"Rote" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will wunder Why I ever rote you this; I am sorry I am leevin Daddie needs me in his biz. I don't reely like this quiet Kind of sober farmer life; I like something allus doin, But for this, I'd be your wife. I got two of old Jim's bullets, Didn't like to let you ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... great number of high and glorious principles and acts, and our first thought thereupon is, "All this must have had an existence somewhere or other in those times. These very men, indeed, may be merely speaking by rote, and not understand what they say; but it matters not to the profit of their writings what they were themselves." It matters not to the profit of their writings, nor again to the authority resulting from them; for the times in which they wrote of course are of authority, ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... traditional curriculum, the learning by rote of the classics without explanation in early youth, followed by a more intelligent study in later years. This is exactly like the traditional study of the classics in this country, as it existed, for example, in the eighteenth ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... played by rote; Stephen by thought. It was the cruellest thing to checkmate him after so much labour, she considered. What was she dishonest enough to do in her compassion? To let him checkmate her. A second game followed; and being herself absolutely indifferent as to the result (her playing ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... the country by and large it is claimed that only one male in ten and only one female out of a hundred and forty-four, can read and write; and it is said by British residents in the land that the native knows no such thing as scholarship—he learns everything by rote, even to the extent of perfect recitation, without comprehending the meaning of the wards he is uttering. It is the nature of illiterate Hindus to resort to the extremest extravagance in nearly every ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... ilke fruyt is ever lenger the wers Till it be rote in mullok or in stree— We olde men, I drede, so fare we, Till we be roten, ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... read; yet the children of this large parish attend school regularly, and make use of books. They hold the catechism-book in their hands as if they were reading, while they only repeat its contents, which they know by rote." The only exception to this state of things made by Lord Durham was in favour of the Catholic clergy, who were represented by him as a respectable and well-conducted class of men, and well-disposed towards the government. The report further stated ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... New—it has been taken for granted that he can neither discern what is true, nor desire what is good. The truth of things has therefore been formulated for him, and he has been required to learn it by rote and profess his belief in it, clause by clause. His duty has also been formulated for him, and he has been required to perform it, detail by detail, in obedience to the commandments of an all-embracing Code, or to the ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... tolerated. They did not know, so precisely as we have learned after three centuries, that all their idle words and careless gestures as well as their graver proceedings, were kept in a noting book to be pored over and conned by rote in the recesses of the royal cabinet and the royal mind; but they suspected the espionage of the Cardinal, and they openly charged him ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Antony! and young Octavius, come! Revenge yourself alone on Cassius, For Cassius is a-weary of the world— Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother; Check'd like a bondman; all his faults observed, Set in a note-book, learn'd and conn'd by rote, To cast into my teeth. Oh, I could weep My spirit from mine eyes! There is my dagger, And here my naked breast—within, a heart Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold: If that thou need'st a Roman's, take it forth! ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... botheration law business as you was upset on your helth. And as how you'd get better when the Court riz. But now the Court is riz, and pears like you aint no ways better from all accounts. And tell you how we knowed. See Hannah and me, we got a letter from Mrs. Whaley as keeps the 'Farmers.' Well she rote to Hannah and me to send her up some chickins and duks and eggs and butter and other fresh frutes and vegetubbles, which she sez as they doo ask sich onlawful prices for em in the city markits as she cant conshuenshusly giv it. So she wants Hannah and me to soopli ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... one who to the portent of a puggaree which, perhaps, he wears on a grey day, adds that of ungovernable rage, is so wild a visitor that no attempt at all is made to understand him; and the beggars beg dismayed but unalarmed, uninterruptedly, without a pause or a conjecture. They beg by rote, thinking of something else, as occasion arises, and all indifferent to ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... keep me wond'ring and suspense, Replied: "I see that thou believ'st these things, Because I tell them, but discern'st not how; So that thy knowledge waits not on thy faith: As one who knows the name of thing by rote, But is a stranger to its properties, Till other's tongue reveal them. Fervent love And lively hope with violence assail The kingdom of the heavens, and overcome The will of the Most high; not in such sort As man prevails o'er man; but conquers ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... bones by a pupil of the Campbell Medical School, for which purpose a skeleton, with the bones fastened together by wires was hung up in our schoolroom. And finally, time was also found for Pandit Heramba Tatwaratna to come and get us to learn by rote rules of Sanscrit grammar. I am not sure which of them, the names of the bones or the sutras of the grammarian, were the more jaw-breaking. I think the latter took ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... rote, as she had learned from her mother, the ill-omened words, hardly knowing their meaning, beyond that they were something very potent, and very wicked, which had been handed down through generations of poisoners and witches from the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... afternoon, or three o'clock in the afternoon, or only drinks with his meals, or only takes two or three drinks a day, usually is a liar, too—not always, but usually. There are some machine-like, non-imaginative persons who can do this—drink by rote or by rule; but not many. Now I do not say many men do not think they drink this way, but most of these men are ...
— Cutting It out - How to get on the waterwagon and stay there • Samuel G. Blythe
... pronouncers of judgments, and the arbitrators of rewards or punishments. The immunity which they enjoyed from war, allured many young men to enrol themselves in this order. Their education was a poetical one, for it was necessary to learn by rote several thousand verses, in which all the knowledge then ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... with a note is not a fighting man at all! He has shaved his beard, and has cut his hair, but I spotted him at a look; He is Tom Devine, who has worked for years for Saltbush Bill as cook. Bill coached him up in the fighting yarn, and taught him the tale by rote, And they shammed to fight, and they got your grass and divided your five-pound note. 'Twas a clean take-in, and you'll find it wise — 'twill save you a lot of pelf — When next you're hiring a fighting man, just ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... Antony, and young Octavius, come, Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius, For Cassius is aweary of the world; Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother; Check'd like a bondman; all his faults observ'd, Set in a note-book, learn'd, and conn'd by rote, To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep My spirit from mine eyes! There is my dagger, And here my naked breast; within, a heart Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold; If that thou be'st a Roman, take it forth; I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart; Strike, as thou didst at Caesar; ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... never forget that such a truth as this cannot be learned by rote as one would learn the facts of physical science. They must be experienced before we can really know them. We must in our hearts live through Abraham's harsh and bitter experiences if we would know the blessedness which follows them. The ancient curse will not go out painlessly; the ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... must be studied, known, and well attended to; or we only follow the art blindly, and without certainty. Thence the common indifference of so many performers, who mind nothing more than a rote of the art, without tracing ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... must serve his time to every trade, Save censure.—Critics all are ready made. Take hackneyed jokes from Miller, got by rote, With just enough of learning to misquote; A mind well skill'd to find or forge a fault, A turn for punning—call it Attic salt: Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a lucky hit, Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit, Care not for feeling,—pass ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... and nervous system, afterwards the tissues and the bones. Thus, unversed in the deeper phases of causation, men are hurried unprepared into ranks of a noble profession to struggle as best they may, through lack of deeper knowledge, with the serious symptoms of disease—at first by rote but later, are tempted to tamper empirically with ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... tongue. This school was to be for all, of both sexes, and in it the basis of an education for life was to be given. It was to teach its pupils to read and write the mother tongue; enough arithmetic for the ordinary business of life, and the commonly used measures; to sing, and to know certain songs by rote; to know about the real things of life; the Catechism and the Bible; a general knowledge of history, and especially the creation, fall, and redemption of man; the elements of geography and astronomy; and ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... familiar to the demon, unless indeed he had forgotten it. This idea met with such general applause that Barre was forced to command the possessed nun to say aqua in Hebrew. The poor woman, who found it difficult enough to repeat correctly the few Latin words she had learned by rote, made an impatient movement, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Peninsula, as other mediaeval landmarks become effaced. These people are simply the wandering bards and minstrels, who find their place in an Independent Malay State as naturally as did their prototypes in the countries of Europe during the Middle Ages. They learn by rote some old-world tale, which has been transmitted by word of mouth through countless generations, and they wander from village to village, singing it for pay to the unlettered people, to whom these songs and stories represent the only literature which comes within ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... began the justiciary, turning to the third prisoner. "The charge against you is that, having come to the Hotel Mauritania with the key to Smelkoff's trunk, you stole therefrom money and a ring," he said, like one repeating a lesson learned by rote, and leaning his ear to the associate sitting on his left, who said that he noticed that the phial mentioned in the list of exhibits was missing. "Stole therefrom money and a ring," repeated the justiciary, "and after dividing the money ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... I rote a letter to Mr. Durion, & prepared Some Commissions & a meadel & Sent to Captain Lewis- at 2 oClock Capt Lewis retuned with 4 chiefs & a Brave man named War-cha pa- after a delay of half an hour I went with them on Shore, they left the boat with reluctiance (we Suspect ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... It went by rote, as they had learned in childhood. It was the tiresome repetition of going over and over and over the lines of a poem or the numbers of the multiplication table until the pathway was a deeply trodden furrow in the brain. Forever imprinted, ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... by rote, "you're well, and your parents also in good health. May I have the pleasure of dancing the cotillon as your partner ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... as much as many who have been two years at the work. I have always said that it is a mistake to teach children young; their minds do not take in what you say to them. You may beat it into them, but they only get it by rote; and painfully, because they don't understand how one thing leads to another, and it is their memory only, and not their ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... the morning calls I ever saw were formal, every one stiff, and speaking by rote, or talking politics. How glad I used to be to get on horseback again! But to see these—why, it is like the shepherd's glimpse at the pixies!—as one reads a new book, or watches what one only half understands—a ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on it; yet it fell short in effect of the simplicity of the Presbyterian worship. The devotion in which every one took a share seemed so superior to that which was recited by musicians as a lesson which they had learned by rote, that it gave the Scottish worship all the advantage of reality ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... was gentle and humane, but not very enlightened, because it derived its light from the heart and not from, his understanding. Egmont possessed more of conscience than of fixed principles; his head had not given him a code of its own, but had merely learnt it by rote; the mere name of any action, therefore, was often with him sufficient for its condemnation. In his judgment men were wholly bad or wholly good, and had not something bad or something good; in this system of morals there was no middle term between vice and virtue; and consequently ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... crow, whose frequent note Voiced the monotony of land and sky, Mocking with graceless wing and rusty coat His priestly presence as he trotted by. He would have cursed the bird by bell and rote, But other game just then was in his eye,— A savage camp, whose occupants preferred Their heathen darkness ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... the wheel battles unceasingly with the conscious mind above, for age is prone to live by law and rote. These fates, the oldest daughters of the Earth-Mother, Nature, know nothing of morals or manners, assume that men and women are as naive in their normality as the denizens of forest and field. And so ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... talking by rote out of the marriage service. You may be open with me, you know, it will go no further; and I do long to know whether you can be truly content at heart," said Harriet ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... inform you that i was the fir St agent for you pills in thiS Setlement but th as iS Several agent round her and tha ar interfer With mee eSpeSly William a StavSon he liveS her at enfield he Wanted mee to giv him one of you Sur klerS So he Wod be agent but i Wodent let hi m hav hit an he rote to you i SupoSe an haS got a Suplye of pillS an ar aruning a gant mee he iS Sell ing them at 20 centS a box i Want you to St op him if ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... host that barred his way, their leader raised his long sword until it was poised perpendicularly in the air above his head, and, with a loud voice, in measured tones, as one repeats a lesson he has learned by rote, he cried, "My Lord Archbishop of Treves, the Countess Laurette von Starkenburg invites you to sup ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... this speech satisfactorily, or give, or seem to feel, the point of contrast between the must and no must, the compulsion and no compulsion. In fact, the whole of it is usually mouthed out, without much reference to Shylock or the play, as if it had been learned by rote from a school speech-book. Hazlitt says, in his Characters of Shakspeare's Plays, 'The speech about mercy is very well, but there are a ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 75, April 5, 1851 • Various
... performance by one who has done it very often before, but who requires just a little prompting to set him off, on getting which, the whole familiar routine presents itself before him, and he repeats his task by rote. Surely then we are justified in suspecting that there must have been more bona fide personal recollection and experience, with more effort and failure on the part of the infant itself than meet ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... a modest, blooming Peer, Who bow'd with easy grace, and offer'd there Some fine-spun Verses which he never wrote, Some worthy Speeches which he spoke by rote: For thus I heard surrounding tongues rehearse, "H—— wrote the Speeches, H—— composed the Verse." And soon amid the mingled heap there lay The blasted wishes for Hibernian sway. And here he sigh'd, and, as I thought, a tear Rose in his sullen eye, but linger'd there; When ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... (himself against a host) in controlling petulance, exciting indifference to action, striving to enlighten stupidity, and labouring to soften obstinacy; and whose very powers of intellect have been confounded by hearing the same dull lesson repeated a hundred times by rote, and only varied by the various blunders of the reciters. Even the flowers of classic genius, with which his solitary fancy is most gratified, have been rendered degraded, in his imagination, by their ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... far times ago A woman lyred here In the evenfall; one who fain did so From year to year; And, in loneliness bending wistfully, Would wake each note In sick sad rote, None to listen ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... pleasant. He seldom had to punish a boy for bad conduct or neglect in getting his lessons. He always encouraged them to ask questions about their studies, and told them never to learn anything by rote, like a parrot, but to come to him when they did not understand a lesson; and he always made it so clear that it was a pleasure to learn. Sometimes a boy would ask a foolish question, which would make the rest laugh; but then ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... as possible. These questions furnish an excellent topical analysis of the text.[3] In a certain sense they ask "what the book says," but the teacher is advised emphatically to discourage any such thing as committing the text to memory. The tendency to rote-learning is very strong. I had to contend with it in teaching history to seniors at Harvard twenty years ago, but much has since been done to check it through the development of the modern German seminary methods. (For an explanation of these ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... after seven years, but this last is premature by half that time. Cut off in the flower of Colebrook. The Middletonian stream and all its echoes mourn. Even minnows dwindle. A parvis fiunt MINIMI. I fear to invite Mrs. Hood to our new mansion, lest she envy it, & rote [? rout] us. But when we are fairly in, I hope she will come & try it. I heard she & you were made uncomfortable by some unworthy to be cared for attacks, and have tried to set up a feeble counteraction thro' the Table Book of last Saturday. Has it not reach'd ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the sufficient defence of Protestantism. It was the cry of the soul to know God, and not merely to assent to what the Church taught concerning him; it was the longing to know Christ, and not to repeat by rote the creeds of the first centuries, and the definitions of mediaeval doctors in regard to him. In a subsequent chapter we shall consider the truth and error in the Protestant principle of justification by faith. Our purpose here is ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... household service, the ritual of our feastings and mournings; and often it rehearsed for us the tales of many lands, or, best of all, the legends of our own. I see him, a silver-haired minstrel, touching melodious keys, playing and singing in the twilight, within sound of the rote of the sea. There he lingers late; the curfew-bell has tolled and the darkness closes round, till at last that tender voice is silent, and he softly moves unto ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... of piano recitals which take place yearly in the musical centers of Europe, only a comparatively small number are of real musical interest. In many cases it seems as though the players were merely repeating something learned by rote, in an unknown language; just as though I should repeat a poem in Italian. The words I might pronounce after a fashion, but the meaning of most of them would be a blank to me—so how could I make ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... The former is the most important character, because possessing the most of the confidence of the Count. He is rather cunning than wise, his views of things being neither great nor liberal. He governs himself by principles which he has learned by rote, and is fit only for the details of execution. His heart is susceptible of little passions, but not of good ones. He is brother-in-law to M. Gerard, from whom he received disadvantageous impressions of ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... should be too remote, A modern magistrate of famous note, Shall give you his own history by rote; I'll make it out, deny it he that can, His worship is a true-born Englishman; By all the latitude that empty word, By modern acceptation's understood: The parish books his great descent record, And now he hopes ere long to be a lord; And truly, as things go, it would be pity, ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... Yet see what strong intellects dare not yet hear God himself unless he speak the phraseology of I know not what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul. We shall not always set so great a price on a few texts, on a few lives. We are like children who repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they grow older, of the men of talents and character they chance to see,—painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke; afterwards, when they come into the point of view which those had who uttered ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... "Josephus, a Lad of Palestine;" he thumbed once more the high-colored text-cards which no boy wanted but no boy liked to throw away, because they were somehow sacred; he was tortured by the stumbling rote of thirty-five years ago, as in the vast Zenith church he ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... husband, who would probably come to Florence to meet her—and she added that she hoped I should resume my studies at the university, and in serious preparation for the future obliterate all traces of the past. At these words, which I am inclined to fancy had been got by rote, she sighed and looked down. I promised her entire obedience in every particular, and growing bolder by her timidity, said that, with the doctor's permission, I should wait upon her at her convenience. Aurelia pressed ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... at least it was what passed for a school in those days: a place where tender young humanity devoted itself for eight or ten hours a day to learning incomprehensible rubbish by heart out of books and reciting it by rote, like parrots; so that a finished education consisted simply of a permanent headache and the ability to read without stopping to spell the words or take breath. Hawkins bought out the village store for a song and proceeded ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... im Schlummer, schaute ich Christus, Den Heiland der Welt. Im wallend weien Gewande Wandelt' er riesengro ber Land und Meer; 10 Es ragte sein Haupt in den Himmel, Die Hnde streckte er segnend ber Land und Meer; Und als ein Herz in der Brust Trug er die Sonne, 15 Die rote, flammende Sonne; Und das rote, flammende Sonnenherz Go seine Gnadenstrahlen Und sein holdes, liebseliges Licht, Erleuchtend und wrmend ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... altogether irresistible. But he piques himself upon being polished above the natives of any other country by his conversation with the fair sex. In the course of this communication, with which he is indulged from his tender years, he learns like a parrot, by rote, the whole circle of French compliments, which you know are a set of phrases ridiculous even to a proverb; and these he throws out indiscriminately to all women, without distinction in the exercise of that kind of address, which is here distinguished by the name of gallantry: ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... infinite small portions, or seeds unplaced, should have produced this order and beauty, without a divine marshal. The Scripture saith, The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God; it is not said, The fool hath thought in his heart; so as he rather saith it, by rote to himself, as that he would have, than that he can thoroughly believe it, or be persuaded of it. For none deny, there is a God, but those, for whom it maketh that there were no God. It appeareth in ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... frend calls a 'Tray bong Gassong,' and the wunnerful manner the french Waiters has of carryin a tray loded with drinkabels is worthy of the hippythep. He sez orlso has is name, hinsted of LHEROT, ort to be andid down to posterittory as 'L'HEROS'—wich word as rote down by hisself means 'The Hero.' He got a 1000 Franks, wich is rayther more nor wos ever got ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... life,' 'a day of reckoning,' 'a queen of fashion, 'to give a free hand,' 'to be at a deadlock,' and so forth; and in what particular circumstances he himself might make use of them in conversation. Failing these, he would adorn it with puns and other 'plays upon words' which he had learned by rote. As for the names of strangers which were uttered in his hearing, he used merely to repeat them to himself in a questioning tone, which, he thought, would suffice to furnish him with explanations for which he would not ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... danger to any religious organisation is that a body of men should arise in its ranks, and hold its positions of trust, who have learned its great fundamental doctrines by rote out of the catechism, but have no experimental knowledge of their truth inwrought by the mighty anointing of the Holy Ghost, and who are destitute of "an unction from the Holy One," by which, says John, "ye know all things" (1 John ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... assches there offe, the coles wil duellen and abyden alle quyk, a zere or more. And that tre hathe many leves, as the gynypre hathe. And there ben also many trees, that of nature thei wole never brenne ne rote in no manere. And there ben note trees, that beren notes, als grete as a mannes hed. There also ben many bestes, that ben clept orafles. [Footnote: Giraffes.] In Arabye, thei ben clept gerfauntz; that is a best pomelee or apotted; that is but a litylle more ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... the child has indeed improved, but it has become somewhat fastidious. Only that which seems interesting and intelligible to the child impresses itself permanently; on the other hand, useless and unintelligible verses learned by rote, that persons have taught him, though seldom, for fun, are forgotten after ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... forestalled the modern dockyards in the making of metal ships. The man who doubted, let us say, our fabulous ancient kings running up to Adam, or found but mythology in some old tale, was as hated as if he had doubted the authority of Scripture. Above all no man was so ignorant, that he had not by rote familiar arguments and statistics to drive away amid familiar applause, all those had they but found strange truth in the world or in their mind, whose knowledge has passed out of memory and become an instinct of hand or eye. There was no literature, for literature is a child of experience always, ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... as he willed it, she bethought her that Margot Poins was to go to a nunnery. That afternoon she had decided that Mary Trelyon, who was her second maid, should become her first, and others be moved up in a rote. ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... told 'em before he died, "Wherever you are, whatever betide, Every year as the time draws near By lot or by rote choose you a goat, And let the high priest confess on the beast The sins of the people, the worst and the least. Lay your sins on the goat! Sure the plan ought to suit yer, Because all your sins are "his ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson
... mercy, which delighteth not in the death of a sinner, but would rather that he should be converted and live. The beautiful prayers in the Liturgy, were explained to them in a manner suitable to their different capacities; consequently, they were not repeated by rote, as is too frequently the case, where the same attention is not paid. Mr. and Mrs. Bernard took unremitted pains with their children, and felt themselves amply rewarded by their conduct; for though, like other human beings, ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... were distant, as we supposed, about fifteen miles from Cape Povorotnoi (po-vo-rote'-noi) and as the fog had closed in again denser than ever, the captain dared not venture any nearer. The ship was accordingly put about, and we stood off and on all night, waiting for sunrise and a clear atmosphere, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... for eminent purposes would be folly. Even supposing they could be educated—which is scarcely supposable, for it would seem a contravention of Heaven's fiat—they could no more apply this learning, which would simply be by rote, than they could go to the moon. Such men are not unfrequently met with, and are designated, by common consent, learned fools. Nature points out the education they should receive. In like manner with those of higher and nobler attributes, educate them ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... know, deep underground, Hid in your bed from sight and sound, Without a turn in temperature, With weather life can scarce endure, That light has won a fraction's strength, And day put on some moments' length, Whereof in merest rote will come, Weeks hence, mild airs that do not numb; O crocus root, how do you know, How do ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... elementary catechisms which had been her only lesson-books, and which were certainly not calculated to make learning attractive or interesting. The mode of instruction at Miss Green's was the old-fashioned one of saying lessons by rote from the said catechisms, and when the pupils had reached the end of the book they had to begin again ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... his 'Hear hims!' proud, too, of his vote And lost virginity of oratory, Proud of his learning (just enough to quote), He revell'd in his Ciceronian glory: With memory excellent to get by rote, With wit to hatch a pun or tell a story, Graced with some merit, and with more effrontery, 'His country's pride,' he ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... they did with such absorption that when the group broke up, several hours later, Average Jones was committed, by plan and rote, to the new and hopeful ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... rote, As once we learnt your poison-gas, Your pupils now are shocked to note How Teuton wits, a little crass, Mistake for rude assault and battery ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... in making studies interesting to pupils; not the dull, old-fashioned method of learning by rote, whereby, when a hymn was taught, such as, "A Charge to keep I have," the children went home to repeat to their astonished mothers, "Eight yards to keep I have," having learned by ear, with no knowledge of the meaning of the words. He had friendly talks ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... thought of folly Ravidus (poor churl!) Upon my iambs thus would headlong hurl? What good or cunning counsellor would fain Urge thee to struggle in such strife insane? Is't that the vulgar mouth thy name by rote? 5 What will'st thou? Wishest on any wise such note? Then shalt be noted since my love so lief For love thou ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... learning—'tis mother-wit. No one else sees the lady-moon sit On the sea, her nest, all night, but the owl, Hatching the boats and the long-legged fowl. When the oysters gape to sing by rote, She crams a pearl down each stupid throat. Howlowlwhitit that's wit, there's ...
— Cross Purposes and The Shadows • George MacDonald
... and for learning by rote; but good in retaining a general or vague recollection of many facts. R.D.—Wonderful memory for dates. In old age he told a person, reading aloud to him a book only read in youth, the passages which ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... tots just out of the kindergarten, but how can commercial fertilizers be carefully analyzed by a boy who has made no study of general chemistry? and how can a balanced ration be adjusted by an illiterate person? Similarly, the girl in the laundry does not make soap by rote, but by principle; and the girl in the dressmaking-shop does not cut out her pattern by luck, or guess, or instinct, or rule of thumb, but by geometry. And so the successful teaching of the industries demands no mean amount of academic ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... to hear your voice. An Esquimaux would feel himself getting civilized under it for there's sense in the very sound. A man's character speaks in his voice, even more than in his words. These he may utter by rote, but his 'voice is the man for a' that,' and betrays or divulges his peculiar nature. Do you like my voice, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... ov th time, naimd Max Beerbohm, hoo woz stil alive in th twentieth senchri, rote a stauri in wich e pautraid an immajnari karrakter kauld "Enoch Soames"—a thurd-rait poit hoo beleevz imself a grate jeneus an maix a bargin with th Devvl in auder ter no wot posterriti thinx ov im! It iz a sumwot labud sattire but not without ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... so far advanced in the soil of Miss Melbury's mind as to lead her to talk by rote of anything save of that she knew well, and had the greatest interest in ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... the successor of the inventor discovered the defect of this instruction, which was purely mechanical and acquired by rote. He thought he perceived this defect in the concrete verb, in which the deaf and dumb, seeing only a single word, were unable to distinguish two ideas which are comprehended in it, that of affirmation and that of quality. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... I was ten years old. I was sent, at five years old, or earlier, to a school kept by a Mr. Bowers, who was called 'Bodsy Bowers,' by reason of his dapperness. It was a school for both sexes. I learned little there except to repeat by rote the first lesson of monosyllables ('God made man'—'Let us love him'), by hearing it often repeated, without acquiring a letter. Whenever proof was made of my progress, at home, I repeated these words with the most rapid fluency; but on turning over a new leaf, I ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... remind him of this obligation of his subordinates, and the urgency of its strict observance. But it had no effect whatever, and the poor-class villagers were only taught to gabble off the christian doctrine by rote, for it suited the friar to stimulate that peculiar mental condition in which belief precedes understanding. The school-teacher, being subordinate to the inspector, had no voice in the matter, and was compelled to follow the views of the priest. Few Spaniards took the trouble ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... Shakspeer rote good plase, but he wouldn't hav succeeded as a Washington correspondent of a New York daily paper. He lackt the ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... fore noon I went to meting & heard Mr. Eals his text was in the 5th Chapter of James 16th verse a good sermon I rote a letter & sent home & in the after ...
— The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775 - With Numerous Illustrative Notes • Abraham Tomlinson
... Mercury in a citizen's garden at Highgate—who here affect to be in extacies at the sight of the Venus, Apollino, &c., and they are fond of retailing on all occasions the terms of art and connoisseurship they have learned by rote, in the use of which they make sometimes ridiculous mistakes. For instance I heard an Englishman one day holding forth on the merits of the Vierge quisouse, as he called it. I could not for some time divine ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... you? and what are you secretly guilty of all your life? Will you turn aside all your life? will you grub and chatter all your life? And who are you, blabbing by rote, years, pages, languages, reminiscences, Unwitting to-day that you do not know how to ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... found a school of dirty ragged children reading the Psalms from the small English printed edition; not, however, learning to read by means of the alphabet or spelling, but learning to know the forms of words by rote; boys and girls together, all very slightly dressed, and one of ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... the passion of an angry grief: 150 Forgive me, if from present things I turn To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. Nature, they say, doth dote, And cannot make a man 155 Save on some worn-out plan, Repeating us by rote: For him her Old-World mould aside she threw, And, choosing sweet clay from the breast Of the unexhausted West, 160 With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... Belvidera scarcely anybody can do ill, but Euphrasia I thought few people could do well, and I feared I was not one of them. Moreover, the language is at once so poor and so bombastic that I took double the time in getting the part by rote I should have taken for any part of Shakespeare's. My dress was beautiful; I think I will tell it you. You know you told me even an account of hat and feathers would interest you. My skirt was made immensely ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... maladies of her body, that she found relief to her over-burdened soul in prayer. She no longer prayed with a book, mechanically and by rote, but mentally, with earnestness, and with the understanding. And she prayed directly to God Almighty, and thereby came, she says, to love Him. And with prayer came new virtues. She now ceases to speak ill of people, and persuades others to cease from all ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... this coz I don't want nobodi tu kno i hav got enny mony. yu wont now wil yu. i am first rate heer, only that gude fur nuthin snipe of liz madwurth is heer yit—but i hop tu git red ov her now. yu no i rote yu bout her. give my luv to awl inquiren friends. this is from your sister til ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... them tell it, as I have said, not heralded by any master of ceremonies but as though it arose out of the warmth of the fire before which his knotted hands would chance to be; not a thing learned by rote, but told differently by each teller, and differently according to his mood, yet never has one of them dared to alter its salient points, there is none so base among the Company of Milkmen. The Company of Powderers for the Face know of this story and have envied it, the Worthy Company ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... of the great neglect and scorn of preaching, ariseth from the practice of men who set up to decry and disparage religion; these, being zealous to promote infidelity and vice, learn a rote of buffoonery that serveth all occasions, and refutes the strongest arguments for piety and good manners. These have a set of ridicule calculated for all sermons, and all preachers, and can be extreme witty as often as they please upon the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... overestimate the excitement, the animosity, and the contention which arose in the New England colonies from these discussions over "singing by rule" or "singing by rote." Many prominent clergymen wrote essays and tracts upon the subject; of these essays "The Reasonableness of Regular Singing," also a "Joco-serious Dialogue on Singing," by Reverend Mr. Symmes; "Cases ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... ago, was compelled to be familiar with the Genevan creed, as expressed in "The Shorter Catechism," but most little Presbyterians regarded that document as a necessary but unintelligible evil—the sorrow that haunted the Sabbath. I knew it by rote, Effectual Calling and all, but did not perceive that it possessed either meaning or actuality. Nobody was so unkind as to interpret the significance of the questions and answers; but somebody did interpret them for Stevenson, or his early ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is me opinyon: I don't think Cap. Dhryfuss wr-rote th' borderoo. I think he was th' on'y man in Fr-rance that didn't. But I ain't got as high an opinyon iv th' Cap as I had. I ain't no purity brigade; but, th' older I get, th' more I think wan wife's ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... foaming over with strong beer, that the subject of the evening's conversation at last turned upon the fairies of the neighbouring hill, and each related his oft-told tale which he had learned by rote from the lips of some parish grandame. At last the senior of the mirthful party proposed to a youthful mate of his, who had dared to doubt even the existence of such creatures, that he durst not go to the hill, mounted on his ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... occupation for his hands, and, apart from his memories, little for his mind. He read and reread his father's dying words until he knew them by rote, and could read them with shut eyes as he lay in his blanket in the wakeful hours of night. He would not admit to himself that he had a real belief in their message, and yet it was always with him in a fainter or a stronger fashion, and it ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... nearly always alone, one has occasion to gauge the deep dreariness of human beings pure and simple, when, so to speak, the small, learnt-by-rote lessons of civilization, of kindness, graciousness, or intelligence, are not being called into play by common business or acquaintanceship. There, in the train, they sit in the elemental, native dreariness of their more practical, ungracious demand on life; not bad in any way, oh no; nor ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... 'heard you yesterday before the court,' no doubt," he interrupted, "and I remember perfectly that you were 'awakened only.' I could repeat the most of it by rote, indeed. But do you suppose that I believed you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Evidences with perfect correctness, but not of course in the clear language of Paley. The logic of this book and, as I may add, of his Natural Theology, gave me as much delight as did Euclid. The careful study of these works, without attempting to learn any part by rote, was the only part of the academical course which, as I then felt and as I still believe, was of the least use to me in the education of my mind. I did not at that time trouble myself about Paley's premises, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... behavior, unbecoming a modest and well-trained young woman, gave rise to what seemed like presumption on your part." The sense of justice was strong within her, but she made her speech haughtily and primly, as if she had learned it by rote from some maiden school-mistress, and pulled her arm away and turned to go; but Thomas's ...
— Evelina's Garden • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... there was nothing to cause education to be concerned with any but one or two of the subjects which are included by Western peoples under that designation. It became at an early age, and remained for many centuries, a rote-learning of the elementary text-books, followed by a similar acquisition by heart of the texts of the works of Confucius and other classical writers. And so it remained until the abolition, in 1905, of the old competitive examination system, and the substitution of all that ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... never turned and asked yourself what the devil you were doin' here? And that reminds me.... There was a line we used to have drummed into us at school—it's often come back to me since. COELUM, NON ANIMUM, MUTANT, QUI TRANS MARE CURRUNT. In our green days we gabbled that off by rote; then, it seemed just one more o' the eel-sleek phrases the classics are full of. Now, I take off my hat to the man who wrote it. He knew what he was talkin' about—by the Lord Harry, ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... that people attached crude or arbitrary meanings; and now she hardly knew what they conveyed to her, and longed, as for something far away, for the reality of those simple teachings—once realities, now all by rote! Saved by faith! What was faith? Could all depend on a last sensation? And as to her life. Failure, failure through headstrong blindness and self-will, resulting in the agony of the innocent. Was this ground ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the judge had put his questions kindly; but for all that, she was no match for the bright intellects of the law. Lawyers are great men to simple folk; they can quote paragraph this and section that; they have learned such things by rote, ready to bring out at any moment. Oh, they are great men indeed. And apart from all this knowledge, they are not always devoid of sense; sometimes even not altogether heartless. Inger had no cause to complain of the court; she made no ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... cannot be an actress; I cannot resign my real self for that vamped-up hypocrite before the lamps. Out on those stage-robes and painted cheeks! Out on that simulated utterance of sentiments learned by rote and practised before the looking-glass till every gesture ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with his shoures sote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour Of which vertu engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth 5 Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes, and the yong sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... though we had fallen into an ambuscade of savages in some Paynim country. They were, as I surmise, of the same breed as those of whom the excellent John Milton wrote: "The sons of Belial, flown with insolence and wine." Alas! my memory is not what it was, for at one time I could say by rote whole books of ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in his tone! I could scarcely interpret it. Was he talking by rote, or was he utterly done with life and all its interests? No one besides myself seemed to note this strange passivity. To the masses he was no longer a suffering man, but an individual from whom information was to be got. The next ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... that sympathetic clearness of instruction which makes one boy the best teacher to another. The main difficulty still continued to be the repetition, and grammar rules; but in order to know them, at least by rote, Walter would get up with the earliest gleam of daylight, and would put on his trousers and waistcoat after bed-time, and go and sit, book in hand, under the gaslight in the passage. This was hard work, doubtless; but it brought its own reward in successful endeavour and an approving ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar |
