"Common knowledge" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... until 1877 Bulgaria may truthfully be said to have had no history, but nevertheless it could scarcely have been called happy. National life was completely paralysed, and what stood in those days for national consciousness was obliterated. It is common knowledge, and most people are now reasonable enough to admit, that the Turks have many excellent qualities, religious fervour and military ardour amongst others; it is also undeniable that from an aesthetic point of view too much ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... a whole people what it never fails to produce in the individual: it unfitted them just as they grew up into a manhood exposed to severer struggles than their youth had undergone—for the stern and practical demands of life; and suffered the love of the beautiful to subjugate or soften away the common knowledge of the useful. Genius itself became a disease, and poetry assisted towards the euthanasia of ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... avoid analogy with the reciprocal interaction of heterogeneous elements in the domain of other natural processes. In strict conformity with the scientific method we take into consideration merely such interactions as the facts of common knowledge and actual experience offer us. Thus will we be able, happily, to formulate a principle of the reciprocal interaction of heterogeneous ethnic, or, if you will, social elements, the mathematical certainty and universality of ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... the school—even those who were not Scouts—knew about Frieda Hammer. They were aware, too, of the fact that the Japanese fete had been given to raise money to support her, and it was common knowledge that over a ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... happened that I spent my vacation in Kentucky—the region, as everybody knows, of the great caves. They extend—it is a matter of common knowledge—for hundreds of miles; in some places dark and sunless tunnels, the black silence broken only by the dripping of the water from the roof; in other places great vaults like subterranean temples, with vast stone arches sweeping to the dome, and with deep, still water of unfathomed ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... seem a hard saying, but it was a matter of common knowledge that the majority of the children attending the local elementary schools were insufficiently fed. It was admitted that the money that could be raised by a halfpenny rate would be more than sufficient to provide them all with one good meal every day. The charity-mongers who professed ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... on us before you die, Berkeley," he said, with a keener inflection of pain and contempt than had ever been in his voice. "Have you no common knowledge of honor?" ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... assumed distinction between scientific knowledge and common knowledge is not logically justifiable; and yet feeling, as we must, that however impossible it may be to draw a line between them, the two are not practically identical; there arises the question—What is the relationship that exists between them? A partial answer ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... but a moment's reflection to make it clear that a certain crude insight into the solution of this problem, as regards all common diseases, must have been the common knowledge of medical men since the earliest times. Thus not even medical knowledge was needed to demonstrate that the tissues of an in: flamed part become red and swollen; and numerous other changes of diseased tissues are almost equally patent. But this species ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... insurance records simply give exact expression to what has long been a matter of common knowledge to the employer of labor and to leaders and commanders of men; to wit, that the influence of alcohol on any large group of men, whether they be artisans or soldiers, is harmful and lowers the efficiency ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... traits built up good countries there abroad and they will in the same way build up the country here. Tribes that have swinish traits were destroyers there and will be destroyers here. This has been common knowledge so long that it has become a proverb: "You can't make a silk purse out of ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... manner be not all that could be wished, the matter is entirely trustworthy, being compiled from actual observation and experience, and in no case at second-hand. An endeavour has also been made to exclude such matter as is easily obtainable elsewhere—matters of common knowledge and "padding" of any sort—the object not being simply the making of a book, but the record ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... simplicity. She was quiet and a little shy. There was nothing coarse or loud about her; she had not the exuberance common to the half-caste; and it was almost impossible to believe that she could be the virago that the horrible scenes between husband and wife, which were now common knowledge, indicated. In her pretty pink frock and high-heeled shoes she looked quite European. You could hardly have guessed at that dark background of native life in which she felt herself so much more at home. I did not imagine that she was at all intelligent, and ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... Why, it's common knowledge. That's how they've been going on for the last fifty years." "Everybody knows it," said ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... padded noiselessly about the passage on its scaly paws seeking for its prey, with its great cruel jaws snapping, its fierce teeth gleaming, and its horny tail lashing savagely from side to side. It was also a matter of common knowledge that the favourite article of diet of crocodiles was a little boy with bare legs in a white suit. Even should one be fortunate enough to escape the crocodile's jaws, there were countless other terrors awaiting the traveller ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... binding than any in the Statute Book, that counting of noses is with us localized. In other words, when it comes to the choice of our law-makers, reducing provincialism to a system we make the local numerical majority supreme, and any one is considered competent to legislate. He can do that, even if by common knowledge he is incompetent or untrustworthy in every other capacity. Localization thus becomes the stronghold of mediocrity, the sure avenue to office of the second-and third-rate man,—he who wishes always to enjoy his share of a little brief authority, to have, he also, a ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams
... jockey with the high cheek-bones. He passed his hand along the mare's rein. It was said that Chukkers had never cared for a horse in his life, and it was certain that many horses had hated Chukkers. But it was common knowledge that he was fonder of the mare than he had ever been of ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... very far from being the most serious ills of humanity. One would have imagined that the suffering inflicted by disease and by bad social conditions—suffering which falls upon man and woman alike—deserved a first place in the thoughts of every reformer. And one might have expected it to be common knowledge that the wrongs individual men inflict upon women have a full counterpart in the wrongs which individual women inflict upon men. It may quite well be that there are mists which here "blot and fill the perspective" of the female legislative ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... burglary; the murder of poor Nancy; the escape and death of the horror-haunted Sikes,—all are painted with a master's hand. And the book, like its predecessor, and like those that were to follow, contains characters that have passed into common knowledge as types,—characters of the keenest individuality, and