"Wise Men" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and beauty, without any of the ornaments of dress or pomp of circumstances to set it off. Hence the unaccountable mixture of seeming simplicity and real abstruseness in the Lyrical Ballads. Fools have laughed at, wise men scarcely understand them. He takes a subject or a story merely as pegs or loops to hang thought and feeling on; the incidents are trifling, in proportion to his contempt for imposing appearances; the reflections are profound, according to the gravity and ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... belonging sound,—all these families and graduations of good or evil, however mingled, follow, in so far as they are good, one constant law of virtue (or "life-strength," which is the literal meaning of the word, and its intended one, in wise men's mouths), and in so far as they are evil, are evil by outlawry and unvirtue, or death-weakness. Then, passing wholly beyond the domain of death, we may still imagine the ascendant nobleness of the art, through all the ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... drawn from the traditions of the lodge of the great Brotherhood, which was once the secret splendor of Egypt. The rules written in its ante-chamber were the same as those now written in the ante-chamber of existing schools. Through all time the wise men have lived apart from the mass. And even when some temporary purpose or object induces one of them to come into the midst of human life, his seclusion and safety is preserved as completely as ever. It is part of his inheritance, ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... elan which is the result of proper training methods. There is nothing more soulless than a religion without good works unless it be a patriotism which does not concern itself with the welfare and dignity of the individual. This is a simple idea though wise men in all ages have recognized it as one of the most profound truths. From Aristotle on down the philosophers have said that the main force in shaping the characters of men is not teaching and preaching, though these too are important, ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... interchanged repartees with Eugene; George II. sent congratulations to Louis XV., during a war, upon occasion of his escape from the attempt of Damien: and these things are fine and generous, and very gratifying to the author of the Broad Stone of Honour, and all the other wise men who think, like him, that God made the world only for the use of gentlemen. But they spring in general from utter heartlessness. No war ought ever to be undertaken but under circumstances which render all interchange of courtesy between the combatants impossible. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the service of the lowest, with a grand humility. You may speak freely with any, without a thought of your inferiority; for books are perfectly well-bred, and hurt no one's feelings by any discriminations." Sir William Waller observed, "In my study, I am sure to converse with none but wise men, but abroad it is impossible for me to avoid the society of fools." "It is the glorious prerogative of the empire of knowledge," says Webster, "that what it gains it never loses. On the contrary, it increases by the multiple of its ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... among the idle questions, which were unworthy of wise men, the dispute whether Homer wrote both the Iliad and Odyssey, and in what countries Ulysses wandered. Notwithstanding the "Stoic's philosophic pride," these inquiries have still an interest to minds of the highest order—such is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... speculative question among philosophers and wise men, whether foreign commerce is of real advantage to any country; that is, whether the luxury, effeminacy, and corruptions, which are introduced along with it, are counterbalanced by the convenience and wealth which it brings. But the decision of this question is of very ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... attempt to distrain for rent on some of these gentlemen would assuredly bring a bullet through your brain or mine. It is not an easy matter to get money out of an Irishman when he is determined not to pay, and it is not for you or me, if we are wise men, to push the matter too hard. I will do my best and go among them, and put it to them, whether they would like to deprive the young heiress of her property. Perhaps, though they will not yield to force, they may to persuasion, and I am thankful to say, we still retain in old Ireland, the ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... the world down to the beginning of this century, mankind had not found out, with all its striving after cheap and easy transport, the miraculous difference that would be brought about by laying down two parallel lines of metal. All the great men and the wise men of the past lived and died oblivious of that fact. The greatest mechanicians and engineers of antiquity, the men who bridged all the rivers of Europe, the architects who built the cathedrals which are still the wonder of the ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... Turanian ruler, learned that Sohrab was going to war with the Persians, he was greatly pleased, and after counselling with his wise men, decided openly to assist him in his enterprises, with the expectation that both Rustum and Sohrab would fall in battle and Persia be at his mercy. He accordingly sent an army of auxiliaries to Sohrab, accompanied by two astute courtiers, Houman and Barman, who, under ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... the original Greek signifies appearance or manifestation, as St. Austin observes,[1] is a festival principally solemnized in honor of the discovery Jesus Christ made of himself to the Magi, or wise men; who, soon after his birth, by a particular inspiration of Almighty God, came to adore him and bring him presents.[2] Two other manifestations of our Lord are jointly commemorated on this day in the office of the church; that at his baptism, when the Holy Ghost descended on him in the visible ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... generally,—certainly I did not feel any disposition to depart from my habitual contentment, that you should say your thought, whilst I say mine. I believe I must tell you what I think of my new position. It strikes me very oddly that good and wise men at Cambridge and Boston should think of raising me into an object of criticism. I have always been—from my very incapacity of methodical writing—a 'chartered libertine,' free to worship and free to rail,—lucky ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... ascending road brought us to the hill of Mar Elyas, and the so-called Well of the Magi. Here the legend says the Wise Men halted after they had left Jerusalem, and the star reappeared to guide them on to Bethlehem. Certain it is that they must have taken this road; and certain it is that both Bethlehem and Jerusalem, hidden from each other by the ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... to me, whither must I wander? Hunger my driver, I go where I must. Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather; Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust. Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree, The true word of welcome was spoken in the door— Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight, Kind folks of old, you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... character well and judged that he would not be lenient towards any one who had been forcibly rescued, no matter how innocent he might be. Moreover the law against foreigners who attempted to work in glass was in force, and very stringent. Contarini, like many over-wise men who have no control whatever over their own children, was always for excessive severity in all processes of the law. Beroviero thought of some others, but against each one ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... train of venerable and majestic fathers was seen moving through a broad pathway of the people, who drew back reverently, on either side, as the Governor and magistrates, the old and wise men, the holy ministers, and all that were eminent and renowned, advanced into the midst of them. When they were fairly in the market-place, their presence was greeted by a shout. This—though doubtless it might acquire additional force and volume from the childlike loyalty which the age ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... philosophical inquirer until Thales arose, the first of the Ionian school. He was born at Miletus, a Greek colony in Asia Minor, about the year 636 B.C., when Ancus Martius was king of Rome, and Josiah reigned at Jerusalem. He has left no writings behind him, but was numbered as one of the seven wise men of Greece on account of his political sagacity and wisdom in public affairs. I do not here speak of his astronomical and geometrical labors, which were great, and which have left their mark even upon our own daily life,—as, for instance, in the fact that he was the first to have divided the year ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... ours: Great Carle, the Emperor who rules Sweet France Comes to this land to 'whelm us with his might. To give him battle I no army have, Nor people to array against his host: Your counsel give me, Lords, as my wise men, And so defend your King from death and shame;" But answer none a single Pagan gave, Save Blancandrin ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... In the first place, they realize the confidence I had, that, whenever our affairs go obviously wrong, the good sense of the people will interpose, and set them to rights. The example of changing a constitution, by assembling the wise men of the State, instead of assembling armies, will be worth as much to the world as the former examples we had given them. The constitution, too, which was the result of our deliberations, is unquestionably the wisest ever ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... writing of the extreme religiousness of the Romans, expressed his conviction that religion was invented for political objects, and only serves as the means of bridling the fickle and unreasoning Demos; for if it were possible to have a State consisting of wise men only, no such institution would be necessary.[706] The philosophic historian is here thinking mainly of the way in which religion was turned to account by the Roman authorities in his own lifetime. We cannot have a better illustration of this than the events of the ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... wise men of Normandy debating how to make peace between father and son. In the course of the year 1080 a peace was patched up, and a more honourable sphere was found for Robert's energies in an expedition into Scotland. In the autumn of the year of Gerberoi Malcolm had made ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... literature we have many allusions: the mulatto king, Feirifis, was one of Wolfram von Eschenbach's heroes; Prester John furnished endless lore; Othello, the warrior, and the black king represented by medieval art as among the three wise men, and the various black Virgin Marys' all show legendary knowledge of what African civilization was at ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... advice, and after hearing the object of his embassy:—'See,' said Periander, 'to what degree I have prospered. These gentlemen,' pointing to his courtiers, 'have been telling me that my people, and the universal opinion of mankind, enrol me one of the seven wise men of Greece.' ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... Calhoun, Lamborn and Thomas for the Democrats, having assiduously prepared for the trial, debated the burning issues of the time. The effort of each filled an evening and Lincoln's speech gave him new hope of himself. Wise men began to have great confidence in his future. He had taken the style of Webster for his model. He no longer used the broad humor which had characterized his efforts on the stump. A study of the best speeches ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... air: there would be only pictures of eagles on our money and banners. If he could have been told what was happening, and that there was danger that the country would be without a living emblem, and that there might be only stuffed emblems in museums, would he not have thought, "Surely the strong, wise men who go forth to fight for right and liberty will see that the bird of freedom has ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... of the waters. Nor did I doubt the entire truth of what she said to me, for my head was full of fables that I had no longer the knowledge and emotion to write. Then you brought me with you to see your friends in the cottages, and to talk to old wise men on Slieve Echtge, and we gathered together, or you gathered for me, a great number of stories and traditional beliefs. You taught me to understand again, and much more perfectly than before, the ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... in a state of great distress. Some of the causes of this distress are, I fear, beyond the control of the Government. We know what effect distress produces, even on people more intelligent than the great body of the labouring classes can possibly be. We know that it makes even wise men irritable, unreasonable, credulous, eager for immediate relief, heedless of remote consequences. There is no quackery in medicine, religion, or politics, which may not impose even on a powerful ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... tedious shores of Lethe" that always comes back at Christmas. It takes only one little child to make Christmas—one little child, and the angels who companion him, and the shepherds who come to see him, and the Wise Men who worship him and bring ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... sang. He stood upon his feet and spoke at the moment of his birth; at five months of age he sat unsupported in the air; and at the moment of his conversion he was attacked by a legion of demons. He was visited by wise men, he was baptized, transfigured, performed miracles, rose from the dead, and on his ascension through the air to heaven, he left his footprint on a ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... pre-Trojan character still, being an old man; but Ulysses has lost that, and so separates from Nestor, though never before had they differed "in the Council of the Chiefs or in the Assembly of the People." But Ulysses has to return by a far different road, and now each of the two wise men takes his own way, though both ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... left and these were read. Death was a recurring incident in an endless life. Wise men he saw had found this an answer to all problems—founders of religions and philosophies—Buddha, Pythagoras, Plato, the Christ. Wise moderns had accepted it, Max Mueller and Hume and Goethe, Fichte, Schelling, Lessing. Bean could not ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... at choyse I haue. But onely which of them Ile make my graue. 170 Tit. Tis but discomfort which misgreeues thee this, Greefe by dispaire seemes greater then it is, Bru. Tis womannish to wayle and mone our greefe, By Industrie do wise men seeke releefe, If that our casting do fall out a misse, Our cunning play must then correct the dice. Pom. Well if it needs must bee then let me goe, Flying for ayde vnto my forrayne friends, And sue ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... clothed in green; The King could not tell it, no more could the Queen; So they sent to consult wise men from the East. Who said it had horns, though it ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... labor, as the wild fig-tree casts her untimely figs? Is it all a dream then—the desire of the eyes and the pride of life—or, if it be, might we not live in nobler dream than this? The poets and prophets, the wise men, and the scribes, though they have told us nothing about a life to come, have told us much about the life that is now. They have had—they also,—their dreams, and we have laughed at them. They have dreamed of mercy, and of justice; they have ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... otherwise called the "Seven Wise Men of Greece," the accounts are confused and contradictory, and their names are variously given; but those most generally admitted to the honor are Solon (the Athenian legislator); Bias, of Ionia; Chi'lo (Ephor of Sparta); Cleobu'lus (despot of Lindos, ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... effect, ye wise men, that only the wicked have suffered; but it is not so, for aforetime I have seen the honest poor ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... be, also, a sort of anachronism of the limbs, as in the case of the painter of Toledo, who painted the story of the three wise men of the east coming to worship, and bringing their presents to our Lord, upon his birth, at Bethlehem, whence he presents them as three Arabian, or Indian kings; two of them are white, and one of them black; but, unhappily, when he drew the latter part of them kneeling, which, to be sure, was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... and with the applause of the assembly! This balance is observed in the privatest intercourse. Poor Tom never knew the time when the present occurrence was so trivial that he could tell what was passing in his mind without being checked for unseasonable speech; but let Bacon speak, and wise men would rather listen, though the revolution of kingdoms was on foot. I have heard it reported of an eloquent preacher, whose voice is not yet forgotten in this city, that, on occasions of death or tragic disaster, which overspread the congregation with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... which shall be rooted in the true nature of things and the real order of the universe. We are not to start with any supposed comprehension of the general plan, whether as revealed by miracle or thought out by wise men. We are simply to live our own lives according to the best knowledge we have, the highest examples we know, the most satisfying results of our own experience. And, with whatever discipline and enrichment this ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... the first titter put a fire in my veins that kept me warm all the evening. An occasional glance at Madam Le Baron's placid face enabled me to preserve my sense of proportion, and I remembered that two wise men, Solomon and my Uncle John, had compared the laughter of fools to the crackling of thorns under a pot. And—and there were some who ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... The tabernacle is one, the temple another; the porch which he built for his throne, his throne for judgment; and this house of the forest of Lebanon is the fourth. Now the three first, to wit, the tabernacle, the temple, the porch and throne, wise men will say are typical; and therefore so ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... we pass a well, surrounded by blocks of stone. At this well the wise men from the East rested, and here the guiding star appeared to them. Midway between Jerusalem and Bethlehem lies the Greek convent dedicated to the prophet Elijah. From hence we can see both towns; on the one hand, the spacious Jerusalem, and on the other, the humble Bethlehem, with some small ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... from rash labor, that home and stronghold was Springhaven. To most men good success brings neither comfort, nor tranquillity, nor so much as a stool to sit upon, but comes as a tread-mill which must be trodden without any getting to the top of it. Not so did these wise men take their luck. If ever they came from the fickle wave-bosom to the firm breast of land on a Saturday, with a fine catch of fish, and sold it well—and such was their sagacity that sooner would they keep it for cannibal temptation than sell it badly—did they rush into the waves again, before ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... planning to make a tour of the United Kingdom, and could command the service of all the wise men I count or have counted among my friends, I would go with such a retinue summoned from the ranks of the living and the dead as no prince ever carried with him. I would ask Mr. Lowell to go with me among scholars, where I could be a ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... have ventured what I thought my duty, to speak in season and to forewarn my country in time; wherein I doubt not but there be many wise men in all places and degrees, but am sorry the effects of wisdom are so little seen among us. Many circumstances and particulars I could have added in those things whereof I have spoken; but a few main matters now put speedily into execution will suffice to recover ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... in the state of France in those days much to admire, or much to induce wise men to exert their influence over the young and noble, to induce them to linger in the neighborhood of a court which was in itself a very sink of corruption. It was with no great difficulty, therefore, that Raoul obtained ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... which Christ was declared to have deceived himself! Thereupon the Christians were obliged to elevate their founder's mean condition by wonderful stories. The first myth is concerning John the Baptist. Then follow the wonderful stories of Christ's birth, the advent of the wise men, the baptism, temptation, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ. There are doubts and difficulties connected with the resurrection, and though the apostles constantly assert its truth, the probable story is that the followers of Jesus, enraged at his death, gave ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... the world and few wise men; at any rate there are more false than sound reasoners; wherefore it would seem more politic to adopt the opinion of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... hast made nothing in vain, but, Lord, why hast Thou made these black, grisly rocks? No man nor beast is helped by them in all the world. Rocks have destroyed a hundred thousand men, and which of all Thy works is so fair as man? No doubt wise men will say, 'All is for the best.' But, oh Thou God, who makest the winds to blow, keep Thou my lord! And—would to God that these black rocks were sunk in the deep for his sake! They ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... saw a little more," said his father. "He must go to Chang-ngan, and study under the wise men there, and find out what the world ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... recognition of this fact; and this recognition, logically developed, involves that all usages of behaviour which are not based on natural requirements, are injurious. That these conventions defeat their own ends is no new assertion. Swift, criticising the manners of his day, says—"Wise men are often more uneasy at the over-civility of these refiners than they could possibly be in the conversation ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... of several wise men in the court of a prince for the making of laws; but it comes thence to mean that which they have determined upon as law, and is so used in the judiciary ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... of the Tonto Sandstones. The wise men tell us that this ocean was a salt sea, and that it was quite shallow while these new sediments were being deposited. Little by little one thousand feet of the sediments of this epoch were washed down, so that it is very likely that the tilted strata upon which they rested slowly sank lower ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... is not simply a collection of wise sayings and affectionate exhortations, for you will remember that the Proverbs were put down after the event and not before its occurrence. This being true, Proverbs presents an established fact: here we find what the wise men in all the ages have learned to be truth. If they speak of sin and its penalty they do it in the light of their own experience; if they say the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge they mean that ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... inasmuch as it brings men of different degrees together, and promotes their intimacy and friendship; and 'advantage the ninth, is in wisdom and knowledge, and that wise men do play chess; and to those who object that foolish men also play chess, and, though constantly engaged in it, become no wiser, it may be answered, that the distinction between wise and foolish men in playing chess, is as that of man and beast in eating ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... of Education is upon our Minds, and how by a due regard had to it, Common-wealths and Kingdoms have flourished, and become famous; and how much this has been recommended by Wise Men in all Ages, requires but a small consideration of Humane Nature, and Acquaintance with History to inform us; nor is any thing more obvious to observe than the power of Education. This matter yet has no where been ordinarily look'd after, proportionably to the moment it ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... those pictures of Giotto's must have been, then, to those poor folk! They looked at the little Baby Jesus sitting on His mother's knee, wrapped in swaddling bands, just like one of their own little ones, and it made Him seem a very real baby. The wise men who talked together and pointed to the shining star overhead looked just like any of the great nobles of Florence. And there at the back were the two horses looking on with wise interested eyes, just as any of their own horses ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... turned out of his Court, or at least be laughed at for my pains? For instance, what could it signify if I were about the King of France, and were called into his cabinet-council, where several wise men, in his hearing, were proposing many expedients; as by what arts and practices Milan may be kept; and Naples, that had so oft slipped out of their hands, recovered; how the Venetians, and after them the rest of Italy, may be subdued; and then how Flanders, Brabant, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... are the great masses of our really wealthy and well-to-do Londoners? How much is it needed, that wise men should try to re-awaken in them the sense of corporate life, and literally ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... was she Helen, but she was Leda, the mother of Helen. Then she was Saint Anne, mother of Mary; and next she was Mary, visited by an Angel in a dream, and followed by the Wise Men who had seen the Star in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... reverence for art and to estimate the relations of art and life. One would steel oneself against the fallacy that art, true art, might exist only for art's sake, when one had read "Sesame and Lilies" and "The Stones of Venice." Those wise men who make literary "selections" for the young have done well to include in their volumes that graphic description, so carefully modulated in tone, of the Cathedral of St. Mark. Its only fault is that it comes ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... prooue Witchcraft to be, by diuerse examples, and speciallie by sundrie of the same, which ye haue alleaged, it is thought by some, that these places speakes of Magicians and Necromancers onlie, & not of Witches. As in special, these wise men of Pharaohs, that counterfeited Moyses miracles, were Magicians say they, & not Witches: As likewise that Pythonisse that Saul consulted with: And so was Simon Magus in the new Testament, as that very stile importes. Secondlie, ...
— Daemonologie. • King James I
... Wise Men had sat in council together in the castle dining-room, Patsy Ferris and Louis Raincy climbed over opposite high walls and dropped almost simultaneously, and as naturally as ripe fruit falls, into the old orchard of Raincy. In the midst of the walled enclosure stood the marble mausoleum of the family, ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... the most profound, and the evening was pretty far advanced—indeed supper was over, and the process of digestion proceeding as favourably as, under the influence of complete tranquillity, cheerful conversation, and a moderate allowance of brandy-and-water, most wise men conversant with the anatomy and functions of the human frame will consider that it ought to have proceeded, when the three friends, or as one might say, both in a civil and religious sense, and with proper deference and regard to the holy state of matrimony, the two ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... represented, and the best method of overruling Congress was discussed. Much high-flown eloquence was wasted, but the convention broke up without deciding upon any course of action. The matter had become so serious that wise men changed their minds, and disapproved of proceedings calculated to throw Congress into contempt. Samuel Adams, who had almost violently opposed the grant of half-pay and had been dissatisfied with the Commutation Act, now came completely over to the other side. Whatever might be thought of the policy ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... "You wise men believe in the stars," replied Antinous. "No doubt you are right, but my weak head cannot understand what their regular courses have to do with ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... wisdom, in the grave." Death puts an end absolutely and irrevocably to all our plans and works, and it is inevitable. The Psalmist speaks to "high and low, rich and poor, one with another." "No man can deliver his brother, nor make agreement unto God for him." Even "wise men die, as well as the ignorant and foolish, and leave their riches for other[1]." Difficult as we may find it to bring it home to ourselves, to realize it, yet as surely as we are here assembled together, so surely will every one of us, sooner or later, one by one, be stretched ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... yet to be able to judge. Our wise men are saying—I heard them saying—that if Messiah come not soon, he must have come." David's colour changed even as ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... farthing, your spirits are too narrow and your hearts too low for the honour and tenor of this covenant. If any shall say these demands are very high and the charge very great, but is a part in this covenant worth it? Will it quit cost to be at so great a charge? Wise men love to see and have somewhat for their money; and when they see they will not stick at any cost ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... worshipped its marbles, and Phidias was crowned King of Emotions. Music alone lagged in the race, music, part speech, part painting, with a surging undertow of passion, music had been too long in the laboratories of the wise men. To free it from its Egyptian bondage, to make it the tongue of all life, the interpreter of the world's desire—Illowski dreamed ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... best foot foremost, and if we have a reason to give that looks sensible we speak it out like men, and never say anything about the silliness we are hugging to our hearts. But I ask you again, where does this fine society come from, and these wise men, and these distinguished travellers? Why, out of country parishes like this! London picks 'em all up, and decks herself with them, and then calls out loud to the folks she's robbed, and says, "Come and see how fine I am." Fine, indeed! I've no patience ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... This is (I admit) quite a recent idea. It never entered into the tousled heads of the shepherds by night, when the light of the angel of the Lord shone about them and they arose and went to do homage to the Child. It never entered into the heads of the Three Wise Men. They did not bring their gifts as a joke, but as an awful oblation. It never entered into the heads of the saints and scholars, the poets and painters, of the Middle Ages. Looking back across the years, they saw in that dark and ungarnished manger only a shrinking woman, ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... all, it was an agreed and determined on thing among them, these wise men of Gotham, to abolish all kings, clergy, and religion, as havers. No, no—what need had such wise pows as theirs of being taught or lectured to? What need had such feelosophers of having a king to rule over, or a Parliament to direct them? There was not a single one among their number, that ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... mistaken: but we have not discovered his mistake for ourselves, and have no right to plume ourselves on other men's discoveries. Had we lived in Amyas's days, we should have belonged either to the many wise men who believed as he did, or to the many foolish men, who not only sneered at the story of Manoa, but at a hundred other stories, which we now know to be true. Columbus was laughed at: but he found a new world, nevertheless. Cortez was laughed ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... you, I speak not as one light of wit, But as a queen speaks, being heart-vexed; for oft I hear my brothers wrangling in mid hall, And am not moved; and my son chiding them, And these things nowise move me, but I know Foolish and wise men must be to the end, And feed myself with patience; but this most, This moves me, that for wise men as for fools Love is one thing, an evil thing, and turns Choice words and wisdom into fire and air. And ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... "When the Wise Men come out of the East," Seth told her, "and buy up ouah land fo' the Magic City, we shall be rich. It is then that I shall build this beautiful house, so beautiful that she must come and ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... which are overrated by the ordinary World, and too much neglected by Wise Men, You have applied with the justest Skill and Judgment. The most graceful Address in Horsemanship, in the Use of the Sword, and in Dancing, has been employed by You as lower Arts, and as they have occasionally served to recover, or introduce ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... know, reader, I am very near leaving him so for good and all, and suspending these sketches indefinitely,—yea, even to the time of the Mississippi dividends, or any other period beyond the Greek Calends that your imagination can conjure up. For the wise men—and the wise women, too—of Gotham are wroth with me, and one says that I am writing on purpose to libel this man or puff that woman, and another charges me with sketching my own life in Fraser, for self-glorification, and a third holds up the last number of Pendennis at me and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... These "wise men" among the Hebrews studied human nature, and gave to young men and to any less-experienced people who cared to listen, the benefit of their practical good sense. They loved to teach through "proverbs," that is, short and witty sentences. A large number of the ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... fast, Thorward. Although no doubt we are valiant sailors—and woe betide the infatuated man who shall venture to deny it!—yet must we put our pride in our pouches for once, and accept instruction from Hake. After all, it is said that wise men may learn something from babes—if so, why may not sea-kings learn from thralls?— unless, indeed, we be not up to the mark of ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... succeeds in penetrating the secret of those above, no one believes him, and he is struck with madness so that no one ever shall. Since then mortals have been more or less demented, particularly those who are held to be wise, but madmen are in reality the only wise men; for they can see, hear and feel the invisible, the inaudible and the intangible, though they cannot relate their experiences to others.' Thus Zohar, the wisest of all the books of wisdom, and therefore one that no one believes. I shall build no tower of Babel, but I shall ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... teachings of Wan and Wu have not yet fallen to the ground. They exist in men. Worthy and wise men have the more important of these stored up in their minds; and others, who are not such, store up the less important of them; and as no one is thus without the teachings of Wan and Wu, how should our Master not have learned? And moreover what permanent preceptor ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... music of tinkling icicles so dear to Cowper's heart. Christmas itself isn't much of a festa in the South, and has none of the mystery and home pathos which makes it dear to Englishmen. There is the "presepio" in the church, there is the procession of the Wise Men at Epiphany-tide, but the only real break to the winter's dulness is the Feast of ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... at all offended, or think it an injury to the art, when I see the common dealers in it, the students in astrology, the philomaths, and the rest of that tribe, treated by wise men with the utmost scorn and contempt; but rather wonder, when I observe gentlemen in the country, rich enough to serve the nation in parliament, poring in Partridge's almanack, to find out the events of the year at home and abroad; not daring to propose a hunting-match, till Gadbury or he ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... two recovered ones before them. So far, so good; but intelligence may be abused. The dog, as he is by little man's inferior in mind, is only by little his superior in virtue; and John had another collie tale of quite a different complexion. At the foot of the moss behind Kirk Yetton (Caer Ketton, wise men say) there is a scrog of low wood and a pool with a dam for washing sheep. John was one day lying under a bush in the scrog, when he was aware of a collie on the far hillside skulking down through the deepest of the heather ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... say, and we have a Ministry doing with us what they will. Well, sir, and that being so, and opposition a manner of kicking them into greater stability, it is the time for wise men to retire within themselves, with the steady determination of the seed in the earth to grow. Repose upon nature, sleep in firm faith, and abide the seasons. That is my counsel to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ordinary clock. The children watched with breathless interest as two bronze giants on the platform high above their heads suddenly lifted their arms and struck a huge bell twelve times, then relapsed into bronze statues again. Giovanni told the Twins that at Christmas-time the Three Wise Men came out of the clock and bowed before the Madonna and Child. The Twins thought this could be nothing else than a miracle, but Giovanni, who was wise beyond his years, said it was just works in the clock's insides. "It's no more a miracle than ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... bar or in the dungeon that wise men know a felon by his features." Another English pickpocket appears to have Alps on Alps of difference between him and a thief. Good-nature prevails; there is a little latent fire; not enough energy to be bad, or good, against the current. He has some quiet dignity, too,—the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... The natives assembled in crowds, and brought bread, cotton, rabbits, and birds on board the ships. They inquired with great curiosity of the interpreter, if this new race of men was descended from heaven. Their king, and a number of wise men who accompanied him, made known by signs that this land was not an island. Landing on another neighbouring island, which almost touched Cuba, the Spaniards were unable to discover a single inhabitant; everybody, men and women, ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... agree with you as to the indisputable benefits of science. Confess, however, that all the learning of your philosophers and mathematicians can I never confer on any people the precious customs of the days of old. When we look back on what has been done by the would-be wise men of antiquity to ennoble the moral state of man, I will not speak of the mad ceremonial of the burlesque festivals invented by the revolutionists of 1793. They were but scenes of disorder and frenzy. Imagine, however, the ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... Violet sat on a low stool and held the new-born Divinity in her arms; May, who for the part of Joseph had been permitted to wear a false beard, held a staff, and tried to assume the facial expression of a man who had just been blessed with a son. In the foreground knelt the three wise men from the East; with outstretched hands they held forth their offerings of frankincense and myrrh. The picture of the world's Redemption was depicted with such taste that a murmur of pious admiration sighed throughout ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... to go without any food for a year or longer because of a certain elixir the composition of which is known only to the philosophical. This faculty is not confined to myself alone, it is the common property of all wise men, and it is known that the illustrious Cardan went without food during several years without being incommoded by it. On the contrary his mind became singularly vivacious. But still I'll eat what it pleases you to offer me, ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... accustoms the marrying of the sons, especially the oldest son, at the age of thirteen. It is supposed that Issa, resisting the thraldom and carnal temptation of the marital state, fled from the importunities of the wise men, who would fain unite their offspring with such a wise and ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... to seven," he reflected; then, turning to the right, he walked quickly to a little wine shop with flowers in the windows, the Tavern of the Three Wise Men, an interesting fragment of old-time Paris that offers its cheery but battered hospitality under the very shadow of ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... was an answering twinkle in Captain Elisha's eye; "well, Steve needs to grow, too; though I wouldn't presume to tell him so. When a feller's undertakin' to give advice to one of the seven wise men, he has to be diplomatic, as you ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... indeed, in the childhood of the race, has been the belief in the Fatherhood of God. Concerning the first parents of human kind the ancient Hebrew Scripture declares: "And God created man in His own image," and long centuries afterwards, in his memorable oration to the wise men of Athens upon Mars' Hill, the Apostle Paul quoted with approval the words of the Greek poet, Cleanthes, who had said: "For we are all His off-spring." Epictetus, appealing to a master on behalf of his slaves, asked: "Wilt thou not remember over whom thou ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... some whisper at the bottom of her mind was heard with a clearness sufficient to make her uncomfortable, but reason held a feeble citadel at best in Joan's mind. The whisper died, memory spoke of the notable value which wise men through long past years had placed upon this charm, and in the face of the future it seemed wicked to reject a thing of such proven efficacy. So she picked up the adder's slough, designing to sew it upon a piece of flannel and ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... the wise men of this world divide all created things into two classes; one class they name substances, the other accidents. The substances are those things that exist through themselves without requiring anything else on which to rest, as the ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... said, "we must have them in the window on Christmas morning, with the Wise Men and ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... stories, the tombs of the mighty dead; And the wise men seeking out marvels, and the ...
— Chants for Socialists • William Morris
... has a meaning? This is what thinkers have been asking themselves since thought began, and I have really nothing new to say about it. What I have to say leads back through Hegelianism to the old Greek thinkers, and beyond them again to the wise men who lived and taught in the East ages before Jesus was born. It is that this finite universe of ours is one means to the self-realisation of the infinite. Supposing God to be the infinite consciousness, there are still possibilities ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... co-extensive with the triumphs of Christianity. It was nothing new or strange, that Jehovah had concealed his glory "from the wise and prudent, and had revealed it unto babes," or that "the common people heard him gladly," while "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... were going on out of doors, Cathelineau and Forte, the two priests, and a few others—the wise men of the town—were collected together within the auberge, and were consulting as ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... Wise Men soon espied it, And told the king on high, A princely babe was born that night ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... he, 'what saith the proverb? "Kings govern the earth, but wise men govern kings." My sons shall be wise as well as kingly, and then they can ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... me then, The time draws on, I must remove so insolent a Suitor, And if he be so rich, make him pay ransome Ere he see Bruges Towers again. Thus wise men Repair the hurts they take by a disgrace, And piece the Lions skin with the ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... couereth him that hath no buriall. And, to conclude, I will reuenge his death! But how? Not as the vulgare wits of men, With open, but ineuitable ils; As by a secret, yet a certaine meane, Which vnder kindeship wilbe cloked best. Wise men will take their opportunitie, Closely and safely fitting things to time; But in extreames aduantage hath no time; And therefore all times fit not for reuenge. Thus, therefore, will I rest me in unrest, Dissembling quiet ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... the Universe are those which are ever going on around us; so trite and common to us that we never note them nor reflect upon them. Wise men tell us of the laws that regulate the motions of the spheres, which, flashing in huge circles and spinning on their axes, are also ever darting with inconceivable rapidity through the infinities of Space; while we atoms sit here, and dream that all was made for us. They tell us learnedly ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... beautiful—beautiful in the artist's sense, as perhaps elsewhere it has never been. In later Greece—in what we call the glorious period—toil had gathered about it its modern crust of supposed baseness—it was left to slaves; and wise men, in their philosophic lecture-rooms, spoke of it as unworthy of the higher specimens of ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... know what to do, dear brother, if we can find a strong man in the country able to fell the oak-tree." The raven told them to send out to seek for such a man, and they did so; whereupon the wise men of Norway and Finland assembled to give them advice. But they told the Kalevide that it was no use building a wooden ship to sail to the world's end, for the spirits of the Northern Lights would set it in flames. He must build a strong vessel of iron ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... honest burghers of Communipaw, like wise men and sound philosophers, they never look beyond their pipes, nor trouble their heads about any affairs out of their immediate neighborhood; so that they live in profound and enviable ignorance of all the troubles, anxieties, and revolutions ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the prophecies have marked as eternal and immortal, where the destinies of the nations are to be accomplished? But in order that it may become the final definitive sanctuary, the capital of the destroyed kingdoms, where the wise men of all countries shall meet once every year, one must first of all purify it by fire, leave nothing of its old stains remaining. Then, when the sun shall have absorbed all the pestilence of the old soil, we will ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... wise men of the mark, or neighborhood, saw that the women did such wonderful things, they put their heads together and ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... and again sat on the student's "bundle of straw," choosing Paris as his next refuge. There he discussed learned questions with the wise men of France, and endured much privation as well as the pangs of yearning for Florence, his beloved city, which seemed to forget him. Hope rose within his breast when the newly-elected Emperor, Henry of Luxemburg, ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... consenting to be a married man's mistress; of pure and simple girls saying they cannot see why they should have a marriage by law; of a lady saying that if she were in love she would not have any legal tie; of its being necessary—or thought so by good and wise men—to keep one sex in bitter and often fatal ignorance. These things (and how many more) show some deep unsoundness in the marriage relations. This must be probed and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... out of reach. He knew as well as I That all the words of wise men who are skilled In using them are not much to defy What comes when memory meets ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... him only women of the Sidhe, and knew that he was in one of the schools established by the wise men of Eri for maidens who would devote their lives to holiness and Druid learning; maidens who should know no earthly love but fix their eyes ever on the light of the Sun-god. But not seeing Fand among them, ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... trust, and only see about a handsbreadth of the face, all the rest of the body being covered, under which may lie hid what may be contagious as well as loathsome. All men are not so wise as to choose a woman only for her good qualities, and even wise men consider the body as that which adds not a little to the mind, and it is certain there may be some such deformity covered with clothes as may totally alienate a man from his wife, when it is too late to part with her; if such a thing is discovered ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... descending through the aperture, have since enlivened the woods and fields with their melodies. He was unable to return to this world, and may still be seen in the heavens, being changed into the stars called Ojeeg Annung, known to the wise men among the pale faces as the ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... owl—when he looks squarely at you in this way, he shows a wise, wise face. You almost believe he could speak if he would, and you cannot resist the feeling that he is more intelligent than he has any right to be, having behind those clear, sharp eyes, only "blind instinct," as the wise men say. ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... relations with countries, whose interests it is to befriend us. An excess of modesty and reserve is an excess still. It was no dishonor to us to propose a treaty to France, nor for our Ministers to reside there more than a year, without being acknowledged. On the contrary, all wise men applauded the measure, and I am confident the world in general will now approve of an application to the maritime powers, although we should remain without a public reception, as long as our Ministers did in France and Spain, nay, although we should be rejected. In this ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... make- shifts. In truth, the owners of the machines did not consider anything which they made as wares, but simply as means for the enrichment of themselves. Of course the only admitted test of utility in wares was the finding of buyers for them—wise men or fools, as ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... his efforts to talk were distressing. It may be said in excuse for him, that in some paddling up the river from that point, he had arrived at perhaps an honest conviction of what would happen to any one going below; and also, that other wise men of the town predicted that we would never see "Brown's Hole," at the ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... a coward, and by others as a deserter; and the city was full of indignation at him, and of reproaches cast upon him; their rage was also aggravated by their afflictions, and more inflamed by their ill success; and what usually becomes an occasion of caution to wise men, I mean affliction, became a spur to them to venture on further calamities, and the end of one misery became still the beginning of another; they therefore resolved to fall on the Romans the more vehemently, as resolving to be revenged on him in revenging ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... strikes me very oddly that good and wise men at Cambridge should think of raising me into an object of criticism. I have always been, from my incapacity of methodical writing, 'a chartered libertine,' free to worship and free to rail, lucky when I could make myself understood, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... for wise men to eat," snapped out the sharp voice of a lady whose vinegar face gave little promise of enjoyment of any kind. "Nobody thinks any more of them for it. Better have given the money to some charity. There's want and suffering ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... said, "I have been thinking a great deal; and it seems very plain when you talk. But you know our great divines could answer you, though I cannot. My father was no Papist; and Dr. Grindal and the Bishops are all wise men. How do you ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... would creep up to me, and smile because she was near me, and point out my golden crown or my ruddy fruit to a baby in her arms. That was better than to stand in a great hall of a great city, cold and empty, even though wise men came to gaze and throngs of fools gaped, passing with flattering words. Where I go now I know not; but since I go from that humble house where they loved me, I shall be sad and alone. They pass so soon—those fleeting ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... must have totally lost it now. Indeed, the far greater number of instances which history has transmitted us, show that self-murder, even then, proceeded from the same causes as at present, viz., rage, despair, and disappointment. Wise men in all ages despised it as a mean and despicable flight from evils the soul wanted courage and strength to bear. This has not only been said by philosophers, but even by poets, too; which shows that it appeared ...
— 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
... the author of the "Phoenix," probably in the eighth century, translated Lactantius' Latin into Anglo-Saxon verse; Sir John Mandeville, in the fourteenth century, though he did not reach it himself because he "was not worthy," gives an account of it from what he has "heard say of wise Men beyond;" Milton described it enchantingly in "Paradise Lost;" Dr. Johnson used a modification of it in "Rasselas;" and William Morris in our own time made it the framework for a delightful series of world-old ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... other side ('These things (I say), when I consider with myself, I hold well with Plato, and do nothing marvel that he would make no laws for them that refused those laws, whereby all men should have and enjoy equal portions of riches and commodities. For the wise men did easily foresee this to be the one and only way to the wealth of a community, if equality of all things should be brought in and established' (Utopia).). We wonder how in the reign of Henry VIII, though veiled in another language and published ...
— The Republic • Plato
... permitted this movement to come thus far but we shall allow it to go no farther." Thus another fly resting upon the proverbial wheel of progress commanded it to turn no more. This man engages our attention because he is a representative of a type to be found in all our lands; wise men on the wrong side of a great question, modern Joshuas who command the sun to stand still and believe that ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... in this little book the documentary evidence showing how the so-called "Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion" on which this new crusade is predicated, ...
— The History of a Lie - 'The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion' • Herman Bernstein
... the brutes any weak surmises of the gods or fond opinion about things after death to disorder themselves with; nor have they as much as imagination or notion that there is anything in these to be dreaded. I confess, had they left us the benign providence of God as a presumption, wise men might then seem, by reason of their good hopes from thence, to have something towards a pleasurable life that beasts have not. But now, since they have made it the scope of all their discourses of God that they may not fear him, but may be ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... are some of the most celebrated, as Adam and Eve, the Adoration of the Magi, the Crucifixion—a grand composition—the Crowning of the Virgin, the Battle between Alexander and Darius, and many other great works. Durer painted the Wise Men's Offering, two pictures of the Passion of Christ, and an Assumption of the Virgin, for a monastery of Frankfort, which proved a source of income to the monks, from the presents they received for exhibiting them. The people of Nuremberg still preserve, in the Town Hall, his portraits ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... to break up all cabals. Virginia, of which I am myself a native and resident, was not only the first of the States, but, I believe I may say, the first of the nations of the earth, which assembled its wise men peaceably together to form a fundamental constitution, to commit it to writing, and place it among their archives, where every one should be free to appeal to its text. But this act was very imperfect. The other States, as they proceeded successively ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... fixed to a pole, and elevated above the heads of the people; it is very large, and is rendered beautifully transparent when a light is placed in the inside. This artificial luminary is intended to represent the star of the east, which directed the wise men to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ. At a little distance, the appearance is exceedingly brilliant, for there is no other light among the populace to diminish its lustre, and the whole scene is singularly picturesque. The resplendent light issuing from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various
... Priamos had hight Odin and his queen Frigg, and from this the realm afterward took its name and was called Frigia where the burg stood. And whether Odin said this of himself out of pride, or that it was wrought by the changing of tongues; nevertheless many wise men have regarded it a true saying, and for a long time after every man who was a ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... a great sage, and so is Herhor," thought Ramses. "If they consider war harmful, if the high priest Mefres and other priests judge in the same way, then perhaps war is in fact dangerous. It must be dangerous, if so many holy and wise men insist thus." ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... you had a bent tube, one arm of which was of the size of a pipe-stem, and the other big enough to hold the ocean, water would stand at the same height in one as in the other. Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way,—AND THE FOOLS ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... shutters open? and won't you turn my bed, please? This morning I woke ever so early, and one bright, beautiful star shone in that eastern window. I never noticed it before, and I thought of the Star in the East, that guided the wise men to the place where the baby Jesus was. Good-night, Mamma. Such a ...
— The Bird's Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... intervention in our behalf, have, nevertheless, complimented our President by saying he has, at all events, "made a nation." He is pleased with this, I understand. But it is one of the errors which the wise men over the water are ever liable to fall into. The "nation" was made before the President existed: indeed, ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... to sit here and be insulted by being called of the devil, and so forth. There are many wise men who have expounded the Scriptures, and they laid no claim to being saved from sin. There is a lot for this young man to ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... is not running away, nor is staying wisdom when the danger overbalances the hope; and it is the part of wise men to secure themselves to-day for to-morrow, and not to venture all upon ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... lean, now Luck Is fat, And wise men take her as she comes: The Bowler may be sure the Bat Will share the sugarplums. So never wriggle, nor protest, Nor eye the zenith in disgust, But, Johnson, bowl your level best, And ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... confidence of the party of which she has been the leader. It is quite wrong to suppose that this is the conservative party, or even a conservative party. China has both reform and conservative parties, but, in addition to these, she has many wise men and great officials who are neither radical reformers nor ultra-conservatives. It was these men with whom the Empress Dowager allied herself after the Boxer ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... 'Well, sir, this is the fourth of the Hebrides that we have been upon.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, we cannot boast of the number we have seen. We thought we should see many more. We thought of sailing about easily from island to island; and so we should, had we come at a better season; but we, being wise men, thought it would be summer all the year where we were. However, sir, we have seen enough to give us a pretty good notion of the system in ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... "Witless, quotha? Wise men have not folly enough to please them, nor madness enough to desire to please them," said Gerard loftily; "but 'tis to my comrade I speak, not to you, you brazen toads, that make so free with a man ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Well, it may be one of two things. It may be people, wise men of high rank, who rule the state; and it may be merely a house, a palace, a Palazzo Strozzi or Pitti, or, if these are not fitting, any other. You see I have not taken my Italian ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... had a mind to destroy them, but at last resolved to inflict on them a punishment worse than death. He sent Hermes to one of the chief cities with a scroll on which a few magic letters were written, and the wise men declared they contained a riddle. Its solution would bring immortal happiness. The whole human race, neglecting all ordinary pursuits, applied itself ceaselessly to the solution of the mystery. Professors were appointed to lecture on it, it was attacked on all sides ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... spiritual darkness of the Middle Ages. Modern medicine looks upon these claims and teachings of the Hippocratic School as "superstition without any foundation in fact." However, the great sages of antiquity, drawing upon a source of ancient wisdom, deeply hidden from the self-satisfied scribes and wise men of the schools, after all, proclaimed ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... be begun for the sake of one or two, be they clergy or laymen. For the rest they were pleased with the just commands of the Lords and all, which they heretofore had so excellently managed, for they had always acted like wise men. Not in the ill-will of the Confederates, but in their instigation from Zurich, the reasons of the discord were to be sought—in their instigation by a minority still present in the Council, who were opposed to the Gospel and addicted to taking pensions, ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... are acquired the two things which wise men accompt of all others the most necessary to the well-being of a Commonwealth: That is to say, a general Industry of Mind and Hardiness of Body, which never fail to be accompanyed with Honour and Plenty. So that, questionless, when Commerce does not flourish, as well as other ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... to the conceiving of a divinity. He thrusts his mother's beliefs aside rudely, as a beast does the flags that stand along its way in making journey to the stream to slake its thirst. He is grossly self-sufficient. He is boor and fool conjoined. Where wise men and angels would move with reverent tread and forehead bent to earth, he walks erect, unhumbled; nay, without a sense of worship. How could he or another find God so? The mood of prayer is the mood ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... away their common sense, and swallow everything as inspired?" says another friend of the Rationalistic school. "God has given us reason to discern between good and evil, and commanded us to use it. Prove the spirits, whether they be of God. I spake as to wise men. Judge ye what I say, is the language of Scripture. The right of private judgment is the inalienable inheritance of Protestants. I am for examining the Bible according to the principles of reason and ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... reach the Nile, and having with us gold in plenty can buy boats and hire crews. It comes into my mind that we should do well for our own safety and comfort to start at once on a hunting journey far from Egypt; in the land of the Ethiopians, Master. There perchance I could gather together some of the wise men in whose hands I left the rule of my kingdom, and submit to them this question of a woman to marry me. The Ethiopians are a faithful people, Master, and will not reject me because I have spent some years seeing ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... is no teaching anything to wise men of good Mr. Lindsey's stamp. They know everything—O, to be sure!—everything that has been, and everything that is, and everything that, by any future possibility, can be. And should some phenomenon of nature or providence transcend their system, they will ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... evidences bearing upon the subject indicate that the founders of the primary form of religion were a sect of philosophers, known as Magi, or wise men, of the Aryan race of Central Asia, who, having lived ages before any conceptions of the supernatural had obtained in the world, and speculating relative to the "beginnings of things," were necessarily confined to the contemplation and study of nature, the elements of which they believed ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill
... a pity if any of your young men should give heed to these silly tales. None of your wise men have done so. In the Sioux country there is frequent war between the soldiers and the Indians because bad men wish to wrong the Indians and the Indians grow angry and fight, but in this country white men are punished who do wrong to Indians. ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... management, were all that was necessary. A wonderful era was possible for the human race. But the capitalist class failed. It made a shambles of civilization. Nor can the capitalist class plead not guilty. It knew of the opportunity. Its wise men told of the opportunity, its scholars and its scientists told it of the opportunity. All that they said is there to-day in the books, just so much damning evidence against it. It would not listen. It was ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... South-Saxon bishop, Ethelric, was brought by the King's command to declare the ancient customs of the laws; and with him several other Englishmen skilled in ancient laws and customs. All these good and wise men supported the archbishop's claim, and the decision was agreed on and determined by the whole county. The sentence was laid before the King, and confirmed by him. Here we have probably a good instance of the principle universally adopted; all the lower machinery of the court was retained entire, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... but remember, 'Many a little makes a mickle.' Beware of little expenses; 'A small leak will sink a great ship,' as Poor Richard says; and again, 'Who dainties love, shall beggars prove'; and moreover, 'Fools makes feasts, and wise men eat them.... If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some; for he that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing,' as Poor Richard says; and, indeed, so does he that lends to such people, when he goes to get it in again. Poor Dick further ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... sixth and beginning of the seventh century, a number of pious and wise men flourished in the country, among whom was Kentigern, commonly called Mungo, some of these persons were employed by Oswald a Northumbrian king, to instruct his people; they are represented by Bede, as eminent for their love to God and knowledge of ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... surrounded by a clamourous throng of children, holding up for his acceptance great bunches of irises and scarlet poppies and sweet white narcissus from the mountain slopes. His passion for wild flowers was affectionately tolerated by the people, as one of the little follies which sit gracefully on very wise men. If anyone less universally beloved had filled his house with weeds and grasses they would have laughed at him; but the "blessed Cardinal" could afford a ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... a pretty contemplative air I give to the company,—pray do but note 'em,— You would think that the wise men of Greece were all there, Or, at least, would suppose them ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... Alwyn, with a slight but half sarcastic smile; "I asked thee the question because—draw closer—there are wise men in our city who think the ties between Warwick and the king less strong than a ship's cable; and if thou attachest thyself to Warwick, he will be better pleased, it may be, with talk of devotion to himself ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the pleasant tale of some ancient ardent romancer, with an eye for dramatic effect. And often it is the bit choicest and most intimate of detail, binding the chronicle into a dramatic whole, which the iron pick of Research digs from the heap of bones, and wise men say: "That brilliant hero never lived; this great battle was but a skirmish; some old monk wrote that—it never happened." Many a glowing jewel, cherished tenderly and shining bravely through the dust of ages, has turned, in the white light of knowledge, to worthless ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor |
