"Sharp-sighted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there was,' replied the other; 'many things that don't exist anywhere else in the world. There is a lake down there below us, and anyone who bathes in it, though he were at death's door, becomes sound and well on the spot, and those who wash their eyes with the dew on this hill become as sharp-sighted as the eagle, even if they have ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... Jove," said I, "I cannot guess, unless you can take off this mist from my eyes, for they are horribly dim at present." "You have brought the remedy along with you." "How so?" "Have you not got an eagle's wing?" "True, but what has that to do with an eye?" "An eagle, you know, is more sharp-sighted than any other creature, and the only one that can look against the sun: your true royal bird is known by never winking at the rays, be they ever so strong." "So I have heard, and I am sorry I did not, before I came up, take out my own eyes and put in the eagle's; ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... the leading influences of the rebellion were as sharp-sighted as political vice, or political immorality is ever capable of becoming. Like all other vice, however, it based its reasonings and supposititious strength exclusively on its powers of deception, in conjunction with ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... older, however, she was always complaining of her own sinfulness, while every one else thought her the meekest, the gentlest, and most self-sacrificing being that ever lived. She had, indeed, become remarkably sharp-sighted to her own faults, and, in proportion, forgiving to those ...
— Effie Maurice - Or What do I Love Best • Fanny Forester
... line from the beholder's eye would be rather more than two British miles. Might it not thus readily be overlooked? When an animal is killed by the sportsman in a lonely valley, may he not all the while be watched from above by the sharp-sighted bird? And will not the manner of its descent proclaim throughout the district to the whole family of carrion-feeders, that their prey ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... now, they could not yield the lingering hope that he was still alive. But when they came to reason, that hope was quite extinguished. Had he been alive, and within any reasonable distance, he would have been discovered. But no trace of him could be found even by the sharp-sighted Indians; and then the screams of those panthers, on the first dismal night, increased the probability of his awful fate. Still a search was continued by three or four, and on the fifth day, they discovered a hat about a mile from the path he was pursuing, and it was found to be ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... bat that he was (for a sharp-sighted man), was not discontented with his winter. He had Wych Hazel to himself, and she gave him no more trouble than he liked by the force of old associations. He watched the play in which she was so prominent and so ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... the forest, in whose case, without microscopic aid, we have the subject more accessible. Is he a beast of prey? Has the God of nature given him an instinctive thirst for blood? Behold, then, his sharp-sighted organs of vision for descrying his victim afar, his agile limbs for pursuit, his curved and pointed claws for seizing and tearing his prey, his sharp-edged teeth for cutting through its flesh, his firm jaws for gripping, crushing, and devouring it, and his intestines for digesting ...
— The Christian Foundation, April, 1880
... brother. But that indefatigable foe was not yet vanquished: he seemed to be always on the watch. I frequently saw him riding lingeringly past the premises, looking searchingly round him as he went—or, if I did not, Rachel did. That sharp-sighted woman soon guessed how matters stood between us, and descrying the enemy's movements from her elevation at the nursery-window, she would give me a quiet intimation if she saw me preparing for a walk when she had reason to believe he was about, or to think it likely ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... they have foreseen, even for one moment, the consequences of their indifference, we cannot doubt but that they would have acted in a very different manner. Roderic, the reigning monarch, was not the man either to foresee danger, or to meet it when foreseen; though we might pardon even a more sharp-sighted and vigilant warrior, for overlooking the possible consequence of the invasion of a few mercenary troops, whose only object appeared to be the reinstatement of a petty king. Probably, the troops and their captains ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... Mulatto in a Panama hat and red feather, and decorated with a badge and staff—was more sharp-sighted, and soon perceived, from the irritable tone in which the song at the capstan was sung again as they warped the vessel round to her anchorage in the Ilha das Cobras basin, that there was discontent prevailing on board; and it was no doubt owing ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... was nearing a spot where two islands narrowed the channel of the river, while shallow banks of shingle stretching off, first on one side and then on the other, made the navigation difficult and dangerous. Prudent and sharp-sighted as he was, he thought for a moment that it would be better to wake the master; but he felt confident in himself, and he thought he would venture and make straight for the narrows. At this moment his fair enemy appeared upon deck with a wreath of flowers in her hair. 'Take this to remember me by,' ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the sharp-sighted leaders of the Abolition movement very long to discover that one of the uses its managers expected to make of the Colonization Society was as a shield for slavery. It kept a number of excellent people from joining in an aggressive ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... walls sheltered only by a couple of attenuated poplars. But it announced that it was Acacia Cottage by means of a small brass plate upon one of the gate-posts, which was sufficient indication for the sharp-sighted cabman, who dropped Mr. Audley upon the pavement before ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... large field of snow over the main torrent, we clambered up the precipitous side of our opposite mountain. The snow at first felt piercingly cold as it penetrated our snow-shoes, but before we reached the top, we had little to complain of in the way of chilliness. Our sharp-sighted guides soon detected game on the rocks above us, and off we went on a stalk, over rocks and chasms of snow — now running, now crawling along, more like serpents than respectable Christians, and all in a style that would have astonished nobody more than ourselves, could we have regarded the performance ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... exceptions (which, it may be incidentally remarked, are easily explicable from what follows) antiquity and the Middle Ages had no political economy. This was not because the men of those times were not sharp-sighted enough to discover the sources of wealth, but because to them there was nothing enigmatical about those sources of wealth. The nations became richer the more progress they made in the art of producing; and this was so ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... said, of logs and branches, with blankets, buffalo robes, and the leathern covers of lodges, extended round the top as a screen. The movements of the leaders, as they groped their way, had been descried by the sharp-sighted enemy. As Sinclair, who was in the advance, was putting some branches aside, he was shot through the body. He fell on the spot. "Take me to my brother," said he to Campbell. The latter gave him in charge to some of the men, who conveyed him out ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... her beauty. What reply he might have made was interrupted. Dorothy caught him by the hand, like a fond young bride, as her uncle came rapidly up the stairs. The door was opened at his elbow by a white-haired, almost "bearded" woman, large, sharp-sighted, and ugly, with many signs of both ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... admirable essays by Lessing,—the one entitled Leibnitz on Eternal Punishment, the other Objections of Andreas Wissowatius to the Doctrine of the Trinity. Of the latter the real topic is Leibnitz's Defensio Trinitatis. The sharp-sighted Lessing, than whom no one has expressed a greater reverence for Leibnitz, emphatically asserts and vigorously defends the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... taken from among the blacks. He draws a moving picture of the wretched condition of these forlorn islanders, under the indolent and yet oppressive government of the court of Lisbon. Mr G.F. be it known, was peculiarly sharp-sighted in discovering, and vehement in inveighing against, every impolitic violation of human liberty. In the judgments of some persons, he had imbibed too readily the intoxicating beverage of revolutionary France. Many strong heads, it is certain, were ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... company with all her cousins, but oftener with Fatima, the youngest. By dividing my attentions among them all, I succeeded for a while in concealing from them the object of my preference; but the sex are too sharp-sighted to be long deceived in these matters. As soon as I perceived that my secret was discovered, I endeavoured to make a friend of Fatima, in which I was successful. After this our meetings were more frequent, and what was ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... formed at pleasure, are both numerous and various. In their formation, however, certain analogies may be traced: (1.) Many of them are formed by joining an adjective to its noun, and giving to the latter the participial termination ed; as, able-bodied, sharp-sighted, left-handed, full-faced, flat-nosed, thick-lipped, cloven-footed, high-heeled. (2.) In some, two nouns are joined, the latter assuming ed, as above; as, bell-shaped, hawk-nosed, eagle-sighted, lion-hearted, web-footed. (3.) ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... gracious and condescending that they all honored and loved her as their own lives, praying for her health and prosperity, and declaring, contrary to their former opinion, that Gualtieri was the most prudent and sharp-sighted prince in the whole world; for that no one could have discerned such virtues under a mean habit and a country disguise but himself. In a very short time her discreet behavior and good works were the common subject of discourse, not in that country alone, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... this shore was musk-ox country, and we scanned it carefully, but saw none of the animals. Some miles down the bay we came upon the tracks of a couple of deer. A little farther on we were electrified by a tense whisper from the ever sharp-sighted Egingwah: ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... publication of the "Manuel" without the accompaniment of Plates, Fac-similes, Vignettes, and other graphic attractions. It is because intrinsic merit is preferable to form and ornament: that at once establishes its worth and its success." CRAPELET, vol. iv. p. 88. This amiable Translator and sharp-sighted Critic never loses an opportunity of a fling at ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin |
