"Misconception" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fisher-folk in respect to whom the Admiralty had been guilty of one of its rare oversights. For generations no call was made upon them to serve the king at sea. This accidental immunity in course of time came to be regarded by the Brighton fisherman as his birthright, and the misconception bred consequences. For one thing, it made him intolerably saucy. He boasted that no impress officer had power to take him, and he backed up the boast by openly insulting, and on more than one occasion violently ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... uses the Halberstadt and not the Boehme method in presenting this embodiment of his subject. The supposition of certain commentators that Browning is here picturing his own artistic method as transcendental is a misconception of his characteristic theory of poetic art, as shown here ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... an heraldic Abatement implies, if not a complete ignorance, certainly a thorough misconception of the character and the office of Heraldry. Even if Heraldry were to attempt to stigmatise what is, and what ought to be esteemed, dishonourable, who would voluntarily accept insignia of disgrace, and charge and display them upon his Shield, ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell
... which that analysis affords, can not surprise us. The wonder is, that the necessitarians, who usually admit that philosophical theory, should in practice equally lose sight of it. The very same misconception of the doctrine called Philosophical Necessity, which prevents the opposite party from recognizing its truth, I believe to exist more or less obscurely in the minds of most necessitarians, however they may in words ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... he stood helpless against her misconception. He told her about the poverty he had left at home, and the wretched circumstance of his life, but she could not see it as anything but honourable to his present endeavour. She listened with breathless interest to it all, and, "Well," she sighed at last, "it will always be something ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... convinced that by these researches, we have eradicated the previous misconception, which cannot be revived or maintained except with the weapons of sophism, and by defying evidence and the ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... it in any of our charitable work. Imperfect knowledge perverts the noblest sentiments; widened and perfected knowledge strengthens their power. A truly philanthropic sentiment is most potent for good in the power of knowledge, and may be made most powerful for evil through misconception of or inadequate comprehension of facts. As we grow in aspirations after the highest welfare of the insane, let us widen our knowledge of the real nature of insanity and the necessities for its amelioration, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... that much misconception exists as to the extent to which we have, in practice, interfered with trade. Your Excellency's note seems to hold his Majesty's Government responsible for the present condition of trade with neutral countries, and it is stated that, through the action of his Majesty's Government, ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... flattering to my vanity, have no power to touch my heart. Mr. Minge, I have twice declined the offer you have done me the honor to make; and while proud of your preference, my Saxon is not so ambiguous or redundant as to leave any margin for misconception of my meaning." ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... some sensible observations on this subject. When all that has been said about it is carefully examined, it is clear that various circumstances have given rise to the misconception. Much of it is applicable to the whale;[6] much is referable to thick, low, fog-banks, which even experienced seamen have mistaken for land,[7] an opinion coinciding with what has been said of this same Kraken, by a Latin author ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... teacher, distinctly denies that the acceptance of Jesus in this character is any condition of salvation and of the divine favour, and treats of my "demand of an oracular Christ," as inconsistent with my own principles. But this is mere misconception of what I have said. I find Jesus himself to set up oracular claims. I find an assumption of pre-eminence and unapproachable moral wisdom to pervade every discourse from end to end of the gospels. If I may not believe that Jesus assumed an oracular manner, I do not know ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... murder! Madness and misconception! Any one of the subjects—not the whole. Oh, blessed star of early morning, what do you think I am made of, that I should, on the part of any man, prefer such a pig-headed, calf-eyed, ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... o'clock in the inn, there arose such a roaring and singing that my hair stood on end, and my former prejudices were so heightened that I resolved to lose the journey and carry back my son again, presuming that no noise in Oxford could be made but scholars must do it,"—a hoary misconception still cherished, or until recently, by the Metropolitan Police and the Oxford City Bench. In this instance a proctor intervened, and quelled the disturbance by sending 'two young pert townsmen' to ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... thinking and quickness of sensation which of all others require revisal, and the more particularly so when applied to the living characters of nations or individuals in a state of war. The least misinformation or misconception leads to some wrong conclusion and an error believed becomes the progenitor of others. And as the Abbe has suffered some inconveniences in France, by mistating certain circumstances of the war and the characters of the ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... Confederate "Mother Goose". Travesty and Satire. The "Charles Lamb" of Richmond. Camp Wit. Novel Marriage. A "Skirmisher". Prison Humor. Even in Vicksburg! Sad Bill-of-Fare. Northern Misconception. Richmond Society Wit. The "Mosaic Club" and its Components. Innes Randolph's Forfeit. The Colonel's Breakfast Horror. Post-surrender Humor. Even ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... was not under this misconception with regard to her daughter's feelings, and she felt much anxiety as to the result of her acquaintance with the young clergyman. The remarkable transparency of Edith's character rendered it easy for a parent's eye to discover the deep impression that Roger's fascinating ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... fellow countrymen of the Poet: for among us it is a current, I might say, an established opinion, that Shakespeare is justly praised when he is pronounced to be 'a wild irregular genius, in whom great faults are compensated by great beauties.' How long may it he before this misconception passes away, and it becomes universally acknowledged that the judgement of Shakespeare in the selection of his materials, and in the manner in which he has made them, heterogeneous as they often are, constitute ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... keep clear of one misconception. Whatever else the Renewed Church of the Brethren was, it did not spring from a union of races. It was not a fusion of German and Czech elements. As the first settlers at Herrnhut came from Moravia, it is natural to regard them as Moravian Czechs; but the truth is that ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... the great round globe. Labor should be but healthful exercise to develop the physical man—to furnish forth a fitting casket for the godlike mind, appropriate setting for the immortal soul. The curse of life arises from a misconception of its significance. We delve in the mine for paltry gems, explore old ocean's deep for pearls; we toil and strive for gold until the hands are worn and the heart is cold; we attire ourselves in Tyrean purples and silks of Ind and strut forth in our gilded frippery on the narrow bridge ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... rather than for contempt towards poor men, as indicating the extreme pressure of that necessity which could so have demoralized their natural sense of truth. But certainly, in whatever feelings originating, such popular superstitions as to motives of ghostly missions did seem to argue a deplorable misconception of the relation subsisting between the spiritual world and the perishable treasures of this perishable world. Yet, when we look into the Eastern explanations of this case, we find that it is meant to express, not any overvaluation ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... through ignorance that people have a misconception of these truths. The development of the human mind is no less important than the development of the physical condition of man. His education, therefore, is a paramount duty of the state, and his protection against the weakening of his physical condition ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... be guarded against is the other misconception which the clear grasp of our text would dismiss at once, that the great purpose for which God speaks to us men, in the revelation of Jesus Christ, is that we may, as we say, be 'forgiven,' and escape any of the temporal or eternal ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of Daniel has been wrongly placed, traditionally, with most serious consequences to the character of the book, and, through this misconception to Christianity. Dated from the early part of the sixth century before Christ, its story of Daniel's experiences read as literal history, and its visions appear as actual predictions of long ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... or to any parent who may withdraw his son. A circumstance has happened which, though it cannot impair the utility of my school, and ought not to injure its character, may still be held as giving offence to certain persons. I will not be driven to alter my conduct by what I believe to be foolish misconception on their part. But they have a right to their own opinions, and I will not mulct them because of their ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... Stewart's familiarity with Leibnitz is his misconception of that author, which we choose to impute to ignorance rather than to wilfulness. This misconception is strikingly exemplified in a prominent point of Leibnitian philosophy. Stewart says: "The zeal of Leibnitz in propagating the dogma of Necessity is not easily ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... precision may be laid down, according to which they will be regulated. The political economist justly deems this his proper business: and, as an abstract or hypothetical science, political economy can not be required to do, and indeed can not do, anything more. But it would be a great misconception of the actual course of human affairs to suppose that competition exercises in fact this unlimited sway. I am not speaking of monopolies, either natural or artificial, or of any interferences of authority with the liberty of production or exchange. Such ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... what helped her not only to recognize the false position of her sex, but to understand the real cause of the trouble. She referred it, not to individual cases of masculine tyranny or feminine incompetency, but to the fundamental misconception of the relations of the sexes. Therefore, what she had to do was to awaken mankind to the knowledge that women are human beings, and then to insist that they should be given the opportunity to assert themselves as such, and that their sex should become a secondary consideration. It would have been ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... rested our vindication of protection upon the highest possible ground—namely, that it was indispensable for the stability and independence of the country, that it should depend upon its own resources for the daily food of its inhabitants. There is a vast degree of misconception on this point, and the statistics are but little understood. Some men argue as if this country were incapable, at the present time, of producing food for its inhabitants, whilst others assert that it cannot long continue to do so. To the first class we reply with the pregnant fact, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... community have been upon the whole such as were to be expected among enlightened and well-disposed citizens from the propriety and necessity of the measure. The novelty, however, of the tax in a considerable part of the United States and a misconception of some of its provisions have given occasion in particular places to some degree of discontent; but it is satisfactory to know that this disposition yields to proper explanations and more just apprehensions of the true ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... him. "But before then? You did speak with her? She had sent you to look for me?" The depths of her misconception as ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... be thought that we are turning subjects into slaves: for slaves obey commands and free men live as they like; but this idea is based on a misconception, for the true slave is he who is led away by his pleasures and can neither see what is good for him nor act accordingly: he alone is free who lives with free consent under ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... property, and that the Greek government recognises no individual property in the soil except the exclusive right of cultivation," he only, in deference to the Bavarian policy of the time, which wished to copy Mohammed Ali's administration in Egypt, caricatured a misconception of the right of property equally strong in every Greek, whether he be the oppressor or the oppressed. Even the late National Assembly has not thought it necessary to correct any of the invasions of private property by the preceding despotism. Individuals, almost ruined by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... understand what was the position of even the greatest and most successful king under the Celtic system. It was the exact opposite of the feudal one, and this difference proved the source in years to come of an enormous amount of misconception, and of fierce accusations of falsehood and treachery flung profusely from both sides. The position of the over-king or Ard-Reagh was more nearly allied to that of the early French suzerain or the ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... misjudgment, obliquity of judgment; miscalculation, miscomputation, misconception &c (error) 495; hasty conclusion. [causes of misjudgment. 1] prejudgment, prejudication^, prejudice; foregone conclusion; prenotion^, prevention, preconception, predilection, prepossession, preapprehension^, presumption, assumption, presentiment; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... supposed that the Spaniards of Columbus's time subdued the entire territory of America, and held sway over its red-skinned aborigines. This is a historical misconception. Although lured by a love of gold, conjoined with a spirit of religious propagandism, the so-called Conquistadores overran a large portion of both divisions of the continent, there were yet extensive tracts of each never entered, much less colonised, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... "There must be no misconception about great fiction being a transcript of life. Mere transcription is not the work of an artist, else we should have no need of painters, for photographers would do; no poems, for academical essays would do; no great works of fiction, for we have our usual sources of information—if information ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... My misconception was short-lived, for at this moment Ruffin—the bandaged and bloody Ruffin—came close up to me; and, after scowling upon me with his fierce, bloodshot eyes, bent forward until his lips almost touched my ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... out to investigate the causes of discontent, and his report marks an epoch in colonial history. The idea that the American War of Independence had taught the mother-country the necessity of granting complete self-government to her colonies is a persistent misconception; and hitherto no British colony had received a fuller measure of self-government than had been enjoyed by the American colonies before their Declaration of Independence. The grant of this responsible self-government was one of the two principal recommendations of Lord Durham's ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... useless. I will not have him.' And she was shutting the door. Her misconception, wilful or not, scattered all Sugarman's prepared diplomacies. 'He does not want you, he wants the ring,' ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... is said that Kepler's third law is a necessary consequence of Newton's law of gravitation, and that - since it is based on pure observation - it therefore establishes the truth of Newton's conception. In this assertion we encounter a misconception exactly like the one in the statement that the theorem of the parallelogram of forces follows by logical necessity from the theorem of ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... Theologies and Rumors of Theologies; by the Tholucks, Schleiermachers, Neanders, and I know not whom. Of the true sovereign souls of that Literature, the Goethes, Richters, Schillers, Lessings, he had as good as no knowledge; and of Goethe in particular an obstinate misconception, with proper abhorrence appended,—which did not abate for several years, nor quite abolish itself till a very late period. Till, in a word, he got Goethe's works fairly read and studied for himself! This was often enough the ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... those things, whereof we can form no mental picture, are not ideas, but only figments, which we invent by the free decree of our will; they thus regard ideas as though they were inanimate pictures on a panel, and, filled with this misconception, do not see that an idea, inasmuch as it is an idea, involves an affirmation or negation. Again, those who confuse words with ideas, or with the affirmation which an idea involves, think that they can wish something contrary ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... squandered his pence and his powers with equal profusion. His travestie of the 'Aeneid' is pronounced by Christopher North (who must have read it, however,) a beastly book. Campbell says, with striking justice, of another of Cotton's productions, 'His imitations of Lucian betray the grossest misconception of humorous effect, when he attempts to burlesque that which is ludicrous already.' It is like trying to turn the 'Tale of a Tub' into ridicule. But Cotton's own vein, as exhibited in his 'Invitation to Walton,' his 'New Year,' and his 'Voyage to Ireland,' (which anticipates in some measure ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... aware of the natural peculiarities of the waiting-maids, and of their habit of playing practical jokes upon each other, so fearing that the girl in the inner room had failed to recognise her voice, and had refused to open under the misconception that it was some other servant-girl, she gave a second shout in a higher pitch. "It's I!" she cried, "don't you yet ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... from Syria to Gades in the extreme West, as from Syria to the India Interior of Prester John which terminates the extreme East. And Africa beyond the Arabian Gulf is carried, according to the Arabian modification of Ptolemy's misconception, far to the eastward until it almost meets the prominent shores ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of Berlioz and Raff, the programme has a distinct value to the composer as well as the hearer. It can make the perceptive sense more impressible to the influence of the music; it can quicken the fancy, and fire the imagination; it can prevent a gross misconception of the intentions of a composer and the character of his composition. Nevertheless, in determining the artistic value of the work, the question goes not to the ingenuity of the programme or the clearness with which its suggestions have been carried out, but to the beauty of the music itself irrespective ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... opinion of Zeller,[1] we find that he advocates a misconception of Aenesidemus on the part of Sextus. The whole difficulty is removed, Zeller thinks, by the simple fact that Sextus had not understood Aenesidemus; and as Tertullian and Sextus agree in this misconception of the views of Aenesidemus, they must have been misled by consulting a common author in ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... is at intervals only,— Black, from a burning house, we suppose, by the Cavalleggieri; And we believe we discern some lines of men descending Down through the vineyard-slopes, and catch a bayonet gleaming. Every ten minutes, however,—in this there is no misconception,— Comes a great white puff from behind Michel Angelo's dome, and After a space the report of a real big gun,—not the Frenchman's?— That must be doing some work. And ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... Fergus a little apart, and spoke to him very earnestly for two or three minutes, and then returning to Waverley, said—'I believe I have satisfied Colonel Mac-Ivor that his resentment was founded upon a misconception, to which, indeed, I myself gave rise; and I trust Mr. Waverley is too generous to harbour any recollection of what is past, when I assure him that such is the case.—You must state this matter properly to your clan, Vich Iain Vohr, to prevent ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... compete with Japanese labor. I believe indeed that the outlook is encouraging for manufacturing in the Mikado's empire, but I do not believe that this development is to be regarded as a menace to English or American industry. Any view to the contrary, it seems to me, must be based upon a radical misconception of conditions as ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... so good as to beg Edna to come down to me for a moment; she has misunderstood—that is, I wish to speak to her—there is a slight misconception. Edna has gone to her ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... apply the test of truthfulness, many critics are troubled by a grave misconception that leads them into error. They make the mistake of applying generally to life certain ethical judgments that the dramatist means only to apply particularly to the special people in his play. The danger of this fallacy cannot be ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... me!" said the gentleman, with natural misconception. "I was not aware that he was a friend of yours." And taking a lady on his arm, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... friends)—when he very gravely assured me, that "he had considerable respect for my character and talents" (so he was pleased to say), "but had not given himself much thought about the degree of my personal pretensions." The misconception staggered me, but did not seem much to disconcert him.—Persons of this nation are particularly fond of affirming a truth—which nobody doubts. They do not so properly affirm, as annunciate it. They do indeed appear to have such a love of truth (as if, like virtue, it were ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... preliminary ideas regarding it to the public firsthand, instead of allowing them to leak out in an unauthentic and disfigured form through the fervid imaginations of irresponsible scribes, leading to much misconception. ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... must have been due either to a wilful disregard of their oath or an entire misconception of it. Assuming that the jury deliberately declined to obey the law, the whole twelve elected to become, and thereby did become, lawbreakers. They disqualified themselves forever as talesmen. No prosecutor ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... occasionally led to misapprehensions; chance acquaintances who recognized him as an artful romancer were liable to consider him generally untruthful. But even in this misconception Blaze took a quiet delight, secure in the knowledge that all who knew him well regarded him as a rock of integrity. As a matter of fact, his genuine exploits were quite as sensational as those of ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... have seen that your Majesty's name has never, for a moment, been brought in question; and secondly, to the effect produced by the correspondence between the Governor-General and Sir James Outram.[35] And here Lord Derby may perhaps be allowed the opportunity of removing a misconception from your Majesty's mind, as to any secret intelligence or underhand intrigue between Lord Ellenborough and Sir James Outram, to the detriment of Lord Canning. Lord Derby is in the position to know that if there is one person in the world to whom Lord Ellenborough has ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... the great experience of the Admiralty in handling problems of production and of the past success of Admiralty methods in this respect gave rise to a good deal of misconception. The fact that it had been necessary to form a separate Ministry (that of Munitions) to deal with the production of war material for the Army probably fostered the idea that matters at the Admiralty should be altered ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... adopted by the government of the United States, in consequence of this new state of things, should be seen in opposite lights. It is for the future historian, when what now remains of prejudice and misconception shall have passed away, to state these different opinions, and pronounce impartial judgment. In the mean time, all good men rejoice, and well may rejoice, that the sharpest differences sprung out of measures which, whether ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... only were the ship-builder's arms pinioned, but his feet were bound by a rope fastened to each ankle and passed under the nag's belly. It was clear to Lynde that he himself, the old clergyman, and the girl were the victims of some dreadful misconception, possibly brought about by the wretch who ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... equanimity whatever should be offered by the Emperor, either in civility or in the way of jest, and not again to disturb an understanding which might be of advantage to Christendom, by a quarrel founded upon misconception of terms or misapprehension of manners. To this prudent resolution the Count of Paris adhered during the whole evening; with some difficulty, however, since it was somewhat inconsistent with his own fiery and inquisitive temper, which was equally desirous to know the precise ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... I have the sense and feeling of the meeting with me when I say that the questions asked by our most respected sister seem to have been asked under a total misconception of the circumstances. It is obvious that they raise issues which could not possibly be discussed in such a place, and on such an occasion as this. I would remind our dear friend that this edifice is not a church, and this platform ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... trust himself and his tell-tale countenance before Olivia, and as he remained in an unaccustomed seclusion for the remainder of the day, she naturally believed him cold, though a woman with a fuller experience of his sex might have come to a different conclusion. Her misconception, so far from being dispelled when he joined her and her father in the evening, was confirmed, for his natural gaiety was gone, and an emotional constraint, made up of love, dubiety, and hope, kept him silent even in the precious moments when Doom retired to his reflections and his book, leaving ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... polemically putting down all religion on the strength of their improved theories. If "Evolutionists" complain of the treatment they have received at the hands of "Theologians," they will at least, in fairness, admit that there has been some misconception, some error on both sides. What we maintain is, that evolution (i.e., here, as always, unlimited, uncontrolled evolution) still fails to account for many facts in nature; that we are still far from holding anything ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... sickened sense, from a pagan Jew's [10] or Moslem's misconception of Deity, for peace; and find rest in the spiritual ideal, or Christ. For "who is so great a God as our God!" unchangeable, all-wise, all- just, all-merciful; the ever-loving, ever-living Life, Truth, Love: comforting such as mourn, opening the prison [15] doors to the ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... centuries ago it is safe to say that its application in medicine would have been very much more limited than we find it at the present time. Its wide therapeutic use is to be attributed in part to fallacies and misconception regarding its pharmacology, and in part to a disinclination on the part of the average practitioner of medicine to depart from old and well-beaten lines."—WINFIELD S. HALL, M. D., Professor of Physiology, Northwestern University ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... have a misconception. The process of revival was perfected that long ago. But it has been used only immediately after a wreck or disaster. Men or women in the old space-cemeteries have not ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... weakness of a man, the first sign of his strength was more than a surprise, it was almost a shock to her. She had believed that her knowledge of him was perfect; yet she saw now that there had been a single flaw in her analysis, and that this flaw was the result of a fundamental misconception of his character. For she had forgotten that, conservative and apparently priggish as he was, he was before all things a romantic in temperament; and the true romantic will shrink from the ordinary risk while he accepts the extraordinary one. She had forgotten that men of Stephen's nature are ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... never suppose I should think that," I replied, with an earnestness of manner that caused her to glance at me in surprise. "I confidently expected to hear from you all day, and finally when no word came I became convinced some such misconception as you have mentioned must have occurred. Then it became my turn to act upon my own behalf if I would preserve my life; yet never for one moment have I doubted you or the sincerity of your pledge ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... previous to both the Reform Bills. At the last election I thought it right to abandon that privilege, and notified to those about me my intention. But that which a man has the power of doing he cannot always do without the interference of those around him. There was a misconception, and among my,—my adherents,—there were some who injudiciously advised Mr. Lopez to stand on my interest. But he did not get my interest, and was beaten;—and therefore when he asked me for the money which he had spent, I paid it to him. That is all. I think the House ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... question at some length, and commented on the barbarity of such tactics. They were not only barbarous, he affirmed, but senseless. Where did the inhabitants of the villages go? To the enemy of course! This reveals, perhaps, the most remarkable misconception of the actual facts. The writer seemed to imagine that the tribesmen consisted of a regular army, who fought, and a peaceful, law-abiding population, who remained at their business, and perhaps protested against the excessive military expenditure from time to ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... contains in ideal all special privileges, the common misconception is quite natural, which takes it to be mere force, empty caprice, and synonymous with despotism. But despotism means a state of lawlessness, in which the particular will as such, whether that of monarch or people (ochlocracy), is the law, or rather instead ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... idea of money at all. I heard afterwards that in the usual version the millionaire commits suicide in despair, but the piece had been given a happy ending out of kindness to me. I must say that in spite of the monstrous misconception the acting was extremely good, especially that of ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... no reason to regret my hasty advance, as far as regards the ultimate issue of the struggle, I have yet found it to occasion much misconception of the character, and some diminution of the influence, of the present essay. For though the work has been received as only in sanguine moments I had ventured to hope, though I have had the pleasure of knowing that in many instances its principles have carried ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... through a misconception of this principle that the first schism in the Sulphitic Theory arises. Already the cult has become so important that a newer heretic sect threatens it. These protestants cannot believe that there is a definite line to be drawn between Sulphites and Bromides, ...
— Are You A Bromide? • Gelett Burgess
... Circe. Rosey turned away with the faintest sigh. The habitual look of abstraction returned to her eyes as if she had once more taken refuge in her own ideal world. Unfortunately the change did not escape either the sensitive observation or the fatuous misconception of the sagacious parent. "Ye'll be mountin' a few furbelows and fixins, Rosey, I reckon, ez only natural. Mabbee ye'll have to prink up a little now that we've got a gentleman contractor in the ship. I'll see what I kin ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... territory within the limits of the British claim in the census which "Ebenezer Greely"' appears to have been instructed to take of the population of the county of "Penobscot" he has evidently acted in ignorance or under a misconception of the subsisting relations betwixt England and the United States of America, which I can not allow myself to doubt that your excellency will lose no time in causing to be explained and removed. Though necessarily committed to confinement, I have desired ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... misconception] Oh no, no, no: nothing of the kind, I assure you. We naturally have modern views as to the justice of the existing distribution of wealth: otherwise we should lose our self-respect. But nothing that you could take exception to, except two ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... has been so much misconception and misrepresentation about this payment of twenty millions that the following exact summary of the ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... working up in England during the last few years towards this misconception in the schools. On the one hand there was the great impetus given to physical research and experimental science in recent years, so that its discoveries absorbed more and more attention, and this filtered down ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... to serve for an example to terrify the disaffected, as breaking into his study and finding there a sermon never intended to be preached, which merely encouraged the people to resist tyranny.[19] All this lavish condemnation rests on a complete misconception of the case. If any blame attaches to him, it must arise either from his endeavour to force Coke to a favourable decision, in which he was in all probability prompted by a feeling, not uncommon with him, that a matter of state policy was in danger of being sacrificed to some senseless legal ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... calling the dramatic novel by that name, because it enables me to point out by the way a strange and peculiarly English misconception. It is sometimes supposed that the drama consists of incident. It consists of passion, which gives the actor his opportunity; and that passion must progressively increase, or the actor, as the piece proceeded, would be unable to carry the audience from a ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... met with in any other writer. I say a "peculiar word," because, although the verb To delight is well known, and of general use, the word, the same in form, to which I refer, is not only of different meaning, but, as I conceive, of distinct derivation the non-recognition of which has led to a misconception of the meaning of one of the finest passages in Shakspeare. The first passage in which it occurs, that I shall quote, is the well known ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various
... seldom or never sinks below zero in winter, and in summer extreme heat is unknown. Nor is its northerly detachment without compensation, for at times the Aurora borealis illumines the sky with a brilliancy unknown further south. A misconception appears to prevail that the island is in summer wrapped in fog, and its shores in winter engirt by ice. In the interior the climate is very much like that of Canada, but is not so severe as that of western Canada or ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... menstrual process, with the natural or supernatural powers of the world. Everywhere menstruating women are supposed to be possessed by spirits and charged with mysterious forces. It is at this point that a serious misconception, due to ignorance of primitive religious ideas, has constantly intruded. It is stated that the menstruating woman is "unclean" and possessed by an evil spirit. As a matter of fact, however, the savage rarely discriminates between bad and good spirits. Every spirit may have either a beneficial ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... how incapable, inexperienced, and unripe the foreign contingent of his orchestra was. The energy with which he threw himself into the task of trying to repair his blunders won the sympathy of the members of the critical guild, though it did not wholly atone for his conscious or unconscious misconception of American conditions. It was not pleasant to think that he had so poor an opinion of American knowledge and taste in music that before coming he thought that anything would be good enough for this country. His experience ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... is prevalent that there is ill will between the Norwegian and Swedish peoples. This is a popular misconception. The Norwegian and Swedish peoples are racially very similar in character and habits, and mutually respect each other. King Oscar was as beloved and honored in Norway as he was in Sweden, and deservedly so. The Norwegians felt proud of his character, life, and statesmanship. They appreciated ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... evil, and that his imagination is bounded by the lines of his sensible experience. How any degree of eloquence can be compatible with this state of things, passes comprehension. And what reflection would conclude, a little examination will confirm. The mistake has, doubtless, grown out of a misconception of the nature of eloquence itself.[15] If eloquence were all figure—even if it were, in any considerable degree, mere figure—then the tawdriest rhetorician would be the greatest orator. But it is not so. On the contrary, the use of many ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... opinion is unsound because the arguments put forward in its favour by its advocates are foolish or erroneous. Some of the arguments put forward in favour of the exclusive use by mankind of a vegetable diet can be shown to be based on misconception and error, and I propose now to mention one or two of these. But I wish to guard against the supposition that I am convinced in consequence that animal substances form the best possible diet for man, or that an exclusively ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... thing, which we will pursue at all seasons, without haste and after a fashion perfectly consistent with the peace of the world, the abiding friendship of states, and the unhampered freedom of all with whom we deal. Let there be no misconception. The country has been misinformed. We have not been negligent of national defense. We are not unmindful of the great responsibility resting upon us. We shall learn and profit by the lesson of every experience and every new circumstance; and what is needed ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... purpose, the supplies of provisions. Captain Forrest, who once more visited Achin in 1784 and was treated with much distinction (see his Voyage to the Mergui Archipelago page 51), says he appeared to be twenty-five years of age; but this was a misconception. Mr. Kenneth Mackenzie, who saw him in 1782, judged him to have been at that time no more than nineteen or twenty, which corresponds ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... in a sort of overtopped hollow, if I may so speak, between the claims of patronage on the one hand, and the rights of the people on the other, it was a most perilous position, singularly open to misconception and misrepresentation on both sides; and as it virtually stripped the patrons of half their power, and extended to the people only half their rights, I was not a little afraid that the patrons might be ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... to the official distinction which has been conferred upon me by the President. I am informed that it had been already intended by the Goethe Club as a large and liberal recognition of my former literary labors, and I will only refer a moment to the diplomatic post in order that there may be no misconception of my position in ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... river Niger, and the golden city Tombuctoo. These were lies; and yet also, in a limited sense, they were truths. They were expansions, often fabulous and impossible, engrafted upon some basis of fact by the credulity of the traveller, or subsequently by misconception of the scholar. For instance, as to Tombuctoo, Leo Africanus had authorized men to believe in some vast African city, central to that great continent, and a focus to some mighty system of civilization. Others, improving on that chimera, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... thing that misconception and adversity never hardened Andersen or toughened the fibre of his personality. The same lamentable lack of robustness—not to say manliness—which marked his youth remained his prevailing characteristic to ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... near it as we can. So far from pressing on the work of civilization, with the Philosophes, let us try to forget that we are civilized and be natural instead. This was the burden of Rousseau's teaching, and it was founded on a complete misconception of the facts. The noble Indian was a myth. The more we find out about primitive man, the more certain it becomes that, so far from being the ideal creature of Rousseau's imagination, he was in reality a savage whose whole life was dominated, ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... by a far less accommodating standard. There we read of no little sins. Much of our Saviour's sermon on the mount, which many of the class we are condemning affect highly to admire, is expressly pointed against so dangerous a misconception. There, no such distinction is made between the rich and the poor. No notices are to be traced of one scale of morals for the higher, and of another for the lower classes of society. Nay, the former are expressly guarded against any such vain imagination; and are distinctly ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... those nations, or to put them to the sword. He dwelt on the barbarous ideas that then prevailed, contrasting them with the toleration that prevails now. He said that we convert men now, instead of killing them. He took the ground that the extermination of those people was due to an entire misconception ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... profit by a favorable opportunity to conquer resistance, and take the sovereign power by surprise. [This note, and the paragraph in the text which precedes, have been shown by the results of the Civil War to be a misconception ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... climb." Such a short and easy method of dealing with Roman Catholic dogma and ritual cannot be commended for its intelligence; it is quite possible to be on the same side as Browning without being as crude as he in misconception. He does not seriously consider the Catholic idea which regards things of sense as made luminous by the spirit of which they are the envoys and the ministers. It is enough for him to declare his own creed which treats any intermediary between ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... "principles which permitted no discrimination between acts morally wrong in themselves, and acts which, destitute of immorality, are, nevertheless, criminal, because prohibited by the regulations of the institution." The charge indicated a gross misconception of the subject. The conduct-roll, which is to determine the standing of the cadet according to a total of demerit-marks, must include in one list delinquencies against all rules, whatever may be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... misconception, an explanatory document was drawn up by the government at the time of the passing of the act, which is highly curious and significant. "The King's Grace," says this paper, "hath no new authority given hereby that he is recognised ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... of fatigue on Eugenia's face, had tried to make her laugh, and now, with an effort, laughed with her. She had forgotten her passing notion that Eugenia had something special to say. What could she have? They had gone over that astonishing misconception of hers about the Powers woodlot, and she had quite made Marise understand how hopelessly incapable she was of distinguishing one business detail from another. There could be nothing else that ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... doubt, publishers and editors enter hardly into the kingdom of heaven. But then, you see, they don't care so much about that; they are much more interested in the next election at certain fashionable clubs. It is really a little hard on them that they should suffer from the ignorant misconception of the literary amateur. It is only those who have had no dealings with them who would be unfair enough to expect publishers or editors to be literary men. They are business men—business men par excellence—and a good thing, too, for their papers and their authors. You lament their ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... college rooms, interested in Greek particles, grumbling over his port wine, is a figure beloved by writers of fiction as a contrast to all that is brave, and bright, and wholesome in life. Could there be a more hopeless misconception? I do not know a single extant example of the species at the University. Personally, I have no love for Greek particles, and only a very moderate taste for port wine. But I do love, with all my heart, the grace of antiquity that mellows our crumbling courts, the old tradition of multifarious ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... so inferior to the Psalms. They are Aryan, the Psalms Semitic; they belong to a primitive and rude state of society, the Psalms, at least most of them, are contemporaneous with or even later than the heydays of the Jewish monarchy. This strange misconception of the true character of the Vedic hymns seemed to me to become so general, that when some years ago I had to publish the first volume of my translation, Iintentionally selected a class of hymns ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... artistic, I am liable to be misunderstood; and when Whitman himself says, "No one will get at my verses who insists upon viewing them as a literary performance, or attempt at such performance, or as aiming mainly toward art or aestheticism," he exposes himself to the same misconception. It is the literary and poetic value of his verses alone that can save them. Their philosophy, their democracy, their vehement patriotism, their religious ardor, their spirit of comradeship, or what not, will not alone suffice. All depends upon the manner in which these things are presented ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... object to the modern revival system, because it rests on an entire misconception of the coming and work of the Holy Spirit. The idea seems to be that the Holy Spirit is not effectively present in the regular and ordinary services of the sanctuary; that He came to the Church as a ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... popular misconception that peace and quietness and respect for law and order can be developed in the foreigner by suddenly and violently disturbing his mental life. Changing a man's language, upsetting his moral and social conventions, altering his inherited traditions of conduct, unsettling his ancestral faith—these ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... private rights of value, and constitutional principles of the highest importance, about which there had become such a difference of opinion that the peace and harmony of the country required the settlement of them by judicial decision." This language betrays the confusion of ideas and misconception of authority which tempted the judges beyond their proper duty. Required only to decide a question of private rights, they thrust themselves forward to sit as umpires in a quarrel of ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... event, according to Aunt Aggie, had been brought about by a persistent refusal to wear on her chest a small square of flannel, (quite a small square) sprinkled with camphorated oil, and according to Aunt Mary by a total misconception of the Bellairs' character; when this event happened, the two aunts became what they called supports to their brother's ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... brought to desolation;" therefore the mind that attacks a normal and real condition of man, is profanely tampering with the realities of God and His laws. Metaphysical healing is a lost jewel in this misconception of reality. Any contradictory fusion of Truth with error, in both theory and practice, prevents one from healing scientifically, and makes the last state of one's patients worse than the first. If disease is real it is not illusive, ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... way of abstract," but such a whole-length portrait as we wish to see drawn of every great man of antiquity, respecting whose merits mankind are, as it were, still groping in comparative ignorance or misconception. We quote two interesting passages—one embodying the personal portrait of Caesar—the other the superstitious weakness ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... has held her place as not only the supreme poet of her sex, but the chief lyrist of all lyrists. Every one who reads acknowledges her fame, concedes her supremacy; but to all except poets and Hellenists her name is a vague and uncomprehended splendour, rising secure above a persistent mist of misconception. In spite of all that is in these days being written about Sappho, it is perhaps not out of place now to inquire, in a few words, into the substance of this supremacy which towers so unassailably secure from what appear to ...
— Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics • Bliss Carman
... maintained about these points for many years and with much dark heat. It ranged over many particular topics and engaged minds different in tone, in quality, and in accomplishment. There was at most times a degree of misconception. Some naturalists attributed to theologians in general a poverty of thought which belonged really to men of a particular temper or training. The "timid theism" discerned in Darwin by so cautious a theologian as Liddon (H.P. Liddon, "The Recovery of S. ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... moral and edifying reflections, led him by degrees to confess that he was not quite satisfied with himself, though "not very bad for a commissary;" and finally, as the decanter waxed low, he would interlard his meditations by passages of Scripture, singularly perverted by his misconception from their true meaning, and alternately throwing out prospects of censure or approval. Such was Major Monsoon; and to conclude in his own words this brief sketch, he "would have been an excellent officer if Providence had not made him such ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... quietly and with some show of spirit. "It is not necessary that you should have a further misconception of my motives or of my agility. I did not seek this—er—tete-a-tete. My servant engaged this carriage. I had not hoped to have the honor of accompanying you. Unfortunately, circumstances ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... possible. Nothing else will give that relish on the lips, that gusto, which communicates its joy to the audience and makes it receptive to every impression. I used to say to teachers, "Tell your story with all your might," but I found that this by a natural misconception was often interpreted to mean "laboriously." And of course nothing is more injurious to the enjoyment of an audience than obvious effort on the part of the entertainer. True zest can be—often is—extremely quiet, but it gives a savour ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... acknowledgment of the importance of the concern. The assent would perhaps be expressed in a form meant and believed to be equivalent to what you had said. And when it gave an intelligible idea, it might probably betray the grossest possible misconception of the first principles of Christianity. It might be a crude formation from the very same substance of which some of the worst errors of popery are constituted; and might strongly suggest to you, in a glance of thought, how easily popery might have become the religion of ignorance; ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster |
