"Underrate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are disposed to underrate the importance of this tendency in spermatorrhoea. The statistics of any of our large insane asylums will illustrate the influence of masturbation in the production of insanity. Mr. Holmes Coote, in a discussion which followed ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... and called no mortal his superior. When he joined his neighbors, to avenge a foray of the savages, he joined on the most equal terms—each man was, for the time, his own captain; and when the leader was chosen—for the pioneers, with all their personal independence, were far too rational to underrate the advantages of a head in the hour of danger—each voice was counted in the choice, and the election might fall on any one. But, even after such organization, every man was fully at liberty to ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... inevitable mass of disapproval which any marked liking for Quisante (May shrank from even thinking of stronger terms) must arouse. She had far too much understanding of the disapproval and far too much sympathy with it to underrate the probable extent and depth of it; to a half of herself she was with it, heart and soul; to a half of herself the impulse that drove her towards Quisante was something hardly rational and wholly repulsive. What purpose, then, did ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... the character and temperament of Grey and Olivia, the impression they had made on him grew stronger. He was too good a judge of men not to perceive that the budding dramatist had the intelligent imagination which makes for real shrewdness, and he was not disposed to underrate the value of the imagination in forming judgments of men and women. Probably Colonel Grey was a man of less intensity of emotion than Mr. Manley had declared, and Lady Loudwater less subtile and intelligent. But, after making these reductions, he had here possible actors in a drama of ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... danger that the Southern whites will, as a rule, misinterpret the meaning of the exodus. Many are inclined to underrate its importance, and those who appreciate its significance are apt to look for temporary and superficial remedies. The vague promises made at the Vicksburg convention, which was controlled by the whites, and called ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... taught to read and write, as he did not wish to become a priest. He took the name of William P. Matthews, but among his white associates he is known as Bill Nix. He has tried several occupations and is now an Indian doctor. The author was inclined at first to underrate Mr. Matthews's accomplishments and stock of information, but subsequently changed his opinion of him, as he obtained much that agreed with what had been furnished by members of other tribes in former ...
— Osage Traditions • J. Owen Dorsey
... that I may dow or dare. Yes, I will sing the Lion-King o'er all the tribes victorious, To living thing may not concede thy meed and actions glorious; How oft thy noble head has woke thy valiant men to battle, As panic o'er their spirit broke, and rued the foe their mettle! Is there, thy praise to underrate, in very thought presuming, O'er crested chieftainry[120] thy state, O thou, of right assuming! I see thee, on thy silken flag, in rampant[121] glory streaming, As life inspired their firmness thy planted hind feet seeming. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... should be put where his services can avowedly be best utilized. This statement is true of Chamberlain. He was, as the Times put it, "the Carnot of the moment, the organizer of Liberal victory." [Footnote: Neither Sir Charles Dilke nor Mr. Chamberlain would, however, have desired to underrate the great share in organizing the victory of Mr. Adam, the principal Liberal Whip in the House of Commons, whose services were generally considered to have been very insufficiently recognized by Mr. Gladstone.] ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... months of struggle, fired at in front, sniped at from behind—and no one who saw what he had to do after he came home from Europe in meeting the great new problems which grew out of the war—will for a moment belittle the immensity of his task, or underrate his extraordinary endurance, ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... part of prudence to be inattentive to the tendencies of measures. Where there is any ground to fear that these will prove pernicious, wisdom and duty forbid that we should underrate them. If we reject the treaty, will our peace be as safe as if we executed it with good faith? I do honor to the intrepid spirits of those who say it will. It was formerly understood to constitute the excellence of a man's faith to believe without ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... as not misuses and turns against herself. But Mr. Vane," the note of bitterness had vanished; her voice was now earnest, almost grave, "you weren't despondent when you were facing an angry mob after doing me a service I shall never forget. You underrate yourself." ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... supposed, however, because I speak of these differences as not fundamental, that I wish to underrate their value. They are important enough in their way, the structure of the foot being in strict correlation with that of the rest of the organism in each case. Nor can it be doubted that the greater division of physiological ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley
... a particular incident: if they thought that of importance, they would give the prisoner the full benefit of their doubts. The prisoner had in fact admitted the main fact himself: and had said nothing tending to change the natural construction of it. He had simply endeavoured to underrate the importance of Harlech Castle, but that was of no consequence: a place, weak in itself, may be reputed strong; and, by encouraging people to rise in a period of general political ferment, may do all the mischief that could attach to the seizure of a much ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... own personality deeply upon the minds of multitudes of men, than to have composed most of those works which the world is said not willingly to let die. Nor, again, is to say that this higher renown belongs to Mr. Carlyle, to underrate the less resounding, but most substantial, services of a definite kind which he has rendered both to literature and history. This work may be in time superseded with the advance of knowledge, but the value of the first ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... afraid," returned Denis, "that you underrate the difficulty, madam. What you may be too generous to refuse, I may be too proud to accept. In a moment of noble feeling toward me, you forget what you perhaps owe ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... to mask his viziercraft—and save him the labour of patiently attempting oratory and persuasion, which accomplishment he does not possess:—it is not in iron. We think the more precious metal will beat him when the broader conflict comes. But such an adversary is not to be underrated. I do not underrate him: and certainly not he me. Had he been born with the gifts of patience and a fluent tongue, and not a petty noble, he might have been for the people, as knowing them the greater power. He sees that their knowledge of their power ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... all. He was once my friend, a college intimacy revived in the world, and which lasted six months, when, thinking he could do better, he cut me, as he had done others before. I am not a fair judge of him, because the pique which his conduct to me naturally gave me would induce me to underrate him, but I take vanity and self-sufficiency to be the prominent features of his character, though of the extent of his capacity I will give no opinion. Let time show; I think he will fail. [Time did show it to be very considerable, and the volvenda dies brought back ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... "Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth." The defects in Sprengel's work were, after all, not actual defects. The error lay simply in his interpretation of his carefully noted facts. As Hermann Mueller has said, "Sprengel's investigations afford an example of how even work that is ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... strong position on the side of integrity, morality, and honour. The Queen is afraid that the diplomatic intrigues and counter intrigues at Madrid have made us lose daily more of that advantageous position without any compensation on the other side. The Queen entreats Lord John Russell not to underrate the importance of keeping our foreign policy beyond reproach. Public opinion is recognised as a ruling power in our domestic affairs; it is not of less importance in the society of Europe with reference to the conduct of an individual state. To possess the confidence ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... highest monuments are built piece by piece. Step by step we mount the pyramids. Be bold—be resolute when the clouds gather, difficulties are surmounted by opposition. Self-confidence, self-reliance is your capital. Your conscience the best monitor. Never be over-sanguine, but do not underrate your own abilities. Don't be discouraged. [Transcriber's Note: The original text reads 'Nintynine'] Ninety-nine may say no, the [Transcriber's Note: The original text reads 'hundreth'] hundredth, yes: take off your coat: roll up your sleeves, don't be ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... deep heart-knowledge of pure womanhood could have come otherwise than by the impression on the child's soul of a mother's purity. I seem to have a vision of one of those women whom the world knows not of, silent, deep-hearted, loving, whom the coarser and more practically efficient jostle aside and underrate for their want of interest in the noisy chitchat and commonplace of the day; but who yet have a sacred power, like that of the spirit of peace, to brood with dovelike wings over the childish heart, and quicken into ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... Shylock of race-hatred; and he contrives to preserve all the characteristics of an ideal type amid surroundings of intensely prosaic realism, with which he himself, moreover, considered as an individual character in a specific story, is in complete, accord. If any one be disposed to underrate the creative and dramatic power to which this testifies, let him consider how it has commonly fared with those writers of prose fiction who have attempted to personify a virtue in a man. Take the work of another famous English humourist and sentimentalist, and compare Uncle Toby's manly and dignified ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... Possibly I underrate my strength of mind and the influence of habit, which makes easy to us every path; but I will not trust ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... therefore, if there are any real and peculiar sources of trial and difficulty in this pursuit, that they should be distinctly known and acknowledged at the outset. Count the cost before going to war. It is even better policy to overrate than to underrate it. Let us see, then, what the real difficulties of ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... that original shrewdness which may even be called genius. When an idea of exceptional value is given forth, one that is all the greater on account of its simplicity, people seem to be naturally disposed to underrate the power which gave it utterance. Booker Washington may merely be following in the footsteps of Adam Smith when, instead of regarding the negro population as an evil or a grievance, he prescribes that their labour, as a source of vast wealth, be utilised for the national ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... wish to deny or underrate the additions made to the evil by the intervention of causes, whose operation admits of being traced in some measure distinctly from the effect of this grand one. They may be traced in an operation which is distinguishable; and referable to each respectively; but it were most absurd to represent ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... his own catholic capacity for enjoyment. The deliberate tone in which he judges his own works, in his letters, shows how little his mind was impressed by the greatness of their fame and of the genius found in them. There could not have been a more modest author, though he did not weakly underrate his work. "Recognition," he once said to Mr. Howells, ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... Magazine?" said Hilary. "Well, this business that you call a 'plant' is more like that. I don't want to alarm you, but I think you as well as our young friend Martin, are inclined to underrate the emotional capacity ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... with the Skipper next day. It is a strange thing to me how men value one sentiment and underrate another. If I'd gone to the Old Man and said, 'I want to go home, Captain, and see my wife,' he would have asked me if I was crazy. But as soon as I said—showing him the black-edged letter—that ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... citizens of his own State, aliens with whom he had little or nothing in common, who had no home in his patriotic feeling, no place in his religious experience.[593] As I said at the beginning of the last lecture, we must not underrate the religiousness of the Roman character, which was never entirely lost; but the secret of its comparative uselessness lies in this—that the natural desire to be right with the Power manifesting itself in the universe, and to know more ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... there a colored sentence to allure him, like those plants growing in dark forests, which bear only leaves without blossoms. But the ground was comparatively unbroken, and we will not complain of the pioneer, if he raises no flowers with his first crop. Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written. Men are knowing ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... dangerous. Or if, then, their hate did not take so serious a form, the Dictator reasoned that they were not particularly dangerous. So he insisted on lying low, and quietly seeing what would come of it. He was not now disposed to underrate the danger, but he felt convinced that the worst possible course for him would be to proclaim ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... advantage of an admission contained in a speech of Sir James Graham, that during the last twelve months pauperism had diminished, and trade and commerce had improved in the country because the price of wheat was low, Mr. Ward said that he was not going to underrate the benefit produced by an abundant harvest, but he believed that still greater benefit had been effected by the the liberal policy of government. The idea that there were any peculiar burdens on the land, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of the mouth of God.' We who live in a great commercial community and know how solid comfort and hope and gladness are all contingent, in millions of humble homes, upon the manufacturing industry of these districts, shall never be likely to underrate the enormous expansion in national industry, and the consequent enormous increase in national wealth, which belongs to this last half century. I need ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... underrate the Holt, the wretch, or was it civility? She spoke a little severely. 'It is not a considerable property, but it gives a certain position, and it should make a difference to you to ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... determining agencies equally, and endeavor, so far as it can be done, to include all of them within the pale of the science; else we shall infallibly bestow a disproportionate attention upon those which our theory takes into account, while we misestimate the rest, and probably underrate their importance. That the deductions should be from the whole and not from a part only of the laws of nature that are concerned, would be desirable even if those omitted were so insignificant in comparison with the others, that they might, for most purposes and on most occasions, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... population of Olympus. For Leo, prodigal of his money, and disliking to be surrounded by any but cheerful faces, displayed a generosity in his gifts which was fabulously exaggerated in the hard times that followed. His reorganization of the Sapienza has been already spoken of. In order not to underrate Leo's influence on hu- manism we must guard against being misled by the toy-work that was mixed up with it, and must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the apparent irony with which he himself sometimes treated ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... Remonstrances, petitions, and complaints poured into the Fukuhara mansion. Meanwhile the Minamoto rose. In August of 1180, their white flag was hoisted, and though it looked very insignificant on the wide horizon of Taira power, Kiyomori did not underrate its meaning. At the close of the year, he decided to abandon the Fukuhara scheme and carry the Court back to Kyoto. On the eve of his return he found an opportunity of dealing a heavy blow to the monasteries of Miidera and Nara. For, it having been discovered that ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... Kaunitz, to whom she intrusted all the management of affairs, is not the least important personage in this drama, nor did he underrate his own consequence. "Heaven," said he, "is a hundred years in forming a great mind for the restoration of an empire, and it then rests another hundred years; on this account I tremble for the fate ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... the Civil and Ecclesiastical officers to be Christians; there is no fear that the civil officer should underrate the dignity or shorten the serviceableness of the minister; but there is considerable danger that the religious enthusiasm of the minister might diminish the serviceableness of the civilian. (The History of Religious Enthusiasm should be written by ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... the attempt by the conditions laid down for this Chair. I gather—and my own perusal of the poem and of much writing about it confirms the belief—that it has been largely over-praised by some critics, who have thus naturally provoked others to underrate it. Such things happen. I note, but without subscribing to it, the opinion of Vigfusson and York Powell, the learned editors of the "Corpus Poeticum Boreale," that in the "Beowulf" we have 'an epic completely metamorphosed in form, blown out with long-winded ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... constantly lapsing into fierceness, and if we forget this lurking bellicosity and admiration for hard blows in our own nature then we shall set about the task of making an end to it under hopelessly disabling misconceptions. We shall underrate and misunderstand altogether the very powerful forces that are against ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... to give kings the glory of all that is effected by their generals and officers; and the writers of those days would, of course, in narrating the exploits of the Macedonian army, exaggerate the share which Alexander had in their performances, and underrate those of Parmenio. But in modern times, many impartial readers, in reviewing calmly these events, think that there is reason to doubt whether Alexander, if he had set out on his great expedition without Parmenio, ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... feel the effect of his hard blows. From among his own old partisan and religious sectarian parasites he will find men who will obey him with the fanatical alacrity of those who followed Peter the Hermit in the first Crusade. We repeat again, let us not underrate Brownlow." ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... having done greater and more efficient services for the country in the time of her greatest peril than any other person in the Republic, and a knowledge of this can not long be suppressed, though I do not underrate the mighty powers that may ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... all, as the Divine brother of all humanity, may be clad not inaptly in the garments of all. It appears to me that there is reason in this answer, and that viewed in its light the criticism which constantly demands historic fidelity is both carping and narrow. I do not mean, however, to underrate historic accuracy in itself, or to depreciate that longing for completeness in every particular, which drives our modern painters to the East to study patiently for months the aspects of nature under its Oriental climate, with its peculiar people ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... fine and coarse, carried down annually by rivers from the higher regions to the lower, and deposited in successive strata in the basins of seas and lakes, must be of enormous volume. We are always liable to underrate their magnitude, because the accumulation of strata is ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... who has rowed fifty races with pleasure to underrate, far less to disparage, mere rowing; but still we maintain that for the encouragement of pure manliness, and the varied capacities useful in a sailor's life, one punt chase is far better ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... requires some other contribution from each individual, besides the particular duties of his profession. And, if no such liberal intercourse be established, it is the common failing of human nature, to be engrossed with petty views and interests, to underrate the importance of all in which we are not concerned, and to carry our partial notions into cases where they are inapplicable, to act, in short, as so many unconnected units, displacing and ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... "I think you underrate us all," said Aneta. Then she came close to Maggie and took one of her hands. "I want to ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... became his wife.—Our author is not consistent in his own statements. Upon one page he describes Mrs. Prevost, about the time of her marriage, as "the beautiful Mrs. Prevost"; a few pages farther on he says she was "not beautiful, being past her prime." He informs us that it is the fashion to underrate Jefferson, that the polite circles and writers of the country have never sympathized with him,—and in the very same paragraph he remarks that "Thomas Jefferson has been for fifty years the victim of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... one of the seven deadly virtues, Gladys. You, as a good Tory, must not underrate them. Beer, the Bible, and the seven deadly virtues have made our ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... has been given schools to develop brain power, and I do not underrate their value. He has nearly entered into his domain as far as the material forces are concerned, but there is a moral and spiritual element in humanity which eludes his grasp in practically everything he undertakes. This lack of the moral element is to-day our greatest danger. We do not ask ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... My post, at starting, one of weight and trust; When I beheld you, I concluded it A charge of honour and high dignity. I did not think to hear you underrate Your ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... this is but one side of the truth. There is a tendency in some minds to underrate what is plain because all is not plain. For some minds the obscure has a fascination, apart altogether from its nature, just because it is obscure. It is a noble emulation to press forward and 'still to be closing up what we know not with what we know.' But neither in science ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... happily prevailing between the several branches of the legislature, and to divert the attention of influential members of the community from the material interests of the colony to the consideration of more exciting subjects. 'I do not underrate,' he said, 'the importance of constitutional questions, nor am I insensible to the honour which may be acquired by their satisfactory adjustment. In the present crisis of our fortunes, however, I am ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... the Socialist: "You Underrate my Cause! While women remain a Subject Class, You never can move the General ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... consider," says one, "how gladly would I sacrifice myself to attack this wrong or that iniquity." We need offer no opinion about the moral quality of such a position; enough to say that it is idle to ignore, or even to underrate, the ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... things might not be we cannot realize that things are. Until we see the background of darkness we cannot admire the light as a single and created thing. As soon as we have seen that darkness, all light is lightening, sudden, blinding, and divine. Until we picture nonentity we underrate the victory of God, and can realize none of the trophies of His ancient war. It is one of the million wild jests of truth that we know nothing ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... in demanding a certain social amenity from its nurslings (heaven knows it is not exorbitant in its requirements!); for although I well know how hard it is for a man of genius with a seriously underrated subject to maintain serene and kindly relations with the men who underrate it, and who keep all the best places for less important subjects which they profess without originality and sometimes without much capacity for them, still, if he overwhelms them with wrath and disdain, he cannot expect them to heap ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... possess. If you had it, you would not take so gloomy a view of things. Like him from whom I have derived some of my sentiments, I have found that they tend to make me a happier man. The Christian, like yourself, looks upon every thing with a jaundiced or distorted eye, and is apt to underrate the claims and pleasures of this present scene of our existence. I can truly say that I now enter into them much more keenly than I could when I was an orthodox Christian. I can say with Mr. Newman, I now, with deliberate approval, 'love ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... that constant re-origination is the method of Nature, I do not overlook the element nor underrate the importance of Imitation. This it is that secures continuity, connection, and structural unity. By vital imitation the embryonic man assumes the features and traits of his progenitors. After birth the infant remains in the matrix of the household; after infancy the glowing youth is held in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... fear it is that, carried out in morals as well as politics, that is fast reducing our system to degradation and tyranny. You northern gentlemen have a sort of pedantic solicitude for our rights, but you underrate our feelings upon the slavery question. I'm one among the few southerners who hold what are considered strange views: we are subjected to ridicule for our views; but it is only by those who see nothing but servitude in the negro,—nothing ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... Charles. "You take a gloomy view of your fellow-creatures, Miss Deyncourt. I see you underrate my powers ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... the same time, if by any chance they have found out that we are crossing with important papers, agreements, and chemicals, they will be on the lookout for us and we will have a good chase if we manage to escape. I don't say this to scare you boys; but you are here, and I don't want you to underrate the present danger. I will be good and glad to get across myself. Not a word of this ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... Charles Mathews was entirely unjust in his criticisms upon Mr. Forrest's King Lear. He considered Mr. Forrest's rendering of the part as very fine and close to nature. He could not understand why Mr. Mathews should underrate it as he did. Longfellow showed us a book given him by Charles Sumner. In it was an old engraving (from a painting by Giulio Clovio) of the moon, in which Dante is walking with his companion. He said it was a most ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... last to underrate the part which the self-assertion of the individual has played in the evolution of mankind. However, this subject requires, I believe, a much deeper treatment than the one it has hitherto received. In the history of mankind, individual ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... so accustomed to refer the Reformation to the time of Luther in Germany, as the grand religious turning-point in modern history, that we are apt to underrate, if not to forget, the religious movement in this most important era of English history. Chaucer and Wiclif wrote nearly half a century before John Huss was burned by Sigismond: it was a century after that that Luther burned the Pope's decretals ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... and your Western friends, I think, underrate this speech. It has produced a greater effect here than any other single speech. It is the real platform in the Eastern States, and must carry the conservative element in New York, New ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... are tempted to say at times with Hazael, "Thy servant is but a dog; how can he do these great things?" You are disposed to underrate your gifts, your opportunities, your happy chances in life—in a word, your possibilities. You despair of finding any opening; you are sure that you will never hear a call to come up higher; you think your lives must ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... courage. There are the lesser courages and the greater. There are many who dare face danger and undertake hard tasks, and face ridicule and failure. It is a fine and a true courage and I do not underrate it. Helen Trounstine had it and had it to the full. She tackled hard tasks; she faced some men whose interests she opposed. She fought out her fights against all comers, and never flinched. She would go into the court or into the saloon or dance hall, the places of commercial recreation, ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... and that confidence has been justified. We tested them at Gemeizeh, Tokar, Toski, Ferkeh, and Abu Hamed, and were not disappointed; and under the circumstances, perhaps the most competent military critics, the Dervishes [laughter] showed no disposition to underrate the fighting power of our men. And when the role was changed and from the defensive we were able to take the offensive they soon acquired that respect for the Egyptian soldiers that all good troops engender in the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... indeed) at her pillow-lace, was glad to hear me read the letter aloud more than once. It recounts—how modestly, and almost as a matter of course!—his late successes. And yet!—does he, in writing to these old people, purposely underrate his great good fortune and seeming happiness, not to shock them too much by the contrast between the delicate enjoyments of the life he now leads among the wealthy and refined, and that bald existence of theirs in his old home? A life, ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... mere matter of modest scruples! You underrate yourself, Everett. You are the very man for a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... have positive evidence that he did receive some [273:3]; and moreover one or two coincidences in his extant work point to an acquaintance with the Apostle's writings. His leanings, like those of Marcion and Valentinus, were generally in the opposite direction to Judaism. His tendency would be not to underrate but to overrate St Paul. At the same time such passages as 1 Tim. iv. 3, where the prohibition of marriage is denounced as a heresy, were a stumbling-block. They must therefore be excised as interpolations, or the Epistles containing them ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... enough of his bloodthirstiness, his merciless efficiency, his ever-ready craft and consummate duplicity were familiar to her—most of them made so within the last three days—for no one in her circle any longer professed to underrate the demonstrated resourcefulness ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... globe. In antiquity Europe excels; but in natural picturesque scenery the majestic grandeur of our West is so far ahead of anything to be seen in Europe, even in beautiful Switzerland, that the alien beholder cannot but express wonder and admiration. Baedeker has made a mistake in his attempt to underrate America and Americans, its institutions and their customs. True, our nation is in a crude state as compared with the old monarchies of Europe, but in enterprise, business qualifications, politeness, literary ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... I say, Maurice, you must not underrate Lilias. She has gone through a good deal with Dolores, and I believe she has been the making of her. You've had to leave the poor child a good deal to herself and Fraulein, and, as you see by this affair, she had some ways that ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... members in a district to make its exercise profitable, it is not for me to say; but it is seldom found that competition is accompanied by any very amicable feeling in the competitors, or by a disposition to underrate the value of the merchandize which each has to offer for sale. Accordingly, great was the rivalry, constant the feuds, and unintermitting the respective criminations of the Erictho and Canidia of Pendle,[33] who had opened shops for the vending of similar contraband ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... ease in a conversation with her father; she could not follow him, and did not like to show it. She answered aside from the mark, "You would not have Blanche underrate ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... about a year previous to her escape, she had suffered greatly, so much so, that on two or three occasions, she had fallen into alarming fits,—a fact by no means agreeable to her owner, as he feared that the traders on learning her failing health would underrate her on this account. But Susan was rather thankful for these signs of weakness, as she was thereby enabled to mature her plans and ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... entered it; and had she cared to confound Madame utterly, she might have reminded her of that unwritten history of the past ten years in which the secret episode of Mrs. Pletheridge occurred. For Gabriella was not inclined to underrate her own efficiency, and her confidence was supported by the knowledge that if she left Dinard's the most fashionable of ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... calfdom and whelpage that you smile at I would have you throb with. You underrate the firstlings of the heart, the rose and white blossoming, the call upon the senses and the readiness to respond and to fulfil, to give and to take, to be and make happy—the great pride and utter abandon which is young love. At fifteen, fortunately for the development of mind and character, ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... you underrate the value of that emotion," she said slowly, and a little awkwardly. She climbed another step and looked down once more upon the figure that was only partly lit up, standing in the street with a colorless face turned upwards. As Mary hesitated, a cab came by and Katharine ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... believe that Talbot was a man not likely to be easily duped. The principals in this crime were evidently well aware of the trust reposed in the Assistant Under-Secretary, and they, again, would not underrate his intelligence. Hence there was a good cause for Talbot to accept the explanations, whatever they were, given him during the conclave in the dining-room; the effect of which, in Inspector Sharpe's words, had been to "puzzle" the young Englishman. ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... he bent his brows in worrying thought, the color was returning to Iris's cheeks, and natural buoyancy to her step. It is the fault of all men to underrate the marvelous courage and constancy of woman in the face of difficulties and trials. Jenks was no ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... am not afraid of him, but I don't underrate him. The men look up to Torrini as a sort of leader; he's an effective speaker, and knows very well how to fan a dissatisfaction. Either he or some other disturbing element has recently been at work among the men. There's considerable grumbling ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... three centuries; they bore a knightly name before their elevation. They have mainly and materially assisted in making England what it is. They have shed their blood in many battles; I have had two ancestors killed in the command of our fleets. You will not underrate such services, even if you do not appreciate their conduct as statesmen, though that has often been laborious, and sometimes distinguished. The finest trees in England were planted by my family; they raised several of your most beautiful churches; ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... of life. This is knowing that a man's heart is to the left and not in the middle. This is knowing not only that the earth is round, but knowing exactly where it is flat. Christian doctrine detected the oddities of life. It not only discovered the law, but it foresaw the exceptions. Those underrate Christianity who say that it discovered mercy; any one might discover mercy. In fact every one did. But to discover a plan for being merciful and also severe— THAT was to anticipate a strange need of human nature. For no one ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... days. She's got a hoss somewhere an' she's goin' to ride him in the race. She offered to bet on him—against the King! It certainly beat me all hollow. But see here, Van. I've a hunch there's a dark hoss goin' to show up in this race. So don't underrate Lucy an' her mount, whatever he is. She calls him ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... themselves interpretations. This undue stress upon the documents which we are fortunate enough to possess, makes us forget the limitations of these documents. We tend thus to exaggerate that which must be only incidental, as, for example, the Jewish element, in the teaching of Jesus. We thus underrate phases of Jesus' teaching which, no doubt, a man like Paul would have apprehended better than did the evangelists themselves. In truth, in Harnack's own delineation of the teaching of Jesus, those elements of it which found their way to expression in Paul, ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... old man with a persuasive voice, "mind that such imprudence would save our enemies, but would not save your father. Pray consider and answer me. Do you really think that your arguments would be stronger than Sarah Brandon's? You cannot so far underrate the diabolical cunning of your enemy. Why, she has no doubt taken all possible measures to keep your father's faith in her unshaken, and to let him die as he has lived, completely deceived by her, and murmuring with his last breath words of supreme love for her ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... all very pretty and touching. Her action has, in truth, its springs in a most commendable sentiment that I should be the last to underrate. Shady Dell Farm is interesting, too, for once, if one can swallow one's wrath and dudgeon at being taken there against one's will; and one feels that Jane's parents and Jane's early surroundings must be worth a single visit, if they could produce a donkey of such unusual capacity. ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... very close to the common people. He had slept on the ground with his soldiers, fared at table with the swineherd's family, tilled the soil with the farmer folk. His heart went out to humanity. He did not overrate the average mind, nor did he underrate it. He had faith in mankind, and knew that at the last power was with the people. He did not say, "Vox populi, vox Dei," but he thought it. Therefore he set himself to educating the plain people. He ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... with, like a Mingo's conscience. No, no; off hands, or we shall see which can make the stoutest battle; you and your men of the 55th, or the Sarpent here, and Killdeer, with Jasper and his crew. You overrate your force, Lieutenant Muir, as much as you underrate ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... imagining that they have found perfection. In the blindness of love, each raises the other to a standard of perfection which human nature can never attain, and each becomes equally annoyed on finding, by degrees, that they were in error. The reaction takes place, and they then underrate, as much as before they had overrated, each other. Now, if two young people marry without this violence of passion, they do not expect to find each other perfect, and perhaps have a ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Hsuean Chuang was not disposed to underrate the numbers of the Mahayana for he says that the ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... to, and never broach the subject to him. I finished the geological evidence chapters yesterday; they are very fine and very striking, but I cannot see they are such forcible objections as you still hold them to be. I would say that you still in your secret soul underrate the imperfection of the Geological Record, though no language can be stronger or arguments fairer and sounder against it. Of course I am influenced by Botany, and the conviction that we have not in a fossilised condition a fraction of the plants that have existed, and that not ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... not be thought to underrate the services which, by sound precept and invaluable example, Mr. Lang has rendered to all of us who use the English tongue. Conservatism and liberalism are as inevitable, nay, indispensable, in the world of words as in the world of deeds; ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... Peabody did not hear the merriment that followed, or he would have given up the editorial staff of the Centreville "Gazette" as maliciously disposed to underrate his ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... suffering and mental anxiety, feebly concurred in his opinion. They accordingly departed for Galway, leaving the city to its fate, and, happily for the national reputation, to bolder counsels than their own. De Boisseleau did not underrate the character of the Irish levies, who had retreated before twice their numbers at the Boyne; he declared himself willing to remain, and, sustained by Sarsfield, he was chosen as commandant. More than ten thousand foot had gathered "as if by instinct" to that city, and on the Clare ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... was to Lady Susan Condit that they owed this inestimable benefit; an advantage ranking in Miss Pinsent's opinion above even the lawn tennis courts and the resident chaplain. It was the fact of Lady Susan's annual visit that made the hotel what it was. Miss Pinsent was certainly the last to underrate such a privilege:—"It's so important, my dear, forming as we do a little family, that there should be some one to give the tone; and no one could do it better than Lady Susan—an earl's daughter and a person of ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... Coleman would underrate the best public services, if rendered by a political opponent. Chancellor Livingston found no quarters with him for his instrumentality in the Louisiana purchase. He would ride a hobby to death. During the many years in which I read the Post, I can summon to recollection no ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... and a good third, to these two fine and subtle studies of modern English life. It is one of those poems which, because they seem simple and superficial, and can be galloped off the tongue in a racing jingle, we are apt to underrate or overlook. Yet it would be difficult to find a more vivid bit of genre painting than the three-panelled picture in this ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... did not sufficiently discourage them. Ah, Florence, never underrate the pangs of hope crushed, ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... effective for providing an adequate military organization that does not include thorough instruction for officers. The prevailing feeling in our country, as remarked above, has rather been to underrate the army, and to look with some jealousy on the West Point Military Academy and its graduates. The present war has effected a change in this respect. The country owes too much to the educated regular officers for the organization and conduct of the volunteer forces, to be insensible ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... mind in its reaches toward strength and completeness creates a heart-sympathy—which in its turn craves fulness. There is a vanity too about the first steps of manly education, which is disposed to underrate the innocence and unripened judgment of the other sex. Men see the mistake as they grow older; for the judgment of a woman, in all matters of the affections, ripens by ten years faster than ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... by endless psalm singing. What I want to do—with Miss Cook's permission—is to calculate the chances of her being sufficiently athletic to perform the tricks herself, without the aid of spirits. Does she not underrate her unaided powers in assigning a supernatural ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... I do not underrate the magnitude of the problem presented to the people of America by the immense volume of immigration from alien races, and chiefly from the most undesirable strata in those races, of the last few years. On the other hand, I have no shadow of doubt of the ability of the people to ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... who are drunkards. Doubtless there are. Then I stand here as a woman to entreat, to beseech, to pray against this sin. For the sake of these drunken woman, I ask the ballot to drag them back from the rum-shops and shut their doors [applause]. God forbid that I should underrate the power of love; that I should discard tenderness. Let us have entreaty, let us have prayers, and let us have the ballot, to eradicate this evil. Mr. Collier says he is full of sympathy, and intimates that women should stand here ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... on the subject of the New England poets a word about the present misunderstanding and tendency to underrate them may not be out of place. Because it is growing to be the consensus of opinion that the two greatest poets America has produced are Whitman and Poe, it does not follow that the New-Englanders must be relegated to the scrap-heap. Nor ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... India, but as much or as little as if they had been composed by a recluse in a hermitage. This impression has now become so general with enlightened critics that the danger seems to be that we should underrate certain excesses of rhetoric and the Corinthian mode the errors of which used to be over-emphasised, but should not, in a comparative survey of Victorian literature, be neglected as serious drawbacks to our perfect enjoyment of the high-spirited, eloquent, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... believed, presented with entire fairness a summary of the more important aspects in which the constitutional objections mentioned have been urged. I would not underrate by a hair's breadth the authority of these great names, the weight of these continuous reassertions of principle, the sanction even of the precedent and general practice through a century. And yet I venture to think that no candid and competent man can thoroughly investigate ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... is only really delightful when transfused into some form of art. I have no desire to underrate the services of laborious scholars, but I feel that the use Keats made of Lempriere's Dictionary is of far more value to us than Professor Max Muller's treatment of the same mythology as a disease of language. Better Endymion than any theory, however sound, or, as in the present instance, ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... reach it. I fitted out a small armed brig to intercept it, but again I was unfortunate. Like all great organizers I was, however, prepared for failure, and had a series of alternatives prepared, one or the other of which must succeed. You must not underrate the difficulties of my undertaking, or imagine that a mere commonplace assassination would meet the case. We must destroy not only Monsieur Caratal, but Monsieur Caratal's documents, and Monsieur Caratal's companions also, if we had reason to believe that ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rouse to a sense of its noble duties and exalted powers. We underrate the Church. We are looking elsewhere for our highest ideals, instead of claiming from the Church that spiritual guidance and inspiration which should be its right to give. One of the things that is a monumental astonishment to me, is that when we need supplication, ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... hero calm and strong, and strong because calm and clear-sighted; he sees what can be done, and does it. This is often a thing of great simplicity, so that we marvel others did not see it. Now it has been done, and proved successful, many underrate its value, thinking that they also would have done precisely the same thing. The world is more just. It refuses to men unassailed by the difficulties of a situation the glory they have not earned. The world knows how easy most things appear when they have once been done. We can all make the ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... reached the Prince of this policy of devastation," he was saying, "but his Highness has been disposed to treat these rumours lightly, unable to see, as indeed are we all, what useful purpose such a policy could finally serve. He does not underrate the talents of milord Wellington as a commander. He does not imagine that he would pursue such operations out of pure wantonness; yet if such operations are indeed being pursued, what can they be but wanton? A moment, Count," he stayed ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini |
