"Reasoning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Half the sum would afford every wished-for comfort to my Anna, and much less would enable us at once to marry. Here was the rock on which I went to pieces—here was the giddy light that blinded me to all considerations—here was the sophistry that made all other reasoning dull and valueless. I did not stop to enquire what movement of feeling could operate so generously upon my uncle. If an unfavourable suggestion forced itself upon me, it was expelled at once; and persuasion ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... write informations to their respective courts directly contrary to the assurances he gave them: most people confounding the ideas of sense and cunning, though there are really no two things in nature more opposite: it is, in part, from this false reasoning, the unjust custom prevails of debarring our sex from the advantages of learning, the men fancying the improvement of our understandings would only furnish us with more art to deceive them, which is directly contrary to the truth. Fools are always enterprising, not seeing the difficulties of deceit, ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... reasoning it is held that the constant growing of any species or variety in the northern latitudes does not increase hardiness but only enables us to determine which is hardy, thereby enabling us by selection to increase the ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... that he too was an intellectual marvel as well as his gifted sister. He could not conceive how it had come about (it did not occur to him that the gossip about his family's great wealth had any thing to do with it). He could not account for it by any process of reasoning, and was simply obliged to accept the fact and give up trying to solve the riddle. He found himself dragged into society and courted, wondered at and envied very much as if he were one of those foreign barbers who flit over here now and then with a self-conferred ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... doors, or condemned to the last use, of kindling a fire. When I beheld this, I sighed and said within myself, Surely, mortal man is a broomstick! Nature sent him into the world strong and lusty, in a thriving condition, wearing his own hair on his head, the proper branches of this reasoning vegetable, until the axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs, and left him a withered trunk: he then flies to art, and puts on a periwig, valuing himself upon an unnatural bundle of hairs, all covered with powder, that never grew upon ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... exceeded the bounds of moderation in despising rather than in courting fame. But the case is really this. The only way of conducting the war against Hannibal is that which I adopted: nor does the event only, that instructor of fools, demonstrate it, but that same reasoning which has continued hitherto, and will continue unchangeable so long as circumstances shall remain the same. We are carrying on war in Italy, in our own country, and our own soil. All around us are countrymen and allies in abundance. With ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... erroneous reasoning: suicide is, no doubt a heinous crime: but Brutus appears to have been governed by his apprehension of danger, instead of being convinced by the ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... headquarters of General Turner, V.C., of our brigade close by. Huge shells fell in the house, and the shock from the explosion and the effects of the gas had knocked out Staff Captain Pope. The gasses acted on him, and many others, like chloroform, so that for a time he lost his reasoning power and appeared to be delirious. He had to be carried away. Captain Harold Macdonald, one of the staff captains of our brigade, was struck with pieces of shell and narrowly escaped with his life. He was literally filled with splinters. One in the cheek, one in the eye, one in the ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... would amount to little. But if he rode in at daybreak, ahead of the posse, ate and departed, leaving a hint as to his assumed identity, he could mislead them a day longer at least. He built all his reasoning on the hope that the posse would find and ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... valuable; but what is most distinctive in Buchez's theory—the division of historical development into four great epochs originated by four universal revelations, of each epoch into three periods corresponding to desire, reasoning and performance, and of each of these periods into a theoretical and practical age—is merely ingenious (see Flint's Philosophy of History in Europe, i. 242-252). Buchez next edited, along with M. Roux-Lavergne (1802-1874), ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... a million dollars by the venture. He smiled calmly and said: "The plan was right, but my men were weak—that is all. The gateway to China will be from the Northwest. My plans were correct. Time will vindicate my reasoning." ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... certainly right. This is the sense in which it is true that "there is one Lawgiver:" all others but attempt the work; He alone is competent to perform it. There is no mathematical certainty in our reasoning on moral as there is on physical relations. We know that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles with an assurance we can never have in regard to any moral truth whatever. The Divine law is a deduction necessarily and mathematically ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... with the reply; for though it was a view of philosophy which he could not and did not follow, however much he might agree to it, yet the course of reasoning and the sources of argument were so much akin to those he usually sought, that he fancied he had at length found a man quite after his own heart. He chose to express no farther opinion upon the subject, however, till he had seen more of his ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... at the porter's reasoning; after which Zobeide gravely addressed him, "Friend, you presume rather too much; and though you do not deserve that I should enter into any explanation with you, I have no objection to inform you that we are three sisters, who transact our affairs with ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... stated in all mention of his lamentable irregularities), that, with a single glass of wine, his whole nature was reversed, the demon became uppermost, and, though none of the usual signs of intoxication were visible, his will was palpably insane. Possessing his reasoning faculties in excited activity, at such times, and seeking his acquaintances with his wonted look and memory, he easily seemed personating only another phase of his natural character, and was accused, accordingly, of insulting arrogance and bad-heartedness. In this ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... tall, gaunt man with a grizzled black beard, a long nose, and such a formidably solemn expression that ambitious parents were in the habit of wishing that their offspring might some day be as wise as Sir Justin Wallingford looked. His fund of information was prodigious, while his reasoning powers were so remarkable that he had never been known to commit the slightest action without furnishing a full and adequate explanation of his conduct. Thus the discrimination shown by the Countess in choosing him to restore a lady's peace of mind ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... than are those who have nothing to do. But no one can be regularly employed who has not some motive for exertion. A mere desire for happiness is not the right motive; for, notwithstanding a man, when reasoning on the subject, may be able to see that, unless he is employed in doing something useful to his fellows, he cannot be even contented, yet when he follows out the impulses of his nature, if not compelled to work, he will seek for relief from the uneasiness he feels ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... of prudence are assigned unfittingly. Tully (De Invent. Rhet. ii, 53) assigns three parts of prudence, namely, "memory," "understanding" and "foresight." Macrobius (In Somn. Scip. i) following the opinion of Plotinus ascribes to prudence six parts, namely, "reasoning," "understanding," "circumspection," "foresight," "docility" and "caution." Aristotle says (Ethic. vi, 9, 10, 11) that "good counsel," "synesis" and "gnome" belong to prudence. Again under the head of prudence he mentions "conjecture," "shrewdness," "sense" and "understanding." ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... area in which free labor was demanded the better and more certain was the remuneration. But against a general emancipation Mr. Lincoln was quick to see that white laborers might be readily prejudiced by superficial reasoning, and hence he adduced the broader argument which appealed at once to their humanity, to their sense of manly independence, and to their instinct of self-preservation against the mastery ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the horses savagely; so we supposed that he hadn't been paid, and went on to deduce from that that Yussuf Dakmar had driven away again, after satisfying himself that the Feisul letter had reached headquarters. It was lazy, bad reasoning—the sort of superficial, smart stuff that has cost the lives of thousands of good men times out of number—four o'clock o' the morning intelligence that, like the courage of that hour, needs priming by the foreman, ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... account of the individual, whom you know. It seemed to me, that God wished that the all of self in him should be destroyed. I perceived, that although the troths be uttered, proceeded from the inward work of the spirit upon his heart, his reasoning faculty operated so powerfully, without his perceiving it, that the effect of these truths was in some degree lost. Souls are won more by the unction of grace—by the weapons of love—than by the ...
— Letters of Madam Guyon • P. L. Upham
... so far as it is true, is sure of victory, is the necessary basis of all effective activity for good.—CAIRD, Evolution of Religion, ii. 43. It is the property of truth to be fearless, and to prove victorious over every adversary. Sound reasoning and truth, when adequately communicated, must always be victorious over error.—GODWIN, Political Justice (Conclusion). Vice was obliged to retire and give place to virtue. This will always be the consequence when truth has fair ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... themselves a theory of aesthetics. To such, and to all others who have any wish to reason connectedly on art matters, Mr. Marshall's little book will be interesting and instructive reading. It is remarkably clear and understandable even to a reader with no special training in metaphysical reasoning, and in point of literary style and carefully considered use of language it is a genuine treat. Its object is to explain, in as direct and simple language as possible, the nature and origin of our ideas of the beautiful, ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 06, June 1895 - Renaissance Panels from Perugia • Various
... met Cobden himself. In the Anti-Corn Law movement the two speakers were the complements and correlatives of each other. Cobden had the calmness and confidence of the political philosopher, Bright had the passion and the fervour of the popular orator. Cobden did the reasoning, Bright supplied the declamation, but like Demosthenes he mingled argument with appeal. No orator of modern times rose more rapidly to a foremost place. He was not known beyond his own borough when Cobden called him to his side in 1841, and he entered parliament ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... the "Salem Gazette," March 8, 1791, "murmur at this as an ill-judged act of liberality; but perhaps they are not acquainted with the arguments which induced the grant. The disposition of Government to foster our infant manufactures is certainly laudable." This is unquestionably good reasoning; for, granted the premises that lotteries are ever beneficial, then there was no reason why aid should not in this way be extended to business enterprises which were to give employment to the people, as well as to schools and colleges. ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 1: Curiosities of the Old Lottery • Henry M. Brooks
... Wrangler in the Law. I was giving my Opinion, says the Captain, without apprehending any Debate that might arise from it, of a General's Behaviour in a Battle that was fought some Years before either the Templer or my self were born. The young Lawyer immediately took me up, and by reasoning above a Quarter of an Hour upon a Subject which I saw he understood nothing of, endeavoured to shew me that my Opinions were ill grounded. Upon which, says the Captain, to avoid any farther Contests, I told him, That truly I had not consider'd those several Arguments which he had brought ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... rector's usual practice when any delinquent was brought before his notice, but it had never yet fallen to his lot to receive the invitation. Mr. Upton had his own way of doing things, so people said, and he had greater faith in reasoning with any culprits than scolding them, whether they were grown men, or women, ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... reasoning powers were in their normal condition," said the Professor, compassionately, "you would see that the mere production of an empty bottle can be no proof of what it contained—or, for that matter, that it ever ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... admitting these statements in the form and full extent to which you made them. His admission of them was rather indirect and circumstantial, though I did not understand it to be an evasive one. He said that, reasoning from what occurred in the case of the police in Maryland, which he regarded as a parallel one, he was of opinion, and so assured you, that it would be his right and duty under your instructions to hold the War Office after the Senate should disapprove of Mr. Stanton's suspension until the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... he had been making, in which the captain agreed with him, and declared that he had been over the same course of reasoning. Both of them thought the Ionian would not wait till daylight to change her course, as it would be more perilous to do so then than ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... Macleod had her own large post-bag which had to be answered, just as William Sharp had his. But far beyond any such outward expressions of themselves as these, the difficulty of the double personality lay in deep springs of character and of taste. Sharp's mind was keenly intellectual, observant, and reasoning; while Fiona Macleod was the intuitional and spiritual dreamer. She was indeed the expression of the womanly element in Sharp. This element certainly dominated him, or rather perhaps he was one of those who have successfully ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... wish I could afford it: but you shall have a ride this week! Yes," continued the mother, as if reasoning with herself, in excuse of the extravagance, "he does not look well: poor child! he ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... The above method of reasoning, in short, will not stand the test of plain common sense. It is trifling, ignoring all distinctions which rest on principles, and substituting factitious ones; and Christians who assume this ground, lay themselves ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... is, as the author states in his preface, "to lay before the reader the chief facts and the chief trains of reasoning in Comparative Philology." Among the great mass of material accumulated for the purpose a share is devoted to the languages of North America. The remarks under these are often taken verbatim from the author's earlier papers, to which reference ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... of this. He could not explain why he accepted it as fact. He merely wrote it down as one of his hunches. And with his old-time faith in the result of that subliminal reasoning, he counted what remained of his money, paid his bills, and sailed from Kingston northward as a steerage passenger in a United Fruit steamer ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... him, has not been so publicly asserted of late, and some, when they hear it, are a little startled. But most of the good children of "the church" are soon quieted again, by the recollection, that their kind and compassionate "mother" means well, even in murder. The common mode of reasoning, is, in this case, inverted. It is not said, "the action is right, therefore the church does it;" but, "the church does it, therefore it ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... doubt about the correctness of this reasoning, you have only to try the experiment over again, in a well, filled with mercury for instance. Ask to be shown some pure mercury, which is also called Quicksilver, because one wants to express melted silver, apt to be constantly ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... that beautiful consistency which usually distinguishes those august individuals, insisted upon shooting poor Harry, for, said they,—and the reasoning is remarkably conclusive and clear,—a man so hardened as to raise his hand against his own life will never hesitate to murder another! They almost mobbed F. for binding up the wounds of the unfortunate wretch, and for saying that it was possible ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... said Mr. Arrowpoint, wishing to substitute a better-humored reasoning for his wife's impetuosity. "A man like Klesmer can't marry such a property as yours. It can't ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... to his play, but he took up a string of reasoning like this: "Because I am the only boy mama has set out to make me as good as Mabel, and she doesn't allow me to use slang nor anything of the kind. I know if there were half a dozen boys here, it would be different. I suppose it is all right for girls and women, ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... the sagacious expedient of the fair young captives put them right. A shred of their handkerchief, or of some part of their dress, which they had intrusted to the wind unobserved, indicated their course, and that the captives were thus far not only alive, but that their reasoning powers, unsubdued by fatigue, were active and buoyant. Next day, in passing places covered with mud, deposited by the dry branches on the way, the foot prints of the captives were distinctly traced, until the pursuers had learned ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... halted, completely at a loss. She knew very well how she had come to think of it. The idea had been the kindly gift of intuition—that was all there was to it. But the explanation of the fact to a mere man, with his finical dependence on logic and all manner of foolishness in the way of reasoning, offered considerable difficulty. So, she rested silent, puzzling over a means for making the truth lucid to a ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... possessed only such value as the property they represented, which was nothing, and the mortgages were of the same character. The whole scheme was based upon hopes, which the slightest application of sober reasoning would have pronounced impossible of fulfillment. But the country was hungry, and willing to seize upon anything that offered a semblance ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... idea of the logic of these sutras. They proceed to show that all manner of things, such as the five skandhas, the elements, contact, attachment, fire and fuel, origination, continuation and extinction have no real existence. Similar reasoning is then applied to religious topics: the world of transmigration as well as bondage and liberation are declared non-existent. In reality no soul is in bondage and none is released.[105] Similarly Karma, the Buddha himself, the four truths, Nirvana and the twelve links in ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... gatherer there, the reason for a single place of taxation no longer obtains, * * * [However], the State of domicile is not deprived, by the taxpayer's activities elsewhere, of its constitutional jurisdiction to tax." In accordance with this line of reasoning, Tennessee, where a decedent died domiciled, and Alabama, where a trustee, by conveyance from said decedent, held securities on specific trusts, were both deemed competent to impose a tax on the transfer of these securities passing under the will of the decedent. "In effecting her purposes," ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... case was her inexplicable aversion to water—either a crude prevision of her coming fate, or, in the mysterious operations of delirious reasoning, the actual cause of it. The sea, visible from her window over the dreary flat of the links, may have fascinated her, and drawn her to her death. Such cases ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... observe, Mr. Theydon, that even in a minor instance of deductive reasoning, such as this, the man who smells rather than the man who smokes tobacco solves the ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... that without some prodigious explosions, calling out the whole strength of the actor's lungs, the character falls dead. The Indian could not believe the air-gun had killed the bird, because he did not hear the report. We have reversed the Indian mode of reasoning, and always believe it is the noise that kills the bird. Oh, Smith! think of the bellowings of Sir Giles Overreach—and Barbarossa—and Zanga—and the diabolical howlings of Belvidera, and Isabella, and the Mourning Bride. Can people have no passion that don't disturb ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... people into a more submissive frame of mind. But the movement was too full of force to be arrested by such gentle methods, and the justices, 'being afraid of their own shadows, ... departed without having done anything at all.' Unfortunately, their reasoning had merely an irritating effect, so that, when a certain gentleman named Helions tried mildly to enforce some of the remonstrances, a man struck him on the neck with a billhook and killed him. This blow seems ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... he was, Nicholas did not feel quite assured of the force of this reasoning, or the justice of this conclusion; but without troubling himself to question it, he took down the address, and resolved to wait ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Hugh Carnaby's miserable doom, and the dark surmises attaching to his wife, doubtless had their part in bringing about a nervous crisis; why could he not recognise this as perfectly natural, and dismiss the matter? In spite of all reasoning, Alma's image ever and again appeared to him shadowed by the gloom which involved her friend—or the woman who was her friend. He knew it (or believed it) to be the merest illusion of his perturbed mind; for no fact, how ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... fibre, at another to propel an hundred-gun ship. Hence the rarity of eminence in this branch of knowledge; and if we could conceive a writer who, to the ardent genius and descriptive powers of Gibbon, should unite the lucid glance and just discrimination of Robertson, and the calm sense and reasoning powers of Hume, he would form a more perfect historian than ever has, or probably ever ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... own Humour to a Hair! How I admire such generous sprightly Virtue, your Reasoning, Madam, darts amazing brightness, 'where groveling Souls want courage to think freely, ay, Liberty's the Source of all Enjoyments, a nourishing Delight, innate and durable. I love the Harmony of Foreign Courts; your downright English Women ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... Keith, the teachers who prepared her for college, were struck by her power of constructive reasoning; and she was excellent in pure mathematics, though she seems never to have enjoyed it much. Some of the best of her writing, apart from her fanciful and imaginative work, is her exposition in examinations and technical themes, and in some letters which she found it necessary ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... the whole world to love God; their sentiments towards Him are so deep, so pure, and so disinterested, that those who hear them speak, if they are not divinely enlightened, believe them to have attained the height of perfection. They are fruitful in good works; there is no reasoning here, nothing but a deep and burning love. The soul feels itself seized and held fast by a divine force which ravishes and consumes it. It is like intoxicated persons, who are so possessed with wine that they do not know what they ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... "It is useless reasoning in this fashion," answered Agnes, insolently; "half-confidences always lead to confusion. The truth is, madam, you have not at any time really studied my interests; there is something beyond it all that I have had no share in from the ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... than that a country should neglect services rendered to it. The loss is its own, because, apart from justice to the individual, his example is not kept alive to encourage others coming after. In so far, then, as that reasoning may apply to myself—not very far, perhaps—I do sincerely value any honours I have received. Not otherwise; and it is easy to understand that a distinction, granted without adequate cause, might exercise a really pernicious effect upon the tone of ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... Harper, began to put more zeal into her work. She was a bright girl, and could easily win class laurels if she wished, though she disliked any continuous efforts. Her essays were full of originality, and she was quick at understanding anything which required reasoning, but she had little patience for remembering dates and facts, and was not capable of Patty's steady plodding. Though both Maud Greening and Kitty Harrison had become more friendly, Vera Clifford and Muriel still held aloof from Patty, and it was owing to them ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... pay, Mrs. Scherman?" was Kate's next question. It came, evidently in the process of a reasoning calculation; not, as usual, with the grasping ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... advantage which I could scarcely have hoped to secure in less than six months of the ordinary run of active service. I watched with unflagging interest the progress of every operation as the work went forward, with the result that I learned by actual observation, coupled with the best use of my reasoning faculties, and frequent questions to Mr Sennitt (who, I may say, heard and answered my inquiries with quite astonishing patience), the position and use of every rope that I saw fitted, the mode of working the yards, and much ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... was hugging myself like this, with a boyish manner of reasoning, my joy was like to have ended in sad grief both to myself and my mother, and haply to all honest folk who shall love to read this history. For hearing a noise in front of me, and like a coward not knowing ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... sweeping clean of the Church thou wilt find many surprises," replied the monk, elated at the success of his clever reasoning. ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... the other hand, sufferers compelled to remain here generally become, after a few years, hopelessly insane. In the opinion of Dr. Miskievitch the affliction is largely due to a total inertia of the reasoning faculties, which after a time becomes a positive torture to the ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... long before. But these facts do not detract from the glory of Bacon any more than the discovery of America by the Norsemen five hundred years before the time of Columbus detracts from his glory. The same process of reasoning would take all credit from every philosopher that has ever lived, for with equal truth it may be said that every mental process "has been practiced ever since the beginning of the world by ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... heirs might till then have entertained. Samuel became paler than usual, and pressed convulsively the hand of Bathsheba, who had drawn near to him. Large tears rolled down the cheeks of the two old people. Dagobert and Agricola were plunged into the deepest dejection. Struck with the reasoning of the notary, who refused to give more credence and authority to their remonstrances than the magistrates had done before him, they saw themselves forced to abandon every hope. But Gabriel suffered more than any one; he felt the most ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... extremely abnormal and unlike his usual procedure. He goes into Corinth, and he does next to nothing in evangelistic work. He repairs to the synagogue once a week, and talks to the Jews there. But that is all. The notice of his reasoning in the synagogue is quite subordinate to the notice that he was occupied in finding a lodging with another pauper Jew and stranger in the great city, and that these two poor men went into a kind of partnership, and tried to earn a living by hard work. Such procedure makes ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... these things; he merely did them," etc. And I did this repeatedly, to the clogging of my narrative and in violation of my artistic canons; and I did it in order to hammer into the average human understanding that these dog-heroes of mine were not directed by abstract reasoning, but by instinct, sensation, and emotion, and by simple reasoning. Also, I endeavoured to make my stories in line with the facts of evolution; I hewed them to the mark set by scientific research, ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... which had been lauded, nettled them. By some obscure process of reasoning it convicted him of conceit, a mean and stingy conceit, unpardonable even among those to whom self-esteem was as natural as the drawing of breath. Eternal poseurs themselves, they adjudged his modesty ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... the influence of argument failed. He was a powerful young man, in point of physical strength, but as his temperament was hot and choleric, the consciousness of this strength often led him, under its impulse, in desperate cases, to a mode of reasoning, which, after all, no man more than himself subsequently regretted. Zealous he unquestionably was, but beyond the bounds prescribed by a spirit of Christian moderation. I know not how it happened, but the Orangeman hated him with an intensity of detestation, which, however, he paid back ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... he? Ah! there is the question which stands between me and my sleep. How many theories do I form, only to discard each in turn! It is all so utterly unthinkable. And yet the cry, the footmark, the tread in the cavern—no reasoning can get past these. I think of the old-world legends of dragons and of other monsters. Were they, perhaps, not such fairy-tales as we have thought? Can it be that there is some fact which underlies them, and am I, of all mortals, the one who is ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... would reply with a shrug, "not much of that, godmother. If I had been patient, I should never have called him names. But I hope I did it for his good. And besides, I felt my responsibility as a mother so much. I tried reasoning, and reasoning failed. I tried coaxing, and coaxing failed. I tried scolding, and scolding failed. But I was bound to try everything, with such a charge on my hands. Where would have been my duty to my poor lost boy, if I ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... subject were well known to all on Oyster Pond, they had excited a good deal of speculation; "exercising" the whole neighbourhood, as was very apt to be the case whenever anything occurred in the least out of the ordinary track. The several modes of reasoning were ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the prospect of good results. Before finally deciding, he called upon most of his corps and division commanders for their opinions on certain propositions which he presented, and most of them still opposed the projected movement, I among the number, reasoning that while General Grant was operating against Vicksburg, it was better to hold Bragg in Middle Tennessee than to push him so far back into Georgia that interior means of communication would give the Confederate Government the opportunity of ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... yourself firmly against this evil tendency of our day, to which I cannot but believe so much of its agnosticism is due,—that deadening down and stamping out of the spiritual instincts of our nature, those great intuitions of the soul, which lie both above and below all reasoning and logic and form their basis rather than their apex. Once let the springs of reverence be choked up, once let that window of the soul be overgrown with weeds and cobwebs, and your most careful training will only produce a character estimable ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... appalled. Rage, such as she had never even divined spoke from every feature. He was no longer the wretched but calmly reasoning man, but a creature hardly human, and when he spoke, it was in a frenzy which swept everything ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... satisfactory statements in economics; but, when the smart mob orator says, "What kind of parent would keep horses in luxury and leave children to hunger?" "Is this wealthy England?" his audience reply in a fashion of their own. Reasoning does not avail against hunger and privation. I am forced to own that, for my part, the awful problem of poverty seems insoluble by any logical agent; but the man of the mob does not now care for ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... CH. I feel thy reasoning move me, and I fear Some heavenly stroke hath fallen. How else, when the end Of stormy sickness brings no ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... there were female Mahatmas, reasoning unconsciously from the fact that an Adept is supposed to hold his peace for many years before he can even contemplate the possibility of being a Mahatma. (The idea of Grubb o' Dreams holding her peace is too absurd for argument.) There are many grades of Adepts, it ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... been made upon them, or, at all events, soon give over their hostile intentions. Not so with the baboons. These monstrous creatures possess an intelligence far superior to that of ordinary quadrupeds. In fact, they are capable of a certain amount of reasoning power, which although far inferior in degree to that of the human species, is nevertheless ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... who say: "Oh, well, some people are born to success and long life and some are not!" The individual who permits himself to get into that frame of mind is doomed and no one can help him. Such reasoning is of course all nonsense. John Wesley was always a spare eater. Yet he lived an active outdoor life, often traveling forty and even sixty miles a day on horseback. He never failed to keep an appointment on account of the weather. And he was a tireless worker, often preaching four and five ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... sucked from the foul kennels of the city. I had felt nothing like it in my former visit to New Orleans. It seemed to bear down upon my brain, to clog the power of thought, to make me vacillating. Hitherto my reasoning had led me to seek Monsieur de St. Gre, to count upon that gentleman's common sense and his former friendship. But now that the time had come for it, I shrank from such a meeting. I remembered his passionate affection for Antoinette, I imagined that he would not listen calmly to one who was in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... beguiled his solitude by the study of nature. The manifold wonders of the world of life had a particular attraction for the lonely student; incessant and patient observation of the plants and animals about him sharpened his naturally good powers of observation and of reasoning; until, at length, he acquired a sagacity which enabled him to perceive endless minute differences among objects which, to the untutored ...
— On the Method of Zadig - Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... not mean to urge the adoption of any ultra-utilitarian standpoint in regard to playthings, or advise you rudely to enter the realm of early infancy and interfere with the baby's legitimate desires by any meddlesome pedagogic reasoning. Choose his toys wisely and then leave him alone with them. Leave him to the throng of emotional impressions they will call into being. Remember that they speak to his feelings when his mind is not yet open to reason. The toy at this period is ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... both by experiment and by Liebig's reasoning, that the successive stages of decomposition were wholly ascribable to the action of the stagnant air which occupies the interstices between the beans, and taking into account that a mass of coffee presented a medium pervious to air, it occurred ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... preparatory study for this work, he has sought the rewards of industry, in sifting out the certain and the useful from the hypothetical and the fanciful, and the results of judicious discrimination between fallacy and just reasoning, in support of theories. This volume is designed to be a complete manual for all but amateur cultivators. While it is believed that he who follows its directions will be certain of success, it is not intended to disparage the merits ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... past and future; problems it is hopeless to attempt to solve by human means or by the help of human intelligence alone, yet with which science can and ought to grapple, for they elevate the soul and strengthen the reasoning faculties. Whatever may be their final result, such studies are of enthralling interest. "Man," said a learned member of the French Institute, "will ever be for man the grandest of all mysteries, the most absorbing of all objects ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... checking his reasoning. "So I must bear witness to God—but neither as priest nor pastor. I must write and talk about him as I can. No reason why I should not live by such writing and talking if it does not hamper my message to do so. But there ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... disputation was a preparation for the disputations which formed part of what we should now term the degree examinations. A thesis was propounded, attacked, and defended ("impugned and propugned") with the proper forms of syllogistic reasoning. ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... out of fear of his people, as St. Gregory laments, he durst not embrace it himself. His son Recared, by listening to St. Leander, soon became a Catholic. The king also spoke with so much wisdom on the controverted points to the Arian bishops, that by the force of his reasoning, rather than by his authority, he brought them over to own the truth of the Catholic doctrine; and thus he converted the whole nation of the Visigoths. He was no less successful in the like pious endeavors with respect to the Suevi, a people of Spain, whom his father Leovigild ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... unto the lowly.' Therefore you may add with David, 'Though I walk in the midst of trouble, Thou wilt revive me: Thou shalt stretch forth Thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and Thy right hand shall save me' (Psa. 138:7). Such are the confidence, the reasoning, and the pleading of humble souls in the power of faith, which leads them quite out of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... hand. A common fencer would disarm his adversary in the twinkling of an eye, unless he were a professor like himself. A stroke of wit will sometimes produce this effect, but there is no such power or superiority in sense or reasoning. There is no complete mastery of execution to be shown there; and you hardly know the professor from the impudent ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... this reasoning a little further, he might have asked,—Why should there not be a Free Martin, or hermaphrodite, produced in the case of twins, when they are both apparently males, or both apparently females? Had he done this, he would not, probably, have made the following observation: "I ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... It was simple reasoning to reconstruct the tragedy even while we hastened to shelter. The family had offered resistance, but had been thrown into a panic at the first danger from fire. Then it was quickly over. Doubtless there had ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... too much and too little, and in the end become simply our own briefs for our own inclinations. Charity's mood being what it was, she adopted the line of reasoning that led to her own ambition. She spent much time on her knees, but communed chiefly with herself, and rose always confirmed in her belief that to marry Jim Dyckman was the next ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... of reasoning was not much relished by those to whom it was addressed; and it is uncertain how far they might have proceeded, had not a decent, plain-looking man, who had been long disturbed with the noise of these young gentry, ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... to have contented ourselves with having supplied the ideas. When it comes to the practical side, our other instincts revolt. After all, if we believed that by continuing the war we could beat Germany from a military point of view, I suppose we should forget a lot of this admirable reasoning of ours and let ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... characteristic of our race. The issue is not whether we shall ignore the question altogether, like Eve in the presence of Raphael; but whether in studying it we shall confine our speculations within the limits set by sound scientific reasoning. Essaying to do this, I invite the reader's attention to what science may suggest, admitting in advance that the sphere of exact knowledge is small compared with the possibilities of creation, and that outside this sphere we can state only more or ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... peace, and the child felt this, spoke of it, forced her to acknowledge it, and, in his own person, was the first object on which to exercise a wish hitherto unknown to her, to be herself loving and lovable. The boy's firm faith, which was not to be shaken by any reasoning or by any of the myths which she knew, touched her deeply and led to her asking Hannah what was the real bearing of one and another of his statements. It had always seemed a comfort to her that the miseries of our earthly life would come ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the king listened to a public argument, five hours in length, from the Archbishop of Bourges, upon the points of essential difference between the two antagonistic creeds. Henry found the reasoning of the archbishop most comfortably persuasive, and, having separated himself for a time from Mornay, he professed to be solemnly convinced that the Roman Catholic faith was the true religion. Those who ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... Blacklock," said De Forrest, in a low tone, as he walked towards the angry Briton, with the intention of reasoning with him upon ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... can commonly be brought about only when the sentiments opposing it have been designedly weakened or have suffered a natural decay. In this destructive process, and in any constructive process by which it may be followed, reasoning, often very bad reasoning, bears, at least in western communities, a large share as cause, a still larger share as symptom; so that the clatter of contending argumentation is often the most striking accompaniment of interesting social changes. Its position, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... his divinity. The coins already mentioned, and the numerous works of glyptic art surviving in the galleries of Europe, will help us to place ourselves at the same point of view as the least enlightened of his antique votaries. Reasoning upon these data by the light of classic texts, may afterwards enable us to assign him his true place in the Pantheon of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... before she could resume her proper self-respect. "He was very nice," she had said, in monologue, "about putting the trip down to friendship. And he was very nice that morning in his study. But I think his very niceness is suspicious, and so I must be hard on him!" A woman's reasoning is apt to seem defective, yet sometimes it solves problems ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... was kind enough to listen attentively to this sort of reasoning and had the candor to admit that it is entitled to some degree of weight. Indeed, he said at once that he had earnestly wished to bring out a cheap edition of his own book in England, omitting the notes and references, for the use of the working-classes, of whose appreciation, as I have previously ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... seemed to be absorbed in speculations of his own. The detective was reasoning from a very partial knowledge of the facts. He knew nothing about the relations of James Cunningham to his uncle, nor even that the younger Cunninghams—or at least one of them—had been in his uncle's apartment the evening of his death. He did not know that Rose ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... that which he pretended to refute, and led his readers to see the force of the arguments against the Faith of which he posed as a champion. By a weak and feeble defence, by foolish arguments and ridiculous reasoning, he secretly exposed the whole Christian religion to ridicule. But if any doubts were left whether this was done designedly or unintentionally, they were dispelled by his second work, De admirandis naturae reginae deaeque mortalium arcanis (Paris, 1616), which, ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... comprehended in the powers to declare war, to provide and maintain a navy, and to raise and support armies. At the same time, it would be a misuse of these powers and a violation of the Constitution to undertake to build upon them a great system of internal improvements. And similar reasoning applies to the assumption of any such power as is involved in that to establish post-roads and to regulate commerce. If the particular improvement, whether by land or sea, be necessary to the execution of the enumerated powers, then, but not otherwise, it falls within the jurisdiction ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... kinsmen without any of them being able to get the better of him. The king that attains to such a position and that carefully attends to the duty of protecting his subjects, has never to incur any loss. Thou shouldst acquire, O king, the science of reasoning, as also the science of words, the science of the Gandharvas, and the four and sixty branches of knowledge known by the name of Kala. One should every day hear the Puranas and the Itihasas and all the other narratives that exist, as also the life-stories of all high-souled personages. When ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... same reasoning apply with equal force to the English and the Irish. No one who has lived in the two countries will deny that the Irish are apparently the more gifted race; no one can deny, if he has knowledge and candour, that the English have accomplished a great deal more, ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... not convinced by this reasoning, but he was happier than before. Such expressions of opinion, which would probably be indorsed by nine people out of ten, assured him that he might follow the urging of his heart and yet not ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... the finest work of the epigrammatists, had an almost unequalled flexibility and elasticity of rhythm; this quality Propertius from the first seized, and all but made his own. By what course of reasoning he was led in his later work to suppress this large and elastic treatment, and approximate more and more closely to the fine but somewhat limited and metallic rhythm which has been perpetuated by the ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... native country is always boiling up, often boiling over. Scotland, too, has a national spirit, so has Wales; in both countries this spirit is separatist in its essence, but the national instinctive tendencies are curbed and guided by the higher reasoning centres of the brain. In England itself the sense of nationality is usually dormant; only an insult or a threat from without stirs this gigantic force into life. In Ireland the national kettle is kept always on the boil; in Scotland and Wales it is kept ...
— Nationality and Race from an Anthropologist's Point of View • Arthur Keith
... into mountains and valleys. You ask me what I think of his book? I find in it many interesting facts brought together, and many ingenious commentaries on them. But there are great chasms in his facts, and consequently in his reasoning. These he fills up by suppositions, which may be as reasonably denied as granted. A sceptical reader therefore, like myself, is left in the lurch. I acknowledge, however, he makes more use of fact, than any other writer ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... government.'[20] The monarchical theory ascribes to the King of England two bodies or capacities, a natural body, and a politic or mystical body, and 'from this mystical union of the ideal with the real king, the enquirer after constitutional information is led through childish reasoning and unintelligible jargon, to practical consequences founded on expediency.'[21] These practical consequences are the complete subordination of the natural to the politic capacity of the sovereign, and that moral revolution which supersedes the duty of ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Church. He had made up his mind for this office, not indeed with that reverence which becomes a man about to enter upon a duty so holy, but with a worldly spirit of acquiescence in the prudence of adopting that profession for his calling. But his reasoning was that he owed all to the family of Castlewood, and loved better to be near them than anywhere else in the world; that he might be useful to his benefactors, who had the utmost confidence in him ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... variation from even to odd, as did the first simpleton; but then a second thought will suggest that this is too simple a variation, and finally he will decide upon putting it even as before. I will therefore guess even;'—he guesses even, and wins. Now this mode of reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his fellows termed 'lucky,'—what, in its last ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... he obeyed and said no more. A terrible fear clamoured at his heart. Did Geoffry Leverson know or did he not? and if he knew, would he even understand? He tried to tell himself that if he could manage her, then another, and that her acknowledged lover, could do so too, but he knew this was false reasoning. Such power as he had over her lay in his recognition that the irresistible inheritance was not an integral part of Patricia, but was an exotic growth, foisted upon her by the ill-understood laws of paternity, and finding no natural soil in her pure self—something indeed, of a ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant |
