"Reasoning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Entwicklungsmechanik." The circumstances of its occurrence here preclude any suggestion that this regularity has been brought about by the workings of Selection. The attempts thus to represent the phenomena have resulted in mere parodies of scientific reasoning.] ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... army rendered ministers of state more daring than otherwise they would be, in contriving and executing projects that were grievous to the people; schemes that could never enter into the heads of any but those who were drunk with excess of power. The marquis of Tweedale, in reasoning against such a number as the ministry proposed, took occasion to observe, that not one shilling of the forfeited estates was ever applied to the use of the public; he likewise took notice, that the eighteen ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... mental point of view, in conversations held with them by the physician alone. Their arguments, their ideas were noted more than their elementary movements. Strange to say, just when the psycho-therapeutic treatments by reasoning and moralizing with the patients were being developed, they stood out the contrary of what one might have supposed—that this treatment should be applied to neurotic patients alone. It was admitted that lunatics were probably not able to feel this moral and rational ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... ordinary ingenuity could certainly adduce against his country; for it is a most unusual thing to find a man anywhere, who is willing to admit that the positions of an opponent are good. He saw in the events of the day, a province wrested from his nation; and, in his reasoning on the subject, entirely overlooking the numerous occasions on which his own fluctuating government had given sufficient justification, not to say motives, to their powerful neighbours to take the law into their own ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... and the vulgar errors of mere tradition. Indeed, it may be taken once for all as the truth, that Shakspeare, in the absolute universality of his genius, always reverences whatever arises out of our moral nature; he never profanes his muse with a contemptuous reasoning away of the genuine and general, however unaccountable, feelings ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... reasoning and reflective process. It is the purely "intellectual" type of mental operation. It deals wholly in abstractions. Abstractions are constructed out ...
— Applied Psychology: Making Your Own World • Warren Hilton
... let us hear the wise man's reasoning for it:—'for that is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to his heart; sorrow is better than laughter, for a crack-brained order of enthusiastic monks, I grant, but not for men ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... I said, "that the real reason that we rewarded men for their endowments, while we considered those of horses and goats merely as fixing the service to be severally required of them, was that the animals, not being reasoning beings, naturally did the best they could, whereas men could only be induced to do so by rewarding them according to the amount of their product. That brings me to ask why, unless human nature has mightily changed in a hundred years, you are ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... follows all the philosophic reasoning of the tragedies, the often subtle wit of the comedies, with that same shrewd alertness displayed at the jury courts of the Pnyx. "Authis! Authis!" (again! again!) is the frequent shout, if approving. Date stones and pebbles as well as hootings are the reward ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... If it is replied, on the strength of some of Mohamad's people being present, "We want to buy ivory too;" not knowing its value they think that this is a mere subterfuge to plunder them. Much palm-wine to-day at different parts made them incapable of reasoning further; they seemed inclined to fight, but after a great deal of talk we departed ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... observed another thing working to effect—mankind read more, and the spirit of reflection and reasoning was more awake than at any time within my remembrance. Not only was there a handsome bookseller's shop in Cayenneville, with a London newspaper daily, but magazines, and reviews, and ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... knowledge of it. Her penetration, indeed, is not to be despised; she has even grasped the fact that all men are not necessarily fools in spite of the fashion in which they talk to women. It must be admitted, however, that her emotions are prone to take precedence of her reasoning powers: thus she is not easily misled from getting what she desires, save by those whom she loves, because in argument, while always illogical, she ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... conceived that this vast area was not devoted exclusively to physical exercises. Logic, rhetoric, and metaphysics claimed their place in this common focus of the city's life, and were the delight of the subtile Greeks. The Socratic reasoning and the syllogisms of Aristotle met here on common ground. The Stoics, with their stern fatalism, derived their name from the stoae, or porticos; the Peripatetics imparted their ambulatory instructions under the plane-trees of the Lyceum—and Plato reasoned in the Academy, which he held ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... wonderful example of the different styles of oratory of which each was master; Clay, of declamation, invective, wit, humor and bitter sarcasm; Calhoun of clear statement and close reasoning. This contest, aside from its oratorical power, deserves a place in history. In answer to Clay's attack on his life he replied: "I rest my public character upon it, and desire it to be read by all who will ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... one act to complete the defence. It was concluded by Mr. Grant, who went over the whole case in a speech, in his usual well-known manner, learned and close in its reasoning, caustic and severe in its remarks on the opposite party. His general view was chiefly legal; occasionally, however, he introduced short and impressive remarks on the general aspect of the case, and the particular character of the most suspicious facts presented ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... other's paragraphs, and the second modifies the ideas of the first. It is interesting to note their twofold inspection of Westminster Hall, for example. The understanding twin examines it methodically, finding its length to be eighty paces, and its effect "the ideal of an immense barn." The reasoning and imagining one interposes to this, "be it not irreverently spoken"; and also conjures up this splendid vision: "I wonder it does not occur to modern ingenuity to make a scenic representation, in this very hall, of the ancient trials for life or death, pomps, feasts, coronations, and every great ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... inherited a talent for untiring investigation and the power of close observation. His reasoning faculties also were excellent. Besides his education, gained in a practical school at Troy, George, with, his father, James Ingram, had made many experiments, mostly after business hours; each experiment was numbered and the various results had been carefully noted. ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... For the ungodly said, reasoning with themselves, but not aright, Our life is short and tedious, and in the death of a man there is no remedy: neither was there any man known to have returned from ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... He stood, therefore, reasoning it all out something after this fashion. "Look now, Prosper," thought he, "this child says truer than she knows. It is an ill thing to be hanged, but a worse to deserve a hanging, and worst of all for her, it seems, to escape a hanging. And it is good to find ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... only tells us in his works what nature has done in hers, but what she will do. "In fact," says our author, "the great quality about Mr Turner's drawings, which more especially proves their transcendant truth, is the capability they afford us of reasoning on past and future phenomena." The book teems with extravagant bombastic praise like this. Mr Turner is more than the Magnus Apollo. Yet other English artists are brought forward, immediately preceding the above panegyric; we ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... himself; the second, his hearers or readers—what is the order of progress in their enlightenment. Even logical development of a subject is subsidiary to the practical psychological order. Formal logic, the analysis of the process of reasoning, is a cultural study rather than a practical one, save in criticism both of one's own work and another's. More cultural, and at the same time more practical, is the study of exact reasoning in the form of some branch of mathematics. Abraham Lincoln, when he "rode the circuit" as a lawyer, ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... is an objection which stands in the very threshold our argument, and, if admitted, is a bar to every proof, and to all future reasoning upon the subject, it may be necessary, before we proceed further, to examine the principle upon which it professes to be founded; which principle is concisely this, That it is contrary to experience that a miracle should be true, but not contrary to ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... This is very good reasoning, and all that can be said against it is that when Dryden has done with Chaucer, although he tells the same tales, they are no longer Chaucer's but Dryden's. The spirit is changed. But that you will be able to feel only when you grow older ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... to come to him for orders. Thus one night before he passed out of Asia, he was very late all alone in his tent, with a dim light burning by him, all the rest of the camp being hushed and silent; and reasoning about something with himself and very thoughtful, he fancied someone came in, and, looking up towards the door, he saw a terrible and strange appearance of an unnatural and frightful body standing by him without speaking. Brutus boldly asked it, "What are you, of men or gods, and upon what business ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Once give to the mind a store of clear ideas in regular and natural order, and a series of words that are distinct and definite in meaning, and you have laid a firm foundation whereon to exercise the higher faculties of reflection and reasoning. Still more is it of paramount importance to educate and bring out the moral faculties, to cultivate the sense of right and wrong, to enlighten and strengthen the young conscience, to teach the love of good, and the hatred of evil, and to strive to ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... 'for when a lady does consent to listen to an argument against her own opinions, she is always predetermined to withstand it—to listen only with her bodily ears, keeping the mental organs resolutely closed against the strongest reasoning.' ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... on a bench she took her seat, And plac'd the milk-pail at her feet. Oft in her hand she chink'd the pence, The profits which arose from thence; While fond ideas fill'd her brain Of layings up, and monstrous gain, Till every penny which she told Creative fancy turn'd to gold; And reasoning thus from computation, She ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... been laid out in bribing newspapers, rewarding pamphleteers, and circulating tracts. Burke, so early as 1790, declared in the House of Commons that twenty thousand pounds had been employed in corrupting the press. It is certain that no controversial weapon, from the gravest reasoning to the coarsest ribaldry, was left unemployed. Logan defended the accused governor with great ability in prose. For the lovers of verse, the speeches of the managers were burlesqued in Simpkin's letters. It is, we are afraid, indisputable that Hastings stooped so low as ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... none the less a teleologist for this. He was an unconscious teleologist, and as such perhaps more absolutely an upholder of teleology than Paley himself; but this is neither here nor there; our concern is not with what people think about themselves, but with what their reasoning makes it evident that ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... exchange of values, and exulted that the gambler was no worse. But could this make the gambler an honest man, because other men were rogues? How desperate the cause that could clutch at so frail a straw for support! Yet Mr. Freeman appeared perfectly unconscious of the imbecility of his reasoning. More perfect hallucination ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... he would be held by many as having merited much admiration. He had sinned against all the Dales, and yet the suffering arising from his sin was to fall upon the Dales exclusively. Such was Bernard's reasoning, as he speculated on the whole affair, sadly enough,—wishing to be avenged, but not knowing where to look for vengeance. For myself I believe him to have been altogether wrong as to the light in which he supposed that Crosbie's falsehood would be regarded by ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... Warden's reasoning. Perhaps it was faulty, for it hinged upon the vagaries of a wanton character who could not be depended upon. But Warden had to take ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... election. Others conceive that the Antinomian heresy directly follows from the doctrine of reprobation; and it is very generally thought that licentiousness and cruelty of the worst description are likely to be the fruits, as they often have been the fruits, of Antinomian opinions. This chain of reasoning, we think, is as perfect in all its parts as that which makes out a Papist to be necessarily a traitor. Yet it would be rather a strong measure to hang all the Calvinists, on the ground that if they ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... if it were not for the prestige that belief in these alleged facts has obtained, we should refuse attention to them. Out of respect, however, for the mass of opinion that accepts them we have looked into the matter with care, and we have found the evidence break down. The same reasoning and canons of criticism which convince me that Christ was crucified convince me at the same time that he was insufficiently crucified. I can only accept his death and resurrection at the cost of rejecting everything that I have been taught to hold most ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... exhibit this reasoning in a numerical form, and to show that a velocity of six or seven miles a second directed upwards would suffice to convey a body entirely away from the gravitation of the earth. This speed is far beyond the utmost ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... "suspicions" of his envy of his friend may safely be discarded, for they are mere guesswork; even though it might have been natural enough for a man like Goldsmith, conscious of his singular and original genius, to measure himself against Johnson, who was merely a man of keen perception and shrewd reasoning, and to compare the deference paid to Johnson with the scant courtesy shown ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... enterprise fascinated him; he read emotionally, as other men read pure literature, and his heart leaped as he discovered in noble words what himself had obscurely felt. His mind was concrete and moved with difficulty in regions of the abstract; but, even when he could not follow the reasoning, it gave him a curious pleasure to follow the tortuosities of thoughts that threaded their nimble way on the edge of the incomprehensible. Sometimes great philosophers seemed to have nothing to say to him, but at others he recognised a mind with ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... to, Scrooge. The teacher has forgotten his rod and his rules and his airs of superiority. He is not teaching at all, so far as you can see. He is the centre of a group of eager learners, who are using their own wits and not depending on his. They are so busy observing, comparing, reasoning, and finding out things for themselves that he can hardly get in a word edgewise. And he seems to like it, though it is clear that if they keep on at this rate they will soon ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... is also essentially and thoroughly dramatic, dealing very vividly with life in genuine and varied action. To be sure, Chaucer possesses all the medieval love for logical reasoning, and he takes a keen delight in psychological analysis; but when he introduces these things (except for the tendency to medieval diffuseness) they are true to the situation and really serve to enhance the suspense. There is much interest in the ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... the whole slave population was brought to the assistance of the Confederate Government, and thereby caught the very first hope of freedom. An innate reasoning taught the negro that slaves could not be relied upon to fight for their own enslavement. To get to the breastworks was but to get a chance to run to the Yankees; and thousands of those whose elastic step kept time with the martial strains of the drum and fife, as they marched on through ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... this District the power to issue such a writ to an officer of the General Government commanding him to perform a ministerial act? A majority of the court have decided that it has, but have rounded their decision upon a process of reasoning which in my judgment renders further legislative provision indispensable to the public interests and the equal administration ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... child's reasoning faculty. The child is encouraged at every step to think and to reason why the animal does certain things; e.g. why the elephant does not drink directly with its mouth, but has to squirt the water into it with ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle - Book One • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... east-ward, taking with me the only two sober villagers I could find. They came willingly enough for five miles, thinking, I suppose, that I intended to follow Will's example and kill some more meat (although, as I did not take the rifle with me, they were not guilty of much dead-weight reasoning). ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... conversation with this girl, confiding in her little by little, just as Zashue used, before he and she became man and wife. But what could Okoya tell after all that might prove of harm to her? He was a mere child as yet. At this stage of her reasoning, a cloud rose within her bosom and spread like wildfire. Was it not strange that the discovery of the owl's feathers, the betrayal of that dread secret, almost coincided with Okoya's open relations with the daughter of the man who, she felt sure, was at the bottom of ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... apprehends. The object first moving the understanding, is some sensible thing; after by discoursing, the mind finds out the corporeal substance, and from thence the spiritual. His actions (some say) are apprehension, composition, division, discoursing, reasoning, memory, which some include in invention, and judgment. The common divisions are of the understanding, agent, and patient; speculative, and practical; in habit, or in act; simple, or compound. The agent is that which ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... season longer Till my reasoning power got stronger, As my observation grew, I became convinced that mellow, Massic-loving poet fellow Horace ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... decided to make the best of what he feared was a piece of romantic folly, he had acquired more zest for the grand experiment. He wished the ceremony to be in London, for greater privacy. Edith Harnham would have preferred it at Melchester; Anna was passive. His reasoning prevailed, and Mrs. Harnham threw herself with mournful zeal into the preparations for Anna's departure. In a last desperate feeling that she must at every hazard be in at the death of her dream, and see once again the man who ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... reader, did you ever hear, Whilst travelling on the world's wide beaten road, The curious reasoning, and opinions queer, Of men, who never in their lives bestow'd One hour on study; whose existence seems A thing of course—a practical delusion— A day of frowning clouds and sunny gleams— Of pain and pleasure, mix'd in strange confusion; Who feel they move and breathe, ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... old wharf under the willows, had struck across through the hilly sheep-pastures, and had reached a slope overlooking the amber-bright country of the Perdu, he was once more the silently eager boy, the quaintly reasoning visionary, his spirit waiting alert at his eyes ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... not see, therefore, a reason why I should insist on an opposite opinion, or why I should not rear to Him an altar, if I am ready to rear one to Serapis, for instance. It would not be difficult for me even to renounce other gods, for no reasoning mind believes in them at present. But it seems that all this is not enough yet for the Christians. It is not enough to honor Christ, one must also live according to His teachings; and here thou art on the shore of a sea which they command thee to ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... at such junctures become so completely absorbed and overpowered by the cheerless prospect before them, that they oftentimes wander about in a state of temporary lunacy, without the power of exercising the slightest volition of the reasoning faculties. ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... in despair, for what was she to reply to such reasoning as this? Before she could make up her mind, their spokesman said that a white man, Ibubesi, who said that he had often spoken with her, asked leave to visit ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... this, that no truths, however solid and well-grounded, will help you to any divine life, but only so far as they are taught, nourished, and strengthened by an unction from above; and that nothing more dries and extinguishes this heavenly unction than a talkative reasoning temper that is always catching at every opportunity of hearing or telling some religious matters. Stop your ears and shut your eyes to all religious tales . . . I would no more bring a false charge against a deist than I would bear false witness against an apostle. ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... Bud's reasoning, while rough, had appealed to Mrs. Adams. She felt that she ought to go. She had only needed some such impetus to send her straight to Waring. The town marshal's telegram had stunned her. She knew that her husband had followed the Brewsters, but she had not ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... the end of that line of reasoning. Rip and Ali—they couldn't be spared. The knowledge they had would bring the Queen to earth. But a Cargo-master was excess baggage when there was no reason for trade. It was his place to try out the truth of ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... Sabbaths with Mrs. Roberts, and on two of them she had been required to cook from similar reasoning. "For once" is apt, in such cases, to become a phrase of ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... no reasoning against this; he did not attempt it; but with the utmost gentleness and tenderness endeavoured, as soon as he might, to soothe and calm her. He succeeded at last; with a sort of despairing submission, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... was not reached by an analytic study of note by note, but was intuitive and spontaneous; like a woman's reason: he felt it so, because he felt it so, and his delicate perception required no more logical form of reasoning. ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... in all mention of his lamentable irregularities), that, with a single glass of wine, his whole nature was reversed, the demon became uppermost, and, though none of the usual signs of intoxication were visible, his will was palpably insane. Possessing his reasoning faculties in excited activity, at such times, and seeking his acquaintances with his wonted look and memory, he easily seemed personating only another phase of his natural character, and was accused, accordingly, of insulting arrogance and bad-heartedness. In this reversed ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... excitable, but now he was beside himself; there was no reasoning with him. I thought it probable enough that Blanche Stroeve would not continue to find life with Strickland tolerable, but one of the falsest of proverbs is that you must lie on the bed that you have made. The experience of life shows that people are constantly ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... was due to some accident of mood or circumstance; and, at any rate, any charm she might have exhibited then had probably been obliterated by the coarsening effect of publicity and the tonic influence of his kinswoman. It will be observed that in this reasoning of Basil Ransom's the impression was freely recognised, and recognised as a phenomenon still present. The attraction might have vanished, as he said to himself, but the mental picture of it was yet vivid. The greater the pity that he couldn't call upon ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... following exercise most useful in stimulating the action of the brain for the purpose of producing clear thinking and reasoning. It has a wonderful effect in clearing the brain and nervous system, and those engaged in mental work will find it most useful to them, both in the direction of enabling them to do better work and also as a means of refreshing the mind and clearing ...
— The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath • Yogi Ramacharaka
... grave responsibility, and I only regret that I did not hesitate longer—four years ago. A man's first instincts of propriety, of right and wrong, should never be smothered by persuasion, nor wrestled down and overcome by subtle and selfish reasoning. I blame myself for much that has occurred, and I am willing to do all that I can toward repairing my error. If your child should ever really need a guardian, bring or send her to me, and I will shield her to the full extent of my ability." Ere he was aware of her intention, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the truth that our theory depends essentially not upon action or talk, but upon the quality and rationale of thought. It is a question of Potentiality, rather than of Dynamics. It is the process of reasoning which concerns us, not its translation into conduct. A man may be a devoted supporter of Mrs. Grundy and yet be a Sulphite, if he has, in his own mind, reached an original conclusion that society needs her ...
— Are You A Bromide? • Gelett Burgess
... any of those great scientific people might have understood, but which simply reduced me to a hopeless muddle, that not only was such a substance possible, but that it must satisfy certain conditions. It was an amazing piece of reasoning. Much as it amazed and exercised me at the time, it would be impossible to reproduce it here. "Yes," I said to it all, "yes; go on!" Suffice it for this story that he believed he might be able to manufacture this possible substance opaque ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... perceiving my concern, asked what I intended to do, or if he could serve me in any shape, and desired to know whither I proposed to retreat. I affected to laugh, and answered, "To a garret, I believe." To this overstrained reasoning he replied, that if I should, his friendship and regard would find the way to my apartment; and I had no reason to doubt the sincerity of his declaration. We consulted about the measures I should take, and I determined to ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the fight, but Williams, his lieutenant, strenuously opposed it; and being not to be appeased by all that Gow could say to him, or any one else, flew out into a rage at Gow, upbraiding him with being a coward, and not fit to command a ship of force. The truth is, Gow's reasoning was good, and the thing was just, considering their own condition; but Williams was a fellow incapable of any solid thinking, had a kind of savage, brutal courage, but nothing of true bravery in ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... Was it reasoning from the inscriptions, or was it simply chance, or was it the characters of the suitors, that led them to choose as ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... his circulation, although it was made of pure silver. The Sawyer wished to keep this silver bullet as a token, but the doctor said that it belonged to him according to miners' law; and so it came to a moderate argument. Each was a thoroughly stubborn man, according to the bent of all good men, and reasoning increased their unreason. But the doctor won—as indeed he deserved, for the extraction had been delicate—because, when reason had been exhausted, he just ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... in the ship's papers, and the time of her appearance on board was recorded in the log. Coke might be a man of one idea, but he held to it as though it were written in the Admiralty Sailing Directions; not his would be the fault if David Verity failed to appreciate the logic of his reasoning long before ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... you here, Arthur," debated Mr. Galloway, in a tone of reasoning. "I suspect neither you nor Yorke; indeed, as it seems, Yorke put himself out of suspicion's way, by walking off; but if no one came to the office, and yet the note went, remember the position in which you place yourself. I say I don't blame you, I don't suspect you; but I do say that the mystery ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... thought of disease-laden surroundings filled him with alarm. Could they have unwittingly wandered into a deserted pest-ship? A focus of death in these rotting seas? The very air he breathed, the wood he touched, might inoculate him with malignant germs. Then he began reasoning on it. ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... in honesty, and it was also the beginning of that train of reasoning in my own mind, by which I came to understand that when people called "Toots" they meant me. And as—to do them justice—they generally called me with some kind intention, I made a point of responding ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... only, it remains to enquire how he performs, and which way he directs his Attacks; the Faculties of Man are a kind of a Garrison in a strong Castle, which as they defend it on the one hand under the Command of the reasoning Power of Man's Soul, so they are prescribed on the other hand, and can't sally out without Leave; for the Governor of a Fort does not permit his Soldiers to hold any Correspondence with the Enemy, without special Order and Direction. ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... so had he been capable of cool thought at the time; but the sudden rush of hope when he heard of his child being near, combined with the agony of disappointment on seeing her torn, as it were, out of his very grasp, was too much for him. His reasoning powers were completely overturned; he continued to buffet the waves with wild energy, and to strain every fiber of his being in the effort to propel himself through the water, long after the boat ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... to watch the profound interest with which she listens, and the patient efforts she makes to understand. I must in justice add that she sometimes, though not often, displays gleams of clear intelligence, and powers of close incisive reasoning, that quite ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... found, save perhaps the rather novel one, that "in Macbeth the interest is suspended at the death of Duncan, and does not revive until that of the tyrant is at hand;" she winds up with saying, "obvious as this train of reasoning appears, it has been overlooked equally by the opponents and the sticklers for the old canons of criticism; a lamentable instance of the influence of authority, and of the spirit of party, on the judgments of the most cultivated minds." This is a sample of modest ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... Reasoning from the circumstances and his knowledge of Indian nature, Henry believed that Daniel Boone was right, yet he had confidence in the result. Seven hundred trained borderers were not easily beaten, even if Logan and the other three hundred ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... way of reasoning it was simply a question of choice between the position of master of the Brotherhood and master-mechanic. Which was nearest, and which would last longest and pay best? These were the points he was considering, and he chose what appeared to him to be the surest and quickest ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... Profound reasoning! Here is a brick fresh from the kiln. It will last for a thousand years to come; therefore, it has existed for a thousand ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... practitioners intimated at times that he was tricky. In conferences with opposing counsel, one heard, he required watching, as he was wary of committing himself and it was difficult to discover what line of reasoning he elected to oppose or defend. In such conferences it was his fashion to begin any statement that might seem even remotely to bind him with the remark, "I'm just thinking aloud on that proposition and don't want to be bound by what I say." The students ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... going back and giving a history of himself for the last seven or eight years. Now we know why the poet specially praised the mind of Arete, and why her husband so honored her, and why she could be judge of disputes among men. She shows the keenest observation united with reasoning power; she stands out in contrast with the Phaeacian men, who follow impulse more readily than she, as she keeps the judicial balance, though a woman, and demands evidence of truth ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... according to routine, has little weight. To speak, look, and do what your own soul from its depths orders you are credentials of greatness which all men understand and acknowledge. Such a man's dictum has more influence than the reasoning of an imitative or commonplace man. He fills his circle with confidence. He is self-possessed, firm, accurate, and daring. Such men are the pioneers of civilisation and the rulers of the ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... people have gone much farther than we in the development of the purely reasoning faculties—in fact, they have gone so far that they now ignore reason almost completely, having carried its development to a finality, and found it comparatively worthless in the practical affairs of life. They claim—and seem by their lives ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... a spinster to understand why any woman should wish to hold a man against his will. A dog who has to be kept chained, in order to be retained as a pet, is never a very satisfactory possession. It seems natural to apply the same reasoning to human affairs, for surely no love is worth having which is not a ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... Janeiro had been ignorantly construed into acts of His Imperial Majesty—so that the injured people argued that it would have been better for them to have remained a colony of Portugal, than a colony of the Government at Rio de Janeiro—this mode of reasoning not being very far wrong. Secondly—and this fully accounts for the moderation complained of—I knew, from the most authentic sources that, in case of attack on the city, Carvalho had determined to retire into the interior, there to carry on civil war by enlisting the negro population ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... India? Whatever story I tell about its origin, some great authority will flatly contradict it. The beginning of caste, like that of most existing institutions, is lost in obscurity; but the most likely guess to my mind is that which founds caste upon this natural train of reasoning. ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... made him turn his head; there stood a tall, strong young woman in a loose gown caught together on her chest. Her grey eyes glanced from the painter to the bottles, from the bottles to the pistol-case. A simple reasoning, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a born naturalist? We mean a man in whom the zeal for observing nature is so uncommonly strong and eminent, that it marks him off from the bulk of mankind. Such a man will pass his life happily in collecting natural knowledge and reasoning upon it, and will ask for nothing, or hardly anything, more. I have heard it said that the sagacious and admirable naturalist whom we lost not very long ago, Mr. Darwin, once owned to a friend that for his part he did not experience ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... bears the impress, though in a degree always decreasing as the assimilating agencies of civilization make their way. Irrespectively of the influence of special employments, and perhaps even of peculiarity of race, mental vigour, independence, and reasoning power are always ascribed to the people of the North. Variety, in this as in other respects, would naturally produce a balance of tendencies in the nation conductive to moderation ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... of pleasure he loved with a violent avidity, and all this with a pride and a haughtiness impossible to describe; dangerously wise, moreover, to judge of men and things, and to detect the weak point in a train of reasoning, and to reason himself more cogently and more profoundly than his teachers. But at the same time, as soon as his passion was spent, reason resumed her sway; he felt his faults, he acknowledged them, ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... of the waste! O terrible Leo! O father of fighters! O Sultan of wild beasts! Behold, I am a lover in longing, whom passion and severance have been wronging; since I parted from my dear, I have lost my reasoning gear; wherefore, to my speech do thou give ear and have ruth on my passion and hope and fear." When the lion heard this, he drew back from him and sitting down on his hindquarters, raised his head to him and began to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... If the philosopher will seek after truth, there must be, says Plotinus, a "turning away" of the spirit, a detachment. He must aim at contemplation; action, he says, is "a weakening of contemplation." Our word theory, which we use in connection with reasoning and which comes from the same Greek root as theatre, means really looking fixedly at, contemplation; it is very near in meaning to our imagination. But the philosopher differs from the artist in this: he ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave; Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise, His pride in reasoning, not in acting, lies." Pope, Moral Essays, Ep. i. ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... inherent intoxication, and stands dead drunk in its bottle! Yet just in this way Mr. Russell and Mr. Moore conceive things to be dead good and dead bad. It is such a view, rather than the naturalistic one, that renders reasoning and self-criticism impossible in morals; for wrong desires, and false opinions as to value, are conceivable only because a point of reference or criterion is available to prove them such. If no ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... served a lady for ten years, and she falls sick of the small-pox, he is ipso facto absolved of his vow?" Meleagro decided that he was not, and was accepted by Ippolita, not because she admired his reasoning but because she thought it part of ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... future applications of the principle to the various questions of philosophical criticism which must arise in the course of this inquiry, it may be needful here to explain (as I have already explained elsewhere) how the chief intellectual operations—Perception, Inference, Reasoning, and Imagination—may be viewed as so many forms of ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... in his note to Roberta, for he felt that it was necessary for him to leave that part of the country in order to make impossible an interview for which he believed the proper time had not arrived. He was consulting his best interests, and also, no doubt, those of the lady. And yet, in spite of this reasoning, he was not satisfied with himself. He felt that his note was not entirely honest and true. There was subterfuge about it, and something of duplicity. This he believed was foreign to his nature, and he did ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... understood by the common people were the principles of liberty, and with what keen penetration they saw through all shams and specious reasoning, than the decided, nay, fierce, stand they took against the stamp act. This was nothing more than our present law requiring a governmental stamp on all public and business paper to make it valid. The only difference is, the former was levying a tax without representation—in other words, ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... and in time would come to count him but a memory, no doubt; while as for him—well, it would be hard to forget her, but he could and would. He reasoned glibly that this was the only honest course, and his reasoning convinced him; then, all of a sudden, the pressure of her warm lips came upon him and the remembrance upset every premise and process of his logic. Nevertheless, he was honest in his stubborn determination ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... in this pretended Assembly there were no free voicing; for the voicers were threatned to voice affirmative, under no lesse pain nor the wrath of authoritie, imprisonment, banishemnt, deprivation of ministers, and utter subversion of the state: Yea, it was plainly professed, that neither reasoning nor the number of voices should carie the matter away: Which is qualified by the declaration of many honest old reverend Brethren ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... the child. Damn it all, I'm made of flesh and blood. I'm not a fiend. But with women, if you have a grain of common-sense and reasoning power, you become a fiend the moment there's a row. I want Sabina and my child to have a good show ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... seemed to hear him, and went on with hardly a moment's interruption. 'I am a student,' he said, 'of the deductive method of reasoning, and I begin with the a priori assumption that E. W. Smith could not die. I should hold the same belief even if I believed in Purgatory.' (Dunbar pronounced the word with an incalculable number of r's in it, and it came from his throat like the rattle of musketry.) 'Presuming,' he went on, ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... but the law of his own nature. And since that nature is in itself divine, all that springs from it is praiseworthy, and those acts usually regarded as sins are not to be condemned. By this line of reasoning the Carpocratians arrived at much the same conclusions as modern Communists with regard to the ideal social system. Thus Epiphanus held that since Nature herself reveals the principle of the community and the unity of all things, human ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... Mirabeau himself having set the example when he descended from the tribune. He wrote his letters to his constituents in the Courrier de Provence. Camille Desmoulins, a young man of great talent but weak reasoning powers, threw into his lucubrations for the press the feverish tumult of his thoughts. Brissot, Gorsas, Carra, Prudhomme, Freron, Danton, Fauchet, Condorcet, edited democratic journals: they began by demanding the abolition ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... transition to a helpful remembrance that her father was not. The remaining divination, silently achieved, was quick and happy: she should acquit herself by asking her father for the sum required and by just passing it on to Mr. Flack. The grandeur of his enterprise and the force of his reasoning appeared to overshadow her as they stood there. This was a delightful simplification and it didn't for the moment strike her as positively unnatural that her companion should have a delicacy about appealing to Mr. Dosson directly for financial aid, though indeed ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James |