that yet seem in themselves to sum up a whole class. Such are Bill Sikes, whose ruffianism has an almost epic grandeur; and black-hearted Fagin, the Jew, receiver of stolen goods and trainer of youth in the way they should not go; and ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... whenever an insurrection would break out in a province after Governor Taft's inauguration as governor, the whole attitude of the army in the Philippines, from the commanding general down was 'I told you so.' They did not say this where Governor Taft could hear it, but it was common knowledge that they were much addicted to damning 'politics' as the cause of all the ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... found this document amongst the late Miss HEAVISIDES' papers. It is common knowledge that she took proceedings against Dr. MARCELLUS to produce PITT WELLINGTON. At the time of her death she had not succeeded. However, there is a fair sum mentioned in her will to carry her point. I drew the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... contract was legally subject to such reasonable restraint of action as the State may impose in the exercise of the police power for the protection of the general health and welfare. It submitted that certain facts of common knowledge established conclusively that there was reasonable ground for holding that to permit women in Oregon to work in a mechanical establishment or factory or laundry more than ten hours in one day ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... In time, such a life leads to failure and gloom, to secret, then to open vice, and to a final shipwreck of the home and of the individual. In a similar yet in a less marked way, the career of many a home is ended. No one may be directly to blame, but want of common knowledge and common wit have set a limit beyond which such a family may not go. The intelligent family has some sort of a history which it is their privilege and duty to perpetuate. Members of the intelligent family are moral sponsors for one another, the mother ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... slowly. A crooked wheel. Of course it was crooked. Why not? That Dale, Galloway, Norton, and a few other gentlemen of the neighbourhood were under their wives' thumbs to such a degree that they did not dare to gamble openly was a matter of common knowledge. What more natural than that someone should provide them with a private gambling place? With such cappers as Nebraska and his gang, losers would not feel equal to making much of an outcry. It must be a paying occupation for McFluke, Nebraska, ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... Constitution expressly guarantees. In proof of this statement we need but refer to the recent history of our Federal judiciary. The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right of trial by jury in all criminal prosecutions; but it is a matter of common knowledge that this time-honored safeguard against the tyranny and oppression of ruling classes has been overthrown by the Federal courts. With the ascendency of corporate wealth and influence, government by injunction has become an important feature of our system. The use made of the injunction in recent ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... uneducated and unsophisticated. Missionaries often find those to whom they go frankly curious. But, strangely enough, there is something in many of us that rebels against having one's private life a matter of common knowledge! The one who has grown up without becoming acquainted with the meaning of the word privacy, on the other hand, may find it impossible to understand why the missionary desires to be alone once ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... It was matter of common knowledge in the literary world of Crabbe's day that John Murray did not on this occasion make a very prudent bargain, and that in fact he lost heavily by his venture. No doubt his offer was based upon the remarkable success of Crabbe's two preceding poems. The Borough had passed through six editions in ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... presumed that Mrs. Sydney Bamborough's memory was short. For it was a matter of common knowledge in the diplomatic circles in which she moved that Mr. Paul Howard Alexis of Piccadilly House, London, and Prince Pavlo Alexis of the province of Tver, were one and the ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... these rites; and their ordinances show the value they attached to rhythm and dance as elements in religion. To illustrate this point would be to make the ceremonial known to the uninitiated: but so much is matter of common knowledge, that persons who divulge the mysteries are popularly spoken of as 'dancing them out.' In Delos, not even sacrifice could be offered without dance and musical accompaniment. Choirs of boys gathered and performed their dance to the sound ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... common sense, the elementary knowledge as to things material and things mental—the Benjamin Franklin philosophy—if they had ever known it. Without some data the reasoning faculties of man cannot work. As Lord Bacon said, the mind of man must 'work upon stuff.' And in the absence of the common knowledge which trains us in the elements of reason as far as we are trained, they had no 'stuff.' Even, therefore, if their passions were not absolutely stronger than ours, relatively they were stronger, for their reason was weaker than our reason. Again, it is certain that races of men capable ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... deacons are always guilty! And in a few minutes Deacon Smith is ruined forever, although the fact of the matter may well have been that he was but counting the money in the collection-plate. This willingness to believe the worst of others is a matter of common knowledge and of historical and literary record. "The evil that men do lives after them—" It might well have been put, "The evil men are said to have done lives forever." However unfair, this is a psychologic condition which plays an important ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... the cause of truth. For what is the Holy See in its relation to the masses of Catholics, and where does its strength lie? It is the organ, the mouth, the head of the Church. Its strength consists in its agreement with the general conviction of the faithful. When it expresses the common knowledge and sense of the age, or of a large majority of Catholics, its position is impregnable. The force it derives from this general support makes direct opposition hopeless, and therefore disedifying, tending only to division and promoting reaction rather than ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... pleasant suggestions, but in order that these should constitute a ground of aesthetic value, they must be common, participated in by all, or at least by an indefinite number. This will be the case when the association rests on our common every-day experiences, and our common knowledge of things, as in the case of the peaceful beauty of an ascending curl of blue smoke in a woody landscape, or the awful beauty of a lofty precipice. On the other hand, when the experience and recollections, which are the source of the pleasure, are restricted and ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... itself (afterwards a pinnace to become) erstwhile was a foliaged clump; and oft on Cytorus' ridge hath this foliage announced itself in vocal rustling. And to thee, Pontic Amastris, and to box-screened Cytorus, the pinnace vows that this was alway and yet is of common knowledge most notorious; states that from its primal being it stood upon thy topmost peak, dipped its oars in thy waters, and bore its master thence through surly seas of number frequent, whether the wind whistled 'gainst the starboard quarter ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... Briant of the Isles, "matter of common knowledge is it that Lancelot slew the lord of the Waste Manor and Meliant his son after the contention that was betwixt King Arthur and me. But, after that he had slain the father, he ought of right to have taken good heed that he did no wrong to the son, but rather ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... again. It was common knowledge, too that the commissioner and Gungadhura had had a rather stormy interview the day before; and it was none of the corporal's privilege to know that all they had argued about was the ill-treatment of prisoners ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... valuable hint may surely be found in the development of Rugby football. It is common knowledge what immense results have followed the introduction, some twenty years ago, of the Four Three-quarter System. No spectator (and we cannot exist without the spectator) would ever dream now of returning to the old ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... distinction of our times has been, that effect which missionary and other philanthropic societies have had, to render familiar to common knowledge, by means of their meetings and publications, a great number of such interesting and important facts, in the state of other countries and our own, as were formerly quite beyond the sphere of ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... common knowledge that there was a more or less organized band of shiftless malcontents making its headquarters in and near Perry's Bend, some distance up the river, and the deduction in this case was easy. The Bar-20 cared very little about what went on at Perry's Bend—that was a matter ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... a better one, I know; but happy? Think. I was fond of you once and I can read between the lines—the little thin lines on your forehead. They are newcomers. I'm not deceived. Nor is it hidden. That the man has proved faithless is common knowledge now. Facts are hard things and you've got the fact under your eyes. ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... prey. The Koch lymph is evidently not a poison to the germs, and probably has no other action on the affected organs than that of an irritant, having a selective affinity by virtue of the kinship with its contents. This theory of its action is supported by our common knowledge of the power of pyogenic agents to awaken old or slumbering inflammations, and the fact that septic fevers, such as small-pox, have been known to leave the consumptives with the last stages free from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... common knowledge that in the South, prior to the War of the Rebellion, the burden of her industries, mechanical as well as agricultural, fell upon the colored population. They formed the great majority of her mechanics and skilled artisans as well as of ...
— The Colored Inventor - A Record of Fifty Years • Henry E. Baker
... of our Apiciana plainly show the lasting interest in our ancient book, particularly ever since its presence became a matter of common knowledge during the ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... St. Paul, and his words show clearly that before his time there had been a prophecy and belief in the final triumph of love over death, not as an article of faith, but as a common knowledge. ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... Charlie that he had reached the pages of The Daily Picture, and was reputed to be arousing the jealousy of youthful millionaires in the United States; also the figure which he paid weekly for rent of his offices in the Grand Babylon Hotel was an item of common knowledge in the best clubs and not to know it was to be behind the times in current information. No member of his family now ventured to offer advice to Charlie, who still, however, looked astonishingly like the ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... affair of fable, the storehouse of tradition, it was well enough for the poet to take historical events and figures, and fashion them in any way that served his purpose; but this will not do in our modern daylight, where a freedom with the truth is an offense against common knowledge, and does not charm the fancy, but painfully bewilders it at the best, and at the second best is impudent and ludicrous. In his tragedy, Niccolini takes two very familiar incidents of Venetian history: that of the Foscari, which Byron has used; and that of Antonio Foscarini, ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... due not merely to the desire of agriculturists to be in fashion, nor to the efforts of agricultural pedagogues, but to a real need. It is common knowledge that in America we have not farmed, but have mined the soil. We have "skimmed the cream" of fertility, and passed on to conquer new areas of virgin soil. This pioneer farming has required hard work, enterprise, courage, and all the noble traits of character ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... the number 15, which had long been common knowledge, was now discussed with intense interest. The 15, it was said, signified the 15th of August, the day of the meeting. That would be the day which had been so long expected—the day ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... that the book was written by an old lady at a lunatic asylum in her lucid intervals; while a ladies' journal had heard that the author was a common carpenter and entirely self-educated; and there were other similar discoveries. But before they had time to circulate widely, it became somehow common knowledge that the author was a young schoolmaster, and that his real name ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... hope," said Puttock earnestly, "that that would not influence his judgment. But, to be frank—well, it's common knowledge that Mr. Norburn and I found ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... I was not Marigold's commanding officer, but his very grateful friend. "You see," said I, "they were engaged before Mrs. Connor married—I needn't tell you that; it was common knowledge—and so their sudden ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... appointed to leave the harbour on Sunday next. But by whose authority they are being thus summarily dealt with, I cannot understand, or ascertain; the only thing which is quite certain being that they have not been tried or convicted publicly. That, however, is nothing, for it is common knowledge that scores— indeed, I may say hundreds—of people who have been suspected of disloyalty to the Government have mysteriously vanished, from time to time, and have never again been heard of. In the light of what we now know, however, there is little doubt in my mind that they ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... book is accordingly to put the accepted facts in such a form that they will the more readily become matters of common knowledge. By an appeal to those who can read the newspapers intelligently and remember a little of their high-school physiology, an immense body of interested citizens can be added to the forces of a modern campaign against the third great plague. For such an awakening of public opinion and such ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... corroborate the story in the face. Not less surprising is the change when we leave off to speak of generalities—the bad, the good, the miser, and all the characters of Theophrastus—and call up other men, by anecdote or instance, in their very trick and feature; or trading on a common knowledge, toss each other famous names, still glowing with the hues of life. Communication is no longer by words, but by the instancing of whole biographies, epics, systems of philosophy, and epochs of history, ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... of a French company founded for the exploitation of the cuprammonium process may be taken as showing that it presents very considerable technical difficulties. It is a matter of common knowledge that this company estimated the costs of production to be such as to enable the product to be sold at 12 fr. per kilo., whereas the costs actually obtaining were a large ...
— Researches on Cellulose - 1895-1900 • C. F. Cross
... general opinion of the Senate was opposed and the matter was permitted to lapse, but without definite action, so that it could at any time be called up again[979]. Six months later the progress of construction and the purpose of the rams at Liverpool were common knowledge. On January 7, 1863, the privateering bill again came before the Senate, was referred to the committee on naval affairs, reported out, and on February 17 was passed and sent to the House of Representatives, where on March 2 it was given a third reading and passed without debate[980]. In the ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... small house on North Twenty-first Street. In reality he occupied a bachelor apartment on North Fifteenth Street, to which Aileen occasionally repaired. The difference between himself and his wife had now become a matter of common knowledge in the family, and, although there were some faint efforts made to smooth the matter over, no good resulted. The difficulties of the past two years had so inured his parents to expect the untoward and exceptional that, astonishing as this was, it did not shock them so much as it would ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... companion learned. He can learn to respect motherhood and to be considerate of mothers as mothers. It is very interesting to see the great differences in this regard between families in which the fact of motherhood is a secret, and those in which it is a matter of common knowledge. I was visiting a friend whose six-year-old boy knew that another baby was expected, and he was very careful to avoid annoying his mother. Of course, the attitude of the other members of the family also had an influence upon the conduct of this child. But another mother complained that she received ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... under such conditions Germany would find itself involved with France too, which would mean that Germany's available fighting strength would have to be divided into two parts at least. It was, of course, a matter of fairly common knowledge that Germany's concentration was much more powerful on its western border than on its eastern, so that Russia could count with reasonable certainty on a comparative weak, even if well organized, resistance on the part of Germany at the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... verge of bankruptcy, had done so as long as most of them could remember; but it was only of late that matters had begun to look really serious for them. It was rumoured that the Hall was already mortgaged beyond its value, and it was common knowledge that the Colonel's debts were accumulating with alarming rapidity. This marriage, so it was openly surmised, had been arranged in haste for the sole ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... world," and so on) awakened in me something like fury. What right had they to weep over or to talk about her? Some of them, in referring to ourselves, called us "orphans"—just as though it were not a matter of common knowledge that children who have lost their mother are known as orphans! Probably (I thought) they liked to be the first to give us that name, just as some people find pleasure in being the first to address a newly-married ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... belie this label. It was argued that the Supreme Court would be bound, under its own previous rulings, to treat the act as if it were what it purported on its face to be—a revenue measure—and to ignore common knowledge and senatorial admissions to the contrary. The measure passed the Senate by a substantial majority and was enacted as part of the revenue bill then under consideration, from which it has been carried forward into ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... TRETA YUGA will start in A.D. 4100; its age will be marked by common knowledge of telepathic communications and other time-annihilators. During the 4800 years of SATYA YUGA, final age in an ascending arc, the intelligence of a man will be completely developed; he will work in harmony ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... some disgrace on us before you die, Berkeley," he said. "Have you no common knowledge of honour? If I did such a thing I should deserve to be hounded out of the Guards to-morrow. The only thing for you to do is to go down and tell Royal, he will sell every stick ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... candidate for the representative body stands for election on a monarchical or a republican platform, in which case the majority of the body itself will express the decision; or the question of Monarchy or Republic can be decided by a plebiscite. It is matter of common knowledge that I myself have had so serious conflicts with the ex-Kaiser that any co-operation between us is for all time an impossibility. No one can, therefore, suspect me of wishing on personal grounds to revert to the old regime. But I am not one to juggle with the idea of democracy, ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... must be held to his business of producer and protector. She cannot overlook her obligation to keep him up to his part in the partnership, and she cannot wisely interfere too much with that part. The fate of the meddler is common knowledge! ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... Harper's Ferry and the capture of John Brown, she sadly tried to piece together the story of his failure. She admired and respected John Brown, believing he had saved Kansas for freedom. That he had further ambitious plans was common knowledge among antislavery workers, for he had talked them over with Gerrit Smith, Frederick Douglass, and the three young militants, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Frank Sanborn, and Samuel Gridley Howe. Somehow these plans ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... tales to any one. No Oriental would believe the tale, coming from her; the Maharajah would arrest her promptly, glad of the excuse to vent his hatred of Christian missionaries. Jaimihr would attempt a rescue; it was common knowledge that he plotted for the throne. There would be instant civil war, in which the British Government would perforce back up the alleged protector of a defenseless woman. There would be a new Maharajah; then, ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... whose root is that of mysterion, mysterium, "mystery." In the Greek world "mysteries" were systems of religious belief and practice derived, perhaps, from pre-Hellenic times, and jealously guarded from common knowledge by their votaries. Admission into their secrets, as into those of Freemasonry now, was sought by people of all kinds, from Roman consuls and emperors downwards; with the special hope of freedom from ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... was much startled at recognising in Miss Wynne his former patient of Raxton, whom he had attended on her first seizure. He said that it would now be of no use for me to write to you, as it was matter of common knowledge that you had gone to Japan. If it had not been for this I should have written to you at once. He took a very grave view of Miss Wynne's case, and said that her nervous system must shortly succumb to the ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... cases contraction is confined to one foot, while in others it may be noticed equally bad in both. It is a matter of common knowledge that contraction is usually seen in the fore-feet, while the hind seldom or never suffer from it, a fact which, to our minds, seems difficult of adequate explanation. Zundel explains this by stating that ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... That there be large sums given for these is within common knowledge. 1 d., 2 d., nay even 4 d., is not too great a price, if a man will have of the finest leaf, reckless of expense. In this sort of smoking, however, I find more of vainglory and ostentation than solid satisfaction; and its votaries would seem to display less a calm, healthy ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... the British public vague talk of some future offensive. It goes without saying that we hear nothing of any plans here. If there were any, it would be in London that they would first become common knowledge. But if such an offensive ever does happen, have the British people any idea of its difficulties? In this warfare, when you have brought up such artillery as was unbelievable even in the first year of the war, and reduced miles of trenches to powder, and have walked ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... systems of music force the conclusion that one of these must necessarily have been derived from the other. The Jesuit Fathers jumped to the conclusion that the Greeks borrowed their art from the Chinese; but it is now common knowledge that the Chinese scale did not exist in China until two centuries after its appearance in Greece. The fact is that the ancient Chinese works on music perished at the Burning of the Books; and we are told that by the middle of the 2nd century B.C. the hereditary Court music-master ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... her almost from girlhood and held up to the last, if not actually a Court appointment, a position which brought her into constant personal contact with the Queen. She was, in fact, the last of the Queen's women contemporaries who were also close friends. This fact was common knowledge, and Mr. Mudford in one of his notes, which were written in a calligraphy the badness of which it is almost impossible to describe without the aid of a lithographic print, wrote to me shortly, telling me of the death and asking me to write that night a leader on Lady ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... of the negro problem. The negro as a wage earner is found very little outside of the least skilled branches of a limited range of occupations. Of these the principal ones, as is a matter of common knowledge, are farm work, domestic service (including janitor service in stores and factories and work in hotels), and crude manual outdoor labor. Repeated attempts to operate factories with a labor force of negroes have proved unsuccessful. ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... almost everybody knows can know that of which almost everybody is ignorant. We did not open this book with any wish to find blemishes in it. We have made no curious researches. The work itself, and a very common knowledge of literary and political history, have enabled us to detect the mistakes which we have pointed out, and many other mistakes of the same kind. We must say, and we say it with regret, that we do not consider ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... rapt attention; but of the two Angela was the more eager listener. She several times interrupted me with requests for information as to matters which even among European children are of common knowledge, for, though the abbe was a man of high learning and she an apt pupil, her experience of life was limited to Quipai; and he had been so long out of the world that he had almost forgotten it. As for news, he was worse off than Fray Ignacio. He had heard of the First Consul but nothing of ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... entirely in your lordship's hands. This is the first time it has been suggested to me that the fact of the deceased's having this jewellery was not a matter of common knowledge in the household. I therefore can't say at this stage whether I shall be able to distinctly fix the prisoner ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... of common knowledge that Manning's early and conspicuous ascendency in the counsels of the Papacy rested mainly on the intimacy of his personal relations with Pius IX. But it was news to most of us that (if his biographer is right) he wished to succeed Antonelli as Secretary of ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... very young, and everybody knows that he was apprenticed to a merchant at Frankfort, and that his uncle Solomon's kindness enabled him to devote himself to jurisprudence. But this, of important bearing on our subject, is not a matter of common knowledge: Always and everywhere, especially when he had least intercourse with Jews, Jewish elements appear most prominently in ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... recounted Paul Bunyan's exploits in narrative form. They made their statements more impressive by dropping them casually, in an off hand way, as if in reference. to actual events of common knowledge. To overawe the greenhorn in the bunkshanty, or the paper-collar stiffs and home guards in the saloons, a group of lumberjacks would remember meeting each other in the camps of Paul Bunyan. With painful ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead
... Marriage and Divorce, of sex variation, of love in the past and in the future all come up for subtle consideration. The items of our common knowledge are regrouped. Here we see clearly revealed the personal conception of life that lay behind Mrs. Havelock Ellis's brilliant novels. We are arrested and spell-bound by the same understanding, the same directness of ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... of January 1816 Lady Byron left London for her father's house, claimed his protection, and after some hesitation and consultation with her legal advisers demanded a separation from her husband. It is a matter of common knowledge that in 1869 Mrs Beecher Stowe affirmed that Lady Byron expressly told her that Byron was guilty of incest with his half-sister, Mrs Leigh; also that in 1905 the second Lord Lovelace (Lord Byron's grandson) printed a work entitled Astarte which was designed ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... consideration both the beauty and the difficulty of the theme. For in other speeches the attention of the reader is kept fixed by the novelty of the subject, but in this case every detail is familiar, a matter of common knowledge, and has been said before. Consequently the reader will be lazy and careless and will only pay attention to the diction, and when merely the diction is attended to, it is not easy to give satisfaction. I wish that people would pay equal regard to the arrangement of the ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... attacks on the writer's friends. Inspired by the publication of the Travels, he presents a crudely defamatory "Character of the Author." He claims an acquaintance with Swift "in publick and private Life" (p. 4) but offers no evidence to substantiate this claim. Drawing from common knowledge, he simply cites the well-known negative evidence of A Tale of a Tub, in which Swift, he indignantly asserts like Swift's former enemy William Wotton, "levelled his Jests at Almighty God; banter'd and ...
— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous
... unworthy a choice I have made of myself, to undertake a work of this mixture, mine own reason, though exceeding weak, hath sufficiently resolved me. For had it been begotten then with my first dawn of day, when the light of common knowledge began to open itself to my younger years, and before any wound received either from Fortune or Time, I might yet well have doubted that the darkness of Age and Death would have covered over both It and Me, long before the performance. ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... of affairs in the countries bordering on the Caribbean Sea—the American Mediterranean—was such, indeed, as to justify extreme caution in dealing with the Latin-American republics. It was matter of common knowledge that Colombia and Mexico had designs upon Cuba, the last of the Spanish outposts in the New World. So long as Spain continued at war with her old colonies, the United States was bound to be uneasy about the fate of Cuba and Porto Rico. Even ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... ought to say 'No'; as a man who has spent the inside of a week there, I'm moved to say 'Yes.' Surroundings can depress or elevate, of course. That's common knowledge. But there's something more than that here. In the village they told me the place was accursed. Nonsense, of course. Yet—— Honestly, Miss French, I don't know how to tell you... There's—there's a ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... which was advertised for the evening of November 7th. For this gathering, the Zoological Hall which had been the scene of the inception of our task was found to be far too small, and it was only in the Queen's Hall in Regent Street that accommodation could be found. It is now common knowledge the promoters might have ventured upon the Albert Hall and still ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... I killed her!" he exclaimed. "She accuses me. But she never meant what they imagined she meant. Why, that evidence could hang me! ... Allie told them she saw Larry do it. And it's common knowledge now—I've heard it here.... What, then, had Allie to forgive—to forgive with eyes that will haunt me to ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... at about fourteen years of age) tall, and very well made; sharp as a hawk in matters of common knowledge; quick and smart in discourse; apt to be satirical; full of repartee; and a little too forward in conversation, or, as we call it in English, bold, though perfectly modest in my behaviour. Being French born, I danced, as some say, naturally, loved it extremely, and sang well ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... man named Chamberlayne, who commenced business in the High Street as a stock-and-share broker. A man of good address and the most plausible manners, Chamberlayne attracted a good many people—amongst them his unfortunate client. It was matter of common knowledge that Chamberlayne had induced numerous persons in Market Milcaster to enter into financial transactions with him; it was matter of common repute that those transactions had not always turned out well for Chamberlayne's clients. Unhappily for himself, Maitland ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... "Yes, it is common knowledge with the Allies," Dave admitted. "And also that you receive instructions from the home offices of ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... of such a scheme it certainly does offer an explanation of a peculiar form of sex limited inheritance in man. It has long been a matter of common knowledge that colour-blindness is much more common among men than among women, and also that unaffected women can transmit it to their sons. At first sight the case is not unlike that of the sheep, where the horned character is apparently dominant in the male but recessive in the female. The hypothesis ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett
... a matter of common knowledge that in the human being there are not only forms organized of blood vessels and nerve fibres, but also skins, membranes, tendons, cartilages, bones, nails and teeth. These have a smaller measure of life than those organized forms, which they ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... Mrs. Abram Pantin's worst enemy would have had to admit in her favor was that, strictly speaking, she was not a gossip, though this virtue was due as much to policy as to principle. It was her custom, however, to retain in her memory such morsels of common knowledge news as she accumulated during the day with which to entertain Mr. Pantin at evening dinner, for she observed that if his thoughts could be diverted from business it aided his digestion and he slept better, ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... inconsiderateness of youth, I felt no hesitation in disturbing him. But I have never seen him the least bit put out on that account. As soon as he saw me he would put aside his work and begin to talk to me. It is a matter of common knowledge that he was somewhat hard of hearing, so he hardly ever gave me occasion to put him any question. He would take up some broad subject and talk away upon it, and it was the attraction of these discourses which drew me there. Converse with no other person ever ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... that another long-standing and popular officer was lost to the 7th; this was Capt. Nidd, M.C. We had always known that his grit and determination exceeded his physical capacity, but his splendid sense of duty led him to ignore this fact, although it was common knowledge that had he so wished he could have been invalided out of the army long before. After severe trials on Gallipoli, a campaign he went through from June to the evacuation (he was one of the very few ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... gradually assimilated to the habits of those few with whom he especially associates himself. Let us attend a meeting of some propagandist committee comprising a number of expert politicians—Members of Parliament, or others. We shall find there the bond of a common knowledge, a common sympathy, a common approach towards a given subject, a common jargon. We shall be aware of the fact that we have come into a particular, highly-specialised atmosphere, where the familiar language of ordinary life, the familiar ideas, would be intrusions, meriting nothing ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... stated above (I-II, Q. 100, A. 3; A. 5, ad 1) when we were treating of precepts, the commandments of the decalogue being given to the whole people, are a matter of common knowledge to all, as coming under the purview of natural reason. Now foremost among the things dictated by natural reason are the ends of human life, which are to the practical order what naturally known principles are to the speculative order, as shown above ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... crime has been touched by the modern impetus. The ancient, abstract and wholesale "justice" is breaking up into detailed and carefully adapted treatment of individual offenders. What this means for the child has become common knowledge in late years. Criminology (to use an awkward word) is finding a human center. So is education. Everyone knows how child study is revolutionizing the school room and the curriculum. Why, it seems ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... mind, who now had little else to think of. Her father said nothing to her of the reason which had brought her home. He was stately and remote. Nor did he mention his difficulties, which were gathering so close about his house. But they were common knowledge at Bathbrink, and Gudrid heard of little else from morning till night. There was scarcity there, not of provision, but of guests. No young men came about the house, or filled the great table in the hall. Other men came, who wanted ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... that those foreigners who have criticized him, Miss Edith Durham, Baron d'Estournelles de Constant and Mr. Nevinson, are altogether mistaken. I do not propose to make a long and dreary catalogue of his iniquities, but only to mention a few items.... It was in Montenegro a matter of common knowledge that the wheat which Russia sent in large quantities for his famine-threatened people was not given but was sold to them by Nikita, the proceeds being shared by himself and four or five privileged families, the Petrovi['c], ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... homely but important facts bearing upon literary production. Homely as they are, they explain much that is at first puzzling. This perplexing question of distinction; the quality of being somehow fresh—individual. Really it is a perfectly simple matter. It is common knowledge that, after a prolonged fast, the brain works in a feeble manner, the current of one's thoughts is pallid and shallow, it is difficult to fix the attention and impossible to mobilise the full forces of the mind. On the other hand, immediately after a sound meal, the brain feels massive, ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... I be surprised?" she answered. "You know everything. Besides, this is published at the Capitol, and therefore common knowledge." ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... scheme of which I have often heard in America, but which is difficult to prove, as all American newspapers maintain the strictest secrecy as to the origin of their leading articles. It is, however, common knowledge that with regard to European affairs the American news service was swayed by this entirely English organization. Until the outbreak of the war the American news agencies drew exclusively from English sources. Moreover, those newspapers which in the United States play a very important ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... of reclaimed rubber is a matter of common knowledge to all who are familiar with the rubber industry, there are nowhere available any statistics of either the absolute or comparative volume of its consumption, with the single exception of the official returns of imports into Canada. There separate accounts ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... little disquisition headed by a remark, in the Macaulay vein, as to matters of common knowledge, and shows from direct authority that the dramatist is quite wrong in mixing up the Du Barri who married the heroine with the Du Barri who took her away from the milliner's shop, and gives a facetious touch of lightness to his remarks by pointing out that neither of the scoundrels was connected with ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... found herself in considerable danger of losing not only her dignities but even her liberty. For some time, it is said, she had been engaged in a liaison with William Mons, a handsome, gay young courtier, brother to a former mistress of the Tsar. The love affair had been common knowledge at the Court—to all but Peter himself, and it was accident that at last opened his eyes to his wife's dishonour. One moonlight night, so the story is told, he chanced to enter an arbour in the palace gardens, and there discovered her in the arms of ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... The counterfeit passes throughout the area, but in Tinglayan, just beyond its eastern border, it is not known. Within two days farther east small coins are unknown, the peso being the only money value in common knowledge. ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... women use the infusion of its aromatic leaves to induce menstruation. It is also used as an abortifacient, but is too mild a uterine stimulant to be reliable for that purpose. Its stomachic and tonic properties are common knowledge in the Philippines. The Hindoos use it for those effects and as an antispasmodic in amenorrhoea and hysteria. Dr. Wight states that the leaves and tops are useful in nervous troubles resulting from debility and that a decoction of them makes a ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... There aren't better doctors in the world than at our place, I can tell you. It's common knowledge. Why, Sir Rashleigh Hewitt is there every day—the great Sir ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... grandfather, as usual, was the life of the occasion, and all went merry as a marriage-bell. Seven months later, Lord Dorrington returned, and a week after that, the loss of the Dorrington jewels from the Devonshire strong-boxes was a matter of common knowledge. When, or by whom, they had been taken was an absolute mystery. As far as anybody could find out, they might have been taken the night before his return, or the night after his departure. The only fact in sight was that they were gone—Lady Dorrington's diamonds, a half-dozen ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... of heredity, which has much exercised the mind of Balzac, has never been more strikingly exemplified than in the case of the great family of the Aylwins. It is matter of common knowledge that some generations ago one of the Aylwins married a Gypsy. This fact did not, however, prevent his branch from being respectable, and receiving the name of the proud Aylwins; and the Gypsy blood ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... passage through their jurisdiction, with duties which would fall on the makers of the latter and the consumers of the former. We may be assured by past experience, that such a practice would be introduced by future contrivances; and both by that and a common knowledge of human affairs, that it would nourish unceasing animosities, and not improbably terminate in serious interruptions of the public tranquillity. To those who do not view the question through the medium of passion or of interest, the desire of the commercial States to ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... Veranilda at the second interview, natural enough if the maiden had already passed into the Greek's hands. Two days ago Marcian had told him that Petronilla must needs be aware of Veranilda's importance, seeing that it was now common knowledge in Roman society. But a thought flashed into his mind, and he lifted up his ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... Governments never fight for noble ideals, and, if they relieve a small nation from a foreign yoke, it is, as often as not, in order to impose a new one. To them the War was a struggle for power and plunder between two European groups. It was matter of common knowledge that Constantinople had been allotted to the Russians, and the Greeks were not particularly keen on shedding their blood in order to place a Tsar on the Byzantine throne. Nor did the Smyrna bait attract them greatly, since it involved parting with Cavalla. At the same time, the ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... greatly prefer that it should not become common knowledge," Mr. Osgood replied with some hesitation; "but I may tell you, Mr. Hancher, that Mr. O'Connor came to see me with a proposal that we take the agency of the Salamander and turn over the Guardian's business to them. I told him—were you ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... of common knowledge that Hayti has to send abroad even to secure engineers for her men-of-war, for plans for her bridges and other work requiring technical knowledge and skill. I should very much regret to see any such condition obtain in any large measure as regards the coloured people in the South, and yet this ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... Franco-Prussian war France surrendered Alsace and Lorraine to Germany to retain her independence. What has the wealth from Johannesburg done for us? That money has only injured the noble character of our people. This is common knowledge. And the cause of this war originated in Johannesburg. I could adduce more arguments, but let me only say that the money obtained from there was to our detriment. It would now tend to our advantage to be rid of Johannesburg. ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... unknown. If the pneumatological doctrine which pervades the whole New Testament is nowhere systematically stated, it is everywhere assumed. The writers of the Gospels and of the Acts take it for granted, as a matter of common knowledge; and it is easy to gather from these sources a series of propositions, which only need arrangement to form ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... time, and by reason principally of my insight in this study, I grew familiarly acquainted with the chiefest Captaines at sea, the greatest Merchants, and the best Manners of our nation: by which meanes hauing gotten somewhat more then common knowledge, I passed at length the narrow seas into France with sir Edward Stafford, her Maiesties carefull and discreet Ligier, where during my fiue yeeres abroad with him in his dangerous and chargeable residencie in her Highnes seruice, I both heard in speech, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... certain mutual attraction, founded mainly on good looks. It had never gone deep; Frank was by nature a thin, jeering creature, not truly susceptible whether of feeling or inspiring friendship; and the relation between the pair was altogether on the outside, a thing of common knowledge and the pleasantries that spring from a common acquaintance. The more credit to Frank that he was appalled by Archie's outburst, and at least conceived the design of keeping him in sight, and, if possible, in hand for the day. But Archie, who had just ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... common knowledge that evangelical Christians are not driven further apart but are really driven together whenever Christianity itself is placed under any special trial, as, for example, in foreign missionary work in heathen lands. And even in our own country, whenever a great local ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... a little of the cleanliness which hard trekking renders impossible. The Dragoon Guards had not been long enough in the country to feel the necessity of a thorough overhaul of their linen. But the Horse gunners were old soldiers, and as soon as the intended halt became common knowledge the men stripped the shirts off their backs and indulged in the luxury of sand-baths where water was not available. This may appear a simple operation, but those who have campaigned long upon the veldt will know that a change of clothes exposes not the ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... his own people hotly disapproved of the course their infatuated ruler took is common knowledge; but by no one has that fact been more powerfully emphasised than by Paul Botha in his famous book "From Boer to Boer." Rightly or wrongly, this is ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... enemy submarines at any appreciable rate, whilst we knew that the Germans had under construction a very large number of these vessels, and that they were thus rapidly adding to their fleet. It was a matter also of common knowledge that our output of new merchant ships was exceedingly small, and I, in common with others, had urged a policy of greatly increased mercantile ship construction. These facts, combined with the knowledge ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... to run against Boise on Sunday was common knowledge; also that he had a hundred dollar forfeit up on the race. And that he was going to a dance with Honey was of no consequence ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower |
