"Discerning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... note that in the Abbe Robin's discerning remarks, concerning the effect of drama on the pupils of Harvard in 1781, and on the general appeal of drama among the American Patriots, he mentions "The Fall of British Tyranny" without giving the ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... The eyes of all were attracted by the first, and turned away in contempt from the second. That, therefore, was adopted, and the other rejected, almost with resentment, as though an insult had been offered to a discerning public. The favored statue was accordingly borne in triumph to the place for which it was designed, in the presence of applauding thousands, but as it receded from their upturned eyes, all, all at once agaze upon it, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... To a discerning eye; Much sense the starkest madness. 'T is the majority In this, as all, prevails. Assent, and you are sane; Demur, — you're straightway dangerous, And handled ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... his goodness itself, if it did not prompt him to the best, if he were lacking in good will. Or again it would be restricting his wisdom and his power, if he lacked the knowledge necessary for discerning the best and for finding the means to obtain it, or if he lacked the strength necessary for employing these means. There is, however, ambiguity in the assertion that love of virtue and hatred of ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... formed a remarkable period in the history of the ancient and honored University of Oxford. Guided by wise and discerning counsels, it has made rapid and substantial advance. The scope of its studies has been greatly enlarged, the standard of its requirements raised. Its traditionary adherence to old methods and its bigoted conservatism have been overcome, and with happy pliancy it has yielded to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... shortly a most interesting personage to people who were making collections, and he attained, besides ingenuity, genuine taste and skill in detecting marks and discerning values. In a year he had as nice a knowledge of china and pottery as any one in the country, and if the farmers' wives were so much the poorer by the loss of what had been in the family for generations, they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... forthcoming events are those which cast their shadows, so to speak, within the circle of the cup. In this way the tea-leaves may be consulted once a day, and many of the minor happenings of life foreseen with considerable accuracy, according to the skill in discerning the symbols and the intuition required to interpret them which may be possessed by the seer. Adepts like the Highland peasant-women can and do foretell events that subsequently occur, and that with remarkable accuracy. Practice and the acquirement of a knowledge of the signification ...
— Tea-Cup Reading, and the Art of Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves • 'A Highland Seer'
... failure to comprehend was on their part, not on his. Had he on that journey gratified the aggressive friends of the Union who had supported him for the Presidency, he would have added immeasurably to the serious troubles which already confronted him. He had the practical faculty of discerning the chief point to be reached, and then bending every energy to reach it. He saw that the one thing needful was his regular, constitutional inauguration as President of the United States. Policies both general and in detail would come after that. He could not afford by imprudent forwardness ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... star had shot up from the nadir of obscurity, not very far, but enough to bring his versatility under the notice of the discerning Secretary of State, who, having been a friend of the father, offered the son a berth in the diplomatic corps. A consulate in a South American republic, during a revolutionary crisis, where he had shown consummate ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... Katharine Lansdale seem unduly formidable, I should, perhaps, say that I appeared to be alone in finding her so. Little Arcadians of my own sex younger than myself—and, if I may suggest it, less discerning—were not only not menaced, but she invited them with a cordiality in which the keenest eye among them could detect no flaw. Miss Lansdale's mother had also pleased the masculine element of the town at her first progress through its pleasant streets. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... played together the two mothers sat on the terrace and talked. It was talk in which Edith was chiefly a listener, but a listener who couldn't deny that she was entertained. She was uncomfortable only when discerning compatriots appeared, and with visible nods and smiles rated them as "two of a kind." It was a kind over which she and Chip had smiled and nodded many a time during their wanderings in Europe, never thinking that she herself should ever ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... unworthiness. After a disagreeable evening, the first of that kind that he had ever passed with his Amelia, in which he had the utmost difficulty to force a little chearfulness, and in which her spirits were at length overpowered by discerning the oppression on his, they retired to rest, or rather to misery, which ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... The most discerning minds have been intuitively impressed with the idea of the future greatness and power of this government. In view of the grand results developed and developing, the discovery of America by Columbus, not four hundred years ago, is set down as the ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... flung carelessly overboard, cursed at and struck by their guards, they now dragged their aching bodies about in half dead despair, the chains clanking to every movement of the limbs, their dull, lackluster eyes scarcely discerning the darkening line of coast toward ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... the door behind her on entering, and as she stood alone in the long, silent, shadowy room, her dread seemed to take shape and sound, to be there audibly breathing and lurking among the shadows. Her short-sighted eyes strained through them, half-discerning an actual presence, something aloof, that watched and knew; and in the recoil from that intangible propinquity she threw herself suddenly on the bell-rope and ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... depends upon our discerning in the world a loving intention of some kind, which holds us in view, and draws us to itself. If we merely think of God and nature as an inflexible system of laws, and that our only chance of happiness is to slip in and out of them, as a man might pick his way among red-hot ploughshares, thankful ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... receives the sacrament with consciousness of sin, by receiving it unworthily despises the sacrament, not in itself, but in its use. Hence the Apostle (1 Cor. 11:29) in assigning the cause of this sin, says, "not discerning the body of the Lord," that is, not distinguishing it from other food: and this is what he does who disbelieves Christ's presence ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... mischievous consequences if permitted to go on, was soon appeased by the prudence of the commodore, to the general satisfaction of all. Some few, indeed, whose selfish dispositions were uninfluenced by the justice of this procedure, and who were incapable of discerning the equity of the decision, were dissatisfied, as it tended to deprive them of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... the practised and discerning reader will clearly understand, this meant only that when walking and wearing out the carpet the Colonel was thinking of Ida. When contemplating the painting that she had given him, he was admiring her work and trying to reconcile ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... advantage of him, Jansoulet made upon him the impression of a man on foot laden with gold passing through some evil-haunted wood, in the dark and unarmed. And he reflected that it would be well for the protege to watch, without seeming to do so, over the protector, to become the discerning Telemachus of the blind Mentor, to point out to him the quagmires, to defend him against the highwaymen, to aid him, in a word, in his combats amid all that swarm of nocturnal ambuscades which he felt were prowling ferociously around the Nabob and ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... generous deportment. Whatever may be said of English mobs and English demagogues, I have never met with a people more open to reason, more considerate in their tempers, more tractable by argument in the roughest times, than the English. They are remarkably quick at discerning and appreciating whatever is manly and honourable. They are, by nature and habit, methodical and orderly; and they feel the value of all that is regular and respectable. They may occasionally be deceived by sophistry, and excited into turbulence ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... entered into business, as a tea-dealer and grocer in Drury-Lane. Here he became acquainted with Mr. Joseph Younger, who was at the time prompter at Covent Garden theatre, and though no actor himself, knew stage business as well as any man in England. Mr. Younger, discerning in Mr. Brunton good talents for an actor, advised him to try the experiment, and gave him such strong assurances of success, that he agreed to make the attempt and actually made his first appearance in the character of Cyrus for his friendly adviser's ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... the boughs of a tall cherry-tree, where Adam had no difficulty in discerning a small blue-pinafored figure perched in a commodious position where the fruit was thickest. Doubtless Totty was below, behind the screen of peas. Yes—with her bonnet hanging down her back, and her fat face, dreadfully smeared with red juice, turned up towards ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... disinterested historian I have not been, and should such a charge be preferred I shall look for speedy exculpation from the discerning mass ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... curiosity, in ornaments of jewels, purple, and gold, that could make a grand and gorgeous spectacle of him. Now when Solon came before him, and seemed not at all surprised, nor gave Croesus those compliments he expected, but showed himself to all discerning eyes to be a man that despised the gaudiness and petty ostentation of it, he commanded them to open all his treasure houses, and carry him to see his sumptuous furniture and luxuries though he did not wish it; Solon could judge ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... were certainly against private judgment: their authority for the interpretation of Scripture was undoubtedly the supreme government of the church, i.e. not the bishops, but the King and parliament. But then this had respect not to the power of discerning truth, but to the right of publishing it, which is an wholly different question. That an individual was not bound in foro conscientiae to admit the truth of any interpretation of Scripture which did not approve itself ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... century and upwards, he discovered, calculated, or observed the cometary visitants of northern skies. Almost as effective in promoting the interests of science as the valuable work actually done by him, was the influence of his genial personality. He engaged confidence by his ready and discerning sympathy; he inspired affection by his benevolent disinterestedness; he quickened thought and awakened zeal by the suggestions of a lively and inventive spirit, animated with the warmest enthusiasm for ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... and, discerning his movement, Avice stood still. When he came up, she was slily shaking ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... at least I had not failed; there was a smothered yell, a rustle, and then silence again. I ran out with the calm pride of a successful revenge to bring in the body of my victim, and I found underneath a laurel no predatory tom-cat, but (as the discerning reader will no doubt have foreseen long since) the quivering carcass of the colonel's ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... fear by an approaching carriage, when being carried across the street in her father's arms, that she seemed to be incapable of hearing or heeding his reassuring voice. It may be that there are some diseases that for the time prevent the sufferer from discerning the reassuring witness of the Heavenly Father. Dr. Asa Mahan told me of an experience of this kind which he had in a very dangerous sickness. And Dr. Daniel Steele had a similar experience while lying at the point of death with ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... fortunate day,' Lascelles said. 'I think it is proven to all discerning men that that letter to him of Rome shall ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... lost, as far as Israel was concerned, as completely as were the earlier exiles of Ephraim under Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon. The greater number of the Jews, however, remained faithful to their hopes of future greatness, and applied themselves to discerning in passing events the premonitory signs of deliverance. "Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been before Thee, O Lord.... Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... looked into your face, when you came that day with Charley. I flatter myself that I have been able to conceal it when I chose, though I suppose women always think that. The more observing ones may have seen, but discerning people are usually discreet and often kind, for we usually bleed a little before we begin to discern. But I wanted you to know; you are so like him that it is almost like telling him himself. At least, I feel ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... putting one's hands in the pockets and taking them out again almost immediately, letting questions go by unanswered, and all such, are actions or conditions that usually produce the impression that one is nervous. A discerning observer seldom fails ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... Recognition, so as to enfeeble their intellects by depriving them of their pure and colourless homes. Once subjected to the chromatic taint, every parental and every childish Circle would demoralize each other. Only in discerning between the Father and the Mother would the Circular infant find problems for the exercise of his understanding—problems too often likely to be corrupted by maternal impostures with the result ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... came pathetic references to "Dear Nephew James," "Unknown Recipient of an Old Man's Gratitude," "Discerning and Admirable ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... outset by the exhibition of courage in mere exchange and barter. An alert power to perceive the potential value of things and the possible malleability of men and circumstances, had stood him in marvellous good stead. He had bought at low prices things which in the eyes of the less discerning were worthless, but, having obtained possession of such things, the less discerning had almost invariably awakened to the fact that, in his hands, values increased, and methods of remunerative disposition, being sought, were found. Nothing remained unutilisable. The ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... at her own history, by way of veiling her interest in the event; but her companion was too old, and too discerning, to be easily deceived. He continued silent, as he led her away from the cliff; and when he entered the cottage, Mildred saw, by the nearer light of the candles, that his countenance ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... you scarce, His Grace of Bucks has made a farce, And you, whose comic wit is terse all, Can hardly fall below rehearsal. Then finish what you have began; But scribble faster, if you can: For yet no George, to our discerning, 80 Has writ without a ten ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... religion, depressed by fear animated with resentment, and perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are seldom in a proper temper of mind calmly to investigate, or candidly to appreciate, the motives of their enemies, which often escape the impartial and discerning view even of those who are placed at a secure distance from the flames of persecution. A reason has been assigned for the conduct of the emperors towards the primitive Christians, which may appear the more ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... and constantly changed by clouds, and of whose actual configuration he has no idea whatever. Thus when he contemplates the inequalities of men's economic powers, these appear to him alternately in two different forms—as genuine powers of production and as powers of mere seizure—without his discerning where in actual life the operation of the one ends and the operation of the other begins: and, though for a certain special purpose he admits, as we shall see presently, that some able men are able in the sense of being exceptionally productive, his thoughts and his feelings alike through ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... was abominably treated, as Stevenson relates, in the matter of that grand but grisly piano; and I have always hoped that perhaps, in the end, as a sort of recompense, Fate ordained that the novel he had anonymously written should be rescued from oblivion and found by discerning critics to be not ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... year, but the marriage cannot be celebrated until the majority of the parties without the consent of parents or guardians. At fourteen, too, both sexes are fully responsible to the criminal law. Between seven and fourteen there is responsibility only if the accused be proved doli capax, capable of discerning between right and wrong, the principle in that case being that malitia supplet aetatem. At twenty-one both males and females obtain their full legal rights, and become liable to all legal obligations. A seat in the British parliament may be taken at twenty-one. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... city, accompanied by his nephews and his courtiers, including Petrarch. Our poet joined the suite of Galeazzo Visconti, and rode near him. The Legate and his retinue rode also on horseback. When the two parties met, the dust, that rose in clouds from the feet of the horses, prevented them from discerning each other. Petrarch, who had advanced beyond the rest, found himself, he knew not how, in the midst of the Legate's train, and very near to him. Salutations passed on either side, but with very little speaking, for the ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... opportunity is therefore given to writers who carry the dark lanthorn of life into its deepest recesses—unwind the hidden wickedness of a Maskwell or a Monkton, develope the folds of vice, and spy out the internal worthlessness of apparent virtue; which from these discerning eyes cannot be cloked even by that early-taught affectation which renders it a real ingenuity to discover, if in a highly polished capital a man or woman has or has not good parts or principles—so completely are ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... "Money at Cost," and then tell the Editor with a straight face that they are not "clear enough to be clearly discussed!" The facts, laws, and arguments are definitely there, and clearly discussed. Why have we not the discerning eyes and impartial brains of Mr. Savage ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... knowledge of saving truth. The man of independent mind will find in these essays, much to admire in their elucidation of truth and detection of error, but more in their dauntless defiance of those who represent the Bible as a "sealed book" to all who are not visited with a special faculty for discerning its mystic characters and hidden sense. In that case, the Scriptures are a revelation only to the elect, who, to satisfy themselves and the world, that their interpretation is the only sound one, ought to produce miracles as proof of their own inspiration, not less ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... a dainty world: the air Was sweet and calm, and in my memory Waked my serener mother's looks: this fair Canaan now fled from my discerning eye; The earth was shrunk so small, methought I read, By that due ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... this time will set the characters of these two lads more fairly before the discerning reader than is in the ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... least trace of organs of vision. What would it do with sight in the murky thickness of a tree-trunk? Hearing is likewise absent. In the never-troubled silence of the oak's inmost heart, the sense of hearing would be a non-sense. Where sounds are lacking, of what use is the faculty of discerning them? Should there be any doubts, I will reply to them with the following experiment. Split lengthwise, the grub's abode leaves a half-tunnel wherein I can watch the occupant's doings. When left alone, it now ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... book of Miss Gardner's should appeal powerfully to English readers because its subject has the provocations of novelty; because the work is gracefully and sympathetically written, with discerning and intimate knowledge of fact and of character, and yet discriminating and just; and because it embodies once more the story, especially dear to our hearts, of the struggle of a patriotic race for freedom and national existence." ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... Douglas's more discerning eye, Mary's happiness did not appear in so dazzling a light as to the weaker ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... He promised me five hundred guineas to make him speak. What all them solemn asses could not compass, that's sweeping in their thousands every quarter, thanks to a discerning public. Baugh! He had heard of a rake-helly dog, with some stuff in his brain-pan, and he came to me—and I done it—Black Dillon done it—ha, ha! that's for the pack of ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... added a cognition to the primitive impulse which directs his attention to external things, he has acquired other relations with the world, other forms of interest; these are no longer merely those primitive ones which are bound up with a species of primordial instinct, but have become a discerning interest, based upon the conquests ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... pocket, Adams smoking his pipe by the inn fire, or surrounded by his "children" as he called his parishioners vying "with each other in demonstrations of duty and love," fully justifies John Forster's comment on Fielding's manly habit of "discerning what was good and beautiful in the homeliest aspects of humanity." Before the true dignity of Abraham Adams, whether he be publicly rebuking the Squire and Pamela for laughing in church, or emerging unstained from adventures with hogs-wash and worse, the ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... Kaiser's army. And when fortune seemed definitively to espouse the cause of the Central Empires, his admiration was reinforced by fear and the pro-German leanings, which were at first merely platonic, bade fair to harden into active co-operation. It was not until then that the Entente Powers, discerning the fateful character of their errors and the trend of events, resolved after much hesitation and discussion to put forth an effort to retrieve the situation. Of his philo-German tendencies King Constantine gave several public proofs ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... discerning reader will perceive, from hints already given, that, by following the cattle track, with the river on my right, I was unconsciously travelling westward on the Victorian side, instead of eastward on the New South Wales side. If the sky ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... aim of this book has always been, not only to provide wholesome and economical recipes for capable housewives, but to help those who have not had the benefit of maternal guidance and home training. It is significant that many discerning women have made a habit of giving a copy of the 'Presbyterian Cookery Book' to every new bride of ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... truth, in your conduct there is not a little that to me, piteously inclined towards you as I am, yet appeareth obnoxious to the edge of this woman's reproaches. But think not, O bewildered and not-with-sufficient-distinctness-discerning-the-nature-of-things Titmouse! that she hath only a sharp and bitter tongue. In this woman behold a mother, and it may be that she will soften before you, who have plainly, as I hear, neither father nor ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... walk," observing the wild flowers; a "fern walk," discerning the delicate tracery of the fern in its cool haunts; a "tree walk", noting the different trees—all are natural ways of ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... But, to the discerning student or teacher, I owe an apology for the abundant condescension with which I have noticed in this volume the works of unskillful grammarians. For men of sense have no natural inclination to dwell upon palpable ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... called reasoning or inference which is a mere re-assertion in different words of what had been asserted before, there is no more important intellectual habit, nor any the cultivation of which falls more strictly within the province of the art of logic, than that of discerning rapidly and surely the identity of an assertion when disguised under diversity of language. That important chapter in logical treatises which relates to the Opposition of Propositions, and the excellent technical language ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... with dreams, A weather-worn, marble triton Among the streams; And all day long I look Upon this lady's beauty As though I had found in book A pictured beauty, Pleased to have filled the eyes Or the discerning ears, Delighted to be but wise, For men improve with the years; And yet, and yet Is this my dream, or the truth? O would that we had met When I had my burning youth; But I grow old among dreams, A weather-worn, marble triton ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... with which the more discerning part of King James's Friends often entertain'd themselves, but great care was taken that no such Language shou'd reach the French Court. Their Honour was too nearly touch'd to pass over such Reflexions in that severity and remarkable Punishment. ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... creatures, who have either trifled with philosophy, by attempting to ridicule it, or have encumbered it with novel terms and burdensome explanations, understood its real weight and purity half so well as Mr. Smith. He was too discerning to allow of the character of unprofitable, rugged, and abstruse, which some superficial sciolists, (so very smooth and polite, as to admit of no impression,) either out of an unthinking indolence, or an ill-grounded ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... any honour or promotion for his Crimean services. He was included in Sir Harry Jones's list of Engineer Subalterns who had specially distinguished themselves during the siege. The French Government, more discerning than his own, awarded him ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... ten thousand dollars must be a considerable blow. His answer was a clap on the back and a laughing demand to know what they were driving at and what they took him for, anyway? Those who knew him best squandered no sympathy where they knew none was needed. To the discerning, though they had never known another man who won or lost with equal gusto in the game, who when he met fortune or misfortune "treated those two impostors just the same," Jim Kendric was exactly what he appeared to be, a devil-may-care sort of fellow ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... Sydney he abandoned the idea of digging for gold, and began to practise again as a solicitor. Later on he removed to Grafton on the Clarence River; there in 1857 Henry Kendall, a boy of 16, found work in his office, and Michael, discerning his promise, encouraged him to write. Most of the boy's earliest verses were sent from Michael's office to Parkes, who printed them in his paper 'The Empire'. When Kendall left Grafton, Michael gave him a letter of introduction to Stenhouse, which brought ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... part; it meant a strong, intelligent yielding to the Holy Spirit. It does not mean that His natural faculties of mind and will and heart were held down, not to be used. It means that they were actively, studiously used in discerning the Holy Spirit's leading, and in doing as He directed. And it means that so there came a fulness of life, an increasing life, into His faculties, mind and will and heart. Our Lord Jesus used all His powers in yielding to the inspiration and direction and control of the Holy Spirit, keeping ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... skilfully and daringly handled. There is plenty of life and color abounding, and a diversity of characters—shop-girls, society belles, men about town, city politicians, and others. The various schemers and their schemes will be followed with interest—and there will be some discerning readers who may claim to recognize in certain points of the story certain recent happenings in the shopping and the society circles ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... neighbours, quickly, after they become infected and infested with these demons, arrive to a capacity of discerning those which they conceive the shapes of their troubles; and notwithstanding the great and just suspicion that the demons might impose the shape of innocent persons in their spectral exhibitions of the sufferers, (which may perhaps prove no small part of the ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... quick intelligence on his florid features, the trooper backed out of the room. With his hands behind him, his shoulders bent forward, the duke long pondered, his look, keen and discerning; his perspicacity clear, in spite of Francis' wine, or the intoxication of the princess' eyes. Although the noble's glance seemed bent on vacancy, it was himself as well as others he was studying; weighing ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... eye was quick in discerning his penitence, so her forgiveness was quick in meeting his sin. But though her forgiveness brought the boy a certain measure of relief he seemed almost to take it for granted, and there still remained on his face a look of pain and of more than pain that puzzled ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... Kitty, discerning in his refusal another facet of that "something wrong" she had suspected, clasped her hands round her knees and faced ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... around for aid or hope; but there was neither. I could see nothing but waves, and hear nothing but the roaring blast. The shore was close to me, but the high waves, and the darkness of the hurricane, prevented my discerning even the tops of the trees. As the boat capsized, I kicked off my shoes and threw off my coat and waistcoat, and seizing the main-sheet, let myself down in the water, trying to find bottom, but there ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... and unimportant circumstance, or they thought it sufficiently accounted for by Mr. Falkland's infirmity and misfortunes. Did it really contain such an extent of arguments and application, that nobody but I was discerning enough to see? ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... Miss Newville," his lordship replied, not discerning the quiet sarcasm. "Of course I am not, for if I lose, I curse my luck, and am ready to punch somebody's head, and rip out some swear words, but if I win, I am ready to bless the other fellow for playing a king when he should have ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... influence of chivalry and other northern forms of civilization, and the more immediate power of the Church. That which was foreshadowed in the thirteenth century became in the fourteenth a distinct national development, which, as Symonds, its most discerning interpreter, shows us, was constructing a model ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... as to be continually alternating between high elation and the depths of despondency; discerning to-day ominous indications of ruin in an incident of no account, and to-morrow scorning imperiously to recognise danger in the fierce rising of a province. It may almost be said that each letter of his to Lord Auckland was ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... Schools, gone current in the world has ever been able to assist them towards." But it was not merely by variety of intellectual culture that Lady Ranelagh was distinguished. One cannot read her letters without discerning in them a deep foundation of piety in the best sense, real wisdom, a serious determination with herself to make her own life as actively useful as possible, and a disposition always to relate herself to what was sterling around her. "Though some particular opinions might shut her up in ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... a fine forehead, irregular nose, rather prominent jaw-bones, lips just a little sensual, but speaking good-humour and intellectual character. A heavy moustache; no beard. Eyes dark, keen, very capable of tenderness, but perhaps more often shrewdly discerning or cynically speculative. One felt that the present expression of genial friendliness was unfamiliar to the face, though it by no means failed in pleasantness. The lips had the look of being frequently gnawed in intense thought or strong feeling. In the cheeks no healthy ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... upon discerning my Quicksilver to fall without any visible cause at home, looked abroad; and found (by the appearance of broken Clouds, or otherwise) that it had rained not far off, though not with us: Whereupon, the Air being then lightened, our heavier Air (where it rained not) ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... Clearly discerning Van Buren as his most formidable competitor for political leadership, Clinton's letters to Post from 1817 to 1824 abound in vituperative allusions, as, for example: "Whom shall we appoint to defeat the arch scoundrel Van Buren?" November 30, 1820. "Of his cowardice there ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... hear a poor insipid paper or pamphlet cried up, and sometimes a noble piece depreciated, by those who are of a different principle from the author. One who is actuated by this spirit is almost under an incapacity of discerning either real blemishes or beauties. A man of merit in a different principle is like an object seen in two different mediums, that appears crooked or broken, however straight and entire it may be in itself. For this reason there is scarce a person of any figure in England, who does ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... in this town, where he intends to stay until you give him leave to return to his native country. We have had the pleasure of seeing Mr Chanquion, your friend, who seems to be a very discerning gentleman and to whom in favor of your friendship I have shown all the politeness I could. I hear that Sr James Macdonald has been ill at Parma, but is now recovered and in Rome. Abb Galliani is still at Naples and stands ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits, to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: but all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will." 1 Cor. 12:8-11. ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... I. Stodgy devils! Sooner or later, the fool-killer gets them all. Please do not judge me to-day, Miss Parker. Perhaps, after a while, I may be more discerning. By Jupiter, those very becoming riding-togs will create no end of comment among ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... promoted, and that if the matter were driven to a trial it would not be for the honour of the court that a false verdict should be given. Nor would he believe that such a false verdict could be obtained. An English judge and an English jury were to him the Palladium of discerning truth. In an English court of law such a matter could not remain dark;—nor ought it, let whatever misery betide. It was strange how that old man should have lived so near the world for seventy years, should have taken his place in Parliament and on ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... themselves, but to be proud and self-willed, unjust and cruel, should remember that the gracious and loving Christ is also the most terrible and awful of all beings; sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing asunder the very joints and marrow, discerning the most secret thoughts and intents of the heart; a righteous judge, strong and patient, who is provoked every day: but if a man WILL not turn he will whet his sword. He hath bent his bow and made it ready, and laid his arrows in order against the persecutors. What Christ's countenance, my ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... classics, is Idlehurst. Published in 1898, its author John Halsham, it has a touch upon country things, the penetrating, pitiful and tant soit peu condescending touch upon them of one who is both scholar and recluse, fastidious but discerning. He reads our earth, cloudscape, landscape, season, foison, man and beast of the field, with the same wistfulness which women who have known sorrow exhibit for children who have not. Reading him again, however, last night, after the long ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... or opportunity for gratifying his vanity. He has no social or political creed, but is always of the opinion which is most convenient for the moment. He is always in the majority, and is the main element of unreason and stupidity in the judgment of a "discerning public." It seems presumptuous in us to dispute Riehl's interpretation of a German word, but we must think that, in literature, the epithet Philister has usually a wider meaning than this—includes his definition and something more. ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... heart; to that loyal solid Austrian People with its pudding-head. Daun is at the top of the Theresa Order, and of military renown in Vienna circles;—of Lieutenant-Colonel Benkendorf I never heard that he got the least pension or recognition;—continued quietly a military lion to discerning men, for the rest of his days. ["Died at Dresden, General of Cavalry," 5th May, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... spirits, it will be done decently, without the ostentation of it. We see men of all conditions and characters go through it with equal resolution: and if we consider the speeches of the mighty philosophers, heroes, law-givers, and great captains, they can produce no more in a discerning spirit, than rules to make a man a fop on his death-bed. Commend me to that natural greatness of soul, expressed by an innocent, and consequently resolute, country fellow, who said in the pains of the colic, "If I once get this breath out of my body, you shall hang me before ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... not: and for that which is, you have no words. Unless you see, you believe not: what is told you you cannot accept. He who is discerning knows by the word; and the ignorant stands gaping. Some contemplate the Formless, and others meditate on form: but the wise man knows that Brahma is beyond both. That beauty of His is not seen of the eye: ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... The discerning reader, in his work of vocal interpretation, will not fail to take advantage of the inherent character of syllables with respect to quantity. Our language abounds in indefinite syllables to which he may impart ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... minuteness, or imperfection. But it is not every eye that perceives these blemishes. It must be an eye long used to the contemplation and comparison of these forms; and which, by a long habit of observing what any set of objects of the same kind have in common, that alone can acquire the power of discerning what each wants in particular. This long laborious comparison should be the first study of the painter who aims at the greatest style. By this means, he acquires a just idea of beautiful forms; he corrects nature by herself, her imperfect state by her more perfect. His eye being enabled to distinguish ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... the gracious condescension of the elderly, and the frank curiosity of the young—only a discerning few had made any real headway with this attractive, oddly disconcerting child of another continent; this creature of queer reserves and aloofness and passionate pride of race. The friendliest were baffled by her incomprehensible lack of social instinct, ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... there is no clearer case of an ever-sporting variety than this one of the water-persicaria. The var. terrestris sports into the var. natans, and as often as the changing life conditions may require it. It is-true that ordinary sports occur without our discerning the cause and without [435] any relation to adaptation. This however is partly due to our lack of knowledge, and partly to the general rule that in nature only such sports as are useful are spared by natural selection, and what is useful we ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... sound of an opening door, he was hastily escaping; but perceiving Cecilia, and discerning her situation, he more hastily turned back, saying, "Is it ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... before. It's a fine morning, and I do wish you'd come. I've a headache, and I want to ride it off, if I can." Billy took off his cap, and brushed away his hair, with a little weary gesture which went to Theodora's heart. She was not discerning enough to discover that Billy's headache had developed under the inspiration of the moment, so sure was he that this was the most certain method of bringing his friend to do ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... womankind that, though several specimens of high attractiveness came under his eyes, he could not bring himself to the point of proposing marriage. He dreaded to take up the position of husband a second time, discerning a trap in every petticoat, and a Slough of Despond in possible heirs. 'What has happened once, when all seemed so fair, may happen again,' he said to himself. 'I'll risk my name no more.' So he abstained from marriage, and overcame his ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... judgment in the selection of his grandparents. His grandfather on his father's side was Doctor Erasmus Darwin, a poet, a naturalist, and a physician so discerning that he once wrote: "The science of medicine will some time resolve itself into a science of prevention rather than a matter of cure. Man was made to be well, and the best medicine I know of is an active and intelligent interest in the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... law, and decorated with all the elegance of classical literature; if a spirit imbued with the sensibilities of a lofty patriotism, and chastened by the meditations of a profound philosophy; if a brilliant imagination, a discerning intellect, a sound judgment, an indefatigable capacity, and vigorous energy of application, vivified with an ease and rapidity of elocution, copious without redundance, and select without affectation; if all these, ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... within a yard, stopped; twisted his mustache, resting his left hand on his hip. His discerning inspection was soon completed. He was fully aware of the desperate and reckless light in ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... ascended to the third step, while the king sat upon the fourth from the top, and spake with Joseph, saying:[170] "O young man, my servant beareth witness concerning thee, that thou art the best and most discerning person I can consult with. I pray thee, vouchsafe unto me the same favors which thou didst bestow on this servant of mine, and tell me what events they are which the visions of my dreams foreshow. I desire thee to suppress naught out of fear, nor shalt thou flatter me with lying words, or ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... to say anything indeed, but that you may accept them as a sign of the esteem and admiration of both of us. I consider them on the whole an advance upon his former poems, and am ready to die at the stake for my faith in these last, even though the discerning public should set it down afterwards ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... the said member there is a manifest discerning faculty of scents and odours very perceptible to women, who feel it fly from what is rank and unsavoury, and follow fragrant and aromatic smells. It is not unknown to me how Cl. Galen striveth with might ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... restoration of learning; his credit was ennobled with fame; his riches were dedicated to the service of mankind; he corresponded at once with Cairo and London, and a cargo of Indian spices and Greek books were often imported in the same vessel." While Burckhardt, the most discerning critic of the civilisation of the Renaissance, tells us that "to him belongs the special glory of recognising in the Platonic philosophy the fairest flower of the ancient world of thought, and of inspiring his friends with the ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... wherever he meets them. To revile them as merely fraudulent is to betray ignorance of their peculiar office in the historical development of law. But at the same time it would be equally foolish to agree with those theorists, who, discerning that fictions have had their uses, argue that they ought to be stereotyped in our system. They have had their day, but it has long since gone by. It is unworthy of us to effect an admittedly beneficial object by so rude a device as a legal fiction. I cannot ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... are not difficult to find; for the Remarks is both intrinsically and historically an important piece of criticism. It is still worth reading for more than one passage of discerning analysis and apt comment on scene, speech, or character, and for certain not unfruitful excursions into the field of general aesthetics; while historically it is a sort of landmark in Shakespearian literature. Standing ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous |
