"Undervalue" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a good home are apt to undervalue it. They do not realize the comfort of having their daily wants provided for without any anxiety on their part. They are apt to fancy that they would like to go out into the great world to seek their fortunes. Sometimes it may be necessary and expedient to leave ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... hope of support in a literary career. Even in the older and better equipped universities the faculty is usually a corps of working scholars, each man intent upon his specialty and rather inclined to undervalue merely "literary" performance. In many cases the fastidious and hypercritical turn of mind which besets the scholar, the timid conservatism which naturally characterizes an ancient seat of learning, and the spirit ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... not make man worse than he is, nor his condition more miserable than it is. But could I though I would? As a man cannot flatter God, nor overpraise him, so a man cannot injure man, nor undervalue him. Thus much must necessarily be presented to his remembrance, that those false happinesses which he hath in this world, have their times, and their seasons, and their critical days; and they are judged and denominated according ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... upon the title-page. The day of the month in your own handwriting will be a record between us that the words of affection which you have written were used by you after the period at which the great change of my life took place. To grudge any sacrifice which that change entails would be to undervalue its paramount blessedness, but, as far as regrets are compatible with extreme thankfulness, I do and must regret any estrangement from you— you with whom I have trod so large a portion of the way which has led me to peace; you, who are 'ex voto' at least in that Catholic Church which to me ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... said that I undervalue this class. I will come boldly to the other, composed of those who are neither servile not absolutists,—I repel this name, in my turn, with all the pride to which every sincere conviction has a right,—but who believe that humanity has in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... that; because it isn't likely to bring your favour to my project, and I want you friendly and helpful. Oh, confound it!' he exclaimed, with sudden temper. 'You ought to be. I don't understand this aloofness. I half suspect it's pose. You undervalue Cecily—well, you have no business to undervalue me. You know me better than anybody in the world. Now are you going to help me to ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... truly monstrous habit of slaughtering each other, not for food—for in a race of normal cannibals, the ratio of increase or decrease might easily be calculated—but uselessly, from rage, hate, fanaticism, or even mere wantonness? No man is less inclined than I to undervalue vital statistics, and their already admirable results: but how can they help us, and how can we help them, in looking at such a past as that of three- fourths of the nations of the world? Look—as ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... township and county, but generally for the state as well. Incapable and dishonest assessors often work injustice by underestimating the value of some forms of property, and overestimating the value of other forms. In addition, political pressure is brought to bear upon the assessor to cause him to undervalue the property of the township or county as a whole, so that the local unit will bear a relatively small share of the ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... home to one more powerfully when the eye gazes on the same object through the medium of reflection;—for, as with the bounties of the Creator, so with the wonders of His creation—man is too prone to undervalue them in proportion to the frequency with which they are spread before him; and thus the deep azure vault, so often seen in the firmament above, is less likely to attract his attention and engage his meditations, than when the same glorious scene lies mirrored ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... the Prince the Cardinal met his match. He found himself confronted by an intellect as subtle, an experience as fertile in expedients, a temper as even, and a disposition sometimes as haughty as his own. He never affected to undervalue the mind of Orange. "'Tis a man of profound genius, vast ambition—dangerous, acute, politic," he wrote to the King at a very early period. The original relations between himself and the Prince bad been very amicable. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to a few of their neighbours and as many of the peasantry on the estate as could understand English.(63) The common people in England were so much accustomed in those days to hear Latin spoken in the pulpit, that they were sometimes led to undervalue a preacher who did not make some use of it. When Dr. Pollock, the celebrated orientalist, was presented to the rectory of Childry, near Oxford, he considered it to be his duty to adapt his instructions to what he thought to be the capacity ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... thought to undervalue merit and virtue, wherever they are to be found; but will allow them capable of the highest dignities in a state, when they are in a very great degree of eminence. A pearl holds its value though it be found in a dunghill; but however, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... the nation. As James in his Declaration afterwards asserted, the confident asseveration of that which every man was willing to believe, enchanted the world. To a certain degree it influenced the King and Court. James was not of a nature to undervalue dignities and opportunities of wealth. While he imprisoned the explorer, he had asserted the title to Guiana acquired through him. He commissioned Captain Charles Leigh in 1604, and, after his death, Captain Robert Harcourt in 1608, to take possession of all from the Amazon to ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... legislation would be wise that should disparage the importance or retard the attainment of that result. I have no disposition, and certainly no right, to question the sincerity or the intelligence of opposing opinions, and would neither conceal nor undervalue the considerable difficulties, and even occasional distresses, which may attend the progress of the nation toward this primary condition to its general and permanent prosperity. I must, however, adhere to my most earnest ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... beauty,—who would undervalue it? The least poet and poetling lisps some word or syllable of it. The masters build its temples and holy places. All own it, all receive it gladly. But the gospel of life, there is danger that we shall not know it when we ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... truly say that I was as indifferent to the result, so far as it affected me personally, as to the question whether I should walk on one side of the street or the other. I did not undervalue the great honor of representing Massachusetts in the Senate of the United States. But I had an infinite longing for my home and my profession and my library. I never found public employment pleasant or congenial. But the fates sent ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... at variance with that which so high an authority, and one which I am less likely than any other person to undervalue, has deliberately sanctioned, I have been influenced by the urgent necessity for a term exclusively appropriated to express the manner in which a concrete general name serves to mark the attributes which ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... not, however, be supposed to undervalue the genuine and graceful ability of execution displayed by the author at his best. He could write at times very much after the earliest fashion of the adolescent Shakespeare; in other words, after the fashion of the day or hour, to which in some degree the ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... money in experimenting. With beginners it is important to be successful at first; which is impossible without availing themselves of the experience of others. While we thus aim to give our volume this exclusively practical form, and utilitarian character, we do not undervalue the labors of amateur cultivators. A meed of praise is due to those who are willing to spend time and money in experiments, by which great truths are evolved for the benefit ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... of clever men,' continued General Ducrot sagely, 'to undervalue their opponents; but surely after yesterday the commonest prudence might have warned you to put the greatest possible ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... of which must be established cautiously and without prejudice. It may be said that the feeling of satisfaction with what has been done causes jurists frequently to forget what must yet be done, or to undervalue it. Further, a psychological examination must seek out the motives which led or might have led the accused to deny some point not particularly dangerous to him. In most cases an intelligible ground for such action can be discovered, and if the psychologically ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... and answered doubtfully: "If only you do not undervalue the blind boy-god's power! Yet it must be owned that your theory has a certain degree of justification." She went to the window as she spoke, and added: "Karlowitz, the minister of Duke Maurice of Saxony, is leaving the house. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... have not forgotten; and I am grateful to you for giving my ideas a trial. But what has been done hitherto is purely superficial." Bessy's eyes clouded, and he added hastily: "Don't think I undervalue it for that reason—heaven knows the surface of life needs improving! But it's like picking flowers and sticking them in the ground to make a garden—unless you transplant the flower with its roots, and prepare the soil to receive ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... "Do not undervalue me by comparing me with pyramids of stone; for I am better than they as Jove exceeds the other deities. I am made of bricks from clay, brought up from the bottom of ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... apt to show more zeal than discretion in dragging forth from his closed desk such undeveloped offspring of his mind as he himself had left to silence. Literature has never been redundant with authors who sincerely undervalue their own productions; and the sagacious critics who maintain that what of his own an author condemns must be doubly damnable, are, to say the least of it, as often likely to be right ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... will do him grave injustice. Although very much of the opinion of Robert Burton, author of the "Anatomy of Melancholy," that, "No verses can please men or live long that are written by water-drinkers," and disposed to undervalue the tact and discretion of some of the advocates of total abstinence, for its abstract principles he can say and think nothing but what is good. But he is writing, be it remembered, of a great artist—one whose mission was that of an ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... entered my head to undervalue botanical relatively to zoological evidence; except in so far as I thought it was admitted that the vegetative structure seldom yielded any evidence of affinity nearer than that of families, and not always so much. And is it not in plants, as certainly it is in animals, dangerous to judge ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... him the more because he was slighted by Willoughby and Marianne, who, prejudiced against him for being neither lively nor young, seemed resolved to undervalue his merits. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... undervalue his Excellency here," she said with a little laugh. "It is because he is strong, because he matters so much, that one feels he could do more. Ismail thinks there is no one ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... persons,—that is, of the human race, with a few exceptions here and there. I like books,—I was born and bred among them, and have the easy feeling, when I get into their presence, that a stable-boy has among horses. I don't think I undervalue them either as companions or as instructors. But I can't help remembering that the world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great scholars great men. The Hebrew patriarchs had small libraries, I think, if any; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... sort of peace (though much in request) till he could lead his own life again; nor should we forget the occasion on which he did not hesitate even to betake himself to Venice as a refuge. Yet M. Angelo was in every way a patriot, a philosopher, and a hero. I do not say this to undervalue the scope of your theory. I think possibilities are generally so much behind desirabilities that there is no harm in any degree of incitement in the right direction; and that is assuredly mental activity of all kinds. I judge you cannot suspect me of ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... much obliged to you for your gift, which you must not undervalue, for I like the articles; they look extremely pretty and light. They are for wrist frills, are they not? Will you condescend to accept a yard of lace made up into nothing? I thought I would not offer to spoil it by stitching it into any shape. Your creative fingers will turn it to better ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... but his writings wanting authority, he grew discontent and turned apostate, and thence becomes so severe to those of his own profession. He never commends anything but in opposition to something else that he would undervalue, and commonly sides with the weakest, which is generous anywhere but in judging. He is worse than an index expurgatorius; for he blots out all, and when he cannot find a fault, makes one. He demurs to all writers, and when he is overruled, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... narrow waters. The pasha was dressed gorgeously, and many decorations adorned his uniform. He shook the proud commander warmly by the hand, and through his interpreter gratefully thanked him for carrying himself and his suite safely to their destination. He did not undervalue the great danger of having them aboard in the event of being chased and captured, nor did he under-estimate the risk that had been run in steaming into dangerous waters during a dense fog; and in order that the captain might be assured of his grateful appreciation, he begged to hand him two ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... Schiller is remarkable. In the land of his birth, by those who undervalue him the most, he is ranked as the second name in German literature; everywhere else he is ranked as the first. For us, who are aliens to Germany, Schiller is the representative of the German intellect ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... I had reason to think that you cared for me very much—oh, very much indeed; and then I found out that you didn't care a bit more than usual; and then—well, then—" James, who was too apt to undervalue people, did not attempt to pursue the embroilment. But he valued her in this melting mood. He held her ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... missionary may go forth to the heathen, satisfied that in the confidence of the directors he has a testimonial infinitely superior to letters-apostolic from the Archbishop of Canterbury, or from the Vatican at Borne. A missionary, surely, cannot undervalue his commission, as soon as it is ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... fevers and dysenteries are in earnest, and when they're only making believe. I know the folks that think they're dying as soon as they're sick, and the folks that never find out they're sick till they're dead. I don't want to undervalue your science, Mr. Langdon. There are things I never learned, because they came in after my day, and I am very glad to send my patients to those that do know them, when I am at fault; but I know these people about here, fathers and mothers, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... mainly the human nature of it reached you. In this he was like the other great Cambridge men, though he was opener than the others to contact with the commoner life. He keenly delighted in every native and novel turn of phrase, and he would not undervalue a vital word or a notion picked up out of the road even if it had some ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... woman, but hereafter Lansing Treadwell and I will share and share alike. I shall endeavour, to the best that is in me, to prove to him that it is such men as you who hold the world back! Men who over-estimate money and undervalue blood and social position are not to ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... too at last), mark, and see what attempts will be made to turn knowledge against itself, and to catechise the nation back into the schoolboy acquiescence of the good people of Germany. Much good is there in that people—I would not be thought to undervalue it—much bonhommie—and in the most despotic districts, as much sensual comfort as can make any people happy who know no other happiness. But England and France, the leaders of Europe, the peregrinators of the world, cannot be confined to those lazy ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... to their Religion they are very indifferent. If their Gods answer not their Desires, they curse them. They undervalue and revile their Gods. A Fellow gives out himself for a Prophet. His Success. The King fends for one of his Priests. Flyes to Columbo. Pretends himself to be a former Kings Son. Flyes from the Dutch. The King catches and quarters him. The Peoples high opinion still of this ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... man was Daniel Boone, and wonderfully was he endowed by Providence for the part which he was called to act. Far be it from us to undervalue the advantages of education: It can do every thing but assume the prerogative of Providence. God has reserved for himself the attribute of creating. Distinguished excellence has never been attained, unless where nature and education, native endowment and circumstances, ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... of rock and gravel have been considered so many moraines, that is, deposits of diverse material transported by the glaciers. They do not regard the probability of other agents taking the place of glaciers, and undervalue the moving power of water. Water in liquid state has often produced analogous effects, and it has often been the error of the glacialists to confound the one with the other. The erratic rocks and the moraines are undoubtedly the ordinary indications ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... like you to give him every facility you can for his work, but of course you will remember that he is an enthusiast, and in certain circumstances might undervalue his own safety or that of the ship. I don't want you to run ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... her brother: sometimes he had excelled her, sometimes she thought that she was outstripping him. Now in the hour of his possible success (of which she would be proud and glad), why should her father seem to undervalue her powers and her industry? They would never bring her the guerdon that might fall to Sydney's lot; but she felt that she, too, had a ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... not believe me when I tell you the thing you ask is impossible?" replied his mother more calmly. "I am sorry for you if you are disappointed, Archie; but you undervalue Mattie,—you do indeed. She will make you a nice little housekeeper, and, though she is not clever, she is so amiable that nothing ever puts her out; and visiting the poor and sick-nursing are more in her line than ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... said the successful Stork to the poor Crane, who stood dejectedly to one side, "not to scorn and undervalue qualities in any one, because they are not flaunted in ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... that undervalue a person or thing, which we think indeed not very valuable, yet better than they ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... Samaria, living there in Shechem, still refer with pardonable vanity to this conversation of their ancestor, held some little time gone by, with the Messiah of the Christians. It is not likely that they undervalue a distinction such as this. Samaritan nature is human nature, and human nature remembers contact ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... more brilliantly illuminating its substance than in our own hearts and lives. The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. To undervalue God's Providence it is the most dreadful insult that a fool could dare conceive in his mind against God's existence. But the ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... Garnett and her intimates, of persons (the phrase of Steele's recurred to her as meeting it appropriately) "who had seen the world enough to undervalue it with good breeding," must seem to her at last a little sterile when she was conscious—never more than now—of how clearly and swiftly the healthy young blood coursed through her veins, dissipating any morbid imaginations that ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... entirely a youthful passion. Colonel Cash is about as fatal with a couplet as with a double-barreled gun, and scatters as terribly. Judge Butts and Dr. Wilson have both discerned the resemblance of your gifts to those of Venus, and their own to Apollo. But don't undervalue those tributes, Miss Mulrady," he added, more seriously. "You'll have thousands of admirers where you are going; but you'll be willing to admit in the end, I think, that none were more honest and ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... led him to ignore or undervalue the fact, patent to others, that he was no bushman either by instinct or training. And he seemed to prefer for companions men like himself, who could not detect this failing, as is evident from a letter ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... release him from his chains? Nothing of this could she perform—and what did she there? For sympathy, at such a moment, he cared little for such sympathy, at least, as he could command. His pride and ambition, heretofore, had led him to despise and undervalue the easy of attainment. He was always grasping after the impossible. The fame which he had lost for ever, grew doubly attractive to his mind's eye from the knowledge of this fact. The society, which had expelled him from its circle and its privileges, was an Eden in ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... after all, as the tone of people who, the means of comparison having been denied them, neither know that which they denounce, nor that which they extol. Apart from the weakness of wishing for personal distinctions, however, I never met with a Swiss gentleman, who appeared to undervalue his institutions. They frequently, perhaps generally, lament the want of greater power in the confederation; but, as between a monarchy and a republic, so far as my observation goes, they are uniformly Swiss. I do not believe there is such a thing, in all the cantons, ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... I trust it may not be supposed that I undervalue M. Renan's labours, or intended to ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... eclipse by the future; the burnished armour, and massive swords and maces of our old intellectual chivalry, superseded by more manageable and more destructive implements of success; and the sterner conflict followed by the more consummate triumph. Yet, when we undervalue the living ability of a nation from its quietude at the moment, we but adopt the example of every past age in succession. The last ten years of the last century were preceded by a period of despair; Chatham's career was run, and the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... be said, that it is degrading man reduce his functions to a pure mechanism; that it is shamefully to undervalue him, scandalously to abuse him, to compare him to a tree; to an abject vegetation. The philosopher devoid of prejudice does not understand this language, invented by those who are ignorant of what ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... him at wrestling, pitching the bar, cudgel play, and other athletic exercises. Like the renowned Pinner of Wakefield, he was the village champion; carried off the prize at all the fairs, and threw his gauntlet at the country round. Even to this day the old people talk of his prowess, and undervalue, in comparison, all heroes of the green that have succeeded him; nay, they say that if Ready-Money Jack were to take the field even now, there is no one ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... word to mouth, but how precious in the sight of God! Liberty is one of the treasures of heaven and only committed to men at great cost, lest they should undervalue it. ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... am guilty of the vanity of having let him admire me," she went on, penitently, "without the excuse of being able, on my side, to reciprocate even the passing interest that he felt in me. I don't undervalue his many admirable qualities, or the excellent position he can offer to his wife. But a woman's heart is not to be commanded—no, Mr. Midwinter, not even by the fortunate master of Thorpe ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... this, that she should be so educated as to know her appropriate sphere. There are two errors in this respect, which she is liable to commit. She may undervalue her capacities, and imagine, that being able to acquire or perform little, nothing need be attempted; or that her influence is trifling, that she helps few and harms less, and therefore, whether she be ignorant or learned is of no consequence. Or she may pass to the opposite ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... of Schwaermerei and superstition. In some cases he may even lose his sanity for want of a wise restraining influence. It is not an accident that America, where institutionalism is weakest, is the happy hunting-ground of religious quacks and cranks. Individualists are too prone to undervalue the steadying influence of ancient and consecrated tradition, which is kept up mainly by ecclesiastical institutions. These probably prevent many rash experiments from being tried, especially in the field ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... just valuation of his patent, and to know just exactly what he should receive for it. This is a very important question, and one which should be looked into before undertaking negotiations. Patentees should not, of course, undervalue their patents, or accept the first small offer made for fear of not receiving another; at the same time, they should not fall into the common error of asking a price that cannot be obtained, which too frequently ...
— Practical Pointers for Patentees • Franklin Cresee
... too strongly recommended; for, as a deviation on this side is much more innocent than on the other, so the pride of man renders us much less liable to it. For, besides that we are apt to overrate our own perfections, and undervalue the qualifications of our neighbours, we likewise set too high an esteem on the things themselves, and consider them as constituting a more essential difference between us than they really do. The qualities of the mind do, in reality, establish ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... soon ceased to think of quitting it. And he had a real taste for it—for its shows, its prizes, for the laws and turns of the game, for its debates and vicissitudes. He was no mere idealist or recluse to undervalue or despise the real grandeur of the world. He took the keenest interest in the nature and ways of mankind; he liked to observe, to generalise in shrewd and sometimes cynical epigrams. He liked to apply his powerful and fertile intellect to the practical problems of society and government, ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... Luke lived in a small and humble cottage, and, till recently, had been obliged to wear old and shabby clothes. In this democratic spirit, Linton was encouraged by his parents, who, while appreciating the refinement which is apt to be connected with liberal means, were too sensible to undervalue sterling merit ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... Boswell had become more intense in his literary idolatry, he affected to undervalue Goldsmith, and a lurking hostility to him is discernible throughout his writings, which some have attributed to a silly spirit of jealousy of the superior esteem evinced for the poet by Dr. Johnson. We have a gleam of this in his account of the ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... "No. I don't undervalue your friendship. You know that, Roger, you too. Uncle Jack. I suppose I should have said something about it. But I—I just sort of drifted into it. I think walloping Sagorski spoiled me—made me rather ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... that reason. An Indian cannot help being a red man any more than you can help being a white one, so that he ought not to be despised on that account. Besides, God made him what he is, and to despise the work of God, or to undervalue it, is to despise God Himself. You may indeed despise, or rather abhor, the sins that red men are guilty of; but if you despise them on this ground, you must much more despise white men, for they are guilty of greater iniquities than Indians ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... unlucky,' said Mrs. Dusautoy, gravely; but recollecting that she was not complimentary, she added, 'You must not think we undervalue Lucy. John is very fond of her, and the only objection is, that it would require a person of more age and ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... while Flashman is at the door; and East, who stays by his friend, anticipating trouble. The sporting set now gathered round Tom. Public opinion wouldn't allow them actually to rob him of his ticket, but any humbug or intimidation by which he could be driven to sell the whole or part at an undervalue ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... in which he sums up the lesson of Epicurus. As a critic he shows the same general good sense, but his criticisms do not profess to be original or to go much beneath the surface. In Greek literature he follows Alexandrian taste; in Latin he represents the tendency of his age to undervalue the earlier efforts of the native genius and lay great stress on the technical finish ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... self-protection. For these reasons, in its tranquil and harmless life, it may appear to casual observers to exhibit even less than ordinary ability; but when danger and apprehension call for the exertion of its powers, those who have witnessed their display are seldom inclined to undervalue its sagacity. ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... at any situation straight in the face, so to speak. He flattered himself that he was not a man to be led away by vanity. He was, as a rule, on very good terms with himself, but he was rather inclined to undervalue than overestimate the distinction which he enjoyed among his fellow-men. And the result of his due consideration of his last meeting with Phyllis was to make him feel that he had never met a girl who was ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... yellow roses." The paper also named the figure which the flowers and the collation and other things cost Mr. Cooke. A natural reticence forbids me to repeat it. But, lest my client should think that I undervalue his kindness, I will say that we had the grandest wedding ever seen in that part of the world. McCann was there, and Mr. Cooke saw to it that he had a punchbowl all to himself in which to drink our healths: Judge Short was there, still ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the Odyssey or any other ancient work, he must never look at the dead without seeing the living in them, nor at the living without thinking of the dead. We are too fond of seeing the ancients as one thing and the moderns as another." Butler did not undervalue the philological and archaeological importance of the Iliad and the Odyssey, but it was mainly as human documents that they appealed to him. This, I am inclined to suspect, was the root of the objection of academic critics to him and his theories. They did not so much resent the suggestion that ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... much greater propensity to overvalue than undervalue themselves; notwithstanding the opinion of Aristotle [Footnote: Ethic. ad Nicomachum.]. This makes us more jealous of the excess on the former side, and causes us to regard, with a peculiar indulgence, all tendency ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... here intend to personate the bashful Author, and out of a point of Honour undervalue my Comedy. I should very unseasonably disoblige all the People of Paris, should I accuse them of having applauded a foolish Thing: as the Public is absolute Judge of such sort of Works, it would be Impertinence in me to contradict it; and ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... me, I do not undervalue your perception. I have always esteemed your cleverness, monsieur, however much"—she paused for a moment, a fluctuating smile upon her lips,—"however much I may have regretted its manifestations. I am ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... make a more faithful use of the means of usefulness which He gives me, that I may be wholly and entirely turned to Him, and so be enabled to do His will in Melanesia. You know, my dearest Father, that I do not indeed undervalue the grace of Ordination; only I mean that the right use of any great event in one's life, as I take it, is not to concentrate feeling so much on it as earnestness of purpose, prayer for grace, and for increase of simplicity and honesty and purity of heart. Perhaps other matters affect me more ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as an oak. It comes out of the past. Its foundations are laid far back. The child feels; he grows into a man, and thinks; another, perhaps, speaks, and the world acts out the thought. And this is the history of modern society. Men undervalue the Anti-slavery movement, because they imagine you can always put your finger on some illustrious moment in history, and say, here commenced the great change which has come over the nation. Not so. The beginning ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... Dr. Herrick had prepared everything. And much of what we are about to do is merely symbolical, of course. Most people undervalue symbols. They do not seem to understand that there could never have been any conceivable need of inventing a periphrasis ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... Pat in the trickery of electioneering movements. Under these circumstances, sir, I think what we have done is quite fair. We have shown you that you are no match for us in the finesse upon which you pride yourself so much; and the next time you talk of your countrymen, and attempt to undervalue them, just remember how you have been outwitted at Merryvale House. Good evening, Mr. Furlong, I hope we part without owing each other any ill-will." The Squire offered his hand, but Furlong drew up, and amidst such ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... reproached with having abandoned my master after his fall, and not having shared his exile. I will show that, if I did not follow the Emperor, it was because I lacked not the will but the power to do so. God knows that I do not wish to undervalue the devotion of the faithful servants who followed the fortunes of the Emperor to the end. However, it is not improper to say that, however terrible the fall of the Emperor was for him, the situation (I speak here only of the personal advantages), ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... first pigeon that I will bring on the scene. And, in the first place, his name was Godefroid de Beaudenord; neither Finot, nor Blondet, nor Couture, nor I am likely to undervalue such an advantage as that! After a ball, when a score of pretty women stand behooded waiting for their carriages, with their husbands and adorers at their sides, Beaudenord could hear his people called without ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... has yet to see human nature justify itself by preferring a humane to an inhuman power. The most splendid illustration of this kind of homage was the career of Jenny Lind in America. It was rather the fashion among the dilettanti to undervalue her excellence as an artist. A popular superficial criticism was fond of limiting her dramatic power to inferior roles. She was denied passion and great artistic skill; she was accused of tricks. But, even had these things been true, what a career it was! ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... male line in this example, but they're too strongly marked. Good qualities, such as resolution and courage, may degenerate through being developed to exaggeration at the expense of others, and after all Captain Challoner strikes me as a much finer type. I'm afraid you undervalue ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... fault with my present company," she said demurely, dropping her head and eyelids until a faint suffusion seemed to follow the falling lashes over her cheek. "I don't think YOU ought to undervalue it." ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... it must be said that he was too much of a poet to undervalue the state of apparent indolence which is so favorable to inspiration, and that he often quoted in self-defence the words of Claude Tillier,—"Le temps le mieux employe est celui que l'on perd." Aware of his strong propensity to that particular mental state, he attempted all his life to restrict ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... have you misunderstand my poor little cousin in this way. You have no idea how faithful and devoted she is. She has actually refused a most advantageous offer of marriage to remain with us. She told me this in confidence; the girls do not know it: perhaps I ought not to have repeated it; but you undervalue Etta. Few women would sacrifice themselves ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... still they are astonished when they are told that there are persons in Italy who give good prices for paintings; indeed, in my judgment they do not act in this like such noble people as they say they are, even though it were for nothing else but not to undervalue that which they have no experience of and cannot do; it recoils on their own head, however, they demean themselves and disgrace the nobility of which they boast; and not indeed that virtue, which will always be esteemed so long as there are men here ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... or any of them?—are they acceptable?" "Monsieur has seen me reading them a hundred times, and knows I have not so many recreations as to undervalue those he provides." ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... received truly saving impressions, and, through a blessing on secret meditation, reading, and prayer, are led to the closest communion with God, and become eminently devoted Christians. It is the no small error of too many professors of the present day, to overlook or undervalue the instances of this kind which exist. The religious profession and opinions of some have too much of mere machinery in their composition. If every wheel, pivot, chain, spring, cog, or pinion, ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... contrary, many passages have appeared to contradict and disprove them. Let any one notice the numerous citations of the various books of the Bible in Raleigh's History, and he will surely fail to discover any evidence of Raleigh's being a Deist, or that Hariot had taught him to undervalue the scripture. ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... influence of Athenian life he took him to Lacedaemon, and placed him with the young men who were undergoing the Spartan training there. The Athenians were vexed at this, because Phokion appeared to despise and undervalue the institutions of his own country. Once Demades said to him "Phokion, why should we not advise the Athenians to adopt the Spartan constitution; if you bid me, I am quite willing to make a speech and bring forward a motion in the assembly for doing so." "Indeed," ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... much of it to undervalue the sweet and sober piety of old age. There is a beauty in it that is all its own. A softness and tenderness and patience and repose in the western sky that the bolder glories of the east where the morning ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... maladjustments. Any change in family habits of recreation which means that the man and wife enjoy fewer things together is a danger signal the seriousness of which is not always appreciated. Social workers are inclined to undervalue not only the influence of faulty recreation as a factor in family breakdown, but also the possibilities of good recreation as an aid ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... so hard to keep them nice," she said; but her heart cried, "What do my hands matter when it is for your sake that I have spoiled them?" With her natural tendency to undervalue the physical pleasures of life, she had looked upon her beauty as a passing bloom which would attract her lover to the veiled wonders of her spirit. Fleshly beauty as an end in itself would have appeared to her as immoral a cult ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... one—especially a working man—in this church this day who is inclined to undervalue the Bible and Christianity, let him know that, but for the Bible and Christianity, he has not the slightest reason to believe that there would have been at this moment a hospital in London to receive him and his in the hour of sickness or ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... "If those who sent you think me capable of betraying my country even at the prayer of my father, they are mightily mistaken," thundered the young man, ordering his gunners to their places. {64} "I don't purchase honors by crime! I don't undervalue the offer of England's King; but the King of France is just as able to reward me! The King of France has confided the defense of Acadia to me; and I'll defend it to my ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... the domestick Way of Life deny themselves many Advantages, to satisfy a generous Benevolence which they bear to their Friends oppressed with Distresses and Calamities. Such Natures one may call Stores of Providence, which are actuated by a secret Celestial Influence to undervalue the ordinary Gratifications of Wealth, to give Comfort to an Heart loaded with Affliction, to save a falling Family, to preserve a Branch of Trade in their Neighbourhood, and give Work to the Industrious, preserve ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... "... Hotham is no such conjurer as they fancy in Berlin;—singular enough, how these English are given to undervalue the Germans; whilst we in Germany overvalue them" ( avons une idee trop vaste, they trap petite ). 'There is, for instance, Lord Chesterfield, passes here for a fair-enough kind of man (BON HOMME), and is a favorite with the ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... I'll take the book," as though the two were comparable in value. Poor, primitive Judah the Pious! We wiser moderns should never dream of making the comparison between a dog and a book, but for the opposite reason. Judah shrank from equalling a book to a dog, but we know better than to undervalue a dog so far as to compare it with a book. The kennel costs more than the bookcase, and love of dogs is a higher solace than love of books. To those who think thus, what more convincing condemnation of books could be formulated than the phrase coined by Gilbert de Porre ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... related that Superintendent Kennedy, in spite of his slighting replies to the two young men, did not really undervalue their information, and that two vigilant detectives, with assistants, were entrusted with the duty of watching the two houses. "L—— and another good man" had been ordered to take charge of the house on East 5—Street, and they entered upon their duties at once. Not as ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... helped to destroy the Revolution, when that had, under Napoleon, become a levelling despotism; then it helped, as actively, to keep revolutionary principles alive, after the reaction of 1815:—a Protean institution, whose power we in England are as apt to undervalue as the governments of the Continent were apt, during the eighteenth century, to exaggerate it. I mean, of course, Freemasonry, and the secret societies which, honestly and honourably disowned by Freemasonry, yet have either copied it, or actually sprung ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... possession of his bones. Even the critical Tiraboschi was inclined to believe that the poet had foreseen and foretold one of the discoveries of Galileo.—Like the great originals of other nations, his popularity has not always maintained the same level. The last age seemed inclined to undervalue him as a model and a study: and Bettinelli one day rebuked his pupil Monti, for poring over the harsh and obsolete extravagances of the Commedia. The present generation having recovered from the Gallic idolatries of Cesarotti, has ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... Mr. Gordon Cumming appear never to have read the missionary travels of Mr. Moffat. The poor missionary, without any arms whatever, came to think lightly of half a dozen lions seen drinking through the twilight at the very same pond or river as himself. Nobody can have any wish to undervalue the adventurous gallantry of Mr. G. Cumming. But, in the single case of the Cape lion, there is an unintentional advantage taken from the traditional name of lion, as though the Cape lion were such as that which ranges the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... man who, among various objects of his equal regard, is secure of some, and full of anxiety for the fate of others, is apt to go to much greater lengths in his preference of the objects of his immediate solicitude than Mr. Burke has ever done. A man so circumstanced often seems to undervalue, to vilify, almost to reprobate and disown, those that are out of danger. This is the voice of nature and truth, and not of inconsistency and false pretence. The danger of anything very dear to us removes, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... one as almost insane to assume that in a Christian country Atheism should be professed as a cloak or as an excuse for misconduct. They who talk in this strain greatly undervalue the accommodating power of religion. Is there a single form of rascality known to man for which religion has not been able to provide a sanction? If there is I have failed to come across it. The use ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... into which you enter with all your heart, that you have such a store of 'wise saws.' How in the world did you ever acquire them? for your time seems to have been spent more in the active pursuits of life than in meditation. Excuse me, I neither undervalue your talent nor power of observation, but the union does not seem quite natural, it is so much out of the usual course ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... anything, or to take anything away, unless it were the letter itself. But we have yielded to the necessity of punctuating it. In the original there were neither commas nor stops of any kind, not even notes of exclamation,—a fact which tends to undervalue the system of notes and dashes by which modern authors have endeavored to depict the great disasters of ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... 8. We must not undervalue this boon authority over the beasts; for it is a special gift of God, of which the heathen knew nothing, because they lack the Word. We are the ones who derive the greatest benefit from this gift. When this revelation was given to Noah, and such a privilege granted, there ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... who had seen much of the world; "it is a petty superstition of the age; it is not the fault of the man, who hath sterling qualities. And by that same potency of credulity have his fears been set at rest. It is a proof of weakness to undervalue the strength of an adversary—for so at least he hath recently declared himself on this question of temporal power, by his petty aggressions and triumphs in Malta, Parma, ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... go on, please. You are very generous, and you want to persuade me that I undervalue myself. You would convince me, if you could, that I am a great deal worthier than I think myself. I know better. You are very modest, and you would like to make me believe that you will never be a much more distinguished man than ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... series which presents a grand display of the mighty power of God: every stage of progress in the earth and its habitants is such a display. So far from this science having any tendency to make men undervalue the power or love of God, it leads to the probability that the exhibition of mercy we have in the gift of his Son may possibly not be the only manifestation of grace which has taken place in the countless ages during which works of creation have ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... pointed out, the absurdity and even hopelessness of effecting Eugenic improvement by placing on the statute books prohibitions of legal matrimony to certain classes of people, reveal the weakness of those Eugenists who minimize or undervalue the importance of environment as a determining factor. They affirm that heredity is everything and environment nothing, yet forget that it is precisely those who are most universally subject to bad environment ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... a hermit dwell, On a rock, or in a cell, Calling home the smallest part That is missing of my heart, To bestow it where I may Meet a rival every day? If she undervalue me, What care I how fair ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various
... effect of the victory was to elate the tone of the army far above any previous act of the war. Already prepared not to undervalue their own prowess, its ease and completeness left a universal sense of their invincibility, till the feeling became common in the ranks—and spread thence to the people—that one southern man was worth a dozen Yankees; and that if they did not come in numbers greater than five to one, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... wife be a woman of sense, worth, and cultivation, yet not very expert at cutting out a shirt, or making paste, pies, and puddings (though I would not by any means undervalue this necessary part of female knowledge, or tolerate ignorance in my sex respecting them), yet pray, my good sir, do not, on this account only, show discontent and ill-humour towards her. If she is ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... achievement of costly failure. Many a promising mechanic has been spoiled by the ill-considered attempts to make a passable engineer; and the annals of every profession abound in parallel instances of misdirected zeal. In saying this, however, one would not wish to undervalue enthusiasm, nor to deny that it sometimes reveals or develops latent ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... be considered as the primary and infallible guide—and the scriptures but a secondary means of instruction—but the Quakers do not undervalue the latter on this ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... centuries in England afforded healthful recreation to all classes must needs possess some value beyond that of mere physical exercise. Not that we would undervalue the latter advantage. Improvement in health usually keeps pace with improvement in cricket. Mr. Grace, the "champion cricketer of the world," is hardly less a champion of muscular physique: he sought in vain for a companion to walk to town, late at night, from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... been persuaded to settle there, instead of seeking their fortunes farther west. The effect upon these settlers in course of time was marvellous. Though it was not of course the mere climate of Sogdiana that changed them, still we cannot undervalue the influence which is necessarily exerted on the mind by the idea of property, when once recognised and accepted, by the desire of possession and by the love of home, and by the sentiment of patriotism which arises in the mind, especially with the occupation of a rich ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... his conception of the type is clear evidence that he did not undervalue the factor of adaptation as a formative element in nature; we have seen that he became acquainted with it in studying the same plant species under different climatic conditions. In his view, however, adaptation ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... person to undervalue such a catalogue of qualities when presented to her in the concrete. True, on her theory, a Christian young woman ought to be ready in certain circumstances to throw such a lover over the gunwale as ruthlessly as the sailors pitched Jonah headlong. That is to say, a Christian ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... which the example of the head of the state, old Antoninus Pius—an example to be still further enforced by his successor—had given a fresh though perhaps somewhat artificial popularity. It had been consistent with many another homely and old-fashioned trait in him, not to undervalue the charm of exclusiveness and immemorial authority, which membership in a local priestly college, hereditary in his house, conferred upon him. To set a real value on [16] these things was but one element in that pious concern for his home and all ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... that others may have to bear with as many unpleasantnesses from you, as you have to bear with from them. You may misunderstand or undervalue others, as much as they misunderstand or undervalue you. And others may be as much disappointed in you, as you are in them. And you may try their patience, as much as they try yours. We know when we are hurt by others, but we do not always know when others ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... works of the next generation of sculptors, there was a stiffness in the statues of Canachus which made them seem untrue to nature—"Canachi signa rigidiora esse quam ut imitentur veritatem." But Cicero belongs to an age surfeited with artistic licence, and likely enough to undervalue the severity of the early masters, the great motive struggling still with the minute and rigid hand. So the critics of the last century ignored, or underrated, the works of the earlier Tuscan sculptors. In what Cicero ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... personality. But we should also respect our own, and bear in mind, that "though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to us but through our toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to us to till." To undervalue our own thought because it is ours, to depreciate our own powers or faculties because some one else's are more vigorous, to shrink from doing what we can because we think we can do so little, is to hinder our own development and the progress of the world. For it is only by exercise ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... it about? There are many kinds of enthusiasts, though but one quality of enthusiasm. Weak people show their enthusiasm too much on the surface. Powerful folk keep it too deep in their hearts to be seen at all. What then, are we to scout it in the impulsive because too obvious; to undervalue it in the reticent because almost invisible? Nay, let us be thankful for it in any form, for the thing is good, though the individual's manner of displaying it may be faulty. Let us hope that the too gushing may learn to clap on the breaks a little—a very little; but far more ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... They did not undervalue him. If he had been less a man than he was, they would not have taken the trouble to cover him with their drunken ribaldry. He had scored off them in the past in just such sprees as this, when he had the power to do so, and used the power good-naturedly ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... indeed, was the example which was set by the most exalted and most formidable of our enemies. It is needless to name him. This sovereign never tried to undervalue our glory: he was only happy when he could bear testimony again and again to the talents and the courage of the French nation. When he received our officers he did not treat them with that ill-concealed disdain, so often lavished ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... free to wander when she would within the lines of an honorable enemy. That she should walk there with increasing frequency as the days passed was a tribute to my powers of restraint which I was too wise to undervalue. I ignored the shyness of which she seemed unable to divest herself in my presence. It would have been easy not to ignore it, for there were times when, so little careful was she to guard herself, that this shyness ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... been a great favourite in Scotland in my recollection has much gone out of practice—I mean the frequent use of diminutives, generally adopted either as terms of endearment or of contempt. Thus it was very common to speak of a person whom you meant rather to undervalue, as a mannie, a boddie, a bit boddie, or a wee bit mannie. The Bailie in Rob Roy, when he intended to represent his party as persons of no importance, used the expression, "We ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... Genoese allowed, he prosecuted his plans of civilising the people. He used to say, that though he had an unspeakable pride in the prospect of the fame to which he aspired; yet if he could but render his countrymen happy, he could be content to be forgotten. His own importance he never affected to undervalue. "We are now to our country," said he, "like the prophet Elisha stretched over the dead child of the Shunamite,—eye to eye, nose to nose, mouth to mouth. It begins to recover warmth, and to revive: I hope it will yet regain full health ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... these qualities, and to believe that nothing can be feminine without them. For our parts, we confess, that, although no enemies to a pretty foot, it is by no means a sine qua non in our estimate of female perfection; being in no way disposed, where the head and heart are gems, to undervalue these in consideration of any deficiency in the heels. Captain de Haldimar probably thought otherwise; for when he had passed his unwilling hand over the foot of Oucanasta, which, whatever her face might have been, was certainly any thing but delicate, and encountered numerous ragged ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... judgments. His chapter on the English novelists (that is to say, those of the last century) is perhaps the best thing ever written on the subject; and is particularly valuable nowadays when there is a certain tendency to undervalue Smollett in order to exalt Fielding, who certainly needs no such illegitimate and uncritical leverage. I do not think that he is, on the whole, unjust to Campbell; though his Gallican, or rather Napoleonic mania made him commit the ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... his, and troubled him sorely. Neither was his mind altogether free of the dread of reproach. For self reproach he could find little or no ground, seeing that to pity her much for the loss of consideration her marriage with him would involve, would be to undervalue the honesty of his love and the worth of his art; and indeed her position was so independently based that she could not lose it even by marrying one who had not the social standing of a brewer or a stockbroker; but his pride was uneasy under ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... lets him run all the risk; Political Economy, on the other hand, looking deeper into the nature of the contract, reaches an entirely opposite result. The mere jurist has a dangerous tendency to undervalue the reign of the laws of nature; the mere political economist, just as readily, undervalues the element of free will. (Arnold, Cultur und Recht I, 97.) In this respect, the two sciences complement ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... not mean to undervalue the great horticultural novelties of the day, merely because I was unable to purchase, or because others were evidently realizing great sums by first originating them, and then spreading their merits before the world, though sometimes in extravagant terms. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... ye'll know better than me (though not by yourself, for Jan tells me you're a grand artist), that a man may have the ambition and the love, and some talent for an art, and yet be just without that divine spark which the gods withhold. Sir, GOD forbid that I should undervalue the pure pleasure of even that little gift; but it's ill for a lad when he has just that much of an art to keep him from a ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Walter had secured order in England, but oversea Richard found himself face to face with dangers which he was too clear-sighted to undervalue. Destitute of his father's administrative genius, less ingenious in his political conceptions than John, Richard was far from being a mere soldier. A love of adventure, a pride in sheer physical strength, here and there a romantic generosity, jostled roughly with the craft, the unscrupulousness, ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... Also, they undervalue the Mexican soldiers. I assure you they do. They fought Spain for ten years; they do not want, then, the persistence of true valor. The Americans may die in the Alamo, but they cannot hold it against the thousands Santa Anna ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... dialectical skill of an accomplished schoolman. The poor country-gentleman could not understand the terms on which he held his own estate without calling in an expert equal to such a task. The man who has acquired skill so essential to his employer's interests is not likely to undervalue it or to be over anxious to simplify the labyrinth in which he ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... difficult for me to understand you, Phaidor," I replied, "can you not understand that possibly it is equally difficult for you to understand the motives, the customs and the social laws that guide me? I do not wish to hurt you, nor to seem to undervalue the honour which you have done me, but the thing you desire may not be. Regardless of the foolish belief of the peoples of the outer world, or of Holy Thern, or ebon First Born, I am not dead. While I live my heart beats for but one woman—the incomparable ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... terrify us, the last to make us too easy and consequently too secure; 'tis equally dangerous for us to be terrified into despair and bullied into more terror of our enemies than we need, or to be so exalted in conceit of our own force as to undervalue and contemn the power which we cannot reduce." To blame him for making clear the greatness of the French power, was to act as if the Romans had killed the geese in the Capitol for frightening them out of their ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... wish to know the true history of a people, to understand the causes of its sorrows and its joys, to estimate its worth, and to know how to rule it wisely and well, let us read such old-world tales carefully, and ponder them well. Even if prejudice or ignorance should induce us to undervalue their worth as authentic records of its ancient history, let us remember the undeniable fact, that they are authentic records of its deepest national feelings, and let them, at least, have their weight as such in our schemes of social economy, for ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... Mr. Counsellor, his excellency does not undervalue these treasures, but appreciates them highly, and is always glad enough when the bookbinder delivers new volumes in gorgeous bindings. For this very reason his excellency has ordered the library to be placed in this anteroom, so ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... undervalue himself and knew that he might well be proud of the position he had won by his own industry and talents; and still she was the grandchild of the man who had had the right to sell his grandfather for mere coin, and was so high-born, rich and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... fashion to undervalue Oxford and Cambridge prize-poems; but it is a stupid fashion. Many of them are most beautiful. Heber's 'Palestine!' A flight, as upon angel's wing, over the Holy Land! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... say that?" and Greta's eyes had a dreamy look in them; "but I tell Alwyn that I mean to lean on him. Indeed, Olive, you must not undervalue him. Alwyn is stronger than you think. He has repented truly and deeply of all his boyish mistakes, and those who love him should utterly and for ever wipe out the record of his past. See how devotedly his father loves ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Do not undervalue the headache. While it is at its sharpest it seems a bad investment; but when relief begins, the unexpired remainder is worth $4 a minute. —Pudd'nhead Wilson's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the way in which people wish for the advantages they have not, and undervalue those they ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... them not suppose we undervalue or wish them to neglect other kinds of teaching; on the contrary, they should mark how much the influences of home, and business, and society, are affected by the quantity ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... Street into a shoppy little thoroughfare, and through it to this quiet, neglected high-nosed old locality, he realized with an added satisfaction that he had come back to Thackeray's London. One was apt, he reflected, with a charity which he would not have allowed himself always, to undervalue Thackeray in these days. After all, he once expressed London so well that now London expressed him, and ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... I meant no disparagement of Mr. Carlyon. He is such a favourite with all of us that we are not likely to undervalue him. It struck me once or twice that he was not quite ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... is going on. If, before the war, any man in this country was disposed to undervalue a government thus conducted, he should have learned by this time the wisdom and strength of a government which embraces and embodies the judgment and the will of the whole people. If the negroes of the South, four million strong, had been endowed with the elective franchise, and had ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell |
