"Subtilty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... world to consult, many histories, Fathers, and Councils to search into; if the fabric of his body be not strong and healthful, you will soon find him as thin as a piece of metaphysics, and look as piercing as a School subtilty. ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... bestow praise on virtuous actions, performed in very distant ages and remote countries; where the utmost subtilty of imagination would not discover any appearance of self-interest, or find any connexion of our present happiness and security with events so widely ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... forgett here the subtilty of one of these wildmen that was in the same boat with me. We see a castor along the watter side, that puts his head out of the watter. That wildman no sooner saw him but throwes himself out into the watter and downe to the bottom, without so much time ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... her crimes that the Lady by my humble and your like kind favour may yet be kept in prison, before the returne to towne, for other my brother who hopes to be going soune will not be kept from her and she will (if he should meet with her) so worke on him by her subtilty and that shee will draw from him something to the advantage of her dishonourable cause and to her end." Here again is evidence that Purbeck "will not be kept from" his wife; and that, if they meet "shee ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... whereupon he saith, In veste varietas sit, scissura non sit; they be two things, unity and uniformity. The other is, when the matter of the point controverted, is great, but it is driven to an over-great subtilty, and obscurity; so that it becometh a thing rather ingenious, than substantial. A man that is of judgment and understanding, shall sometimes hear ignorant men differ, and know well within himself, that those which so differ, mean one thing, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... seeking whom he may deuoure. He [h]is no weake assaylant, and therefore heere by the Apostle are noted in him foure things: First, his power (a Lyon): Second, his hatred, and wrath in the word (roaring): Third, his subtilty (walking about) obseruing euery oportunity and occasion to hurt vs: Fourth, his cruelty (deuoure) no contentment but in our ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts
... all over the subject let there be no doubt which is which. Separate them one from the other as they are separated in the moon, or on the world itself, in day and night. Then gradate your lights with the utmost subtilty possible to you; but let your shadows alone, until near the termination of the drawing: then put quickly into them what farther energy they need, thus gaining the reflected lights out of their original flat gloom; but generally ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... cranial structure of the Apostles was of a pronounced simian character; of the indecencies of Haeckel, that supreme incomprehender, there is no need to speak, nor yet of those of Buechner; even Virchow is not free from them. And others work with more subtilty. There are people who seem not to be content with not believing that there is another life, or rather, with believing that there is none, but who are vexed and hurt that others should believe in it or even should wish that it might exist. And this attitude is as contemptible as that is worthy of ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... entering any further on questions either in moral or physical subjects, relating to the manner or to the origin of our knowledge; without any disparagement to that subtilty which would analyze every sentiment, and trace every mode of being to its source; it may be safely affirmed, that the character of man, as he now exists, that the laws of his animal and intellectual system, on which his happiness now depends, ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... you, O men, I call; And my voice is to the sons of men. O ye simple, understand subtilty; And ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart. Hear, for I will speak excellent things; And the opening of my lips shall be right things. For my mouth shall utter truth; And wickedness is an ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... refined sugar of the Island is made. Caonabo then reigned there, who surmounted all the rest in Power, State, and the splendid Ceremonies of His Government. This King beyond all expectation was surpriz'd in his own Palace, by the great subtilty and industry of the Spaniards, and after carried on board in order to his transportation to Castile, but there being at that time six Ships Riding in the Haven, and ready to set Sail such an impetuous storm ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... consider whether this was the happiest moment for its display. Those learned in the lore of such matters would probably have advised him to let her alone for a few days, or weeks, or months, according to the subtilty of their knowledge or their views. ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... appears Chaucer's art in all its subtilty. The wiles of Pandarus, carried as far as his character will allow, might have sufficed to make a Cressida of romance yield; but it would have been too easy play for the master already sure of his powers. He makes Pandarus say a word too much; Cressida unmasks him on the spot, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... ever knowingly, and for its own sake, chooses the false: whatever he may do in after life, for some selfish purpose, he cannot do so in childhood, where there is no such motive, without violence to his nature. And here we are supposing the understanding, with its triumphant pride and subtilty, out of the question, and the child making his choice under the spontaneous sense of the true and the false. For, were it otherwise, and the choice indifferent, what possible foundation for the commonest acts of life, even as it respects himself, would there be ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... stairs and trying to pull down old Mr. Crewe. Groans, yells, and hisses—hisses, yells, and groans—only stemmed by the appearance of another caricature representing Mr. Tryan being pitched head-foremost from the pulpit stairs by a hand which the artist, either from subtilty of intention or want of space, had left unindicated. In the midst of the tremendous cheering that saluted this piece of symbolical art, the chaise had reached the door of the Red Lion, and loud cries of 'Dempster for ever!' with a feebler cheer now and then ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... enemies thereby got strength within them afresh; and also because, though they had by many petitions made suit to the Prince Emmanuel, and to his Father Shaddai by him, for their pardon and favour, yet hitherto obtained they not one smile; but contrariwise, through the craft and subtilty of the domestic Diabolonians, their cloud was made to grow blacker and blacker, and their Emmanuel to stand ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... threatened me with his life-long vengeance. Leagued with a professional agitator named Razzaro, he commenced to undermine my authority with great subtilty, till in the end my simple people who once had loved me and my family grew to hate me, and to look upon Waldemar, even the Royalists, as ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... as though he expected his friend's subtilty to come to his assistance; with admissions or recriminations. But the other was still silent, absent: his face wore a look of annoyed indifference. After a while, as Tregellan ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... access to; these insects are three times the size of the black ants of Britain, and have a most voracious appetite: when they find no better prey they kill each other, and that with the fierceness and subtilty of the spider. They appear less sociable in their habits than other ants; though, from the numbers that invade your dwellings, I should think they formed a community like the rest of ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... beautifully rounded neck. The one whom he remembered had been hideous; this one was beautiful. But the beauty that he saw was, nevertheless, hard, cold, and repellent. For Hilda, in her beauty and grace and intellectual subtilty, stood there watchful and vigilant, like a keen fencer on guard, waiting to see what the first spoken word might disclose; waiting to see what that grand lordly face, with its air of command, its repressed grief, its deep piercing eyes, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Subtilty means that our risen bodies will be endowed with the power of penetrating all things, even the hardest substances, as easily as the sun's rays penetrate a clear crystal. This is the power which ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... that, not content with these treatises, he had travelled through Greece and Asia, so as to embrace the whole world of art. And thus it had come about that in the works of Cicero no knowledge is wanting—neither of music, nor of grammar, nor any other liberal accomplishment. He understood the subtilty of logic, the purpose of ethics, the effects and causes of things." Then the speaker goes on to explain what may be expected from study such as that. "Thus it is, my good friends—thus, that from the acquirement of many arts, and from a general knowledge of all things, ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... Love's soft Indearments and Charms; And Cancer's slow Motion the degrees do express, Respectful Love arrives to Happiness. Leo his strength and Majesty, Virgo her blushing Modesty, And Libra all his Equity. His Subtilty does Scorpio show, And Sagittarius all his loose desire, By Capricorn his forward Humour know, And Aqua, Lovers Tears that raise his Fire, While Pisces, which intwin'd do move, Shew the soft Play, and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... this writer a rare inventive skill, an astonishing subtilty in the delineation of character, and a style perhaps unequalled among contemporaries in a certain Keats-like affluence. Yet her plots have usually been melodramatic, her characters morbid, and her descriptions overdone. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... cry for pardon. And it is observable, that though the birthright was Reuben's, and, for his foolishness, given to the sons of Joseph, yet Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the Messiah (1 Chron 5:1,2). There is a heavenly subtilty to be managed in this matter. 'Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing.' The blessing belonged to Esau, but Jacob by his diligence made it his own (Gen 27:35). The offer is to the biggest sinner, to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a literature which may boast of works not inferior to the noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us, have discovered the laws which regulate the motions of the heavenly bodies, have speculated with exquisite subtilty on the operations of the human mind, have been the acknowledged leaders of the human race in the career of political improvement. The history of England is the history of this great change in the moral, intellectual, and physical state ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... bow!" it moaned—so moans the sea through the crash of the waves on nights when the storm strews the beach of the North Country with wreckage—"Oh! quit thy sword, for, poisonous monster though I be, no scaith will I do thee." Then those who heard the wonder felt sure that the Worm sought by subtilty to destroy their Prince, for still as a white, dead man he stood, and gazed at the brute that shivered before him like a whipped dog that would fain lick his master's feet. But again it spoke, in that terrible, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... with its fruits.' Then to Lord Hailes he writes: 'Entre nous of Dempster,—Johnson had seen a pupil of Hume and Rousseau totally unsettled as to principles. I had infinite satisfaction in hearing solid truth confuting vain subtilty. I thank God that I have got acquainted with Mr Johnson. He has done me infinite service. He has assisted me to obtain peace of mind; he has assisted me to become a rational Christian; I hope I shall ever remain so.' Pleasantly all this would sound ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... the torrent of Demosthenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully; it resembled sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres. Like Murray, he did not conduct the understanding through the painful subtilty of argumentation; nor was he, like Townshend, for ever on the rack of exertion, but rather lightened upon the subject, and reached the point by the flashings of his mind, which, like those of his eye, were felt, but could ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... crafty devices is lying in wait to deceive and lead astray. He comes to us and appeals to our physical nature in many respects, and it is necessary that we keep in a watchful and prayerful attitude "lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."—2 Cor. 11:3. Even through our appetites would Satan gain the advantage over us, and finally bring us into bondage, if he were permitted to do so. In this respect the apostle ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... which the effect depends, is frequently involved in other circumstances, which are foreign and extrinsic. The separation of it often requires great attention, accuracy, and subtilty. ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... the general privilege of age, is, by the consent and connivance of mankind, leveled against those who have the misfortune to come under the denomination of old maids; and these last retorted their hostilities in the private machinations of slander, supported by experience and subtilty of invention. Not one day passed in which some new story did not circulate, to the prejudice of one or other of ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... tricks of legerdemain can do such strange feats to the deceiving of the sight, it is no wonder that these airy invisible spirits as far surpass them in all such praestigious doings as the air surpasses the earth for subtilty. ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... Confiding in his own conscious strength, and no doubt participating in the common error of modern times as to the value of artificial logic, he has taken for granted that the Aristotelian forms and the exquisite science of distinctions matured by the subtilty of the schoolmen can achieve nothing in substance which is beyond the power of mere sound good sense and robust faculties of reasoning; or at most can only attain the same end with a little more speed and adroitness. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... names well known in the circles of Devonshire House; Sir P—— F——, who struck me at first sight by his penetrating physiognomy, and who was even then suspected of being the author of that most brilliant of all libels, Junius; W——, then in the flower of life, and whose subtilty and whim might be seen in his fine forehead and volatile eyes; some others, whose names I did not know, and among them one of low stature, but of singularly animated features. He was evidently a military man, and of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... rounds of the papers in my youth, which may or may not have any truth in it, but which I will record. It is said that he was once arguing a case against Nathan Smith, a very able but rather coarse lawyer. Mr. Smith had discussed the question of law with the subtilty for which he was distinguished. Mr. Sherman said to the court that he thought his brother Smith's metaphysics were out of place in that discussion; that he was not adverse to such refinement at a proper time, and would willingly, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... touches life at every point. It especially affects those of us who are called to be fishers of men. It is a great art, this human angling, and needs infinite tact, and infinite subtilty, and infinite patience. And, above all, it needs a resolute determination never on any account whatever to be soured by disappointment. When I am tempted to wind up my line, and give the whole thing up in despair, I revive my flagging enthusiasm ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... sensibility, while the other rises into the sphere of the ideal and impalpable. In the latter class there are vast differences, but uniformly intellect is prominent above sensibility; human faith and love are exhalant, aspirant, and rendered of a vapory subtilty by the interpenetration with them of the Olympian sunlight of thought and imagination. In Beecher this ideality is of a philosophic sort. Thought in him is forever dividing and illustrating truth; and that which is his great peculiarity is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... volume of poems expresses the peculiarity which we find in everything that Mr. Browning composes. Notwithstanding the remoteness of his moods, and the curious subtilty with which he follows the trace of exceptional feelings, he impersonates dramatically: there may be few such people as these choice acquaintances of his genius, but they are persons, and not mere figures labelled with a thought. Pippa, Guendolen, Luria, the Duchess, Bishop Blougram, Fra ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... of such a legislator will be self-maintained, and lasting. Upon him, the grateful french will confer those unforced, unpurchased suffrages, which will prevent that fate, which, in their absence, the subtilty of policy, the fascinations of address, the charm of corruption, and even the terror of the bayonet can only postpone.—Yes, Bonaparte! millions of suffering beings, raising themselves from the dust, in which a barbarous ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... on thy charming Tongue! dost thou return My feign'd Contempt with so much subtilty? [Aside. Thou'st found the easiest way into my Heart, Tho I yet know that all thou say'st is false. [Turning from ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... it is yet just. Such was the wealth of his truth that it was not worth his while to use words in vain. His poem entitled "Sympathy" reveals the tenderness under that triple steel of stoicism, and the intellectual subtilty it could animate. His classic poem on "Smoke" suggests Simonides, but is better than any poem of Simonides. His biography is in his verses. His habitual thought makes all his poetry a hymn to the Cause of causes, the Spirit which vivifies ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... farther this account of the second species of probability, where we reason with knowledge and reflection from a contrariety of past experiments, I shall propose the following considerations, without fearing to give offence by that air of subtilty, which attends them. Just reasoning ought still, perhaps, to retain its force, however subtile; in the same manner as matter preserves its solidity in the air, and fire, and animal spirits, as well as in the grosser ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... soldier perceived the ornamented moccasin of a savage on what an instant before he believed to be a bear! He could have shot him in a moment, but he knew not how many other animals might be at hand; he therefore refrained, and having perfect knowledge of Indian subtilty, he quickly took off his hat and coat, hung them on a branch of a fallen tree, grasped his rifle, and silently crept towards the thicket. He had barely reached it, when an arrow, whizzing past his head, told him of the danger he ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... increases in complexity it is easy to forget these basal precepts. Nature has provided a model, both simple and fundamental, in physical health. {92} "The body," says Burke, "is wiser in its own plain way, and attends its own business more directly than the mind with all its boasted subtilty." [9] ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... surface, instead of delving in the unwholesome quicksilver mines of metaphysic lore. And if in after time I have sought a refuge from bodily pain and mismanaged sensibility in abstruse researches, which exercised the strength and subtilty of the understanding without awakening the feelings of the heart; still there was a long and blessed interval, during which my natural faculties were allowed to expand, and my original tendencies to develop themselves;—my fancy, and the love of nature, and the sense of beauty in forms ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... cease to act, it would cease to be; and that cessation of thought is but another name for extinction of mind. This argument is subtle, but not conclusive; because it supposes what cannot be proved, that the nature of mind is properly defined. Others affect to disdain subtilty, when subtilty will not serve their purpose, and appeal to daily experience. We spend many hours, they say, in sleep, without the least remembrance of any thoughts which then passed in our minds; and since we can only ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... let yourself down to those with whom you converse; and sometimes affect ignorance: lay aside power and subtilty in common conversation; to preserve decorum and order 'tis enough-nay, crawl on the earth, if they ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... way the passage 'the higher knowledge is that by which the Indestructible is apprehended, &c.' (Mu. Up. I, 1, 5) first denies of Brahman all the evil qualities connected with Prakriti, and then teaches that to it there belong eternity, all-pervadingness, subtilty, omnipresence, omniscience, imperishableness, creativeness with regard to all beings, and other auspicious qualities. Now we maintain that also the text 'True, knowledge, infinite is Brahman', does not prove a substance ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... is not clear to me whether a piece of plate representing the Five Wounds in enamel is meant, or some edible 'subtilty': probably the former. ...
— Henry the Sixth - A Reprint of John Blacman's Memoir with Translation and Notes • John Blacman
... any other object, it would cease to be the transcendental aspect of ourselves. Kant makes short work of the so-called proofs for the existence of God which had done duty in the scholastic theology. With subtilty, sometimes also with bitter irony, he shows that they one and all assume that which they set out to prove. They are theoretically insufficient and practically unnecessary. They have such high-sounding names—the ontological argument, ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... he had not put the important question long before, so vital and inevitable had it become; and he scarcely considered, in his curious egoism, his scant acquaintance with the subtilty of a woman's mind, how much Mary herself might have contributed to the delay by her careful avoidance of intimate topics, by the cloak of elaborate indifference in which she had wrapped herself whenever she had not been able to avoid being alone with him; so that, however much he ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... account when playing 2. ... Kt-KB3. His idea was to provoke the advance of the KP. The pawn at K5 is weaker than at K4, particularly as Black's QBP prevents its natural support by P-Q4. Moreover Black's Q4 is free from interference by White. White refutes this ultra subtilty by simple and straight-forward play, and he gets such an advantage in development that his attack succeeds before Black is able to demonstrate any ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker
... of, or read of. A wider range is thus exhibited, not of thought merely, but also of the possible modes of expressing thought, than is elsewhere to be found, even in writers the most skilled in rhetorical subtilty. The distance between these two opposites De Quincey does not traverse by violent leaps; he does not by some feat of legerdemain evanish from the fields of impassioned eloquence, where he is an unrivalled master, to appear ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the importance of which was afterwards confirmed, and by the vague fears of a sickly old man. He was offended by the contemptuous terms which the foreign ambassadors applied to the condescension of him whom they called the "French emperor's chaplain." His Italian subtilty was disturbed, and his natural kindness chafed by the dryness of the emperor's message. "This is poison which you have brought to me," said he to General Caffarelli, after reading Napoleon's letter. He set ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... him had pity on him; for he, seeing man was deceived, and that it was not of malice, or an original presumption in him, but through the subtilty of the serpent, who had first fallen from his own state, and by the mediation of the woman, man's own nature and companion, whom the serpent had first deluded, in his infinite goodness and wisdom provided a way to repair the breach, recover the loss, and ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... with this design, he was admitted to ALMEIDA; who, without suspicion of her danger, was exposed to the severest trial, in which every passion concurred to oppose her virtue: she was solicited by all the powers of subtilty and desire, under the appearance of a lover whose tenderness and fidelity had been long tried, and whose passion she returned with equal constancy and ardour; and she was thus solicited, when the rites which alone could consecrate their union, were impossible, and were rendered ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... coming, when the compositions of later hirelings shall lie equally despised. In proportion as those who write on temporary subjects, are exalted above their merit at first, they are afterwards depressed below it; nor can the brightest elegance of diction, or most artful subtilty of reasoning, hope for so much esteem from those whose regard is no longer quickened by ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Instead of sharpening his wits to escape an irksome subjection, you will observe him wholly occupied in finding out in everything around him that part best adapted to his present well-being. You will be amazed at the subtilty of his contrivances for appropriating to himself all the objects within the reach of his understanding, and for enjoying everything without regard ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... poet of his age, and the prince of poetry. In fine, M. Baillet, who had examined the many opinions given of Grotius, assures us, that all who read his poems approved of them; that those of fine taste, and who could judge of epigrams, found many of his admirable, some discovering the subtilty of his genius, and the fertility of his imagination; others, the happy turn which he could give to ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... hear the word of God. 8. But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. 9. Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him, 10. And said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? 11. And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... conceivable how Berkeley can be answered by pure reasoning; but I know that the nice and difficult task was to have been undertaken by one of the most luminous minds of the present age, had not politicks 'turned him from calm philosophy aside[1387].' What an admirable display of subtilty, united with brilliance, might his contending with Berkeley have afforded us[1388]! How must we, when we reflect on the loss of such an intellectual feast, regret that he should be characterised ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... a mouse's wit not worth a leek, That hath but one hole for to starte* to, *escape And if that faile, then is all y-do.* *done [*I bare him on hand* he had enchanted me *falsely assured him* (My dame taughte me that subtilty); And eke I said, I mette* of him all night, *dreamed He would have slain me, as I lay upright, And all my bed was full of very blood; But yet I hop'd that he should do me good; For blood betoken'd gold, as me was taught. And all was false, I dream'd of him right naught, But as I follow'd ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... artifice would better become the Italian subtilty than the English simplicity. Your Lordship has been ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... manis sleight and subtilty, A silly simple and innocent woman Betrayed is: no wonder! since the city Of Troy, as that the story tellen can, Betrayed was, through the deceit of man, And set on fire, and all down overthrow; And finally destroyed, ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... of the Spanish dominions exposed them in a particular manner to sudden incursions by small parties, and that in former wars against them, our chief advantage had been gained by the boldness and subtilty of private adventurers, who by hovering over their coasts in small vessels, without raising the alarms which the sight of a royal navy necessarily produces, had discovered opportunities of landing unexpectedly, and entering their towns by surprise, of plundering their wealthy ships, or enriching ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... little; but Jehu shall serve him much. Now therefore call unto me all the prophets of Baal, all his servants, and all his priests; let none be wanting: for I have a great sacrifice to do to Baal; whosoever shall be wanting, he shall not live. But Jehu did it in subtilty, to the intent that he might destroy the ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... Opinion, it ought, to be an Irregular Centagon, a Figure with an Hundred Cones or Angles: Since the Unaccountables of this State-Science, are hid in a Million of undiscover'd Corners; as the Craft, Subtilty and Hypocrisy of Knaves and Courtiers have concealed them, never to be found out, but by this wonderful D—-l-scope, which seem'd to threaten a perfect Discovery of all those Nudities, which have lain hid in the Embrio, and ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... not attempting to perplex a plain matter of science by introducing into its discussion a metaphysical subtilty. The principle here contended for is one of the first dictates of the inductive philosophy, and as such it has been frankly acknowledged and acted upon by all the great improvers of science in modern days. When Newton discovered that the planets circle round the sun in the ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen
... of Vane in his Autobiography: 'He was the Principal Man that drove on the Parliament to go too high, and act too vehemently against the King: Being of very ready Parts, and very great Subtilty, and unwearied Industry, he laboured, and not without Success, to win others in Parliament, City and Country to his Way. When the Earl of Strafford was accused, he got a Paper out of his Father's Cabinet (who was Secretary of State) which was the chief Means of his Condemnation: To most ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... judges are the Pundits. This law is comprehensive, extending to all the concerns of life, affording principles and maxims and legal theories applicable to all cases, drawn from the sources of natural equity, modified by their institutions, full of refinement and subtilty of distinction equal to that of any other law, and has the grand test of all law, that, wherever it has prevailed, the country has been ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... against such an old and beneficent government as against the most violent tyranny or the greenest usurpation. They are always at issue with governments, not on a question of abuse, but a question of competency and a question of title. I have nothing to say to the clumsy subtilty of their political metaphysics. Let them be their ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... they perswade themselues to be so puissaunte and mightie, as all thinges be, and rest at their commaundement. Retourning nowe then to our former discourse, the Steward so laboured with might and maine, till he had found meanes to be reuenged of the receiued refusall, with such subtilty and Diuelish inuention as was possible for man to deuise, which was this. Among the seruauntes of this greate Lorde there was one no lesse yonge of witte and vnderstanding, then of age. And albeit that he was ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... of imagination displayed in the characters already noticed are hardly more admirable than the truth and subtilty of observation shown ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... thousand to one whether I should ever see it or not, and in the sand too, which the first surge of the sea, upon a high wind, would have defaced entirely. All this seemed inconsistent with the thing itself, and with all the notions we usually entertain of the subtilty of the devil. ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... of a prodigious bigness.] Of Serpents, there are these sorts. The Pimberah, the body whereof is as big as a mans middle, and of a length proportionable. It is not swift, but by subtilty will catch his prey; which are Deer or other Cattel; He lyes in the path where the Deer use to pass, and as they go, he claps hold of them by a kind of peg that growes on his tayl, with which he strikes them. He will swallow a Roe Buck whole, horns and all; ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... opposed this view of her character at great length, and with extraordinary subtilty. We regret that the exigencies of our narrative render it impossible for us to follow her—we can only state that the result, as on all such occasions, was the total defeat of the cavalier. Mr. Ralph Ashley several times stated his willingness to subscribe to any views, opinions ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... Prince, with as much obstinacy, as perfidiousness towards God. The great Judge commanded a pair of scales to be brought, threatening the Jew with death if he cut either more or less: And this was to give a sharp decision to a malicious process, and to the world a miracle of subtilty."—The Hero, p. 24, &c. ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare
... own subtilty, are in tumult, and sedition, better disposed for victory, than they that suppose themselves wise, or crafty. For these love to consult, the other (fearing to be circumvented,) to strike first. And in sedition, men being alwayes in the procincts of Battell, to hold together, and use all advantages ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... The requisite subtilty of analysis, and sympathy with mental finesse, must also specially adapt this actor to the correct assumption of the character of Iago. Those who have never seen him in it may know by analogy that his merits ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various |
