"Understate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... quite understate the amount of public virtue in France. The difficulties of statesmanship here are enormous. I do not accuse even M. Thiers of want of public virtue. What he has wanted, has been length and breadth ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... that he once undertook to raise a sum by mortgage, in entire forgetfulness of a much larger amount in bank. Far into old age he retained the active habits of his prime. To say that he rose at four, asserts a biographer, would be to understate the case; he was frequently in the fields at half-past two in the early summer dawn of England,—always before his laborers,—and he was not pleased if his male guests did not appear by six. To ladies he was more tolerant. With mind unclouded and unweakened ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... are the author (for 'actor' would understate the case) who has laid down the laws of noble conduct; and no sooner is the lump of figs presented than the monkey is revealed; your lips are the lips of a philosopher, and your heart is quite other; it is no injustice to say that those ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... between the two main systems of proportional representation there is no need to understate the advantages of either. The results which have followed from the adoption of list systems on the continent have shown how immeasurably superior these are to ordinary electoral methods. Even in the most rigid of these ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... on the brink of a precipice.[134] To say that Englishmen are asked to take a leap in the dark is far to understate the peril of the moment. We are asked to leave an arduous but well-known road, and to spring down an unfathomed ravine filled with rocks, on any one of which we may be dashed ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... on the head-lights and turned the car down the dark drive. She was feeling thoroughly upset. Her idealistic nature had received a painful shock on the discovery of the yellow streak in Bream. To call it a yellow streak was to understate the facts. It was a great belt of saffron encircling his whole soul. That she, Wilhelmina Bennett, who had gone through the world seeking a Galahad, should finish her career as the wife of a man who hid under beds simply because people shot at him with elephant guns was abhorrent to ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... that Europe is not much better in consequence of the sacrifices we have made, let us inquire what has been the result in England, because, after all, that is the question which becomes us most to consider. I believe that I understate the sum when I say that, in pursuit of this will-of-the-wisp (the liberties of Europe and the balance of power), there has been extracted from the industry of the people of this small island no less an amount than L2,000,000,000 sterling. I ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones |
