"Depreciate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... satisfactory type of commercial treaty which she easily imposed upon other nations. Germany's road through Italy was traced by the mistaken policy of the French Government which, by a systematic endeavour to depreciate Italian consols and other securities, drove Crispi to Berlin, where his suit for help was heard, the Banca Commerciale conceived, and commercial arrangements concluded which opened the door to the influx of German wares, men ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... be it from me to depreciate the labours of Montfaucon. But those who have not the means of getting at that learned antiquarian's Monarchie Francoise may possibly have an opportunity of examining precisely the same representations, of the procession above alluded to, in Ducarel's Anglo-Norman Antiquities, Plate XII. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... which on my part still remains the same, and would be so on his, had not the traitors, who have deprived me of all the consolation of life, taken advantage of my absence to deceive his old age and depreciate me in his esteem. ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... not complimentary!' said Cynthia, laughing, but not ill- pleased to hear her lover's praises, and even willing to depreciate him a little in order to hear more. 'He's well enough, I daresay, and a great deal too learned and clever for a stupid girl like me; but even you must acknowledge he is very plain and awkward; and I like ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... terms could Burke, from temper or waywardness of judgment, attempt to depreciate a speech which may be said to have contained the first luminous statement of the principles of commerce, with the most judicious views of their application to details, that had ever, at that period, been presented to ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... the raw material of his poetry.' To this I can only reply in some words which I used in writing of the Religio Poetae, and affirm with an emphasis which I only wish to strengthen, that, here and everywhere, and never more than in the exquisite passage which Mr. Gosse only quotes to depreciate, the prose of Patmore is the prose of a poet; not prose 'incompletely executed,' and aspiring after the 'nobler order' of poetry, but adequate and achieved prose, of a very rare kind. Thought, in him, is of the very substance of poetry, and is sustained throughout at almost the lyrical ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... possible condition. God forbid that I should even seem to depreciate other forms of healing men's evils and redressing men's wrongs, and diminishing the sorrows of humanity! We welcome them all; but education, art, culture, refinement, improved environment, bettered social and political conditions, whilst they do a great deal, do not go down ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... free access to everything that the antiquary can wish to visit at Fontevrault and at Saumur. But the ecclesiastical remains of Le Mans are far from being the whole of its attractions. Its military and civil antiquities are endless, and they are more characteristic. We have not the least wish to depreciate Chartres. It is a highly interesting city; it contains a magnificent cathedral and several other remarkable buildings. But it ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... mean to depreciate your fossil remains. Forbid it all that is venerable. I should very much like to see your account of them. You gave me credit for more than is my due, when you surmised that the paper in the Quarterly (on the presumed alteration in the plane of the ecliptic) might have been mine. I write on ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... are) has not,—by raising expectation too high, or diminishing curiosity, by developing his argument,—rather incurred the hazard of injuring Mr. Townsend's future prospects. Mr. Cumberland (whose talents I shall not depreciate by the humble tribute of my praise) and Mr. Townsend must not suppose me actuated by unworthy motives in this suggestion. I wish the author all the success he can wish himself, and shall be truly happy to see epic poetry weighed up ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... stranger still that some of his friends should have given credit to his groundless opinion, when they had such undoubted proofs that it was totally fallacious; though it is by no means surprising that those who wish to depreciate him, should, since his death, have laid hold of this circumstance, and insisted upon ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... the song went on, she began to depreciate herself in a low voice and with a creeping sense of hypocrisy—to talk of her former life in London as a danger, of the tobacco-shop, the foreign clubs, the music hall, and all the mire and slime with ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... chief, if not the only, manufacturers; the men judge that if they performed that office, it would exceedingly depreciate them. * * * In the winter season, the women gather buffalo's hair, a sort of coarse, brown, curled wool; and having spun it as fine as they can, and properly doubled it, they put small beads of different ...
— Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States • William Henry Holmes
... only a "scientist." How that name tends continually to depreciate itself as the pursuit of physical science is divorced more and more completely from a knowledge of literature, from a knowledge of the humanities! And a scientist is a poor guide to an acquaintance with man, civilised or uncivilised. ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... infinitely more awkward for me! I really cannot accept the freedom of the City under any suspicion of false pretences. It would be a poor reward for your hospitality, and base and unpatriotic into the bargain, to depreciate the value of so great a distinction by permitting it to be conferred unworthily. If, after you've heard what I am going to tell you, you still insist on my accepting such an honour, of course I will not be so ungracious as to refuse it. But I really don't feel that it would be right ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... is against those who exalt works merely, and depreciate faith. Therefore he admonishes them against the false teachers who should come, who, through the teachings of men, should destroy faith entirely. For he clearly saw what a cruel trial there would yet be in the world, as had even then already begun; ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... generalized his wrath. Possibly, he would have been less sensitive and fastidious regarding the musical carillons of the Italian city were he wont to dwell within ear-shot of an American factory or railroad-station. Not that Mr. Ruskin fails to appreciate—or, rather, to depreciate—railways in their connection with Italian landscapes; for, besides his series of complaints regarding the Florence bells, he denounces the railway from Rome to Naples, and the railway-tunnels under Monts Cenis and St. Gothard, and the railway-bridge leading into Venice, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... aunt. 'I only ask. I don't depreciate her. Poor little couple! And so you think you were formed for one another, and are to go through a party-supper-table kind of life, like two pretty pieces of confectionery, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... rival was worthy of praise; to be silent where it would be easy to depreciate; to win her from him, not because of my own greater worth, but in spite of the worst she could know of me. That would, in my opinion, be a ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... General Desaix; they know as well as myself that theirs are names so respected that they can never be affected by such detractions, and that it would be as vain to dispute the praise due to the Chief who planned the battle was to attempt to depreciate the brilliant share which General Kellerman had in its successful result. I will add to the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... proportion to the intrinsic richness or poverty of the soil. We fear that the soil of the Negroes[3], of the American Indians, and of the Esquimaux, must be laboured at early and late, before it brings forth even an average crop. But we do not despair even here. Still less could we for a moment depreciate the labours of those who are carrying education to the utmost bounds of the earth. The more degraded and stupid the condition of any set of people may be, the more meritorious and thankworthy are those efforts that are made to advance ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... unfortunately fell into extravagant and dissipated habits, which frequently caused him great inconvenience. From his facility, he multiplied his pictures to such an extent as greatly to depreciate their value. It is related that he would sit down, when pressed for money, dispatch a large picture in a few hours, and send it directly to be sold at any price. His servant, possessing more discretion than his ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... on industry, tend to diminish the value of money by increasing the price of all the fruits of labor, are facts beyond dispute; it is equally undeniable that there is a point which capitalists cannot exceed without injuring themselves, for when by their exertions they so far depreciate the value of money at home that it is sent abroad, many are thrown out of employ, and are not only disabled from paying their tribute, but are forced to betake to ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... Certainly their unsatisfactory science was one of the marked developments of the civilization of Europe, through which the Gothic nations must need pass. It has been the fashion to ridicule it and depreciate it in our modern times, especially among Protestants, who have ridiculed and slandered the papal power and all the institutions of the Middle Ages. Yet scholars might as well ridicule the text-books they ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... There was nothing of the old fashion about his style—the greasy coat and keen taste of Papa Malgras, the watching for the pictures of beginners, bought at ten francs, to be resold at fifteen, all the little humdrum comedy of the connoisseur, turning up his nose at a coveted canvas in order to depreciate it, worshipping painting in his inmost heart, and earning a meagre living by quickly and prudently turning over his petty capital. No, no; the famous Naudet had the appearance of a nobleman, with a fancy-pattern jacket, a diamond pin in his scarf, and patent-leather boots; he ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... imitate Montesquieu, and has heaped commonplaces upon commonplaces, which supply or overwhelm his reasoning; yet he has often wit, happy allusion;, and sometimes writes finely: there is merit enough to give an obscure man fame; flimsiness enough to depreciate a great man. After his book was licensed, they forced him to retract it by a most abject recantation. Then why print this book? If zeal for his system pushed him to propagate it, did not he consider that a recantation would hurt ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... according to him, is not real and total, but only partial, and is to be determined in reference to the truths necessary to salvation. While there are many mistakes of memory, false citations, errors in historical, chronological, geographical, and astronomical detail, these need not depreciate our general estimate of inspiration. The Scriptures have a kernel and a shell. Upon the former there is the positive and direct impress of the Holy Spirit; but upon the latter ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... troops, but who meanwhile was building up her navy, strengthening, extending, and protecting her commerce, seizing maritime positions,—in a word, founding and rearing her sea power upon the ruins of that of her rivals, friend and foe alike? It is not to depreciate the gains of others that the eye fixes on England's naval growth; their gains but bring out more clearly the immenseness of hers. It was a gain to France to have a friend rather than an enemy in her rear, though her navy and shipping ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... word,' said Clennam, 'we should make up our minds that it is not worthy of us to say any ill of Mr Gowan. It would be a poor thing to gratify a prejudice against him. And I resolve, for my part, not to depreciate him.' ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... depreciate, stocks rise or fall, and business values change so as to leave the market in panic, but every man on the street or in the store knows that one value forever remains permanent, unvarying, and that is character. Every other asset may be swept ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... I shall never hear you depreciate the constancy of men. Thured had better have married Bjorn ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... himself upon his every-day sense, his practical knowledge, rather than those visionary musings which he thought a dangerous indulgence of imagination. He could not put the compositions of Collins among the mere curiosities of literature, but he permitted himself to depreciate habits of mental excursion which he had not ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... whom our missionaries have to meet face to face in every part of the world; and unless our religion has ceased to be what it was, its defenders should not shrink from this new trial of its strength, but should encourage rather than depreciate the study of comparative theology."—Science ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... like that of the Doge at Venice, by world-historical memories and by works of art as yet unrivalled. The spirit of the Venetian Republic still lives in that unique building. Architects may tell us that its Gothic arcades are melodramatic; sculptors may depreciate the decorative work of Sansovino; painters may assert that the genius of Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese shines elsewhere with greater lustre. Yet the poet clings with ever-deepening admiration to the sea-born ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... noticed with relief that he spoke in problematical fashion, as if the love were more a possibility of the future than a present fact. Men of Hector Darcy's type set an exaggerated value on anything which belongs to themselves, the while they unconsciously depreciate what is denied them. Peggy understood that the very fact of her refusal of himself had lessened her attractions in his sight, and the knowledge brought with it nothing but ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... the sincerity of this declaration, she bitterly inveighed against him, and even affected to depreciate those talents, in which she knew his chief merit to consist; hoping, by these means, to interest Mademoiselle's candour in his defence. So far the train succeeded. That young lady's love for truth was offended at the calumnies that were vented against Ferdinand in his absence. She chid her ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... clearly do not envy them at all, but are mildly covetous of the things that they see others possess. Where envy does show its presence and where we do not recognise its nature, is in that horrible inclination to depreciate others which is visible in certain characters. They seem never to hear another mentioned but they try to think of something which limits the praise bestowed upon him, or altogether counteracts it. It seems to be an instinctive hostility to ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... failure. About this time law suits were being brought against him, and as some supposed, by his friends. He was called upon, or offered himself as a witness, and I believe testified that he was worth nothing. The natural effect of this testimony was to depreciate the paper which his name was on. At the time when I saw him, he told me that the Museum was his just as much as it ever was, and that he received the profits, which had never been less than twenty-five thousand and were sometimes ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... did not get fat on the bounty of his liberal nephew. He had too many corroding cares, too many financial terrors, too many fears that the banks would break, his creditors fail, his stocks depreciate, to eat and sleep like a Christian. Misers never grow liberal as they grow old, and he was no exception to the rule. A financial panic had just swept over the land, and though he had lost nothing by it, it caused ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... which, for long before, and for more than three months after, stood at sixty for one. It seems as if the certainty of its being our own, made us careless of its value, and that the most distant thoughts of losing it made us hug it the closer, like something we were loth to part with; or that we depreciate it for our pastime, which, when called to seriousness by the enemy, we leave off to renew again at our leisure. In short, our good luck seems to break us, and our ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... the Hon. A.D. White, President of Cornell University, as to the relative merits of money and promises to pay money; and he begins with the assertion that the President's "object is to depreciate American credit, stability, and honor." Further perusal, to ascertain the meaning of this attack on a patriotic and useful member of society, shows us what Mr. Dillaye thinks he means. He talks of credit being the vital element of national power; and from this he ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... business is, to depreciate human nature, and consider it under its worst appearances. They give mean interpretations and base motives to the worthiest actions; they resolve virtue and vice into constitution. In short, they endeavour to make no distinction ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... been aware. If there was anything I withheld from you, and which you think you should have had, I can only say that it was not of the nature of my best. What it was I make no attempt to say, nor would it do any good to try. Whatever it was, I wish neither to depreciate it nor to deny it. It was something that swept me—like the tornado of which one of your letters speaks—but it passed. It passed, leaving me tired and older—oh, very much older!—and with an intense ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... clear that to insist upon the natural ignorance of the human mother and upon the necessity for adding instruction to the maternal instinct, and even to make comparisons with the cat (which are, in point of fact, quite worth making, even though some women resent them) is in no way to depreciate or decry womanhood, but simply to demonstrate that it is human and not animal, suffering from the disabilities or necessities which are involved in the possession of the limitless ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... vivid imagination, or impracticability. It may be read as an indication of lightness of character or of a tendency to go off on a tangent. Conversely, gestures outward from the lower part of the body denote power, or an inclination to depreciate values. ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... overestimate the value of sound eyes in the horse, and hence all diseases and injuries which seriously interfere with vision are matters of extreme gravity and apprehension, for should they prove permanent they invariably depreciate the selling price to a considerable extent. A blind horse is always dangerous in the saddle or in single harness, and he is scarcely less so when, with partially impaired vision, he sees things imperfectly, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... not depreciate, certainly, the profession of the artist," replied the Judge, "nor the value of his agency: in its best meaning, his is as noble as any; but is it this pure bent, this noble view of it, which impels you, which animates you? Sara, examine your ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... objects of public utility and sending collections and libraries to auction with a view to get their percentages. On the other hand, nearly all these commissioners are brokers or second-hand dealers who alone know the value of rarities, and openly depreciate them in order to buy them in themselves, "and thus ensure for themselves exorbitant profits." In certain cases the official guardians and purchasers who are on the look-out take the precaution to disfigure ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... explained. Her ideas of feminine loveliness were somewhat hazy and restricted. She privately considered her own girl, Kitty, 'the handsomest lass in all the country-side' and she had been known to bitterly depreciate what she called 'the pink and white dolly-face' of Susie Prescott, the acknowledged young belle of the village. But there was an indefinable air of charm about her new lady which was quite foreign to all her experience,—a bewildering ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... Wade and the rest, see fit to depreciate my policy and cavil at my official acts, I shall not complain of them. I accord them the utmost freedom of speech and liberty of the press, but shall not change the policy I have adopted in the full belief that ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... its cup's Honey with wine, and driven its seed to fruit, And show a better flower if not so large: 150 I stand myself. Refer this to the gods Whose gift alone it is! which, shall I dare (All pride apart) upon the absurd pretext That such a gift by chance lay in my hand, Discourse of lightly or depreciate? It might have fallen to another's hand: what then? I pass too surely: ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... in nature, then, and in her subtle but potent workings on the human soul that we shall find at least one antidote for the undue and portentous tension of our day. To say this is not to depreciate science, but to put it in its rightful setting. Nor is it to depreciate culture, but to bring it into due perspective, and to vitalise it. Nor is it to depreciate art, but to endow it with glow, with ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... would willingly pay to Theocritus the honour which is always due to an original author, I am far from intending to depreciate Virgil: of whom Horace justly declares, that the rural muses have appropriated to him their elegance and sweetness, and who, as he copied Theocritus in his design, has resembled him likewise in his success; for, if we except Calphurnius, an obscure author of the lower ages, I know not ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... and spirited Western voters. His service in Congress began amid exciting debates over the compromise measures of 1850, when the Southern fire-eaters were already rampant. Seddon, of Virginia, in his eagerness to depreciate the North and glorify the South, affirmed in a speech that at the battle of Buena Vista, "at that most critical juncture when all seemed lost save honor," amid the discomfiture and rout of "the brave but ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... elevate this artist's reputation above its proper level have proved signal failures, so the effort to depreciate it must ultimately be defeated. Only one kind of injustice ever proves irreparable wrong: that which a man exercises towards himself. Mr. Powers had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... over the different happenings of the night, and tried to figure out a reason for the various ghostly manifestations. That they were the work of some one endeavoring to depreciate the value of ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... been the fashion to depreciate Montesinos, but I find it impossible to discover the reasons by which this depreciation can be justified. It is alleged that he uses fanciful hypotheses to explain Peru. The reply to this seems to me conclusive. In the first place, he is, ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... prisoner in the minds of the jury. In his eagerness to carry out this laudable design, the Quarterly Reviewer cannot even state the history of the doctrine of natural selection without an oblique and entirely unjustifiable attempt to depreciate Mr. Darwin. "To Mr. Darwin," says he, "and (through Mr. Wallace's reticence) to Mr. Darwin alone, is due the credit of having first brought it prominently forward and demonstrated its truth." No one can less desire than ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... keep out of my brother's sight, should he come and make inquisition into our papers; for much as he dwelt upon your conversation while you were among us, and delighted to be with you, it has been, his fashion, ever since to depreciate and cry you down,—you were the cause of my madness, you and your damned foolish sensibility and melancholy; and he lamented with a true brotherly feeling that we ever met,—even as the sober citizen, when his son went astray upon the mountains of Parnassus, is said to have cursed wit, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... a cry among the people for more paper money, only fifteen thousand pounds being extant in the province, and that soon to be sunk.[59] The wealthy inhabitants oppos'd any addition, being against all paper currency, from an apprehension that it would depreciate, as it had done in New England, to the prejudice of all creditors. We had discuss'd this point in our Junto, where I was on the side of an addition, being persuaded that the first small sum struck in 1723 ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... originate, start, found. Belief, faith, persuasion, conviction, tenet, creed. Belittle, decry, depreciate, disparage. Bind, secure, fetter, shackle, gyve. Bit, jot, mite, particle, grain, atom, speck, mote, whit, iota, tittle, scintilla. Bluff, blunt, outspoken, downright, brusk, curt, crusty. Boast, brag, vaunt, vapor, gasconade. Body, corpse, remains, relics, carcass, cadaver, corpus. Bombastic, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... word had been said by Mme. Dacier in her Preface a la traduction de l'Odyssee (1716). Marivaux, however, by turn of mind and training a modern, and ever the champion of his friend La Motte, and, perhaps more to avenge him for the "grosses paroles de Mme. Dacier"[33] than to depreciate le divin Homere (whom he made a point of always mentioning in that way), would not let the matter rest, and, in 1717, composed a burlesque poem entitled l'Iliade ravestie. Had he been familiar with the Greek language, he might ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... more genial humanity, and with purer wit. It cannot be enjoyed fully, except by those versed in the experiences of life. Such perceive a calm wisdom, a penetrating sagacity, a sober enthusiasm, and a refined taste, which are unusual even among the masters of human thought. It is the fashion to depreciate the original merits of this poet, as well as those of Virgil and Plautus and Terence, because they derived so much assistance from the Greeks. But the Greeks borrowed from each other. Pure originality is impossible. It is the mission ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... as an appendix or (in the style of painters) a companion to the other. There is nothing in their collection which will be understood by any candid person as a reflection on anybody, or any body of men. They are not in the least prompted by any mean jealousy to depreciate the merit of their brother artists. Animated by the same public spirit, their sole view is to convince foreigners, as well as their own blinded countrymen, that however inferior this nation may be unjustly deemed ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... whether his poetry is good or bad as poetry, is a matter that may admit of a difference of opinion without alienating those who differ. We could not keep the peace with a man who should put forward claims to taste and yet depreciate the choruses in SAMSON AGONISTES; but, I think, we may shake hands with one who sees no more in Walt Whitman's volume, from a literary point of view, than a farrago of incompetent essays in a wrong ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be sorry to have any reader interpret the materialism of "The Nihilism of Socialism" into a disposition to deny or depreciate the great and beneficent influence that Christianity has had in the past. I should be greatly chagrined to be accused of irreverence in discussing religion. Irreverence is ever a sign of a narrow intellectual horizon and a limited vision. ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... and furnish a spacious field of which historians may treat, for such is their office. Certainly the subject matter is not scanty, and contains both serious and pleasant elements sufficient to be worthy of attention, so that it will not depreciate historians to treat of Indian occurrences and wars, which those who have not experienced undervalue. For the people of those regions are valiant and warlike nations of Asia, who have been reared in continual warfare, ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... polite arts, and the valuable compositions that have been produced in every department of learning, have corresponded with your Majesty's gracious wishes and encouragement, and have rendered the name of Britain famous in every quarter of the globe. If there be any persons who, in these respects, would depreciate the present times, in comparison with those which have preceded them, it may safely be asserted, that such persons have not duly attended to the history of literature. The course of my studies has enabled me to speak with some confidence on the subject; and to say, that your ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... active. She had been told often enough that she was fair to look upon. She knew that she was called The Wonder by the schoolmates who were dazzled by her singular accomplishments, but she did not overvalue them. She rather tended to depreciate her own gifts, in comparison with those of her friend, Miss Lurida Vincent. The two agreed all the better for differing as they did. The octave makes a perfect chord, when shorter intervals jar more or less on the ear. Each admired the other with a heartiness which if they had been less unlike, would ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... active life is the condition of almost everyone, men are therefore generally led to attach an excessive value to the rapid bursts and superficial conceptions of the intellect; and, on the other hand, to depreciate below their true standard its slower and deeper labors. This opinion of the public influences the judgment of the men who cultivate the sciences; they are persuaded that they may succeed in those pursuits without meditation, or deterred from ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... means inconsistent with a very high opinion of his own merit. He demanded to be the first name in modern wit; and, with Steele to echo him, used to depreciate Dryden, whom Pope and Congreve defended against them[194]. There is no reason to doubt, that he suffered too much pain from the prevalence of Pope's poetical reputation; nor is it without strong reason suspected, that by some ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... this prudence. It takes bank-notes, good, bad, clean, ragged, and saves itself by the speed with which it passes them off. Iron cannot rust, nor beer sour, nor timber rot, nor calicoes go out of fashion, nor money stocks depreciate, in the few swift moments in which the Yankee suffers any one of them to remain in his possession. In skating over thin ice our safety is ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Dominie's character, and that if anything could cure his unfortunate passion, it would be a supposition on his part that the girl was not correct. I determined at all events to depreciate her, as I knew that what I said would never be mentioned by him, and would therefore do her no harm. Still, I felt that I had to play a difficult game, as I was determined not to state what was not the fact. "Pleasant, sir; yes, pleasant to everybody; the ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Connery to find him some efficient mechanician to go over the factory and see what can be done. Surely Wilmarth cannot oppose anything for their united interest, unless, indeed, he means to ruin if he cannot rule. There is a misgiving in Floyd's mind that he is purposely allowing everything to depreciate with a view of getting it cheaply into his own hands. Floyd has the capacity of being roused, "put on his mettle," and now he resolves, distasteful as it ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... a million annually to England, I insist upon it, that country is more valuable to her in the way of commerce, than any colony in her possession, over and above the other advantages which I have specified: therefore, they are no friends, either to England or to truth, who affect to depreciate the northern part of the ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... thought that I would depreciate (were it possible to depreciate) the mechanical ingenuity which has been displayed in the erection of the Crystal Palace, or that I underrate the effect which its vastness may continue to produce on the popular imagination. But mechanical ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... of 'fifty drachms.' Plato is desirous of deepening the notion of education, and therefore he asserts the paradox that there are no educators. This paradox, though different in form, is not really different from the remark which is often made in modern times by those who would depreciate either the methods of education commonly employed, or the standard attained—that 'there is no true ...
— Meno • Plato
... of it all? who has wrought the change? Has any man a prior claim? Then I withdraw; be his the honour and the reward. But if not—if mine was the deed, mine the risk, mine the courage to ascend and smite and punish, dealing vengeance on the father through the son—then why depreciate my services? why seek to deprive ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... occupying the most important commercial positions in New York to-day are self-made, whose only education has come to them from contact with that greatest college of all, the business world. Far be it from me to depreciate the value of a college education. I believe in its advantages too firmly. But no young man need feel hampered because of the lack of it. If business qualities are in him they will come to the surface. It is not the college education; it is the young man. Without its ...
— The Young Man in Business • Edward W. Bok
... Boyd and Co., Goldsmidt, and others, were generally contracted for upon much better terms for the country than those taken by the Stock Exchange; but as they were contending against what is known by the interests of the house, they all were ruined in their turns, as the jobbers could always depreciate the value of stocks by making sales for time of that they ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... been the fashion with certain recent editors of "Boswell's Johnson" to depreciate Croker's edition; but to any one who has taken the pains to make himself familiar with that work, and to study the vast amount of information there collected, such criticism cannot but appear most ungenerous. Croker was acquainted with, or sought out, all the distinguished survivors of Dr. ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... all this may appear to some, others, I doubt not, will feel and acknowledge the truth of it; nay, may, perhaps, think I have not treated the subject with decent solemnity; but surely a man may speak truth with a smiling countenance. In reality, to depreciate a book maliciously, or even wantonly, is at least a very ill-natured office; and a morose snarling critic may, I believe, be suspected ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... a drinking-glass.[265] The hieroglyphic of the diamond is to show her, that her value is imaginary; and that of the glass to acquaint her, that her condition is frail, and depends on the hand which holds her. This wise design admonishes her, neither to overrate nor depreciate her charms; as well considering and applying, that it is perfectly according to the humour and taste of the company, whether the toast is eaten, or left as ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... to depreciate to you the value of What Does, after spending my first twelve lectures up here, on the art and practice of Writing, encouraging you to do this thing which I daily delight in trying to do: as God forbid that anyone should hint a slightening word of what our sons and brothers ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... The editor for whom he wrote it reported that all the opinions he could gather about this essay were 'eminently unfavourable.' De Quincey, who of all English critics was believed to know Germany best, and Jeffrey, who exercised the greatest influence on English literary opinion, combined to depreciate or ridicule Goethe. But there is now no educated man who disputes that Carlyle in this matter was essentially right, and that his critics were wholly wrong. And to turn to subjects more directly connected with England, Carlyle wrote at a time when the whole school of what was called ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... his features the flabby look which sooner or later mars most Jewish faces, and the fine formation of his brow round about the eyes gave him an expression of countenance that inspired confidence. He did not seem in the least inclined to depreciate my intention of trying my luck in Paris as a composer of opera; he allowed me to read him my libretto for Rienzi, and really listened up to the end of the third act. He kept the two acts that were complete, saying that he wished to look them over, and assured me, when I again ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... I had been by Ernest's altered manner, I was disposed to do justice to his merits, and the more Richard seemed desirous to depreciate him, the more I was willing to exalt him. If he was capable of the meanness of envy, I was resolved to punish him. I did him injustice. He was not envious, but jealous; and it is impossible for jealousy and justice ever to ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... of this disgraceful traffic at a general meeting of the directors, and declared that he had not words to express his disgust at one who, for the sake of his own personal profit, could condescend to depreciate the property of his constituents. The accused retorted, and the meeting growing stormy and abusive, ended late at night ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... reclamation, so that the yield of rice increased appreciably. But this proved by no means an unmixed blessing. Side by side with an increase in the quantity of rice appearing in the market, the operation of the new currency tended to depreciate prices, until a measure of grain which could not have been bought at one time for less than two ryo became purchasable for one. In fact, the records show that a producer considered himself fortunate if he obtained half a ryo of gold for a koku of rice. This meant an almost intolerable state ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... seeing you, but it was the homage of gratitude and adoration. Great events have happened since we last met. I have realised my dreams, dreams which I sometimes fancied you, and you alone, did not depreciate or discredit, and, in the sweetness of your charity, would not have been sorry ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... set! and although he does seem at first rather gay and frivolous, so romantic and with so much feeling! Quite a love. No great favourite with the young men, certainly, who sneer at, and affect to despise him; but everybody knows that's only envy, and they needn't give themselves the trouble to depreciate his merits at any rate, for Ma says he shall be asked to every future dinner-party, if it's only to talk to people between the courses, and distract their attention when there's any unexpected delay in ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... of Englishmen for literary and artistic criticism, their incapacity for judging a work of art on its own merits, their singular habit of allowing their disapprobation of a man's private character to depreciate his work, that an acknowledged critic like Macaulay could waste time in carefully considering whether Boswell was more fool or more knave, and triumphantly announce that he produced a good book by accident. Probably Boswell did not realise how matchless a biographer he was, though he was not ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the Anabaptist physician; who, calling in question the capacity and discernment of those holy doctors, secretly endeavoured to efface the high idea all true believers should entertain of those great leaders of the Church, and to depreciate their venerable authority, which is so great a difficulty to all who deviate from the principles of ancient tradition. Now, if that was ever certain and uniform in any thing, it is so in this point; for all the Fathers of the Church, and ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... justice to Lord Orville, and in justice to the high opinion I have always entertained of his honour and delicacy,-let me observe the difference of his behaviour, when nearly in the same situation, to that of Sir Clement Willoughby. He had, at least, equal cause to depreciate me in his opinion, and to mortify and sink me in my own; but far different was his conduct:-perplexed, indeed, he looked, and much surprised:-but it was benevolently, not with insolence. I am even inclined to think, that he could not see ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... how, after all is said and done, we are sure of life eternal, because Jesus Christ died and rose again. I do not need to depreciate other imperfect arguments which seem to point in that direction, such as the instincts of men's natures, the craving for some retribution beyond, the impossibility of believing that life is extinguished by the fact of physical death. But whilst I admit ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... sympathise with Plato's delight in the properties of pure mathematics. He will not be disinclined to say with him:—Let alone the heavens, and study the beauties of number and figure in themselves. He too will be apt to depreciate their application to the arts. He will observe that Plato has a conception of geometry, in which figures are to be dispensed with; thus in a distant and shadowy way seeming to anticipate the possibility ...
— The Republic • Plato
... The daughters knew his closeness in trade, and attributed to it his failure to negotiate for the Old Charlie buildings,—so to call them. They began to depreciate Belles Demoiselles. If a north wind blew, it was too cold to ride. If a shower had fallen, it was too muddy to drive. In the morning the garden was wet. In the evening the grasshopper was a burden. Ennui was ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... conveyance of historical facts, subtle emotions or abstruse philosophical conceptions, can it compare with the languages of the Western world? The answers given to this question have varied considerably. But it is noteworthy that those who most depreciate the qualities of Chinese are, generally speaking, theorists rather than persons possessing a profound first-hand knowledge of the language itself. Such writers argue that want of inflection in the characters must tend to make Chinese hard and inelastic, and therefore ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... him they thought it possible they might have a neighbor. If he should buy a place and build a fine house somewhere in their vicinity, which they thought the only vicinity in which any one should build a fine house, it might be a very good thing, and would certainly not depreciate the value of their property. A wealthy bachelor might indeed be a more desirable ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... infantry. That the picturesque effect produced by these Bashi Bazouks (conspicuous among whom were the Albanian levies) was heightened by the addition of the regulars, in their soiled garments and woollen great coats, I cannot pretend to say; yet let no one endeavour to depreciate the Turkish infantry who has not seen them plodding gallantly on beneath a broiling sun, and in a country which, by its stony roughness, would tax the energies of ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... be the regular pilot of the harbour; a post, be it known, of no small profit; and, in his eyes, at least, invested with immense importance. Our unceremonious entrance, therefore, was regarded as highly insulting, and tending to depreciate both the dignity and lucrativeness of ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... been usual to depreciate modern languages when compared with ancient. The latter are regarded as furnishing a type of excellence to which the former cannot attain. But the truth seems to be that modern languages, if through the loss of inflections and genders they lack some power or beauty or expressiveness or precision ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... is called happiness, and of which only private life (and this may be passed under various external circumstances) is capable—this consolation those may draw from history who stand in need of it; and it is craved by envy, vexed at what is great and transcendent, striving, therefore, to depreciate it and to find some flaw in it. Thus in modern times it has been demonstrated ad nauseam that princes are generally unhappy on their thrones; in consideration of which the possession of a throne is tolerated, and men acquiesce in the fact that not themselves but ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... fruit, And show a better flower if not so large: 150 I stand myself. Refer this to the gods Whose gift alone it is! which, shall I dare (All pride apart) upon the absurd pretext That such a gift by chance lay in my hand, Discourse of lightly or depreciate? 155 It might have fallen to another's hand: what then? I pass too surely: let ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... more strongly will they be expressed when servants wish to ingratiate themselves into a child's affections by flattery! Their method of showing their attachment to a family, is usually to exaggerate in their expressions of admiration of its consequence and grandeur; they depreciate all whom they imagine to be competitors in any respect with their masters, and feed and foster the little jealousies which exist between neighbouring families. The children of these families are thus early set at variance; the children in the same family are often taught, by the ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... rivals, was in possession, as a vast and complex system of usage, intertwining itself with every detail of public and private life, attractively enough for those who had but "the historic temper," and a taste for the past, however much a Lucian might depreciate it. Roman religion, as Marius knew, had, indeed, been always something to be done, rather than something to be thought, or believed, or loved; something to be done in minutely detailed manner, at a particular time and place, correctness in which had long been a matter of laborious ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... if his meaning had not been, by some imperfection in the oldest expression we have of it, obscured and partly lost, there could be neither cause nor excuse for these discrepancies. I say this with no willingness to depreciate the general authority of the Holy Scriptures, which are for the most part clear in their import, and very ably translated into English, as well as ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... course of the trial in the fiscal court, between Don Diego and the crown, an attempt was made to depreciate the merit of Columbus, and to ascribe the success of the great enterprise of discovery to the intelligence and spirit of Martin Alonzo Pinzon. It was the interest of the crown to do so, to justify itself in withholding from the heirs of Columbus the extent of his ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... now said enough to prove that if a man will be bold enough to 'depreciate censure,'—will attack what he is pleased to consider abuses, however countenanced by high authority—and will obtrude his literary eloquence into our solemn courts of law, he deserves—what does he not deserve?—to be addressed henceforth ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... would be a blow. A large part of the estate left by your father is invested in Laguna Grande stock, and as you know, all of my efforts are devoted to appreciating that stock and to fighting against anything that has a tendency to depreciate it." ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... looking on him with a pained and sad expression, said, "Wretched man: why do you by this conduct deprive fortune of all blame, by making yourself seem to deserve your mishaps, and to have been unworthy of your former prosperity, but worthy of your present misery? And why do you depreciate the value of my victory, and make my success a small one, by proving degenerate and an unworthy antagonist for Romans? Valour, however unfortunate, commands great respect even from enemies: but the Romans despise cowardice, even though it ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... this awe for State documents; at least she helped out the illusion that they were worth all this anxiety on the part of the post-office, and she would call the Paymaster from his breakfast. His part on the other hand was to depreciate their importance. He would take the most weighty and portentous with ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... my property. Thus if I estimate the real value of my house and curtilage at L1200, and feel that I do not care if I sell at that price, I shall put it down in the Rate Book at L900. This applies to all owners, so that the allowance for compulsory sale would only artificially depreciate by one-fourth all the rateable values put down in the ...
— Speculations from Political Economy • C. B. Clarke
... severe observance of the ancient and rigorous discipline of a feudal retainer. To these, Roland Graeme was of course an object of envy, and, in consequence, of dislike and detraction; but the youth possessed qualities which it was impossible to depreciate. Pride, and a sense of early ambition, did for him what severity and constant instruction did for others. In truth, the youthful Roland displayed that early flexibility both of body and mind, which renders exercise, either mental or bodily, rather matter of sport ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... complicated change is, of course, inadequate, but not, I hope, one-sided. I do not depreciate the religions that followed on this movement by describing the movement itself as a 'failure of nerve'. Mankind has not yet decided which of two opposite methods leads to the fuller and deeper knowledge of the world: the patient and sympathetic study of the good citizen who lives in it, or the ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... the future is the key to Aladdin's Palace and to the Temple of Power. To know what will appreciate in value and what will depreciate, that is the art of success in life, and that was the art which made Armand Berselius ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... in a matter of which you are necessarily ignorant. Her father and I are somewhat better judges, I should suppose, than a young man who is not a student in any true sense of the word and ignores knowledge as a purpose in life. Not that I wish to wound or depreciate you, Roger. There is, I may say, a steadiness of moral character beneath your frivolity of mind and pursuit. If my poor brother had trained you more wisely; if you had ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... determined to depreciate her usefulness, mar her value, by renouncing her heart, denying her purpose. For days she would tie her kerchief over her ears and eyes, and crouch in a corner, strangling her impulses. She even malingered, refused food, became dumb. ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... An absolute distinction may never be drawn, not even subjectively. Suppose that A has something to say about his fellow craftsman B, and suppose that certain achievements of B are to be valued. If now A has been working in the same field as B he must not depreciate too much the value of B's work, since otherwise his own work is in danger of the same low valuation. Objectively the converse is true: for if A bulls the general efficiency of his trade, it doesn't serve his conceit, since we find simply ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... this very excellence of our author's carries with it a danger which most of his readers must have recognised. His definition and vignetting of separate scenes, incidents, and characters is so sharp and complete that he finds a difficulty in combining them. The attempt to disdain and depreciate plot which the above-mentioned Preface contains is, I suspect (though I am, as often confessed, no plot-worshipper), as our disdains and depreciations so often are, itself a confession. At any rate, it is allowed that the longer books, with the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Coleridge; who, in his lectures on Shakspere and other dramatists, helped himself freely to William Schlegel's "Vorlesungen ueber dramatische Kunst und Litteratur." [21] Heine denounces the shallowness of these principles and their failure to comprehend the modern mind. "When Schlegel seeks to depreciate the poet Buerger, he compares his ballads with the old English ballads of the Percy collection, and he shows that the latter are more simple, more naive, more antique, and consequently more poetical. . . . But death is not more poetical than life. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... for us, she said to herself, to exaggerate the value of the gift which we bestow, but rather to depreciate it, for it is never generous ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... This tendency to depreciate the past was due in a measure to the preference, natural to lively minds, for deductive over inductive methods of thought. It is so much easier and pleasanter to assume a few plausible general principles and meditate upon them, than to ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... received ardent reproaches from field officers and commanders of divisions for the injustice done their services by this sentence, I beg to assure them that the sentiment is Cigarette's—not mine. I should be very sorry for an instant to seem to depreciate that "genius of command" without whose guidance an army is but a rabble, or to underrate that noblest courage which accepts the burden of arduous responsibilities and of duties as bitter in anxiety as they are precious ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... standing army was limited to ten thousand. He alleged that the apprehension of troubles which might arise at the death of king Charles induced him to transgress this limitation; and he hoped that the new parliament would be more favourable. His enemies, however, made a fresh handle of this step to depreciate his character in the eyes ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... not propose, O valiant grave-diggers, to depreciate your merits; such is far from being my intention. I have that in my notes, on the other hand, which will do you more honour than the story of the gibbet and the Frog; I have gleaned, for your ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... Mahan. In speaking of a naval battle between the fleet of Justinian and that of the Goths in which the galleys of the Eastern empire gained a signal victory, he wrote, "The Goths affected to depreciate an element in which they were unskilled; but their own experience confirmed the truth of a maxim, that the master of the sea will always acquire the dominion of the land."[112] But Gibbon's anticipation was one of the frequent cases where the same idea has occurred ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... too commonly written of as "the founder of the English school" of music. Now, far be it from me to depreciate the works of the composers who are supposed to form the "English school." I would not sneer at the strains which have lulled to quiet slumbers so many generations of churchgoers. But everyone who knows and loves Purcell must enter a most emphatic protest against that great composer ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... grows facile. The individual, not the species, exists; our own personality, our thinking faculty is what we are most certain of. On it rests the reality of everything, the Unknown as well. But the rejection of a mathematical unity does not at all depreciate the force of such an argument. Individuality regarded as mathematical unity rests on the deeper law of logical identity from which the validity of numbers rises; it is not the least diminished, but intensified, in the conception of a Supreme Intelligence, as the font of ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... it was to be lectured by the woman he loved! How pleasant it was to humiliate himself and depreciate himself before her! How delightful it was to get such splendid opportunities of hinting that if his life had been sanctified by an object he might indeed have striven to be something better than an idle flaneur upon the smooth pathways ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... understanding was derived from studying his own mind. From Mr. Hazlitt's opinion of my poetry I do not appeal; but I request that gentleman not to insult me by imputing the basest of crimes,—viz. 'praising publicly the same man whom I wished to depreciate in his adversity:'—the first lines I ever wrote on Buonaparte were in his dispraise, in 1814,—the last, though not at all in his favour, were more impartial and discriminative, in 1818. Has he become more fortunate ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Lady Honoria," said Mrs Delvile, "I would it were possible to make you take yourself seriously; for could you once see with clearness and precision how much you lower your own dignity, while you stoop to depreciate that of others, the very subjects that now make your diversion, would then, far more ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... took no steps in the matter myself, even when the need for a reorganization was driven home by the conditions brought about in the War Office during the early months of the Great War. Somehow one feels no irresistible impulse to abridge one's functions and to depreciate one's importance by one's own act, to lop off one's own members, so to speak. But when Sir W. Robertson turned up at the end of 1915 to become C.I.G.S. he straightway split my Directorate in two, and he thus put things at last on ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... dictionary says that a "preliminary" is that which precedes the main business. We do not think the sermon ought to be considered the main business. When a pastor at the beginning of the first prayer says "O God!" he has entered upon the most important duty of the service. We would not depreciate the sermon, but we plead for more attention to the "preliminaries." If a minister cannot get the attention of the people for prayer or Bible reading, it is his own fault. Much of the interest of a service depends upon how it ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... it may be worth while to translate a fragment of Vasari's gossip about him. We must, however, bear in mind that, for some unknown reason, the Aretine historian bore a rancorous grudge against this Lombard, whose splendid gifts and great achievements he did all he could by writing to depreciate. "He was fond," says Vasari, "of keeping in his house all sorts of strange animals: badgers, squirrels, monkeys, cat-a-mountains, dwarf-donkeys, horses, racers, little Elba ponies, jackdaws, bantams, doves of India, ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... were, run the full course, to be recalled from the winning—crease to the barriers. For what blessing has life to offer? Should we not rather say what labour? But granting that it has, at any rate it has after all a limit either to enjoyment or to existence. I don't wish to depreciate life, as many men and good philosophers have often done; nor do I regret having lived, for I have done so in a way that lets me think that I was not born in vain. But I quit life as I would an inn, not as I would a home. For nature has given us a ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... ports, the depreciation of its funds would have been averted, but whether this could have been done is, to say the least, by no means certain. As it was, in 1863, both Confederate and State money began to depreciate in value, and this depreciation once begun, had no stop in its ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... successful lottery ticket, or got some good appointment, or if it were a question of a marriage with a rich woman, or a great success in business, or somebody got famous by his talent, the fine perspicacity of the inhabitants of Lancia was in revolt, and at once set to work to depreciate the money, the talent, the instruction or the industry of the neighbour, and to put things in their true light. Such a feeling might easily be confounded with envy, nevertheless the truly observant would soon gather from the remarks in the gatherings at shops and in the gossips ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... no breach of hospitality, Sire, to hang the princess' fool," spoke the condemned man with no sign of waning confidence, "yet it would seem to depreciate the duke's gift. Your Majesty should hang the one and spare the other. 'Tis a matter of logic," he went on quickly, "to point out where the duke's gift ends and the princess' fool begins. A gift is a gift until it is received. The princess has ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... centenary of his appointment was celebrated all over the country, North and South. Such a tribute was never paid before in any country to the memory of a judge. His services were commemorated for the very reason that led Jefferson to depreciate them—because they led to the establishment of a strong national government with a controlling judicial authority adequate to protect it within its sphere from interference or obstruction in any way ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the Queen of Sheba[13-1] lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... community, but merely as the payment for permission to use the land and the already accumulated capital of the country." The national capital is invested chiefly in perishable objects such as houses, factories, railways, steamships, mines, &c., which depreciate unless kept in proper repair. There is wear and tear in capital as in everything else. Capital is lost and destroyed every day. Lastly, the national capital is growing, and must continue growing, in accordance with the growing capital requirements of the ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... one at each window of their own room, already engaged in a lively discussion of the comparative merits of Cowes and Philadelphia! This propensity to exaggerate the value of whatever is our own, and to depreciate that which is our neighbour's, a principle that is connected with the very ground-work of poor human nature, forms a material portion of travelling equipage of nearly every one who quits the scenes of his own youth, to visit those of other people. A comparison ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a very considerable fortune, if not a large one in England; nothing like the millions of which I had dreamed, but still enough. To make the most of it and to be sure that it remained, I invested it very well, mostly in large mortgages at four per cent which, if the security is good, do not depreciate in capital value. Never again did I touch a single speculative stock, who desired to think no more about money. It was at this time that I bought the Fulcombe property. It cost me about L120,000 of my capital, or with alterations, repairs, ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... to be counted. The memory expert had simultaneously to do all these feats purely by mental processes, as he was allowed no paper and pencil. The strain on the faculties must have been terrific. Ordinarily men in unconscious envy are apt to depreciate such efforts by affecting to believe that they involve only the exercise of the lower functionings of the brain. It is not, however, a pure question of memory. The greater factor is the immense ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... the work will be found to have many beauties, many excellencies. Some have of late affected to depreciate this History, from an insinuation, made only since the author's death, to wit, that he was never admitted into the secrets of the administration, but made to believe he was a confident, only to engage him in the list of the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... was actually to be paid for them. This would reduce the nominal sum of the mass in circulation, to the present worth of that mass, which was five millions; a sum not too great for the circulation of the States, and which, they therefore hoped, would not depreciate further, as they continued firm in their purpose of emitting no more. This effort was as unavailing as the former. Very little of the money was brought in. It continued to circulate and to depreciate, till the end of 1780, when it had ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... public taste, when a person whose entire intellectual capital is wit, humor, or buffoonery, is preferred to men of solid learning. But it is a worse view of human nature, when men of real merit and worth depreciate themselves and lower the public taste, by attempting to do what, at best, they can have but ill success in, and what they would despise themselves for, were they to succeed completely. Shakspeare says ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... to make my Work appear of a trifling Nature, has been an Attempt to depreciate Literal Criticism. To this End, and to pay a servile Compliment to Mr. Pope, an Anonymous Writer has, like a Scotch Pedlar in Wit, unbraced his Pack on the Subject. But, that his Virulence might not seem to be ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... influence of Yale being greater through its graduates who were joining in the world's work in all its varied forms. Yet, curiously enough, it was the utterance of a Harvard man which perhaps did most in my young manhood to make me unduly depreciate literary work. I was in deep sympathy with Theodore Parker, both in politics and religion, and when he poured contempt over a certain class of ineffective people as "weak and literary," something of his feeling took possession ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... facilities of payment created by the bank itself, and to do this without extreme embarrassment, without absolute distress, is, in my judgment, impossible. I hesitate not to say, that, as this veto travels to the West, it will depreciate the value of every man's property from the Atlantic States to the capital of Missouri. Its effects will be felt in the price of lands, the great and leading article of Western property, in the price of crops, in the products of labor, in the repression of enterprise, and in embarrassment ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster |
