"Rational" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... our minds, and sometimes even argued on religion. He used to tell me that I was much nearer to his form of faith than most Anglicans, and I can remember his saying that the misery of being an Anglican was that it was all so rational—you had to make up your mind on every single point. "Why not," he said, "make it up on one point—the authority of the Church, and have done with it?" "Because I can't be dictated to on points in which I feel I have a ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... need of entering. At first she had been accustomed to trip in on tiptoe after a timid little knock and the query, "Do I disturb you, Jack dear?"—a query which he answered with quite superfluous assurance to the contrary. Later, even after their wise conclusion that they must be rational, she had been accustomed to put the question, not at all as a purely perfunctory marital civility, but, as she shyly admitted to herself, because it was so sweet to hear Jack's negation and see the love-light in the eyes that soon brought her, fascinated and fluttering, to be ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... explanation I can think of [he wrote]. It seems as if he must be insane. And yet he seemed rational enough at the beginning of our first interview and during most of the second. Even when I had broken the news that there was a girl in whom I felt an especial interest he did not show any sign of the outbreak that came afterward. It wasn't until I began ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... interesting a larger number of southern white scholars in this field. The seriousness of the problem during recent years has driven home the thought that without scientific investigation it will be extremely difficult to find a rational basis upon which the two races may cooperate for the greatest good of the greatest number. These monographs are very much like the addresses and studies of the University Commission making an effort to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... Fionan however who was a kinsman of Mochuda and had just returned from Rome, came at this time on a visit to the monastery. He reproached Mochuda saying: "Mochuda, why do you impose the burden of brute beasts upon rational beings? Is it not for use of the latter that all other animals have been created? Of a truth I shall not taste food in this house till you have remedied this grievance." Thenceforth Mochuda—in honour of Fionan—permitted his monks to accept horses and oxen from the people and he freed them from ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... north pole of the magnet is thus called sometimes in France; the austral pole of a magnet is the one which points towards the north polar regions As unlike magnetic poles attract each other, it is but rational to call the north-seeking pole of the magnet the south or Austral Pole. In the same nomenclature the south pole of a magnet, or the south-seeking pole, is ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... conspicuous in its night-dress, kneeling upright in bed, and praying like some Catholic or Methodist enthusiast—some precocious fanatic or untimely saint—I scarcely know what thoughts I had; but they ran risk of being hardly more rational and healthy than that child's mind ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... a result of an interruption of the solar current is rational to suppose. It is indisputable that the interruptions which produce these manifestations have an important bearing upon terrestrial phenomena. Winds, storms, vegetation, healthfulness, are manifestly influenced, and in a ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... receiving many wounds, in helping to establish his glory." When I looked upon the contemptible object that pronounced these words, I was amazed at the infatuation that possessed him; and could not help expressing my astonishment at the absurdity of a rational who thinks himself highly honoured, in being permitted to encounter abject poverty, oppression, famine, disease, mutilation, and evident death merely to gratify the vicious ambition of a prince, by ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... Charles, Duke of Lorraine, celebrated in the annals of the time for his unsteadiness of character, his vain projects, and his misfortunes, ventured to raise a weak arm against the Swedish hero, in the hope of obtaining from the Emperor the electoral dignity. Deaf to the suggestions of a rational policy, he listened only to the dictates of heated ambition; by supporting the Emperor, he exasperated France, his formidable neighbour; and in the pursuit of a visionary phantom in another country, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... now that the presence of mind of Leonora saved us. Foreseeing the probability of an encounter with wild beasts, she had filled her practicable pocket (she belonged to the Rational Dress Association) with ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... Why, Mr. Iden, I'm perfectly rational. Why, I'd glory in making that splendid girl a little ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... by his instinct, had known the rattle from the first; and that was Chuchu, the dog. No rational creature has ever led an existence more poisoned by terror than that dog's at Silverado. Every whiz of the rattle made him bound. His eyes rolled; he trembled; he would be often wet with sweat. One of our great mysteries was his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... we can really escape from the rigid conceptualism of rational logic is to accept the judgment of the totality of man's nature. And the judgment of the totality of man's nature points unmistakably to the existence of a real substantial soul. Such a soul is the indispensable implication of personality. ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... the rational, Ned, which destroys the illusion. Never mind, we are free, at all events. What machines we are on board of a man-of-war! we walk, talk, eat, drink, sleep, and get up, just like clock-work; we are wound up to go the twenty-four hours, and then wound up again; just like old Smallsole ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... and roar, crush one another and perish—not from the fire (for it is only imaginary), but from their own madness. It is enough sometimes when one sensible, firm word is uttered to this crowd—the crowd calms down and imminent death is thus averted. Let, then, a hundred calm, rational voices be raised to mankind, showing them where to escape and where the danger lies—and heaven will be established on earth, if not immediately, then at least ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... discomfort that many people experience after eating nuts? I believe the explanation rests on the fact that our common American way of eating nuts is not the rational way. We would not consider topping off a heavy meal with eggs, meat, or cereals, or eating these in large quantities between meals without realizing that we were exposing ourselves to possible digestive discomfort. No more, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... nearly a sixth of the population of the globe, and which continues to grip them to-day with tyrannical power, can be devoid of any redeeming feature. The very perpetuity and prosperity of the scheme argues for its possession of some rational features, originally connected with it, which gave it sanction to the myriads who have submitted to its reign over them. But it is exceedingly difficult to discover that excellence which originally commended it to the people of this land. Nor do the writings of those who have striven to defend ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... they had now wherewith to live; and if it seem to my reader that the horizon of hope was narrowing around them, it does not follow that it must have seemed so to them. For what is the extent of our merely rational horizon at any time? But for faith and imagination it would be a narrow one indeed! Even what we call experience is but a stupid kind of faith. It is a trusting in impetus instead of in love. And those days were fashioning ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... hundreds. But if any families, possessed of thousands a-year, are living abroad for the mere sake of cheaper luxuries and cheaper education, we say, more shame for them. We even can conceive nothing more selfish and more contemptible. Every rational luxury is to be procured in England by such an income. Every advantage of education is to be procured by the same means. We can perfectly comprehend the advantages offered by the cheapness of the Continent to large ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... indefinite. We cannot comprehend how the number theory will account for the production of corporeal magnitude any easier than we can identify monads with mathematical points. But underlying this mysticism is the thought that there prevails in the phenomena of nature a rational order, harmony, and conformity to law, and that these laws can be represented by numbers. Number or harmony is the principle of the universe, and order holds together the world. Like Anaximander, he passes from the region ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... to our rifles and smiled. We saw that he was disposed to be rational, and therefore laid ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... Clifford and his companion Augustus had been enjoying the rational amusement at Ranelagh, and were just leaving that celebrated place when they were arrested by a crowd at the entrance. That crowd was assembled round a pickpocket; and that pickpocket—O virtue, O wisdom, O Asinaeum!—was Peter MacGrawler! We have ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... might easily argue against the poet that on the contrary it seemed to him that a man who commits a crime for his master is more at fault than one who commits it for himself, and he could support his position with rational arguments. For one who sins for his own advantage is driven to his deed by such emotions as rage, lust, and fear, and these as they diminish the power of willing in like measure diminish the magnitude of the offence. ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... can I drop them? You know how many different ideas there are in the world! O Lord! They're such ideas that set your head afire. According to a certain book everything that exists on earth is rational." ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... "Better to be a rational creature," he added then, after ringing a small bell on the table, "and accept your natural destiny. But you are lost, Monsieur ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... universally acknowledged." "But, Signior Donatio, does not the matter speak for itself? What can a set of ignorant Greek barbarians know about religion? If they set aside the authority of Rome, whence should they derive any rational ideas of religion? whence should they get the gospel?" "The Gospel, gentlemen? Allow me to show you a book, here it is, what is your opinion of it?" "Signior Donatio, what does this mean? What characters ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... of religion lies precisely in that which is not rational, philosophic, nor eternal; its efficacy lies in the unforeseen, the miraculous, the extraordinary. Thus religion attracts more devotion in proportion as it demands more faith,—that is to say, as it becomes more incredible to the profane mind. The philosopher aspires to explain away all mysteries, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... plate of a lady's costume, which is dated 1922, we have presented a very rational and beautiful style of dress. The skirt, it is true, is short enough to alarm prim contemporary dames, and it is scarcely less assuring to find in the whole of the remaining plates only three periods when it seems to have got longer. But doubtless the very ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... searching for him a month, no further clew had been found to his whereabouts or fate as late as the 1st of October. Even if his descriptive list had not been furnished with this man, the fact that he was alive and rational enough on the 25th day of July to write a letter concerning his approaching discharge should have made it easy for some record of his case to have ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... Cairo in the special train which Kaid had sent for him, David watched the scene with grave and friendly interest. There was far, to go before those mud huts of the thousand years would give place to rational modern homes; and as he saw a solitary horseman spread his sheepskin on the ground and kneel to say his evening prayer, as Mahomet had done in his flight between Mecca and Medina, the distance between the Egypt of his desire and the ancient Egypt that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... The voyages of Columbus, the Greville Papers, the Memoirs of Fezensac, and the Paston Letters are no less history than Freeman's 'Norman Conquest,' Froude's 'Armada,' or Napier's 'Peninsular War.' It is a student's subject, and as rational a branch of book-collecting as there be. The collecting of early editions of the chroniclers, English or foreign, is an interesting by-way. The series of British Chronicles issued under the direction of the Master of the Rolls is a fairly complete one, and the works of many other ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... frame to have the same interest which he ascribes to the mystery of being and not-being, or to the great political problems which he discusses in the Republic and the Laws. There are no speculations on physics in the other dialogues of Plato, and he himself regards the consideration of them as a rational pastime only. He is beginning to feel the need of further divisions of knowledge; and is becoming aware that besides dialectic, mathematics, and the arts, there is another field which has been hitherto unexplored by him. But he has not as yet defined this intermediate ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... had sufficient evidence to satisfy them that Dr. Buchanan's views have a rational, experimental foundation, and that the subject opens a field of investigation second to no other in immediate interest, and in the promise of important future results to science and humanity."—Report of New York Committee (WM. CULLEN ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... which was seven more than it had ever cost the owner, and Ben ordered stuff for us, including a vintage champagne that the price of stuck out far enough beyond other prices on the wine list, and a porterhouse steak, family style, for himself, and everything seemed on a sane and rational basis again. It looked as if we might have a little enjoyment during the evening after all. It was a good lively place, with all these brilliant society people mingling up in the dance in a way that would of got 'em thrown out of that gangsters' haunt on the Bowery. ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... at Bonn, or in that of Paolo Veronese at Verona. To accept literally the youthful judgment of Milton and his imitators is to condemn sentiments and practices which are in universal vogue among civilised peoples. It is to deny to the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey a rational title ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... no suspicion as to who was the woman standing now just outside his door, and listening, with a throbbing heart, to his rational questions. ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... elections had been suspended and bade fair to continue indefinitely in abeyance. If he, a member of the intelligentsia, wasn't sufficiently acquainted with the political and military facts of life to make rational decisions, it certainly behooved the ...
— Security • Poul William Anderson
... with me?" he asked, with astonishing indifference. Lieut. D'Hubert could not imagine that in the innocence of his heart and simplicity of his conscience Lieut. Feraud took a view of his duel in which neither remorse nor yet a rational apprehension of consequences had any place. Though he had no clear recollection how the quarrel had originated (it was begun in an establishment where beer and wine are drunk late at night), he had not the slightest doubt of being himself the outraged party. He had had two experienced ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... Lady Ingleby, on one of these occasions, "I do wish you would behave in a more rational manner! Either come to heel and follow sedately, as a dog of your age should do; or trot on in front, in the gaily juvenile manner you assume when Michael takes you out for a walk; but, for goodness ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... him), yet he did so state the case, that the judge did not think fit to decide the cause to-night, but took to to-morrow, and did stagger us in our hopes, so as to make us despair of the success. I am mightily pleased with the judge, who seems a very rational, learned, and uncorrupt man, and much good reading and reason there is heard in hearing of this law argued, so that the thing pleased me, though our success doth shake me. Thence Sir W. Pen and I home and to write letters, among others a sad one to my father upon fear ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... carelessness about futurity. But there is no occasion to enter upon an argument to prove the being of the Almighty, or to illustrate his power by words, who has so many undeniable testimonies in the breasts of every rational being to prove his existence: and we have sufficient proofs enough to convince us of the great superintendency of Divine Providence in the minutest affairs of this world; the manifest existence ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... absence of personal experience, and amidst all the conflicting testimony or misrepresentation by which a person at a distance is ever apt to be assailed and misled, has still been able to separate the truth from falsehood, and to arrive at a rational, a christian, and a just opinion, on a subject so fraught with difficulties, so involved in uncertainty, and so beset ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... when you might have aided me. Two weeks ago, when I requested you to go with me, Mrs. Gerome was rational and would have yielded to your influence, but now she is delirious and you could accomplish nothing. The servants are faithful and attentive, and can be trusted during my absence to execute ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... been a very rational person and you've never been mad, never," he observed suddenly with warmth. "You're ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the connection between absolute necessity and the highest reality; but, instead of reasoning from this highest reality to a necessary existence, like the preceding argument, it concludes from the given unconditioned necessity of some being its unlimited reality. The track it pursues, whether rational or sophistical, is at least natural, and not only goes far to persuade the common understanding, but shows itself deserving of respect from the speculative intellect; while it contains, at the same time, the outlines of all the arguments ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... monstrous accumulation of matter. Its entire strength rested on the meaning of that cabalistic word, "conspiracy." He continued:—"If, my lords, I look into the dictionary for the meaning of that word, I find that it is 'a secret agreement between several to commit a crime;' and that is the rational, common-sense definition of it. This word, however, in recent times, has been taken under special protection by the government; and the definition of it now is, not only a secret agreement between several to commit crime, but they have taken two loops ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... scale the path of heaven, bear, in their various melody, the notes of adoration to the skies! Mortals, ye favoured sons of the eternal father, be it yours in articulate expressions of gratitude to interpret for the mute creation, and to speak a sublimer and more rational homage. ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... represented in the sixteenth century before a hotel, before which sat the rich man carousing, while Abraham, in a parson's coat, looked out of an upper window. This rudeness, however, belongs rather to the Volks-comoedie than the Schul-comoedie, whose adjuncts were generally far more rational, and sometimes even brilliant, as in the Strassburg representations. It was only in the seminaries that art was preserved from utter decay. One may trace the Schul-comoedie until far down in the eighteenth century, and in the last mention of it I ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... rational enough to reconsider his position. The recollection of the signature on the photograph now failed to stimulate the emotional reaction as once it had done. The experience through which he had passed had had a beneficial effect in breaking or ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... talk lightly about marriage do not seem to have the faintest rational conception of the awful nature of the subject. Awful it is; and, as serious men go through life, they become more and more impressed with the momentous results which depend on the choice made by a man or woman. A lad of nineteen lightly engages himself; he knows ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... build, lost seventy pounds weight in less than two days, and was nearly dead when found. The heat of Death Valley quickly dried up blood, tissue, bone. Denton told of a prospector who started out at dawn strong and rational, to return at sunset so crazy that he had to be tied to keep him out of the water. To have drunk his fill then would have killed him! He had to be fed water by spoonful. Another wanderer came staggering into the oasis, blind, with horrible face, and black swollen tongue protruding. He could ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... feeling and a gross affront to reason, it is refreshing to meet with an author who helps us to obey the great precept of the Master, and put mind and strength, as well as heart and soul, into our love of God. Indeed, this precious treatise, or assemblage of little treatises, so rational without form of logic, so convenient to be read for a moment or all day long, and so harmonious in its diverse headings, should be everywhere circulated as a larger sort of religious tract. We hear of exhortations impressed in letters on little loaves for the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... make sense out of the place. Now, of course, he understood why: it didn't really exist in the space-time framework he was used to. Instead, it was partially a four-dimensional pseudo-manifold superimposed on normal space. If not perfectly simple, at least the explanation made matters rational rather than supernatural. But, at the time, everything seemed to take place in a chaotic dream world where infinite distance and the space next to him seemed one and the same. He knew then why Diana had told him that the ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... sense, corresponding to a philosophy of the universe, whether that philosophy does or does not include this particular doctrine. But 'Philip Beauchamp's' assumption is convenient because it gives a rational reasoning to the problem of utility. Religion is taken to be something adventitious or superimposed upon other beliefs, and we can therefore intelligibly ask whether it does good or harm. Taking this definition for granted, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... had gone by he began to think about getting out. He could, it occurred to him, scream for help. But that would only bring more attendants, and very possibly Dr. Blake again, and somehow Malone felt that further conversation with Dr. Blake was not likely to lead to any very rational end. ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... thus performed her duty toward God, as a rational creature, by the best application of her reason to Scripture, and for the preservation of religion in the purity of the same, yet pretends not to infallibility, but comes in the third part of the order, establishing liberty of conscience ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... that she is perfectly safe," Vera said. "Of course, she was terribly excited and upset at first, but she was quite calm and rational all the way down, as Gerald will tell you. All Beth wants now is quiet and change, and to feel that her troubles are over. Let's go and have tea in that grand old hall. If the others don't care to come in to tea we will try not ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... blacks do go in for smoke-telegraphy they must on this occasion have thought that the operator at our end of the wire was mad! Perhaps unknowingly we sent up smokes which appeared to them to be rational messages! If such was the case our signals could not have meant "Please stay at home," for when eventually we did find their camp they had left. Taking the bearing of the most northerly smoke we travelled for the rest of the day in its direction. The next ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... entertain toward this people. Neither could you any longer apply to them the terms fanatic, enthusiast, or superstitious. You would have seen a calmness, a sobriety, a decency, so remarkable; you would have heard sentiments so rational, so instructive, so exalted, that you would have felt your prejudices breaking away and disappearing without any volition or act of your own. Nay, against your will they would have fallen. And nothing would have been left but the naked question—not is this faith ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... knows. She was reading the Old Testament very much in those days. I have sometimes accepted that as an explanation. It often happens that a delusion takes its cue from something read, or thought, or experienced in a rational state. In the case of the man Blaisdell, for example—you remember him, with his marble ship? He was formerly an enterprising ship-builder; during the Southern war he filled a contract with government for a couple ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... not work, for the White would be striking a poor man dead with His lightning, if I attempted that. No, then: the modern Adam is some eight to twenty thousand years wiser than the first—you see? less instinctive, more rational. The first disobeyed by commission: I shall disobey by omission: only his disobedience was a sin, mine is a heroism. I have not been a particularly ideal sort of beast so far, you know: but in me, Adam Jeffson—I swear ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... all that, but odd. She and I get on well together—I am her pet, I suppose I may say—but, by Jove, she has quarreled with everyone else in the family. I let her have her own way and it has convinced her that I am the only rational Heathcroft in existence. ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... comfort in all its varied manifestations. Yet at the outset let it be clearly understood that it is not a fashionable resort, in the sense that every one, men and women alike, must dress in fashionable garb to be welcomed and made at home. It is a place of common sense and rational freedom. If one comes in from a hunting or fishing trip at dinner time, he is expected to enter the dining room as he is. If one has taken a walk in his white flannels he is as welcome to a dance in the Casino, the dining-room, or the social-hall as if he wore the most conventional evening ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... naturally end, and the audience would feel that both "HAMLET" and the "KING" had conducted themselves in a creditable manner. By such a change as this, Hamlet becomes a rational and enjoyable play. But will, you ever find a REFORMING NUISANCE who will offer to improve Hamlet? Not a bit of it. There is nothing which your NUISANCE is more reluctant to do than to engage in any really ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various
... be allowed for the frivolity and narrowness of a military set in a colony. Imagine my one attempt at rational conversation last night. Asking his views on female emigration, absolutely he had none at all; he and Fanny only went off upon a nursemaid ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it be the worse for these women, or for the society in which they live, if they do interest themselves in politics? Might not (as Mr. Boyd Kinnear urges in an article as sober and rational as it is earnest and chivalrous) their purity and earnestness help to make what is now called politics somewhat more pure, somewhat more earnest? Might not the presence of the voting power of a few virtuous, experienced, well- educated women, keep candidates, for very shame, from saying and doing ...
— Women and Politics • Charles Kingsley
... of rarer occurrence every week. It was not long before he told himself that he had been through the worst of his ordeal and could meet Lady Bearwarden now without looking like a fool. In this more rational frame of mind Mr. Stanmore arrived in London in business at that period of settled weather and comparative stagnation called by tradesmen the "dead time of year," and found his late-acquired philosophy put somewhat ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... their home, where, in a little Lord Fauntleroy suit, he would stand up before them all and sing a whole recital of little songs, to the delight of all his relatives. The singer's progress, from the musical child on and up to that of an operatic artist, has been rational and healthy, with nothing hectic or overwrought about it; a constant, gradual ascent of the mountain. And while an enviable vantage ground has been reached, such an artist must feel there are yet other heights to conquer. For ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... find, as you study Pope, that he has expressed for you, in the strictest language and within the briefest limits, every law of art, of criticism, of economy, of policy, and, finally, of a benevolence, humble, rational, and resigned, contented with its allotted share of life, and trusting the problem of its salvation to Him in whose hands ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... and it is really wonderfully simple. We never mention the aristocracy now—it would be like talking shop. We just enjoy ourselves. You, by the way, I met in connection with the movement for rational dress. You are a bit of a crank, fond of frequenting ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... That a rational—numerical or geometrical—approach to kinematic synthesis is possible is a relatively recent idea, not yet fully accepted; but it is this idea that is responsible for the intense scholarly interest in the kinematics of mechanisms ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson
... written about fifty years ago, was communicated to me by Mr. Alexander Dalrymple, and though it is in part a repetition I esteem it too curious to hesitate about inserting it. The style is much more rational than that of the foregoing. "Praised be Almighty God! Sultan Gagar Alum the great and noble King, whose extensive power reacheth unto the limits of the wide ocean; unto whom God grants whatever he desires, and over whom ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... simplicity to you may be superfluity to another. The rich robes that Nausicaa wore she wore like a goddess. The moment your dress, your house, your house-grounds, your furniture, your scale of living, are beyond the rational satisfaction of your own desires—that is, are for ostentation, for imposition upon the public—they are superfluous, the line of simplicity is passed. Every human being has a right to whatever can best feed his life, satisfy his legitimate ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... that had his money in th' bank anny more thin ye'd read about th' spectators at a prize fight. 'Twas all what th' joynts iv fi-nance were doin'. 'Who's that man with th' plug hat just comin' out iv th' gamblin' joint?' 'That's th' prisidint iv th' Eighth Rational.' 'An' who's that shakin' dice at th' bar?' 'That's th' head iv our greatest thrust comp'ny.' An' so it wint. To-day I read in th' pa-apers an appeal to th' good sense iv Mulligan, th' tailor. It didn't mintion his name, but it might ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... clime, and gone to the world of spirits! I can truly say that, poor and unknown as I then was, I had pretty nearly as high an idea of myself and of my works as I have at this moment, when the public has decided in their favour. It ever was my opinion that the mistakes and blunders, both in a rational and religious point of view, of which we see thousands daily guilty, are owing to their ignorance of themselves. To know myself had been all along my constant study. I weighed myself alone; I balanced myself with others. I watched every means of information, to see how much ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... real faith in God which leads men to doubt the dogmas which misrepresent God. But conscious as he is of the shadow that lies upon our field of vision, he is always insisting that it is in the light and not in the shadow that we must walk. Therefore, although demonstration is impossible, faith is rational. So do those great words of "The Ancient ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... memory; and he feels it every hour, in innumerable forms, frustrating his designs by a ceaseless though perhaps invisible countermining. This unceasing opposition to the will of its 'owner,' on the part of his rational 'property,' is to the slaveholder as the hot iron to the nerve. He raves under it, and storms, and gnashes, and smites; but the more he smites, the hotter it gets, and the more it burns him. Further, this opposition of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... to forget both the shadow and herself. Close to her father's old farm-house, and in the woods of Sliver-Crook, she saw what, described in a romance, would have been pathetic enough, but which, seen in reality, called out from her heart the good rational sympathy which, though buried in sentimental rubbish, was ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... on Whitelocke. He is a senator and one of the College of War, a person of great esteem and good parts; his conversation was full of civility; his discourse (in French) was rational, and for the most part upon matter of war, history, and the mathematics. In his company was an officer, his brother-in-law, who had served the King of Portugal in his late wars, and was a civil person, and seemed a gallant man. This Grave had been long bred up in the ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... lingers with fond reluctance to depart on the wild flowers, the misty lake, the sound of the wailing blast, or the gleam of sunshine breaking through the passes among the hills, and the thoughts and feelings these objects suggest flow forth with an enthusiasm of expression which in a man less pious and rational might be interpreted as a raising of the inanimate world to a level with human dignity and intelligence. The tone which prevails in his contemplation of mortal act and suffering is a serene seriousness, on which ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... too early," Constantia remonstrated, "it's a pernicious habit. If you would come and stay with me in London, I would teach you to keep rational hours." ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... and spotless kids; and as he was dressing, drew a mental picture of the party to which he was going. It was to be composed of quiet, steady men, who were such hard readers as to be called "fast men." He should therefore hear some delightful and rational conversation on the literature of ancient Greece and Rome, the present standard of scholarship in the University, speculations on the forthcoming prize-poems, comparisons between various expectant class-men, and delightful topics of a kindred nature; and the evening would be passed in a ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... direct fact of adultery can seldom be proved, when a divorce is asked on this ground, it will be sufficient if the fact can be shown by circumstances which would be inconsistent with any rational theory of innocence, and such as would lead the guarded discretion of a just mind to the conclusion of the truth of the facts. The disposition of the parties may be shown, with the fact of their being together and having an opportunity to commit ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson
... Gladstone himself saw through this, and with all other Liberals consistently and determinedly opposed every demand for Home Rule until his desire for power compelled him to surrender unconditionally to Parnell. At Aberdeen the G.O.M. said,—'Can any sensible man, can any rational man, suppose that at this time of day we are going to disintegrate the great capital institutions of the country for the purpose of making ourselves ridiculous in the eyes of all mankind?' No sane man ever supposed it, no honest man ever believed that Mr. Gladstone would ever sell himself ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... follow. Hundreds of times before we had reasoned together upon the faults of the Government, and the misfortunes that resulted from them. What we had to do was to avoid those faults, educate the young King in good and rational maxims, so that when he succeeded to power he might continue what the Regency had not had time to finish. This, at least, was my idea; and I laboured hard to make it the idea of M. le Duc d'Orleans. As the health of the King ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... are engaged in publishing books for young persons, in the preparing of which particular attention will be given to furnishing reading which shall combine rational and innocent recreation with good moral ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... shadowy country that we nightly visit. When we come back from the dream-realm, we can give no reasonable report of what we met there. But once across the border, we feel at home as if we had always lived there and had never made any excursions into this rational daylight world. ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... to my theme: I have still one word on this subject for rational players. Even they use the soft pedal too much and too often, and at unsuitable places; for instance, in the midst of a piece, without any preparatory pause; in melodies which require to be lightly executed; or in ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... melancholy and sentimental; it also makes them do foolish things. The most absurd and unreasonable notions I ever entertained, came into my head by moonlight, and wouldn't go away. Only twenty-five minutes ago, we were quite a rational, practical set of persons, eating our supper, (a well-cooked supper, too, though I say it myself), with a keen appetite, like Christians. And now, we have fallen to sighing and quoting poetry, and Browne waxes quite pathetic at the touching thought of getting a glimpse once more, ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... insane, delirious, dementate, mad, lunatic, distracted, frantic, crazed, crack-brained; rickety, decrepit, shaky, tottering, dilapidated; desirous, eager, infatuated. Antonyms: sane, rational. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... cream-jug, and we are flung into each other's unwilling arms where we cling for safety till the crack of doom when all the milk is spilt! It's no use fighting the stars, you know. It really isn't. The only rational course is to make the ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... himself and the world cares only for worldly things, because they soothe the external senses and are agreeable to his natural disposition; but has no concern about spiritual things, because these only soothe the internal senses and are agreeable to the internal or rational mind. These, therefore, they cast aside, saying that they are too high for man's comprehension. Not so did the ancients. With them the science of correspondences was the chief of all sciences: ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... descended from Prince Florus, the second son of Peter, and the grandson of Louis the Fat. [80] This fable of the grateful or venal monks was too respectfully entertained by our antiquaries, Cambden [81] and Dugdale: [82] but it is so clearly repugnant to truth and time, that the rational pride of the family now refuses to accept this imaginary founder. Their most faithful historians believe, that, after giving his daughter to the king's son, Reginald of Courtenay abandoned his possessions ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... hitherto received a very moderate share of cultivation. He cannot but reflect that, if either his plan of instruction be crude and injudicious, or the execution of it lame and superficial, it will cast a damp upon the farther progress of this most useful and most rational branch of learning; and may defeat for a time the public-spirited design of our wise and munificent benefactor. And this he must more especially dread, when he feels by experience how unequal his abilities ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... demand it. And even then it's only the exceptional man who can force me into a corner. The average clerk in any country is like a gelded horse. He's been robbed of his power by education ... of a sort. He's a reasonable, rational, considerate beast that can be ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... convincing proofs both that prohibition does not prohibit and that high license leads to increased drunkenness. The consequence is that the movements to control, restrict, or prohibit the use of alcohol are emotional, not rational. ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... and for summer rain, I never saw such broad downright flat drops fall out of the clouds; the oaks, too, notwithstanding the calm weather, sob and creak with their great boughs as if announcing a tempest. Thou canst play the rational if thou wilt; credit me for once, and let us home ere the storm begins to rage, for the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... conditions causes in the development of such a struggle. In the East, the history of religion, for which material is supplied by the study of the Zend and Sanskrit literature, (3) would furnish examples of attempts made by philosophers to find a rational solution of the problems of the universe, and to adjust the theories of speculative thought to the national creed deposited in supposed sacred books. And though, in a western nation such as Greece, the separation of religion from philosophy ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... If chance the radiant sun, with farewell sweet, Extend his evening beam, the fields revive, The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings. O shame to men! Devil with devil damned Firm concord holds; men only disagree Of creatures rational, though under hope Of heavenly grace, and, God proclaiming peace, Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife Among themselves, and levy cruel wars Wasting the earth, each other to destroy: As if (which might induce us to accord) ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... God might have had the power, but not the will, to preserve us. He might have regarded us as fitted to minister to his service by a succession of existences,—like the animals, without attributing to each soul an incomparable value. But if he is perfect, he must will that all rational beings should partake of that perfection which he himself is. In the words of the Timaeus, he is good, and therefore he desires that all other things should be as like himself as possible. And the manner in which he accomplishes this is by permitting evil, or rather degrees of good, which ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato
... of the preceding paragraphs to show that Leibniz[11] the politician and Leibniz the theologian were one and the same person; not at all to suggest that his rational theology was just political expediency. We may apply to him a parody of his own doctrine, the pre-established harmony between nature and grace. Everything happens as though Leibniz were a liberal politician, ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... two scruples (40 grains) of solid opium at a dose, and twenty grains four hours afterwards; which restored the patient. Dr. Brandreth gave 400 drops of laudanum to a maniac in the greatest possible furor, and in a few hours he became calm and rational. Med. ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Narrative." The Metropolitan Interments bill has made no further progress in the House of Commons. Lord Ashley has withdrawn his opposition to the government proposal for giving practical efficacy to the Ten Hours Act; and all the more rational of the Ten Hours champions have signified acquiescence in the compromise. When the bill shall have passed, factories will be worked from six to six on five days in the week, and between six and two on Saturdays, with perfect leisure after ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... earthly treasure, ere she could tear herself away; and Mrs. Harewood felt aware that silent prayers occupied her heart for the future welfare and progressive virtue of a being naturally so very dear, and whose bad passions, at the time of their parting, had given so little rational hope of future felicity, either to herself or her widowed parent. Sympathizing truly with her feelings, and aware of the extreme delicacy of the subject, especially to one of whose peculiar feelings she knew so little, Mrs. Harewood left it to time to ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... Ellen Meriwether, daughter of my father's friend and business associate, whom I had traveled thus far to see, and whom, as I now determined, I must meet at the very first possible opportunity. Perhaps, then, it might very naturally come about that—but I dismissed this very rational supposition as swiftly as ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... her to be taken from school and given the protection of her father's house. It went against the man's heart to have her, but he was compelled, if he wished to stand well with his friends, and he hoped that the girl would be found improved from these years of discipline and training, and be rational and like other people. Wherefore he came home one dry dull day in October, and the neighborhood welcomed him, if not as their prodigal returned, yet as their lunatic restored to his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... festival of Flora was celebrated on the 11th July instead of the 28th April. Caesar finally removed this evil, and with the help of the Greek mathematician Sosigenes introduced the Italian farmer's year regulated according to the Egyptian calendar of Eudoxus, as well as a rational system of intercalation, into religious and official use; while at the same time the beginning of the year on the 1st March of the old calendar was abolished, and the date of the 1st January—fixed at first as the official term for changing the supreme magistrates and, in ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... something else now that must be done well—and that is, to die," and he cheered up again. And however strange it may seem, beginning with the second morning in the fortress, he commenced devoting himself to gymnastics according to the unusually rational system of a certain German named Mueller, which absorbed his interest. He undressed himself completely and, to the alarm and astonishment of the guard who watched him, he carefully went through all the prescribed eighteen exercises. The ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... private Ministers from France, and a French priest.(6) I know not the two Ministers' names; but they are come about the peace. The names the Secretary called them, I suppose, were feigned; they were good rational men. We have already settled all things with France, and very much to the honour and advantage of England; and the Queen is in mighty good humour. All this news is a mighty secret; the people in general know that ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... turning-point in my life, and Penn, whose little book of aphorisms had a brief but strong effect on me, and Mitford's Tales[21] of Old Japan, wherein I learned for the first time the proper attitude of any rational man to his country's laws—a secret found, and kept, in the Asiatic islands. That I should commemorate all is more than I can hope or the Editor could ask. It will be more to the point, after having said so much upon ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shading our faces with paper, looked down at the fiery breakers as they dashed against the side of the basin beneath. The excessive heat, and the fact that the spray was frequently dashed over the edge, put a stop to this fool-hardiness; but at a more rational distance we stood gazing, with our feelings of wonder and awe so intensely excited, that we paid no regard to the entreaties of our guide to quit the spot. He at last persuaded us of the necessity of doing so, by pointing to the moon, and her distance above the dense cloud ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... poverty of the old stage that we owe, in part, the immense riches of the Shakespearian Drama, since it was thereby put to the necessity of making up for the defect of sensuous impression by working on the rational, moral, and imaginative forces of the audience. And, undoubtedly, the modern way of glutting the senses with a profusion of showy and varied dress and scenery has struck, as it must always strike, a dead palsy on the legitimate processes of Gothic Art. The decline ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... amount of protection cheaper with glass than wood, while the glass possesses some most decided advantages over any other material. The hives are lighter and more compact, than when made of doubled wood, and can be more easily moved, while the Apiarian can gratify his rational curiosity, and inspect at all times, the condition of his stocks. The very interest inspired by being able to see what they are doing, will go far to protect them from that indifference and neglect, which is so often fatal to their prosperity. The way in which I make my hives, not only protects ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... arrant nonsense, for what purpose I can hardly conceive," he said, frowning with vexation at the tragi-comedy into which he had been drawn. "Frenchmen, it is true, regard these things from a different standpoint. That which seems rational to you is little else than buffoonery to me. If that is your object in seeking an interview, it has now been accomplished. I absolutely decline to entertain the proposition for a moment. You have certainly succeeded in lending an air of drivel to a controversy that I regard as serious. ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy |
