"Misinterpretation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the conclusion that he would rather see his daughter lying dead than in the power of such a ruffian; he therefore cut short the officer's protestations by assuring him that his words admitted of no misinterpretation, and that therefore he must persist ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... judge literature we do so by reference to the eternal truth, not by what the writer considers the present phase of truth; and if literature so tested is found guilty of suppression, evasion or misinterpretation, we call the work insincere, though the author may have written in perfect good faith. That is a necessary distinction to keep in mind. If you call a man's work insincere, the superficial critic ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... "You don't understand me, Huntingdon! My own aim in life is to make my service to my country compensate for the selfishness and foolishness of my youth. My methods may, as you say, have been open to misinterpretation. But God knows my impulses have been disinterested. And you must realize now, Huntingdon, that it has been the business of certain people to see that you and ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... of Literature of the Han dynasty, but in the Li Chi we have only one p'ien, which Chu Hsi, when he made his "Chapters and Sentences," divided into thirty-three chapters. The old Work in two p'ien is not to be met with now [4].' These views are based on a misinterpretation of ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... Hastings did not admit; and the use of the term resigned on that occasion was therefore a manifest and wilful misconstruction and misapplication of the words of the act of his present Majesty. And such misinterpretation and false extension of the term of resignation was the more indecent in the said Warren Hastings, as he was at the same moment disavowing and refusing to give effect to his own clear and express resignation, according to the true intent and meaning of the word as used in ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... happily deceased—had offered an instructive example of social and religious survival—survival, to be explicit, of the once famous Clapham Sect, and that in its least agreeable aspect. His theology was that of obstinately narrow misinterpretation of the Scriptures; his piety that of self-invented obligations; his virtue that of unsparing condemnation of the sins of others. His domestic morality was Hebraic—death kindly playing into his hands in regard of it. ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... on a fine horse, saying as he left, "I shall be a great prince." But his weak frame could not endure such rough usage and he was taken sick at Spoleto. Again he dreamed. This time the vision revealed his misinterpretation of the former message, and so, on his recovery, he returned somewhat crestfallen to Assisi, where he gave his friends a farewell feast. Thus at the threshold of his career we note two important facts,—disease ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... along the way of her researches therein, that whenever her thoughts had wandered into the bypaths of ancient philosophies or pagan literatures, her spiritual insight had been darkened thereby, till [5] she was God-driven back to the inspired pages. Early training, through the misinterpretation of the Word, had been the underlying cause of the long years of in- validism she endured before Truth dawned upon her understanding, through right interpretation. With the [10] understanding of Scripture-meanings, had come physical ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... has said his best. He is not a second Richard Wagner, not yet has he the charm of the Lizst personality, but he bulks too large in contemporary history to be called a decadent, although in the precise meaning of the word, without its stupid misinterpretation, he is a decadent inasmuch as he dwells with emphasis on the technique of his composition, sacrificing the whole for the page, putting the phrase above the page, and the single note in equal competition with the phrase. In ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... practice is found, in some churches, of singing this Psalm on Sundays but not when it is read in the ordinary course of the Psalms. We believe that this is due to a misinterpretation of the Rubric. There is just as much reason for singing it on the 19th as on any ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... body. These are questions too often wrongly answered, notwithstanding the fact that with a little careful scrutiny the point may be easily settled. The error, which is too often committed, of pronouncing the leg upon which the animal travels soundly as the seat of the lameness, is the result of a misinterpretation of the physiology of locomotion in the crippled animal. Much depends upon the gait with which the animal moves while under examination. The act of walking is unfavorable for accurate observation, though, if the animal walks on three legs, the ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... phases of movement is not at all the original movement idea. This is suggested first by the various illusions of movement. We may believe that we perceive a movement where no actual changes of visual impressions occur. This, to be sure, may result from a mere misinterpretation of the impression: for instance when in the railway train at the station we look out of the window and believe suddenly that our train is moving, while in reality the train on the neighboring track has started. ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... as minority feelings are given free expression in an atmosphere of mutual concern, there is little danger of misinterpretation by the majority. Such a climate prevailed in the meetings of the Fair Play settlers and the sessions of the Fair Play men; at least, there is no available evidence to ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf
... right after him came the doctor—a very pleasant and distinguished-looking young man. He apologised for the guard's bluntness and his misinterpretation of his message. He had not meant to offend a gentleman, and so forth. He introduced himself as Dr. Mayer, family physician at the house of the so-called "Silver King," Mr. Dumany, the father of the little "Silver Prince." ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... of beneficence that soars so high above the level of their own sentiments; and the rest suspect it of something sinister or selfish, from the suggestions of their own sordid and vicious inclinations. The young Count subjected himself to such misinterpretation, among those who observed the increased warmth of civility and complaisance in his behaviour to Ferdinand. They ascribed it to his desire of still profiting by our adventurer's superior talents, by which alone they supposed him enabled to maintain any ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... the Journal of the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, Vol. V, No. 1, January 1914, Dr. Cabot contended that the hygienic and moral aspects of sex-education should not be associated. It is possible that the following review and criticisms may be based upon a misinterpretation; but if so, I shall not feel lonely, for at the close of the discussion, Dr. Cabot said to his audience, "it is evident that I have not succeeded in touching even the surfaces of your minds, and have not ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... truths necessary to destroy them.[70] Perhaps most instructive and most tranquillising of all is this, that the progress of physical knowledge is constantly destroying in silence erroneous opinions which had never seemed to be attacked.[71] And in reading history, how much ignorance and misinterpretation would have been avoided, if the student had but been careful to remember that 'the law as written and the law as administered; the principles of those in power, and the modification of their action by ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... "The cause of his loyalty being called in question, he tells us, was a few lines in a preface to one of his books; the objection, says he, I must not pass in silence, because it was the only part of his life that was liable to misinterpretation, even by the confession of those that envied ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... of any one else, to put a stop to this, and by doing so, to restore this unfortunate part of the world to its former happiness. We ask no magnanimity, we only demand justice. I enclose a translation of my letter in order to avoid any misinterpretation of it by your Excellency, as this happened not long ago when a letter which I had written to the Government of the South African Republic, and which at Reitz fell into your hands, was published in such a way that it was nearly unrecognizable, as ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... have made a mistake. Such a mistake actually occurs (S. A. xxiii. 165) where he seems to assert that Argentaria Polla, Lucan's faithful widow, subsequently married Statius. The mistake as regards Seneca is probably due to a misinterpretation of Martial i. 61 'duosque Senecas unicumque Lucanum facunda loquitur Corduba'. Not being acquainted with the works of the elder Seneca the rhetorician, Sidonius invented a ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... this subject, driving their roots deep into the soil of history. Not a single chance does malignity, free or chartered, appear to have missed for the invention of flagitious falsehoods concerning this family, or for the no less flagitious misinterpretation of ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... of the ghastly shortcoming of his letter as regards distinctness, and the prosaic misinterpretation it was open to, Wilfrid called his inventive wits to aid, and ran swiftly to the end of the street. He had become—as like unto a lunatic as resemblance can approach identity. Commanding the length of the pavement ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in many instances by the totems of the personages: e. g[TN-27] for AAK, which means turtle, is the image of a turtle; for CAY (fish), the image of a fish; for Chaacmol (leopard) the image of a leopard; and so on, precluding the possibility of misinterpretation. ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... compare this intelligent appreciation of the position by rulers and ruled, and their readiness to accommodate their respective actions to it and play their parts as organs for the discharge of special functions, with the haziness of conception, the misinterpretation of events, and the utter lack of co-operation displayed by the corresponding sections of the allied communities, we shall grasp the secret of the superiority of the seemingly weaker group of belligerents and the paltry results hitherto achieved by ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... interlocutor, of which the latter could choose for support either that [131] he preferred, the proposer taking the other contrary proposition: the contestants often left the decision in an envoi to one or more arbitrators by common consent. Misinterpretation of the language of these envois gave rise to the legend concerning the "courts of love," as we have stated in a previous chapter. One of the earliest representatives of this school was Conon de Bethune, born ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... stated, with an exquisitely ludicrous result. He interprets the last line of Parting at Morning as meaning that the woman "desires more society than the seaside home affords"! But it is the man who speaks, not the woman. The confusion plainly arises from a misinterpretation of "him" in "straight was a path of gold for him." Berdoe reads this as "lucrative work for the man"! Of course "him" refers to the sun who has "looked over the mountain's rim" . . . Here is an instance of making obscurity ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... is a misinterpretation of the teaching of Jesus to represent asceticism as the last word of Christian Ethics. Renunciation and unworldliness are undoubtedly frequently commended in the New Testament, but they are urged not as ends in themselves but as means to a fuller self-realisation. ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... and coarsely laminated (This term is open to some misinterpretation, as it may be applied both to rocks divided into laminae of exactly the same composition, and to layers firmly attached to each other, with no fissile tendency, but composed of different minerals, or of different shades ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... say that even though the reports we were getting were detailed and contained a great deal of good data, we still had no proof the UFO's were anything real. We could, I said, prove that all UFO reports were merely the misinterpretation of known objects if we made ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... judgment; and this is the answer which, upon your authority, we will give to all masters of the art of misinterpretation? ...
— Philebus • Plato
... full of "infant phenomena". A rarity in the mountains. Miners, on way home from celebration, give nine cheers for mother and children. Outcry at Indian Bar against Spaniards. Several severely wounded. Whisky and patriotism. Prejudices and arrogant assurance accounted for. Misinterpretation by the foreigner. Injustices by the lower classes against Spaniards pass unnoticed. Innumerable drunken fights. Broken heads and collarbones, stabbings. "Sabbaths almost always enlivened by such merry events". Body of Frenchman found ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... fixed and immutably the same in all times and places. A visible square, for instance, suggests to the mind the same tangible figure in Europe that it doth in America. Hence it is that the voice of the Author of' Nature which speaks to our eyes, is not liable to that misinterpretation and ambiguity that languages of human ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley
... shipped by the governor from Quebec to England, and never returned to Virginia. It is this treatment of Van Braam, more than any thing else, which convinces us that the suspicion of his being in collusion with the French in regard to the misinterpretation of the articles of capitulation, was groundless. He ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... interested," he repeated, watching the lovely, sensitive face which pride and dread of misinterpretation had slightly ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... eccentricity of genius. A very different feeling indeed exists towards unfortunate November. The moment he shows his face, all other faces are glum. We defy month or man, under such a trial, to make himself even tolerably agreeable. He feels that he is no favourite, and that a most sinister misinterpretation will be put on all his motions, manners, thoughts, words, and deeds. A man or a month so circumstanced is much to be pitied. Think, look, speak, act as he will—yea, even more like an angel than a man or a month—every eyebrow arches—every nostril distends—every ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... the expression of his opinions his tone was mild and his manner gentle. It often happened, also, that he did not undertake to controvert opinions and expressions with which he had no sympathy. This peculiarity may at times have led to a misunderstanding, or to a misinterpretation of his views. Upon this basis of his early impressions, and matured opinions ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... faith in His coming had grown cold. Absorbed in worldliness and pleasure-seeking, the professed people of God were blinded to the Saviour's instructions concerning the signs of His appearing. The doctrine of the second advent had been neglected; the scriptures relating to it were obscured by misinterpretation, until it was, to a great extent, ignored and forgotten. Especially was this the case in the churches of America. The freedom and comfort enjoyed by all classes of society, the ambitious desire for wealth and luxury, begetting an ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... exhibited his first steam-engine and his celebrated troop of life-size turkeys gobbling the tall grass in a meadow, at the end of which stood, high up in the picture, a French chateau. Impressionism is a word that has lent itself to every kind of misinterpretation, for in its exact sense all true painting is penetrated with impressionism, but, to use the word in its most modern sense—that is to say, to signify the rapid noting of illusive appearance—Monet is the only painter ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... want, as we painfully witness on all sides to-day. And in the midst of the proof of its demoralizing and destructive effect, we hear it proclaimed in the Halls of Congress that "the people demand cheap money." I deny it. I declare such a phrase to be a total misapprehension, a total misinterpretation of the popular wish. The people do not demand cheap money. They demand an abundance of good money, which is an entirely different thing. They do not want a single gold standard that will exclude silver and benefit those already rich. They do not want an inferior silver standard that will drive out ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... it will not be well with us! No;—nor is there any sin more fearfully avenged on men and Nations than that same, which indeed includes and presupposes all manner of sins: the sin which our old pious fathers called "judicial blindness;"—which we, with our light habits, may still call misinterpretation of the Time that now is; disloyalty to its real meanings and monitions, stupid disregard of these, stupid adherence active or passive to the counterfeits and mere current semblances of these. This is true of all times ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... to run after the girl, to spring upon and strangle her and compel her to speak what was in her mind and then retract it; and the motor impulse, inhibited, caused a sensation of sickness, of unhappiness and degradation as she turned her steps slowly homeward. Was it a misinterpretation, after all—what Lottie Myers had implied ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... But, besides the misinterpretation of matters of fact, we are also to guard against the misrepresentation of natural appearances. Whether warped by the prejudice of partial and erroneous theory, or deceived by the inaccuracy of superficial observation, naturalists are apt to see things in an improper light, and thus ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... force in turning the scales already so overloaded by fate. Philosophy failed to prevent war. Nietzsche's philosophy did not cause it. His philosophy affords a convenient phraseology in which to express a philosophy of war, granting sufficient misinterpretation of his philosophy. Probably what influence he has had has been due rather to his literary impressiveness than to his thought as a contribution ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... at this misinterpretation of his motives. One or two children, playing close at hand, and a loafer who was trying to keep the wall from falling down, seemed pleased. Theirs was a colourless existence and to the rare purple moments which had enlivened it in the past the calling of a cop had ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... Siward eyed it, perplexed, deadly afraid, yet seeing no avenue of escape from what must appear a public exhibition of contempt for Quarrier if he refused to taste its contents. That meant a bad night for him; yet he shrank more from the certain misinterpretation of a refusal to drink from the huge loving-cup with its heavy wreath of scented orchids, now already on its way toward him, than he feared the waking struggle so sure ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... similar subjects, is generally traced to one cause alone; and yet half the time it should rather be attributed to some other source. Anxiety, modesty, mere nervousness, or even vexation at this very misinterpretation, often raise the colour, and make the voice falter. Elinor had fully made up her mind, and she felt that a frank explanation was due to Mr. Ellsworth, but her regard for him was too sincere not to make the moment a painful one to her. ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... find the problem there. Also, the colour table at the end is not really much good for anything beyond general impressions; not only are the paper and ink old, but between my scanner and your screen or printer, there is room for too much misinterpretation of precise colour, for ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith
... Another piece of fanciful philology, based on a misinterpretation of a Greek transliteration of the name Jerusalem. The Solymi are traditionally placed in Lycia. Both Juvenal and Martial use ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... her mother or some other discreet female is present, to prevent misinterpretation or remark. I have also taken a good deal of interest in Benjamin Franklin, before referred to, sometimes called B.F. or more frequently Frank, in imitation of that felicitous abbreviation, combining dignity and convenience, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... against a misinterpretation which would injure her vanity, though it was not likely to aim at her honour, ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... times giving him urban cravings that keep him from utilizing to the full his social resources in the country. Any attempt to understand rural life that minimizes the common human fellowship which the newspaper offers the farmer is certain to lead to unfortunate misinterpretation. Mentally the farmer is far from being isolated in his experiences, for he no longer is confined to the world of local ideas as he once was. This constant daily stimulation from the world of business, sports, and public affairs at times awakens his appetite for urban ...
— Rural Problems of Today • Ernest R. Groves
... earners employed upon the tasks to which they apply. They do sometimes become the actual rates received by most of the wage earners concerned; they become the wage, ordinarily, of those workers who fall around the average in skill and experience. This fact is liable to misinterpretation. It may be taken to mean that the more efficient workmen do not receive recognition for their greater efficiency. What it usually would signify is that the wages of the less efficient members ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... she said; "it is your church that is guilty of misinterpretation of God's word, and, in addition, denies its 'free use' to ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... interesting. From the documents it can be ascertained how near some of the critics came to that worship of the Faultless Hero with which Dryden in his heroic plays occasionally conformed, while he guarded himself against misinterpretation in his prefaces. ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... test of the goodness or badness of an action, the phraseology is so misleading, and so liable to frustrate the practical objects of the moralist, that it is desirable, if possible, to find terms not equally lending themselves to misinterpretation and perversion. Let us now, then, consider whether we are supplied with such terms in the phrases 'perfection' or 'development' of 'character.' It is a noble idea of human action to suppose that its end is the perfection ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... something so sacred in these meanings," resumed Kate, "and if I may only get the truth, I care not what any one says about it. I see now wherein lies the whole misconception or misinterpretation rather. It is in the idea of God. If we conceive of Him as limited to human ways and capacities, as the ancient Hebrews did, we naturally ascribe ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... There was nothing, she told herself, nothing, it was all as open as the day, and still her mind groped about for some forgotten circumstance, something gone almost out of memory that would bear misinterpretation.... How should she begin? "Isaac," she would say, "I am being followed about London." Suppose he denied his complicity! How could he deny ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... hot and unhappy. Were you proposing to Miss Mathewson by letter? It's always best to say those things right out: letters are liable to misinterpretation," ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... catechisms and breviaries, the legendaries and hymn-books of this strange new creed, is to protest that the love poems must be allegories, the love romances solar myths, the Courts of Love historical bungles; that all this mediaeval world of love is a figment, a misinterpretation, a falsehood. ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... version of "The Sinking of the Vengeur," Carlyle has never laid himself open to the reproach of essential inaccuracy. As far as possible for a man of genius, he was a devotee of facts. He is never a careless, though occasionally an impetuous writer; his graver errors are those of emotional misinterpretation. It has been observed that, while contemning Robespierre, he has extenuated the guilt of Danton as one of the main authors of the September massacres, and, more generally, that "his quickness and brilliancy made him impatient of ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... a story which occurs in the Golden Legend and other places, of seven noble youths of Ephesus, who fled from persecution to a cave in Mount Celion. After two hundred and thirty years they awoke, but only to die soon afterwards. The fable is said to have arisen from a misinterpretation of the text, "They ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... more than the difficulty of conceiving what will happen, and how we shall be dealt with, when this familiar world passes away. And this belief in a "final judgment, unlike any other that has ever been in the world," Mr. Maurice would have us regard as a misinterpretation of Bible and Creed—a "dream" which St. Paul would never "allow us" to entertain, but would "compel" us instead "to look upon everyone of what we rightly call 'God's judgments' as essentially resembling it in kind and principle." ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... the initial step in all cases belonged to the Crown. 'The right divine of kings to govern wrong' was in those days what many a man would have died for—what many a man did die for; and all in pure simplicity of heart—faithful to the Bible, but to the Bible of misinterpretation. They obeyed (often to their own ruin) an order which they had misread. Their sincerity, the disinterestedness of their folly, is evident; and in that degree is evident the opening for Scripture development. Nobody could better obey Scripture as they had understood it. Change ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... considered as its most important outcome and as the keystone of the evolutionist edifice—to the well-known proposition, "Man is descended from the Ape." While we simply ignore all the misrepresentation, distortion, and misinterpretation which this ape, or pithecoid hypothesis, has met with on all sides, we will only remark that this fundamental proposition, in the sense of our modern doctrine of evolution, can rationally have only this plain meaning: that the human species as a whole ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... that the fabulous days of Orpheus and Amphion are long past, and that wild beasts have quite lost all respect for even the most admirable of singers?" But this gleeful turn, by which the Baroness at once effectually guarded against all misinterpretation of her warm interest in me, I was put immediately into the proper key and the proper mood. Why I did not take my usual place at the pianoforte I cannot explain, even to myself, nor why I sat down beside the Baroness ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... to frame objects of two sorts, those compacted of sensations that are persistently similar, and those compacted of sensations that are momentarily fused. In empirical philosophy the applicability of logic and mathematics remains a miracle or becomes a misinterpretation: a miracle if the process of nature independently follows the inward elaboration of human ideas; a misinterpretation if the bias of intelligence imposes a priori upon reality a character and order not inherent in it. The mistake of empiricists—among which Kant is ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... for example, there is reason to believe that savages have always regarded the lower animals as powerful beings, there is no need, in accounting for the veneration given them, to resort to the roundabout way of assuming a misinterpretation of names of men ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... a stranger. Col. 4:10-14. On the contrary they are wanting, except in a general form, in the epistles to the Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Thessalonians (in 2 Thessalonians wholly wanting as in this epistle), Titus, and the first to Timothy. The other objections are founded on misinterpretation, as when it is inferred from chap, 1:15 that the author had never seen those to whom he wrote; and from chap, 3:2 that they had no personal acquaintance with him. But in the former passage the apostle speaks ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... note on Dr. Westcott, showed me that I had been misunderstood, and led me to refer to the place again. I immediately withdrew the note which had been interpreted in a way very different from what I had intended, and at the same time perceiving that my argument was obscure and liable to the misinterpretation of which Dr. Lightfoot has made such eager use, I myself at once recast it as well as I could within the limits at my command, [8:1] and this was already published before Dr. Lightfoot's criticism appeared, and before I had any ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... better than they could have managed the business themselves, indeed they could not have contrived matters half so well, for they had previously made a present of the youngest of the horses to the king of Boossa, but most likely, owing to Pascoe's misrepresentation, or rather his misinterpretation, the monarch was not made sensible of the circumstance. The canoe was to be sent to them in a day or two, when they determined to prepare her for ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... service was as a matter of course a source of profit as well as a sphere of duty or of glory. To Bestia it was also to be a sphere for diplomacy; and diplomacy and profit present an awkward combination, which gives room for much misinterpretation. Although the war was in some sense a concession to outside influences, the consul did not represent the spirit to which the senate had yielded. Nine years earlier he had served the cause of the nobility by effecting the recall of Popillius from exile, and was now a member of that inner circle ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... causative factors given at the end of the case study deals only with the factors of delinquency. To avoid misinterpretation of the coordinated facts, what they are focused upon should ever be remembered. The statement of these ascertained factors brings out many incidental points which should be of interest to lawyers and ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... cost (in perfect symmetry with what we observed as regards marginal utility), may be conceived as applying either to the marginal producer or to the marginal output of any producer. In the former aspect it is open to a misinterpretation, against which it will be well to guard. Some advocates of socialism have argued, as one of the counts in their indictment of the present industrial system, that the price of a commodity is determined by the cost at which the least efficient concern in the industry can produce. They say, in ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... . . His lordship intimated as guardedly as possible that Lord Palmerston and other members of the Government regretted the speech, and'Mr. Gladstone himself was not disinclined to correct, as far as he could, the misinterpretation which had been made of it. It was still their intention to adhere to the rule of perfect neutrality in the struggle, and to let it come to its natural end without the smallest interference, direct or otherwise. But he could not say what circumstances might happen from ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... She had been an unobserved witness of the scene between Edward and Wanda in the wood, and, of course, had made her own misinterpretation. A man who could permit a low, untutored savage to fawn upon him in that way, kissing his hand repeatedly, and flushing with gratified vanity, presumably at his words of endearment, could scarcely expect to be treated otherwise than with disdain ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... has both vigour and grace. His fastidious taste permits him to write little, and to print only a small part of what he writes. But the force of his poetic language is so extraordinary that it has sometimes led to a complete and unfortunate misinterpretation of his work. In The Dying Pantheist to the Priest, he wrote a poem as purely dramatic, as non-personal, as the monologues of Browning; he quite successfully represented the attitude of an (imaginary) defiant, unrepentant pagan to an (imaginary) ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... of the writers who used them, and the chances of misinterpreting or misunderstanding them are reduced to a minimum. It is I think well-known that avoidance of technical terms has often rendered philosophical works unduly verbose, and liable to misinterpretation. The art of clear writing is indeed a rare virtue and every philosopher cannot expect to have it. But when technical expressions are properly formed, even a bad writer can make himself understood. In the early days ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... not be an illegal act for the Government to dissolve Parliament, since it is not provided in the Provisional Constitution as to how Parliament should be dissolved, nor does that instrument specifically prohibit the Government from dissolving Parliament. But this is a misinterpretation. For instance, the Provisional Constitution has not provided that the President shall not proclaim himself Emperor, nor does it prohibit him from so doing. According to such interpretation, it would not be illegal, if the President ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... terrible as man! Come nigh, poor Woman, you have nothing to fear. Lay your strange, electric touch upon the chilly flesh; it strikes no eager mischief along the fainting veins. Look your sweet looks upon the grimy face, and tenderly lay back the locks from the congested brows; no wicked misinterpretation lurks to bite your kindness. Be motherly, be sisterly, fear nought. Go, watch him by night; you may sleep at his feet and he will not stir. Yet he lives, and shall live—may live to forget you, who knows? But for all that, be gentle and watchful; be womanlike, we ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... desirable, and this has been attempted in the following chapters. When the doctrine of immanence began, as it has been of late, to be reasserted in a somewhat pronounced manner, most of those who were best able to judge felt conscious of certain dangers likely to arise through misinterpretation and over-emphasis; that those anticipations have been abundantly realised, no careful student of recent developments will dispute, and the present book is intended both to call attention to these ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... of the communities into one solid Church also represents the creative power of the Christian spirit. Fourthly, through the consolidation effected in the Church by the rule of faith the Christian religion was in some measure preserved from enthusiastic extravagancies and arbitrary misinterpretation. Fifthly, in consequence of the regard for a Church founded on the doctrine of faith the specific significance of redemption by Christ, as distinguished from natural religion and that of the Old Testament, could no longer be lost ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... opinion, that Sydenham was thirty years old, before he formed his resolution of studying physick, for which I can discover no other foundation than one expression in his dedication to Dr. Mapletoft, which seems to have given rise to it, by a gross misinterpretation; for he only observes, that from his conversation with Dr. Cox to the publication of that ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... Hamilton. For it certainly is not the avowed enemy, or the person to whom one is indifferent, who has the power to greatly harm or pain him. So far as injury goes, Emerson is probably right when he says, "No one can work me injury but myself." Misrepresentation, misinterpretation, there may be, but in the long run truth is mighty, and will, and does, prevail. One need not greatly concern himself with misinterpretations, but, rather, only with striving to live the life ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... felt so few circumstances could induce her to deny. All this half-acknowledged yet earnest train of reasoning and hope vanished from the moment he had quitted her uncle's house. His words bore no misinterpretation. He had not yielded even to her own condescension, and her cheek burned as she recalled it. Yet he loved her. She saw, she knew it in his every word and look! Bitter, then, and dark must be that remorse ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... things be,/And overcome us, like a summer's cloud,/Without our special wonder?] [W: Can't] The alteration is introduced by a misinterpretation. The meaning is not that these things are like a summer-cloud, but can such wonders as these pass over us without wonder, as a casual summer cloud passes ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... moral. A wave of heat ran over her body. It was like the heat which follows on a received slap. One of the illustrateds deleted its voice from the general chorus. Cuckoo was aware of this, and looked up again to find two eyes fixed upon her with an expression of thin distaste that was incapable of misinterpretation. A second illustrated ceased to sing, two heads were inclined towards one another, and the "t'p, t'p, t'p" of a low whisper set the remaining two ladies at their posts as sentinels on the ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... of no misinterpretation, we see stated the doctrine of telepathy, which is only now beginning to find acceptance among scientific men, but which, as I view it, has been amply demonstrated by the experiments of recent years and by the thousands of cases of spontaneous occurrence recorded in such publications as the "Proceedings ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... certain class of readers, as an outrage on their sense of propriety. Conscious of having designed and written, my story with the strictest regard to true delicacy, as distinguished from false—I allowed the prurient misinterpretation of certain perfectly innocent passages in this book to assert itself as offensively as it pleased, without troubling myself to protest against an expression of opinion which aroused in me no other feeling than a feeling of contempt. I knew that "Basil" had nothing to fear from pure-minded ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... considerations of utility and expediency. For abstract principles—I have in view here rights, justice, egalitarian equity, equality, liberty, chivalry, logicality, and such like—are not all of them guides to utility; and each of these is, as we have seen, open to all manner of private misinterpretation. ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... that have deceived them, verbally or otherwise. Evidently all these traditions, as well as those about abductions of women by animals and fostering of children by them, fall naturally into their places as results of the habitual misinterpretation I ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... believe in Christianity as it will be ten thousand years hence," it would be a grave misinterpretation to suppose that he implied any lack of belief in the Christianity of to-day. It is but another assertion of his claim to be in sympathy with the esoteric rather than the exoteric teaching of the present; to be on the mount with the ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... though ingenious, a misinterpretation of Gaubil's. Mr. Wylie has sent me a paper of his own (in Chin. Recorder and Miss. Journal, July, 1871, p. 45), which makes things perfectly clear. The expression transcribed by Pauthier, Yao san ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... flush stained Grandcourt's face; and Dysart's misinterpretation of his philosophy almost stung him into fierce retort; but as his heavy lips unclosed in anger, his eyes fell on Dysart's ravaged face, and he sat silent, his personal feelings merged in ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... principle; and the moral law alone must be regarded as the principle on which that and its realization or promotion are aimed at. This remark is important in so delicate a case as the determination of moral principles, where the slightest misinterpretation perverts men's minds. For it will have been seen from the Analytic that, if we assume any object under the name of a good as a determining principle of the will prior to the moral law and then deduce from it the supreme practical principle, this would always introduce heteronomy ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... generally accepted sense, they would have returned, to be again forgiven; but Jesus said to disease: "Come out of him, and enter no more into him." He said also: "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death;" and "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." The misinterpretation of such passages has retarded the progress of Christianity and ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... terrifies these poor distressed souls, especially if their bodies be predisposed by melancholy, they religiously given, and have tender consciences, every small object affrights them, the very inconsiderate reading of Scripture itself, and misinterpretation of some places of it; as, "Many are called, few are chosen. Not every one that saith Lord. Fear not little flock. He that stands, let him take heed lest he fall. Work out your salvation with fear ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... sacrifice may sometimes have been a mere misinterpretation of a sacrificial ritual in which an animal victim was treated as a human being. For example, at Tenedos the new-born calf sacrificed to Dionysus was shod in buskins, and the mother cow was tended like a woman in child-bed. At Rome a shegoat was sacrificed ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... powers, with which they feel themselves to be related, or the words in which they, or others, seek to express that consciousness. Those words may be an expression, that is to say an interpretation or a misinterpretation, of that consciousness. But the words are not the consciousness: the feeling, without which the consciousness does not exist, may be absent when the words are spoken or heard. It is however through the words ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons
... to be against the United States. See also Perkins, Secretary of Labor v. Lukens Steel Co., 310 U.S. 113 (1940), which held that prospective bidders for contracts derive no enforceable rights against a federal official for an alleged misinterpretation of his government's authority on the ground that an agent is answerable only to his principal for misconstruction of instructions, given for the sole benefit of the principal. In the Larson Case the Court not only refused to follow Goltra v. ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... their goodness. They were in appearance mere poems of love, but under this aspect they concealed their true meaning, for the lady of his love was none other than Philosophy herself, and not sensual passion but virtue was their moving cause. The fear of reproach to which this misinterpretation might give occasion, and the desire to impart teaching which others could not give, were the two motives ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... "the position of an elderly gentleman with a marriageable daughter and a wife," I went on bravely, "who finances a young lady interested in manicuring in an establishment in Bond Street is liable to misinterpretation." ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... possible experience, the proper distinction of the different theories of the reality of sensuous objects is of great importance, in order to avoid the illusion which must necessarily arise from the misinterpretation of ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... frightened her, and she saw, or she thought she saw a sudden deprivation of that esteem with which she was vain enough to presuppose he was wont to regard her. And yet he was mistaken, greatly mistaken. Furthermore, he was unfair to himself and unjust to her in the misinterpretation of her behavior. His displeasure ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... they, whose constitutional rights are thus systematically assailed, are themselves the aggressors. At the present time this imputed aggression, resting, as it does, only in the vague declamatory charges of political agitators, resolves itself into misapprehension, or misinterpretation, of the principles and facts of the political organization of the new Territories of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... downright duty, Romayne. If I gave way to you, I should be the means of exposing the priesthood to the vilest misinterpretation. I should be deservedly reprimanded, and your proposal of restitution—if you expressed it in writing—would, without a moment's hesitation, be torn up. If you have any regard for ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... of our own shams are liable to misinterpretation. In centuries to come our own modern recipes for "Scotch Woodcock" or "Welsh rabbit" may be interpreted as attempts on our part to hoodwink guests by making game birds and rabbits out of cheese and bread, like Trimalchio's culinary artists are reputed to have made suckling pigs out of dough, ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... access of enthusiasm I sat down and wrote a note to Mr. Spence, asking if he would be kind enough to call on me at his leisure,—"on a matter of business," I added, so as to preclude any possible misinterpretation on his part. ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... into the farther one, but that you may thus perfect your experience of the aspect of things, and know that such and such a look of a tower or cottage at five hundred yards off means that sort of tower or cottage near; while, also, this nearer sketch will be useful to prevent any future misinterpretation of your own work. If you have time, however far your light and shade study in the distance may have been carried, it is always well, for these reasons, to make also your Dureresque and your near memoranda; for if your light and shade drawing be good, much of the interesting detail ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... doubt of the fact that public apathy regarding the abuses of vivisection as now carried on without limitations or restrictions is grounded upon the great anaesthetic delusion. This misinterpretation of facts, this misunderstanding of scientific statements, constitutes the most singular delusion ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... comrade undergoing changes which he himself thought hazardous, saw him criticised in a post where no one ever escaped the severest criticism, and beheld him return to private life amid unpopularity, founded, as he thought, upon misinterpretation of what was perhaps error, but not dishonesty. Meanwhile he felt that the old "Frank," his brother through Alma Mater, dwelt still within the person of the public man; and though to claim that brotherhood exposed ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... '"Of misinterpretation from Mr. Trevor I am in no fear. Had he one sinister design, he never could have imagined the conduct he has so nobly pursued. But to suppose the possibility of such a thing in him would be a most unpardonable injustice. The man who should teach me to distrust him, as a lover, could ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... to the Scriptures," while political "bias" may in fact so influence "sentiments, as to render conviction less dependent upon evidence than upon his wishes." And we doubt not that misapprehensions and misinterpretation of "the other scriptures," are to be attributed to this cause, insensibly influencing the minds and hearts of learned and godly men, as well as in their expositions of the Apocalypse. Indeed the misapplying of God's word, precept and prophecy, to political and ecclesiastical ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... a picture of Divine Condescension guiding and inspiring and aiding human effort, so convincingly clear and transparent in its smallest details and in its general effect as to seem outside the pale of all possible mutilation and misinterpretation by malice or skeptical analysis. Natural reaction against sinful excess, thwarted ambitions, disappointed hopes, meek conformity with environment, ecclesiastical manipulation of pliant material, tame acquiescence in family ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.
... things to be anxiously sought, but were guaranteed by God in response to the diligent, first-in-order, whole-hearted seeking of His kingdom and righteousness. That this teaching, however, was guarded against misinterpretation by practical instructions in the Epistles to work for honest support and in order to ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... omit the comma, and say, "I saw the thing what I wanted to see;" but this, if it be not a vulgarism, will only mean, "I saw the thing to be what I wanted to see." So that this method of parsing the pronoun what, is manifestly no improvement, but rather a perversion and misinterpretation. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... greatest importance; it is too laborious for ordinary purposes, since the account includes at most only a part of the speech. The best way, doubtless, to get a speech is to take notes on it. And yet this must be done properly or there is a danger of misinterpretation of statements or of undue emphasis upon any single part of the speech. The report of a speech should be as well balanced and logical as the speech itself, differing from the original only in length and the omission of details. The speech report ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... the day there are ten who know all about the producers and how much money they are making. Even when our interest in artistic work is intellectual, we are more likely to read criticisms of it than to place ourselves vis-a-vis with the work. Not the truest criticism, not the subtlest misinterpretation, can give us anything like the sensation or the stimulus that results from direct contact with the work itself. As well enjoy the "Moonlight Sonata" through a technical analysis of its form. But this is a venial vice compared with taking your Sonata through the medium ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... forestall prejudice are there to create it; that phrases which seem antidotes are poisons in disguise. The naked facts arrayed in the book establish Shelley's guilt in that one episode which disfigures his otherwise superlatively lofty and beautiful life; but the historian's careful and methodical misinterpretation of them transfers the responsibility to the wife's shoulders as he persuades himself. The few meagre facts of Harriet Shelley's life, as furnished by the book, acquit her of offense; but by calling in the forbidden helps of rumor, gossip, conjecture, insinuation, and innuendo he destroys her character ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... The few observations which the undersigned was led to make in the course of his note to Sir Charles Vaughan upon one of the points alleged to have been thus determined were prompted only by a respect for the arbiter and a consequent anxiety to remove a misinterpretation of his meaning, which alone, it was believed, could induce the supposition that the arbiter, in searching for the rivers referred to in the treaty as designating the boundary, could have come to the opinion that the two great rivers whose waters pervaded ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... 361, Darwin describes hive-bees apparently searching for a secretion on the calyx. In the same passage in "Cross and Self Fertilisation" he quotes Muller as stating that hive-bees obtain nectar from red clover by breaking apart the petals. This seems to us a misinterpretation of the "Befruchtung der Blumen," page 224.) I do so hope that you have not wasted any time from my stupid blunder. I hate myself, I hate clover, and I ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... anything whatever about President Wilson at the outset of his Administration unless I can speak of him with praise. I have scrupulously refrained from saying or doing one thing since election that could put the slightest obstacle, even of misinterpretation, in his path. It is to the interest of the country that he should succeed in his office. I cordially wish him success, and I shall cordially support any policy of his that I believe to be in the interests of the people of the United States. But when Mr. Wilson, after ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... opposed to the essential political need of the time—viz. the constitution of an efficient Federal government. The Federalists may have misinterpreted and perverted the proper purpose of American national organization, but they could have avoided such misinterpretation only by an extraordinary display of political insight and a heroic superiority to natural prejudice. Their error sinks into insignificance compared with the enormous service which they rendered to the American people and the American cause. Without their help there might ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... Germans. It has even been argued from such expression as vidimus (Sec. 8), that Tacitus had himself been in Germany, and could, therefore, write from personal observation. Bnt the argument proceeds on a misinterpretation of his language (cf. note in loc. cit.). And the use of accepimus (as in Sec. 27), shows that he derived his information from others. But the Romans had been in constant intercourse and connection, civil or military, with the Germans, for two hundred ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... to Oscar, aunty wrote that he deserved a much worse punishment than he had received, for his wilful misinterpretation of his father's warning, obeying the letter, rather than the spirit, and for his obstinacy about the motto. The ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... Error. — N. error, fallacy; misconception, misapprehension, misstanding[obs3], misunderstanding; inexactness &c. adj.; laxity; misconstruction &c. (misinterpretation) 523; miscomputation &c. (misjudgment) 481; non sequitur &c. 477; mis-statement, mis-report; mumpsimus[obs3]. mistake; miss, fault, blunder, quiproquo, cross purposes, oversight, misprint, erratum, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus |
