discerning eye for essentials, he would lose no chance of a swing through looking for more than the bare necessities. When the physicist describes the pendulum in terms of a formula such as t 2pi[squareroot(l/g)] he exhibits a similar discernment. He has found that the time occupied by an oscillation of any pendulum may be calculated exclusively in terms of its length and the acceleration due to gravity. The monkey's higher proficiency and the formula alike represent a knowledge that is free in the sense that it is contained ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... in the dining saloon learned that their neighbor at table was the great poet. In a flutter of interest they listened for the wisdom which would drop from the distinguished man's mouth and heard the hearty words, "What fine potatoes these are!" This particular point requires nice discernment on the part of host and hostess; they should know when they may safely impress one guest with the cleverness of the other, and when it would be disastrous to do so. Suppose the consequence is that each guest waits for the sparkling flow ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... which give them plenty of conceit, come to no sort of use in the end. Betty knows enough of my hobbies to talk about his fish a little, and I thought it was all girlish nonsense; the truth is that she has shown real discernment of character,—young Foster is a ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... and I saw that the tropical heat had made Jones thirsty, or that with friends he had been celebrating his departure. He winked at me, and, apparently with pleasure at his own discernment and with pity for ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... spoke, attending his guest, hat in hand, to the outer gate, when it pleased him to depart. But, take it for all in all, there remained a certain doubtful feeling in Lord Hartledon's mind regarding the interview; for some subtle discernment had whispered to him that both Gum and his wife could have given him the description of Gordon, and would ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... my story confidently before you, my reader, trusting in the justice of my case and in your judicial discernment, but for one other thing. What will the Goddess Clio say, or the well-deserving knight, if I offend History? She has stated her case, Sir Bartimeus has written it, and then so late in the day I come with a different story, a truer but different story. What will they do? Reader, ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... advantages such as few, even the most highly gifted, can boast of. During his sojourn in Spain he performed many eminent services for the government which employed him; services which, I believe, it had sufficient discernment to see, and gratitude to reward. He had to encounter, however, the full brunt of the low and stupid malignity of the party who, shortly after the time of which I am speaking, usurped the management of the ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... never became what may be called a popular book, it nevertheless attracted a good deal of attention, and the author received a great number of letters expressive of admiration and gratitude for the clear discernment and impartiality with which the differences existing between the two nations had been studied ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... nor just to the latter. Not content with elevating their own idol with paeans and thanksgiving, before the gaze of a bedinned public, they persisted in shouting out their scorn and contempt at the pretensions of their unhappy neighbour. The public, with its usual discernment, gave implicit credence to both fables. Western Australia had met its contumelious detractors with silence; and the false statements were therefore looked upon as admitted and undeniable. But notwithstanding ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... to give an air of truth to a piece, and to interest the spectator in an extraordinary manner. Such circumstances therefore cannot wholly be rejected; but if there be anything in the Art which requires peculiar nicety of discernment, it is the disposition of these minute, circumstantial parts, which, according to the judgment employed in the choice, become so useful to truth or so ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... exquisite a Delicacy, of Expression and Sentiment, that I am only apprehensive, for the Interests of Virtue, lest some of the finest, and most touching, of those elegant Strokes of Good-breeding, Generosity, and Reflection, shou'd be lost, under the too gross Discernment of an unfeeling Majority of Readers; for whose Coarseness, however, they were kindly design'd, as the most useful and ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... truth. "He was a man," says Felt, "of deep discernment, whom neither wealth nor honor could allure from duty. He poised with an equal balance the authority of the King, and the liberty of the people. Sincere in Religion and pure in his life, he overcame ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... and truth to every fragment that he draws from memory. His powers of association, and his knowledge of nature will pour out before him in greater or less number and appositeness the images from which to choose. His experience guides him to quick discernment in the combination, when made, of the parts that are ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... beyond experience, into which men cannot enter by the native right of reason. It is asserted that the finite cannot know the infinite, that the nature of God is unknowable—except by means of a supernatural interference, which gives to men a new power of spiritual discernment, and "reveals" to them things which are "above reason," although not contrary to it. The theologian often shields certain of his doctrines from criticism, on the ground, as he contends, that there are facts which we must believe, ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... and the entire dependence upon Him not cultivated. Regeneration, the giving of Divine life, we all acknowledge to be God's act, a miracle of His power. The restoring or reviving of the Divine life, in a soul or a Church, is as much a supernatural work. To have the spiritual discernment that can understand the signs of the heavens, and prognosticate the coming revival, we need to enter deep into God's mind and will as to its conditions, and the preparedness of those who pray for it or are to be used to bring it about. "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray
... placed at the head of the joint committee of the House on Library. The other members were Wm. D. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, and Calvin T. Hurlburd, of New York. As chairman of the committee on the Library of the United States, to employ the language of its accomplished librarian, he had "a clear discernment and quick apprehension of all things that needed to be done;" he "threw his influence in favor of the most ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... thought her mother's wrappers very beautiful, but now look at this! Cynthia's face, too, in the dim, rosy light, looked very fair to the child, who had no discernment for those ravages of time of which adults either acquit themselves or by which they measure their own. She did not see the faded color of the woman's face at all; she did not see the spreading marks around mouth and eyes, or the faint parallels ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... for this service, both because he feared his precipitation in the field, and knew, when needed, his support would never fail to appear. It was only in front of the enemy that Captain Lawton was hasty; at all other times his discernment and self-possession were consummately preserved; but he sometimes forgot them in his eagerness to engage. On the left of the ground on which Dunwoodie intended to meet his foe, was a close wood, which skirted that side of the valley for the ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... individual. The successful leaders of great multitudes have often owed almost as much to that high bearing and dignified demeanour which should be the distinct badge of those who are numbered with the great, as to their skill and discernment; and while treated in the court of Pharaoh as a scion of royalty, the young Hebrew acquired that air of conscious authority to which inferior minds always defer. He gained there that knowledge of courtly splendour and gayety which forced in him the conviction of their ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... own mind that is the real key to control of Indian troops. Up a side-street there were a dozen troop-horses standing, and a British subaltern was making himself as inconspicuous as he could in the doorway of a store. It did not need much discernment to judge that those in authority were ready to deal swiftly with any ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... fixed with those on which the chemist and the surgeon proceed, are by no means equally recognised. Men are rarely able to assign a reason for their approbation or dislike on questions of taste; and therefore they willingly submit to any guide who boldly asserts his claim to superior discernment. It is more difficult to ascertain and establish the merits of a poem than the powers of a machine or the benefits of a new remedy. Hence it is in literature, that quackery is most easily puffed, and excellence most ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... disappointments, at witnessing relapses, misconceptions, sudden disgusts, and, on the other hand, abuses and perversions of the true doctrine, in the case of those who have taken it up with more warmth than discernment. ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... little or none; and acting now in a peaceable or even friendly capacity. In the Southampton country he came in contact with the then Bishop of Winchester, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, excellent Elphegus, still dimly decipherable to us as a man of great natural discernment, piety, and inborn veracity; a hero-soul, probably of real brotherhood with Olaf's own. He even made court visits to King Ethelred; one visit to him at Andover of a very serious nature. By Elphegus, as we ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... egotistic: Jackson, on the other hand, was proud, reserved, and with such abounding self-respect as excluded egotism. The two men, instead of being alike, were in fact signal contrasts in all that appertains to the talent for administration, to the quick discernment of the time for action, and to the prompt execution of ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... this man, not only with the artist's desire to satisfy the connoisseur, no, but with stormy passion—she felt it now; yet, though the god of love was called a blind boy, she had retained the full, clear strength of vision and the absolute power of discernment. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... is impossible to measure adequately the consequences of sexual indulgence. It is destructive of physical health among women and of morals among both sexes. It results in a weakening of the will and a blunting of moral discernment. It is an economic waste, as is intemperance, for even on the level of economic values it is plain that money could be much better spent for that which would benefit rather than curse. But the great evil that looms large in public view is the legacy of physical ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... great measure effected, by raising the price, and excluding the small fry of petty capitalists); and effectually imposed on them as a man with a vast knowledge of public business, in the confidence of great men at home, considerable influence with the English press, etc. And no discredit to their discernment; for Jack, when he pleased, had a way with him that was almost irresistible. In this manner he contrived to associate himself and his earnings with men really of large capital and long practical experience in the best mode by which that capital might be ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the old man's words had not been vague. And as to those hang-dog looks,—her lover had told her that she should not allow a man's countenance to go so far in evidence as that! In so judging she would trust much too far to her own power of discernment. She would not contradict him, but she felt sure of her discernment in that respect. She did not in the least doubt the truth of the evidence conveyed by the ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... Assyrians by the Persians, in order to represent their own Haoma—although the conventional bore no similarity to the real plant—proves that they recognized a certain analogy in the conception of the two emblems. In point of fact the Persians have shown great discernment in their borrowing and adapting; and where they took Chaldeo-Assyrian art for model and for teaching, they only adopted such of those religious symbols common in the basin of the Euphrates and Tigris, as might be rendered applicable ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... out, until finally (as the idea of color in one become blind in early life) they completely disappear. Ideas impressed upon the mind by frequent repetition are rarely entirely lost. Memory is the basis for the intellectual functions of discernment and comparison, of composition, abstraction, and naming. Since, amid the innumerable multitude of ideas, it is not possible to assign to each one a definite sign, the indispensable condition of language is found in the power of abstraction, ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... revulsion of timid feminine feeling, even amidst the truest joy? Or was it that a new wine had been given into Faith's life, which would not be held in the old bottles? Was she uncertain—inconstant; or had she spiritually outgrown her old attachment? Or, was she bewildered, now, out of the discernment of what was still her heart's ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... lustful. "I have a picture of women like that," said a countryman with a grin, as he pointed to a photograph of one of Tintoret's most beautiful groups, "smoking cigarettes." And the mass of people in most northern countries have still passed little beyond this stage of discernment; in ability to distinguish between the beautiful and the obscene they are still on the level of the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... now become chief military adviser to the Union Government, was as cautious as McClellan and had so little discernment that he thought Pope a better general than Grant. Lincoln, Stanton, and Halleck put their heads together; and an order soon followed which had the effect of relieving the pressure on Richmond and giving the ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... of Capella, he was only twelve years of age: he published it in his fourteenth year, and dedicated it to the Prince of Conde. The learning and critical discernment displayed by him in this publication excited astonishment, and obtained for him the applause of all the literary world. Grotius himself gives the following account of his work: "We have collated Capella with the several authors, who have investigated the ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Giovanni Cavalcanti, in the appendices to his Florentine history, written before the year 1450, collects instances of civil virtue and abnegation, of political discernment and of military valor, all shown by Florentines. Pius II gives in his 'Commentaries' valuable portraits of famous contemporaries; and not long ago a separate work of his earlier years, which seems preparatory to these portraits, but which has colors and features that are very singular, was ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... very true, and very well said, with respect to the fact, but with respect to the cause there is one of the greatest errors into which a number of men of discernment and ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... haven't had any experience with petticoats. This woman will rend heaven and earth rather than relinquish her projects, or rather those of her mistress. I should like to see this duchess, who shows a fine discernment in the selection of her assistants. Beware of the woman who is frankly your enemy. If she is frank, it is because she is confident of the end; if not, she is frank in order to disarm us of the suspicion of cunning. I would ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... Johnson—"Though a stern true-born Englishman, and fully prejudiced against all other nations, he had discernment enough to see, and candour enough to censure, the cold reserve too common among Englishmen towards strangers. 'Sir,' said he, (Johnson) 'two men of any other nation who are shown into a room together, at a house where they are ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... quality escape the discernment of the good people of Nieuw Nederlandts; on the contrary, so much were they struck with the independent will and vigorous resolution displayed on all occasions by their new governor, that they universally called him Hard-Koppig Piet; or Peter the Headstrong—a great ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... "it seems that I have still some discernment, for just so I judged him. Well, what more do you know ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... minds more accessible. For my part, if truth be a merit, I can say I never had an affection, but what I regretted it sooner or later, or made a confidence, but what I wished it recalled. Excepting in one case, which I leave to your discernment. And such is my vexation at this minute that, was I to be born in another incarnation as Pythagoras pretends, I would be a foundling, indebted to none who could exact repayment of the gift of life forced upon an unwilling victim to please the humour ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... as this slab of black basalt on its telescope-like pedestal. The hall itself, despite its profusion of strangely sculptured treasures, is never crowded, but before this stone you may almost always find some one standing, gazing with more or less of discernment at the strange characters that are graven neatly across its upturned, glass-protected face. A glance at this graven surface suffices to show that three sets of inscriptions are recorded there. The upper one, occupying about one-fourth ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... she was troubled by a certain sense of probably wholesome confusion. It seemed to her that Sally had the clearer vision. Love had given her discernment as well as charity, and, not expecting perfection, it was the man's strong points ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... thing not to be overlooked in this history,"that he paid the fare thereof" ere the craft did sail. And taken with the context, this is full of meaning. Now Jonah's Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment detects crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless. In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers. So Jonah's Captain prepares ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... same discernment was shown when he was purchasing old furniture, brass, and so-called Sheffield plate to increase Otto's stock. If the articles offered could still boast of either handle, leg, or back of their original state and the ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... has come into its own at last. I confess to having a strong belief in the critical discernment of the public. I do not think good work is often overlooked. Literature, like water, finds its true level. Opinion is slow to form, but it sets true at last. I am sure that if the critics were to unite ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Abbe Fissiaux, the head of the colony of Marseilles, when visiting Mettray, a kind of reform school, at which boys under sixteen years of age, who have committed offences without discernment, are sent, asked the colonists to point out to him the three best boys. The looks of the whole body immediately designated three young persons whose conduct had been irreproachable to an exceptional degree. He then applied ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... at her discernment: she had always seemed to him gifted with supernatural insight. "Well, I did want to see ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... mouthing, dirt-swallowing pulpit huckster, is a true representative of the influence and ideas of New England? Or that the present Copperhead Democracy of that section is the real exponent of the genuine spirit of the Puritan Democracy? Certainly not. They are shrewd men, of great discernment, and in their way brave and chivalrous, and I verily do not wonder if they would not have these renegade Yankees even as slaves. No! the actual cause of their hatred is the silent, all-pervading influence of the free institutions of New England, which derive their power and efficacy ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the back, and she said she was willing to take her oath on it at any time when required, and was certain, if the wretch Ridsley saw him, that he would make oath to the same purport, for that his walk was so peculiar no one of common discernment ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... city, it was arranged that they should journey together as far as their respective routes led them. The men were of the usual stamp of herders, rough in exterior and plain of speech, but apparently worthy of trust. The captain was not wanting in discernment, and his cordial manner ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... derisively said, as she looked into his face: "Truly a most gallant husband and a gentleman! And so, forsooth, you would desert your wife because she has forgotten the memory of her dead boy—whom she never truly loved—and because she thirsts after pleasure and excitement! What wondrous discernment! What a wise judge of human nature!" Her ironical laugh was ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... been accorded to the virile magnificence of King Charles, albeit one there was of the ladies, who, being a Ghibelline, joined not therein, Pampinea, having received the king's command, thus began:—None is there of discernment, worshipful my ladies, that would say otherwise than you have said touching good King Charles, unless for some other cause she bear him a grudge; however, for that there comes to my mind the, perchance ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... and all the more because it is written not only with critical discernment but with ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... been written in vain if I have not made clear what the world owes this rare woman, not only for the sedulous care which kept the invalid genius alive long after the time allotted to him in the book of fate, but for the intellectual sympathy and keen discernment with which she stood ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez |
